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ltgamesttv
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,438 Arc User
What I mean by "please take advantage of us" really should be, "please use us, the playerbase, interested in testing and supplying unbiased feedback and potential solutions in the most mutually beneficial way.
Now allow me to flush out what I mean here. There is the great divide between players and game developers that exists in the form of what the game means to each of us and the experiences we have in that environment. We know that you devs have a finite amount of time and a limited amount of flexibility to stay within the frameworks you've been given. It's a job, you go into work, look at what's been deemed most important for next mod and sit down to check out messages and look at broken code when possible. Often you're looking at other's code trying to figure out what broke it in the introduction of the last mod and relying on your knowledge base, bug reports in game, and forum posts that detail accounts that are often difficult to decipher because of a lack of information or poor description.
The paragraph I just wrote was completely assumption, I have no idea what your day is actually like, none of us do except the few who play and happen to be coders for work as well. However, it's an educated guess that you get as much done as you can to meet the next mod deadline and fix as many bugs as possible before heading home for food, a nap, and rinse/repeat. What this game likely is for you is a means to an end, as it should be.
The players experience this game as the end and view you devs as the means. The wall works both ways, you don't see what we do the way we do because the nature of our experience. We don't view the lines of coding that you've delved through to find that pesky unstoppable glitch, or why aura of courage is proccing because you can't reproduce it and don't have more time to dedicate to tracking it down until more information is available. You log into the forums and see a wide variety of opinions from people who are mostly little more than @handles. Trying to read through pages of "NERF THIS!" "THIS IS BROKEN!" and "HAMSTER YOU DEVS!" must be extraordinarily enjoyable. Then you happen upon an existing issue and two completely different viewpoints on it's source and very strong opinions on what must be done to fix it. Without knowing the players who are giving said info, I'd be really interested in seeing how you ferret out which to pay attention to, I would find that really challenging at first I think. Of course over time you'll begin to notice players who support their feedback with as much info as they can muster. Excel charts, ACT combat logs with correlating info on the exact scenario. Those who want to make the most out of their feedback so that it is pertinent.
However there is still the rest of the faceless, pixelated masses, and you have no idea about their knowledge base, motivation, in game presence, or anything else useful in determining if the info is worth it's salt or an attempt to cover for their class or something they use that's not WAI and want to keep it that way.
From this side, it really is difficult to gauge what is being taken into consideration and what is simply left to go the way of all forgotten posts, it dies from flame or disuse, not worth the html it was written in. In the off chance one of you respond it's that glimmer of hope "they still listen", "I'm not wasting my time, perhaps I can help better the game by providing this info".
This is a lengthy introduction into what a weird interactive environment we have. It's almost mystical at times like tron, "the programmers have heard". I don't think this is the most effective use of our collective time or getting the most out of the free resource that is almost limitless in supply...
US.
Several attempts have been made to bridge those gaps, people like "community managers" or some mods who recently became active in other formats/forums to reach out to the player base and provide another avenue of communication. I'm sure if I saw the sheer volume of feedback/questions/messages that either the mods, community manager, or devs received on a daily basis I would fully understand that response is simply not possible. Honestly the last two modules have seen a massive increase in communication between devs and players. However I still think this could be improved. When your time is spent sifting through forum flags and messages about random questions that could likely as easily be answered if people googled the neverwitner wikipedia, or "escalating" an issue that could cause real harm to the game or it's economy then you may have little time to play, and even less time to test and report.
An attempt was made at creating class representatives to try and solve the aforementioned issue, however from what we saw as a community it was completely unsuccessful. Many of these methods used to pick representative are arbitrary because you don't know the community because you don't play the game like we do, and I don't expect you to. What is needed is representatives from the community who can be trusted to relay important information and test new changes as they come to live. We play the game, you write the code, we see the issues in terms of experience, you see the issues in terms of mechanics. Only merging the two perspectives from unbiased sources can you expect to use us the most effective way possible.
How do you find who to listen to? Find forum posters who have given reliable pertinent information on every class and asked for both increases and decreases to every class in both PVE and PVP related to their experiences. These are your source for the best info from gameplay. There are many posters here who routinely cite issues, the math causing them, and give suggestions on potential fixes to balance.
