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In the latest P1 podcast,,,
sophlogimo
Member Posts: 6,507 Arc User
... Borticus said that the best place to offer feedback was the forums. These forums.
That's good to know, of course. But I'd like to offer the feedback that people like to know if they are being read or heard (not necessarily agreed with, of course), and the best way to signal that is to reply. However, my personal impression (am I alone with that?) is that people are a lot more likely to get a dev reply on reddit than here.
So, to the devs: If you want more feedback in certain channels, offer feedback to that feedback mostly there. That should make it a lot easier for everybody to sort out where to give feedback.
That's good to know, of course. But I'd like to offer the feedback that people like to know if they are being read or heard (not necessarily agreed with, of course), and the best way to signal that is to reply. However, my personal impression (am I alone with that?) is that people are a lot more likely to get a dev reply on reddit than here.
So, to the devs: If you want more feedback in certain channels, offer feedback to that feedback mostly there. That should make it a lot easier for everybody to sort out where to give feedback.
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Every once in a while its great to see a Dev respond to us on the forums. Hell... engaging the community is a great way to get a feel for how things are going too. The recent story blog written by our Community Manager was very well done, and some of us kinda got into Klingon mode and vowed to hunt down the targ who wanted to sell the Sarcophagus.
THAT, IMO, is how to tell if its well written. It evokes responses that would fit into the universe.
I understand the Devs have a lot on their plate, especially with work on the new expansion, but it would be nice for us forumites to be kept in the loop just as much as the Redditers.
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'Actions speak louder than words' and the actions are saying that, despite these being the official STO forums, we the members aren't worth the time it would take to type up a quick "Hey, guys, server's down - either someone forgot to feed the Tribble again or the new update missed something. We'll try to have it back up quick but it might be a couple hours. Sorry all. Since it's during an event, we'll try and extend it a day or two to make up for this." without there having to be a dozen topics complaining and questioning the downtime.
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Over the years there have been many, many occasions where info is posted to Reddit or Facebook well before it ever gets a mention (if at all) on the official forums.
Then you have people claiming the forums are toxic and all that bs but if people using the forums feel they are ignored due to lack of feedback or info is it any wonder there are going to be occasions of anger of resentment?
I've seen plenty of poorly worded and bitchy posts and replies on Reddit/Facebook/Twitter so to make out that it's a better class of place to post info in these location over the forums is pure folly.
Post feedback to your own official channels as a priority and you will show to players you are interested in their time and opinions. Value your players, they will value you.
It's a nicety, not a necessity.
Isn't it on those user, though, to deal with their frustrations at not receiving the desired level of attention? Why should acting out be rewarded over more constructive behavior? That energy can be better invested elsewhere, without requiring any time investment on Cryptic's part, such as trying out other avenues of communication which better host immediate interactions with the devs. Ex. Ten Forward Weekly.
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> I honestly don't see why it's important for a dev to reply to a post. When I'm presenting feedback, I'm trying to communicate information to the devs. So long as they acknowledge that information is being read (they've said that explicitly, time and again) then it really doesn't matter that I received personalized attention (a la a customer service counter) because ultimately what I'm not doing is approaching Cryptic with a list of demands which I expect rectified to remain a happy customer. I'm making suggestions. They can reply if they'd like but the entire process from suggestion to implementation (provided the idea is sound and actionable) can operate without them doing so.
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> It's a nicety, not a necessity.
> lordsteve1 wrote: »
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> Then you have people claiming the forums are toxic and all that bs but if people using the forums feel they are ignored due to lack of feedback or info is it any wonder there are going to be occasions of anger of resentment?
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>
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> Isn't it on those user, though, to deal with their frustrations at not receiving the desired level of attention? Why should acting out be rewarded over more constructive behavior? That energy can be better invested elsewhere, without requiring any time investment on Cryptic's part, such as trying out other avenues of communication which better host immediate interactions with the devs. Ex. Ten Forward Weekly.
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Thing is though there are gonna be bad apples in all the different places they could post messages. I’ve seen plenty of idiotic and poorly worded or ranting messages on Reddit or on the twitter feeds over the years so there is not one single place that is free of that sort of thing.
And as the developers they are just gonna have to man up and accept not everyone on the internet is nice about what they do.
If things get carried away they have moderators to step in and ban, remove, edit posts or users.
There should be no excuse for avoiding posting in your own official forums in favour of third party channels and that is what people get annoyed at.
If I post a thread here I dont expect a dev response every time. But if something like the maintenance being extended or some game breaking bug being discovered is going to be communicated to the players it should be via the official channels as a priority. Heck, the game launcher links to the forums for cryin out loud. If the server is down then players should find info here through that link, not need to go search Reddit or twitter.
Bioware just generally announce something (usually imbalance changes, imbalance used very deliberately) and then turtle up until the next one.
I will say Cryptic need to play their own game a little more, critH and critD being the most powerful mods? No, bad Cryptic.
Of course most official MMO forums are gripe fests, the difference between this place and reddit are night and day. Anything negative gets pounded by downvotes on Reddit yet anything positive on here gets pounded. There's obviously variables on each side but it's the general theme.
Its also possible that that's a symptom of being hampered or prodded by the corporate greed of their EA Overlords.
