DropBear wrote on Oct 19
th, 2014 at 6:55am:
The PC concept is a good one.
As I have always said, it depends on how it is implemented.
Unfortunately, they don't report to a Producer - they report to the lowest member in the DDO food chain, the incompetent community manager who likely filters out any dissension or comments that might hurt dev feelings.
Actually no... Cordovan do not filter what we say.
We report directly to the relevant Dev : Vargouille, Severlin, and so on...
The dev make a post, we comment, eventually starts bickering between each othe'r because we do not agree... The dev, makes some changes, we comment again...
DropBear wrote on Oct 19
th, 2014 at 6:55am:
So feedback is given as:
"That's great, but here a few problems I see with the proposal...."
Here's what the devs likely see:
"That's great!"
If the comment is an unanimous that's great, the idea gets fasttracked to Lammania Forum... That's how you saw the Healing Amp so fast or the Mirror of Glamering.
If the comment is an unanimous Hell No!!, and if after several round of tweaking it' still a hell no, the idea is eventually dropped, or put on backburners.
( Hint for next year PC : I hope you'll have access to our posts, if you do, please spend time reading the threads started by Devs, so that you know which ideas we rejected... in case they try to push them through you in hope that you will agree [ Yup, I trust Turbine to try that trick on some of them ] )
If the comment is in between, the idea gets discussed, tweaked, modified, discussed again, modified again,... and eventually it gets put on Lammania forum to see what the rest of the community think of it.
DropBear wrote on Oct 19
th, 2014 at 6:55am:
If you get a representative sample of players, you are going to get differing opinions - which is great if you are capable of making decisions.
For those who are not and hide in corporate structures, you hire a bunch of grads and "yes-people" and then every decision you make is popular and no-one ever tells you something did not work.
They need to see balanced arguments around concepts and major changes - not the fucking back story to a raid. 9/10's of the players couldn't give a toss. Yet the actual raid itself and how it works - critical to its success is kept away from the PC.
The Turdbine team are muppets - by association if not direct involvement. They have an amazingly loyal and motivated gamer base who would do almost anything to improve the game they love, and they don't use it. When the community make a quiet respectful protest, the Community mgr mocks them - what an idiot, and then she gets promoted.
They treat all of us like stupid marks - the
http://www.ddovault.com/Images/Fernando4.png mentality permeates throughout the orgn.
Yes, that's probably what htey don't get... compared to other games the community is dedicated...
DropBear wrote on Oct 19
th, 2014 at 6:55am:
Yes they're a business - I understand that. But engaging with a loyal player base need not be mutually exclusive with profitability.
And when you need to make unpopular changes (nerfs), if you have the support of most of the player base, they will grumble but understand if you explain it honestly!
Turdbine do nothing right when it comes to customers and community. From what I see on the outside and hear from inside, I've never seen a worse run orgn and the only reason they survive is they jagged some good IP. Hardly a recipe for success.
The problem, as I see it is twofold :
- First Warner Bros don't care about DDO, they clearly bought Turbine for the LoTRO licence and the way it consolidated all the loTRO licence they have.
DDO just came along... So they are not interested in the game, as long as it does not cost money.
- Second, Turbine is tied by how the game was (not )marketed originally thorugh Atari... They don't have much wiggling room after the various court settlements and if htey want to keep the game running, they have to avoid loosing money on it.
Add to that that it's a 9 year old game... And that during that time the gaming planet has evolved a lot...