In effect we need active representatives who are not mods, nor employees but experience the game and have the skills to provide accurate information about issues in game that will result in potential solutions that are not biased towards class or gear. Establishing game representatives may be a little time consumptive but I think you'll find the endeavor worth the expense. There is a wealth of well informed and tested information collected by the player base. I envision this cutting down on the time spent chasing bugs and imbalances would be exponential. A focus group of players who can literally test the most pertinent immediate problems you're experiencing and provide log documentation and reproducible results that you can then recode. The most efficient use of resources.
In establishing appropriate representatives you've solved one of your largest issues, time constraints while simultaneously taking a large step forward towards forging a more positive connection with your gaming community. The next suggestion I would give to reinforce and solidify that relationship is simple: Establish a presence online on a regular basis that your schedule allows.
In the past devs had actually done PVP with the BIS Premade groups and interacted with the community. The PVP was a slaughter and I expect nothing less. Being massacred in PVP or outdamaged in PVE is unnecessary and unimportant, competition isn't key, transcending the divide from mystical text to interactive avatar is what will create trust in the community. If you were really brave and willing to put up with sorting out the most efficient way to do it, being available in voice chat during this time would be even more rewarding. It has potential to be painful at first, trying to create some form of organized discussion in a room full of people, but you can't put a value on the effect of making yourselves available and the positive humanizing results you'll see in the community.
Playing with us in game, hanging with us and seeing how we experience your work will be mutually rewarding and perspective granting. Talking with you while running a dungeon or showing a PVP issue to you in person will create trust, an actual bond and shift the communities perspective to a more positive relationship. Simply setting a monthly "meet the devs" where we can interact and even show you the performance of something in game we've talked about on the forums directly would accomplish this . The information then can be handed off to your team of representatives to examine and report back. I think you can plainly see how this type of involvement will be massively beneficial and in combination these two suggestions will have positive impact in at least two significant ways 1) You can benefit from the endless hours of free testing provided by the entire community that you couldn't possibly replicate with hired help. 2) Establishing the feeling that the community is just that, we are all here with a common goal, even if the motivation differs, the product is what is most important to all of us and we can improve our respective experiences by attempting to achieve that goal together.
TL:DR
1)Please select representatives from the forum community who have active back channels who can provide accurate information about in game issues as evidenced by their past feedbacks relevance and lack of bias. Who will work on the most current issues found via the "bug report system" and those reported on the forums.
2)Please appoint a dedicated time that the devs come in game, interact with us, play with us, and allow for communal involvement on a designated regular basis. Help us help you by establishing a bond with your us, your community.
Please... take advantage of us.
Now allow me to flush out what I mean here. There is the great divide between players and game developers that exists in the form of what the game means to each of us and the experiences we have in that environment. We know that you devs have a finite amount of time and a limited amount of flexibility to stay within the frameworks you've been given. It's a job, you go into work, look at what's been deemed most important for next mod and sit down to check out messages and look at broken code when possible. Often you're looking at other's code trying to figure out what broke it in the introduction of the last mod and relying on your knowledge base, bug reports in game, and forum posts that detail accounts that are often difficult to decipher because of a lack of information or poor description.
The paragraph I just wrote was completely assumption, I have no idea what your day is actually like, none of us do except the few who play and happen to be coders for work as well. However, it's an educated guess that you get as much done as you can to meet the next mod deadline and fix as many bugs as possible before heading home for food, a nap, and rinse/repeat. What this game likely is for you is a means to an end, as it should be.
The players experience this game as the end and view you devs as the means. The wall works both ways, you don't see what we do the way we do because the nature of our experience. We don't view the lines of coding that you've delved through to find that pesky unstoppable glitch, or why aura of courage is proccing because you can't reproduce it and don't have more time to dedicate to tracking it down until more information is available. You log into the forums and see a wide variety of opinions from people who are mostly little more than @handles. Trying to read through pages of "NERF THIS!" "THIS IS BROKEN!" and "HAMSTER YOU DEVS!" must be extraordinarily enjoyable. Then you happen upon an existing issue and two completely different viewpoints on it's source and very strong opinions on what must be done to fix it. Without knowing the players who are giving said info, I'd be really interested in seeing how you ferret out which to pay attention to, I would find that really challenging at first I think. Of course over time you'll begin to notice players who support their feedback with as much info as they can muster. Excel charts, ACT combat logs with correlating info on the exact scenario. Those who want to make the most out of their feedback so that it is pertinent.
However there is still the rest of the faceless, pixelated masses, and you have no idea about their knowledge base, motivation, in game presence, or anything else useful in determining if the info is worth it's salt or an attempt to cover for their class or something they use that's not WAI and want to keep it that way.
From this side, it really is difficult to gauge what is being taken into consideration and what is simply left to go the way of all forgotten posts, it dies from flame or disuse, not worth the html it was written in. In the off chance one of you respond it's that glimmer of hope "they still listen", "I'm not wasting my time, perhaps I can help better the game by providing this info".
This is a lengthy introduction into what a weird interactive environment we have. It's almost mystical at times like tron, "the programmers have heard". I don't think this is the most effective use of our collective time or getting the most out of the free resource that is almost limitless in supply...
US.
Several attempts have been made to bridge those gaps, people like "community managers" or some mods who recently became active in other formats/forums to reach out to the player base and provide another avenue of communication. I'm sure if I saw the sheer volume of feedback/questions/messages that either the mods, community manager, or devs received on a daily basis I would fully understand that response is simply not possible. Honestly the last two modules have seen a massive increase in communication between devs and players. However I still think this could be improved. When your time is spent sifting through forum flags and messages about random questions that could likely as easily be answered if people googled the neverwitner wikipedia, or "escalating" an issue that could cause real harm to the game or it's economy then you may have little time to play, and even less time to test and report.
An attempt was made at creating class representatives to try and solve the aforementioned issue, however from what we saw as a community it was completely unsuccessful. Many of these methods used to pick representative are arbitrary because you don't know the community because you don't play the game like we do, and I don't expect you to. What is needed is representatives from the community who can be trusted to relay important information and test new changes as they come to live. We play the game, you write the code, we see the issues in terms of experience, you see the issues in terms of mechanics. Only merging the two perspectives from unbiased sources can you expect to use us the most effective way possible.
How do you find who to listen to? Find forum posters who have given reliable pertinent information on every class and asked for both increases and decreases to every class in both PVE and PVP related to their experiences. These are your source for the best info from gameplay. There are many posters here who routinely cite issues, the math causing them, and give suggestions on potential fixes to balance.
In effect we need active representatives who are not mods, nor employees but experience the game and have the skills to provide accurate information about issues in game that will result in potential solutions that are not biased towards class or gear. Establishing game representatives may be a little time consumptive but I think you'll find the endeavor worth the expense. There is a wealth of well informed and tested information collected by the player base. I envision this cutting down on the time spent chasing bugs and imbalances would be exponential. A focus group of players who can literally test the most pertinent immediate problems you're experiencing and provide log documentation and reproducible results that you can then recode. The most efficient use of resources.
In establishing appropriate representatives you've solved one of your largest issues, time constraints while simultaneously taking a large step forward towards forging a more positive connection with your gaming community. The next suggestion I would give to reinforce and solidify that relationship is simple: Establish a presence online on a regular basis that your schedule allows.
In the past devs had actually done PVP with the BIS Premade groups and interacted with the community. The PVP was a slaughter and I expect nothing less. Being massacred in PVP or outdamaged in PVE is unnecessary and unimportant, competition isn't key, transcending the divide from mystical text to interactive avatar is what will create trust in the community. If you were really brave and willing to put up with sorting out the most efficient way to do it, being available in voice chat during this time would be even more rewarding. It has potential to be painful at first, trying to create some form of organized discussion in a room full of people, but you can't put a value on the effect of making yourselves available and the positive humanizing results you'll see in the community.
Playing with us in game, hanging with us and seeing how we experience your work will be mutually rewarding and perspective granting. Talking with you while running a dungeon or showing a PVP issue to you in person will create trust, an actual bond and shift the communities perspective to a more positive relationship. Simply setting a monthly "meet the devs" where we can interact and even show you the performance of something in game we've talked about on the forums directly would accomplish this . The information then can be handed off to your team of representatives to examine and report back. I think you can plainly see how this type of involvement will be massively beneficial and in combination these two suggestions will have positive impact in at least two significant ways 1) You can benefit from the endless hours of free testing provided by the entire community that you couldn't possibly replicate with hired help. 2) Establishing the feeling that the community is just that, we are all here with a common goal, even if the motivation differs, the product is what is most important to all of us and we can improve our respective experiences by attempting to achieve that goal together.
TL:DR
1)Please select representatives from the forum community who have active back channels who can provide accurate information about in game issues as evidenced by their past feedbacks relevance and lack of bias. Who will work on the most current issues found via the "bug report system" and those reported on the forums.
2)Please appoint a dedicated time that the devs come in game, interact with us, play with us, and allow for communal involvement on a designated regular basis. Help us help you by establishing a bond with your us, your community.
Please... take advantage of us.
On ambush rings: "How would you like PVE if all the mobs were invisible?"
7
Comments
I believe what you suggest could work, if it happened in-game. How?
In-game inquiries.
These inquiries would allow to gather more precise opinions, since forums community is very very very different from the in-game community. Majority of people don't even bother to come here.
Basicly inquiries would be made to find answers for pertinent questions and translated to the languages supported by NWO clients.
Raw example:
Do you like the current currency exchange system?
- Yes
- No
- Other (Please explain further: );
If you're simply concerned with in game feedback then I agree, it's important to have avenues available to do that, and as you can see I suggested that the devs make themselves available for interaction and direct feedback.
I would not, however, see how questions about if you like the in game currency would affect appointing someone knowledgeable about the games mechanics to become a representative and facilitate problem shooting and testing?
Thanks for your time.
For some reason, half of my reply is missing
Oh, and sorry, I forgot the Dev-players interaction while using "all"
The example is just an illustration, a good question didn't came up when I wrote it.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
The devs seem to be using some form of Jira to track their work, which is an Atlassian product
Atlassian produces a ton of software, supports millions of users and if one of those users has in issue, they can go to Atlassian's website and look up the issue in Atlassian's internal Jira structure
Example: https://jira.atlassian.com/projects/CONFCLOUD/issues/CONFCLOUD-21908?filter=allopenissues
I'm assuming Cryptic uses the cloud based version of Jira, but it's possible its an older owned server based setup, which might cause scaling issues, but I believe if the devs would open up their backlog to at least let us see some of the internals we could be much more helpful
Anonymous users don't cost extra licensing money, their permissions can be restricted as a group, and comments and issues can be hidden from them completely
If you do decide to take tolkienbuff's advice and set up a player council again (which would be a great step forward) you could open it up only for them if you guys are worried about keeping secrets, but really... c'mon... this is the internet and information should be free
At the end of the day, Forums are terrible for support... as the OP said, it has to be a nightmare to even attempt to wade through all this, and I doubt its even possible for you guys to see all the issues in the forums and get any coding done
I'm 900% sure that whoever at Cryptic would be responsible for a move like this would say Hell NO to opening Jira up, as its a scary idea with tons of unknowns... All I'd ask is to ASK Atlassian about it
50 page feedback threads are stupid... That's no way to get anything done
The current feedback model is bottlenecked like crazy, requiring people to filter through the forums, translate what they find and sort out where to put it... we could all be speaking the same language and you guys could get a TON of help from us instead of feeling like dealing with us is the worst part of your job
Consider opening up Jira as view only for anonymous users and then adding 4 or 5 select players from the forums (considering all of the OP's suggestions) to actually be able to comment directly in the tickets
The player council-folk and your community manage could manage the discussions about issues here MUCH more effectively, filtering out all the noise and adding only the best and most useful info to the tickets
Many flaws with the idea.
So many people whining on forums about devs ignoring them. The developers have made it clear that they do not have time to respond to all comments. Nor do they have enough time to correct all the game issues all at once. They have to prioritize. When they ask for feedback on topics, then that is their current focus. But that does not mean they are going to respond to the same question over and over again. And if you post an amazing synopsis explaining things and asking questions, it could be that they have already moved into the building phase and are past the comments phase.
So don't get offended if your questions are not answered. There is not enough time in the day to do everything. I expect game designers and developers have two stacks on their desk. One stack is things that need to get done. High Priority! The other stack is things that REALLY need to get done. There are lots of high priority items, but there are things that really need to get done that take precedence.
And if you think the developers do not enjoy the game...then I ask you: Where you online over the initial weekends after Chult launched? There was a developer in the Soshenstar River zone, moving from instance to instance, chatting with people, but mainly watching and repairing Spli-Ti. Did they have to take time out of their weekend to help the players? No. They appeared to enjoy what they were doing. And I found that most telling. They are awesome!
When was the last time you told the developers they were awesome?
I think I will do it now.
Hey developers!! I REALLY love your game. I think you have done an awesome job!!! THANK YOU!
Now, if you send that info along with the statement "After seeing the critical severity issue fixed I'm seeing ____ class doing disproportionate damage. That would be opinion. I can see this, you can see this, I'm fairly sure the devs can see this. As far as in game feedback. I think you will find that coming to the forums actually represents a level of interest/dedication by itself. It also allows a much better format for including data to support your feedback.
So, while I understand what you're saying about individuals disagreeing on a class or a power and it's effects, I think you're highlighting exactly what I was talking about in the OP. There is too much of exactly that issue. Using free resources as bug finders/data gatherers who play multiple classes and have proven their quality here is exactly the counter to that.
Thanks for your reply
The lack of time and resources are exactly why I made the post. I won't restate my points here as, I feel you missed them to begin with. I also never stated they never played the game. However, they don't play the game like the gamers do. As I said before, I wouldn't expect them to.. it's a job.
When was the last time I told the developers they were awesome? Interesting. I have messaged the devs when I feel they were doing a notable job, or made mention of how well something works in game in posts. I feel by your post that you missed like 90% of my OP. Just read the TL:DR?
Thanks for your reply
If you are talking about what changes they have in store and why for upcoming mods, if you keep track of the PTR they make regular announcements of just exactly those things as they are being tested. Perhaps this is what you meant? They certainly have plans for upcoming mods and are under deadline for those release dates, if that's what you're saying. Tbh, though none of this has anything to do with my OP.
My post was directed at improving the use of players who test and report unbiased facts, and increasing the Devs visibility in the community to establish a relationship with the player base.
Thanks for your time.
I thoroughly read through your comments and my initial reaction was agreement. Then I read through other people's comments.
At this point, I am neutral in regards to your post. I feel the way the developers interact with the player base through direct feedback and through the community moderators is working fine. No need to make changes IMHO.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1234817/centralized-bug-tracking
Or you just like to press buttons ?
The thing is, they already do :-/ It's why, even though they are aware of what's happening in the forums (including this thread), you won't see them respond as frequently. It takes a lot to put together a coherent and well thought-our response. A lot of information, which is what most players are looking for, needs to be double, triple, quadruple checked before getting poster or else it potentially causes a "Dev said this, Dev said that" scenario (that's also a reason why I often comment "I'll look into it!" when replying to forum posts; it means I literally get up and walk around the office asking everyone who touches whatever players are asking about so I can get the full scope).
Engagement isn't just the output and quantity, but also the quality so we want to make sure that we are providing useful and accurate information, even if it happens at a lesser frequency. Output of developer posts also doesn't correlate directly with input from the playerbase. We do listen and absorb all the feedback (the good, the bad, and the "unusual"). The team's schedule is just one where they already do try to dedicate as much time as possible to player-engagement.
Player representatives actually happen organically. The Development team remembers community members and player names and will often ask me to track the specific insight of certain people who in the past have demonstrated in-depth knowledge into the game and have expressed it in a thoughtful and constructive manner.
As for visibility into our internal tracking system brought up by @preechr#2215: there is proprietary information that would make the suggestion of sharing a logistical nightmare, with potential impact to our publisher and licensor.
There's a number of other topics mentioned so my comment here isn't meant to encompass everything brought up.
Working in a tech field, my company does not leave testing up to our customers and that is what many gaming companies, especially MMOs, are now doing.
This is a product many of us pay to use in one form or another, time or actual money. I have paid quite a bit into this game and I hope the company takes those funds and not only invest it into future mods and expansion but also use that funds for a QA and Production support team that can locate and resolve bugs.
Last two games I played where there were player counsels the game became really imbalanced and specific classes really stood out above others due to the devs LISTENING to the counsel. The counsel did not play 2-3 of the classes and those became the worst classes in the game. The two most listened two counsel members main classes became the go to for almost all players for quite some time.
I'm against us as players having access to test in general. We should not even see the product until it launches. Devs in the MMO world really need to stop listening to us players and simply develop and update the game as they see fit based on actual data.
I understand that non-response is not actually the same thing as stating working as intended, however, in practice it is. Bugs exist in the game that give advantages or disadvantages based on where they are. This is a complex game and not everything can be fixed (at least not in a timely manner given the resources at hand, or it would have been done already). However, if player complaints are met with silence for a year, they give up (at least the majority does). They may hold out hope for a fix, sure, but after an unspecified amount of time, players will shift to using or avoiding a bug.
Even if some class-related mechanic clearly isn't working as intended, if it is allowed to exist in the system without developer comment for a large amount of time, whether it is working as intended or not, it becomes a part of that class. If it is an advantage, they use it, if it is a disadvantage, they discard it. If they do not follow this standard, they will be pitifully behind others of their role, simply because everyone else is using or avoiding it. When (if) it gets fixed it then feels like a nerf or buff instead of a bugfix, since it has now become a part of the class.
I can give many examples of this: HR forest ghost reducing cooldowns rapidly for trapper, DC hastening light double proccing on anointed army, GWF Destroyer stacks multiplying with themselves, and others. It often feels like balance changes even accept these bugs as working as intended when they nerf the symptoms instead of the cause. An example of this would be Power Share being multiplied by bonding runestones. Instead of removing this interaction, which scales faster than characters do, the daily power best known for power sharing was nerfed (Anointed Army 50% share to 33% share). Does this mean power sharing through bondings is intended? Seems like it.
Went off on a bit of a tangent there. The main points being, confirming something has been read, confirming something as a bug that will be fixed at some unknown point in the future, and confirming something as working as intended would all individually be a huge help for the people reporting bugs.
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John
The Trello Board recently started on by the community may also offer promise in that Atlassian has a plug-in for Trello that can be limited in function to meet whatever security concerns you guys may have
However it happens, in the spirit of @tolkienbuff 's original post, anything that would facilitate quality and helpful interaction between devs and players, removing some of the noise and pain, would definitely (IMO) improve the game Respectfully disagree... While I understand that your previous experiences with devs designing around player ideas and advice was negative, I have similar though opposite experiences in other games as well as in previous work supporting software development
In all cases, I believe *properly structured* feedback systems will give the users more of what they want, especially when dealing with big unknowns like building a massively complex game designed around hundreds of use cases... software developers operating at the level of the people working at Cryptic didn't get where they are in their careers, generally speaking, by spending 50-100 hours a week playing games like their most dedicated players do
Though I'm sure they all probably do enjoy gaming to some degree, I think they are on the right track when they seek out player feedback, just like I think the OP and the Community Bug Tracker project is doing the right thing by spitballing ways to help
I have a number of issues with the reactions system, but that's probably the best part of it. I also really appreciate knowing that Julia will be especially active on the forums on Mondays because those replies mean something is happening even when the reply itself says little.
And I'm saying this as one of the players who feels like I'm shouting into a void probably the least amount of the time. I'm very sympathetic to how much time forums can consume (see post count for reference), and I recognize many instances where our feedback makes it into development even though sometimes it literally takes years. This does get really tiring and frustrating. Many times we've just lived with something so long we stop thinking abut it. Console player posts are sometimes a wake-up call for me because something that seems not-right is new to them whereas PC players have already stopped agitating about it.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
So NOW is the time to dust off anything that you've lived with for so long you've stopped thinking about it. And post it in:
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1234964/official-feedback-thread-october-bugfix-month
Re-reporting is 100% acceptable (encouraged, even!) in this thread.
And thanks to all who participate!
I like the topic but also recognise the difficulties - and if the feedback is done via the forum, keeping all of the extraneous opinions from other posters (including myself) out of it is always impossible.
One starting point could be for the devs to provide a sort of form or feedback layout which specifies all of the necessary information, including ACT logs which can be attached.
A more advanced form would be a method of flagging a test on the preview server where it can be recorded and replayed/reviewed (with full data) by the devs may also help, although possibly this may require testers to apply for a 'tester status' that authorises the person to do these recordings in order to prevent overload & have some quality control.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
"Keeping all of the extraneous opinions from other posters out of it" is hopefully exactly what could happen if the devs let the players that are serious about actually helping and are already doing it do so in a controlled format and environment bound by strict process
If the players working on the Community Bug List thing are willing to sort through all the reports given to them, test them out and fill in the missing information, sort the real bugs from the noise and separate feature requests form bug reports, this could go eliminate a lot of work for the Community Managers and Devs, allowing them to spend more time on making the game better
If that kind of relationship could form between Cryptic and the dedicated players, I believe it would be valuable enough to both groups that the bias you mentioned would be self-policed out of the equation... Sure, we all are subjective by nature, but if such a system took root and proved its value, I think those that would risk its integrity for selfish reasons would be excluded
Maybe they did?
Signature [WIP] - tyvm John