In terms of Story, I believe Bioware is actually QUITE good with that. Just look at their successful titles. All are rich with story. Its only when they start to get hamstrung by greedy overlords like EA that we end up with garbage like ME: Andromeda and the fiasco that was ME3's ending. Push the product out as quickly as possible because the Overlords at EA demand it yesterday to make maximum money off the fanbase because they'll buy anything, and to hell with the fans who actually care about a franchise because the only language they understand is money, and if said franchise can't be exploited, it gets shelved like when they sabotaged Command and Conquer.
[/soapbox]
Anyways... moving on now.
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Good post! I agree to 100%.
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> I tend not to pay much heed to the FB/Reddit pages. Too much silly ranting and opinionated nonsense.
>
> Plus there are too many people who just can't resist the urge to turn any Trek-related thread into their personal soapbox on which to broadcast their opinion on ST: Discovery.
> Seriously - on another Trek related page I even saw a 'Happy Birthday *enter actor/actress name*' with the first comment beneath being some opinionated nonsense pertaining to ST: Discovery.
>
> Anyway, back on topic - I agree with others; reasons notwithstanding, these forums don't seem to be the first stop for updates.
Discovery is so terrible! What's this thread about again?
That's a separate issue though. Ie. automated posting of status notifications as separate forum posts [downtime threads tend to get updated IIRC] versus devs entering into feedback-driven discussion themselves.
And for those status notifications, they're typically only relevant for a few hours. Is a solo post on a semi-permanent message board (specifically in general discussion) really going to help anyone, or could you instead just take a look at the launcher (a common point of contact for all people trying to get online, including folks browsing the forum) or running downtime discussion in the galactic news network section?
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Well yes, if you have an official forum and a moderation and community team it is the ideal place to post updates about ongoing issues and events. You can have a specific section for this sort of thing, or pin them to the top of a section and update/remove them as required.
Plenty of other games manage this and so do a multitude of other websites relating to other services provided by companies.
There's zero sense in having an official feedback platform for your product but yet posting to 3rd party formats any time you try to communicate to your customers.
The main issue people had with ME3 was that all the decisions made in the previous two games were rendered pointless. And they originally only had two to choose from. They free DLC'd the third in. And I'm pretty sure its not lazy writing that did it. It was a stupid release schedule. Same thing that hampered Knights of the Old Republic 2.
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That has nothing to do with any release schedule.
What he said.
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The fact is, the forum is toxic, or to be more accurate, there are a few particular posters who continually argue, drag people into their arguments, and generally bring the mood down for everyone. That said, the tone of the forum has improved massively over the past 14-20 days. It is noticeable. That is progress, and that is good
That impacts the devs, because they aren't going to want to interact with a playerbase (many of who, are effectively paying their salaries) where they have to be constantly on the defensive and taken to task over their work. I can understand why there is such a small dev presence here.
But third party sites are, IMHO, not acceptable places to put out news pertinent to the entire player-base, because a player may not even use said-site.
Now that's not to say that devs shouldn't post on Reddit/fb/twitter etc, of course they can, but game's official forum should be the first place any information is either released by Cryptic/the devs, or sought from the players. By all means copy/paste the information over to Reddit/fb/twitter afterwards, but put it here first and make the forum, the first port of call with regards information
If people think to go to unofficial sources first, then the official source has lost its way, and needs to be made relevant again
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
They will never reach everyone. Even if they copied every post autoamtically in the launcher and it would be displayed to the players, not everyone would actually read them.
It is extremely unlikely that you will actually miss something important if you try to stay informed on the game, because there are people that use different news sources, and will mention what they read elsewhere here.
Trying to force the devs to reply only in your preferred channel based on some form of guilting or shaming just means that you will simply get less replies overall from them. (Or, well, you might just be ignored.)
The only thing the developers owe us is delivering the game. And the only really meaningful reply to your feedback is what actually makes it in the game. People asked for something like reeingineering and salvaging for your years. It didn't happen, until it did. So the dev response is "we think it's a good enough idea to implement and bring into the game, but it took this long to get to it." And any other dev response you would have gotten before would have been "good idea, maybe some time."
If you want to know the whys, hows or whens, you can try to hope they provide some replies somewhere publically, but you're not owed anything.
The stuff posted by Cryptic employees online is either their own personal decision to do, not obligated by anything, or part of marketing. And it can be part of marketing to put stuff out there and make it rewarding for people to look for it and collect the information and present them at other places, as well.
But the most important part might be: The goal of marketing is to get people to play the game. People busy on the STO forums are likely already playing. People on reddit or twitter may not.
To be completely and utterly honest - Reddit is easier to parse. There's less threads, and the ones that are the most popular head straight to the top. It makes a lot of the developers more keen to head there to see what they're being called out on.
Myself, QA, and a lot of the developers do read these forums, though, and a lot of our bug reports and feedback come through here.
I'm working on ways of trying to make the forums a little easier to navigate, both for our sake and yours. There's a thread about one of my ideas up in GNN right now.
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
THIS. This was brought up several times over the years. It's something that has continually been brought up in and out of these forums. My own personal experiences in reporting gameplay/system bugs on the forums vs reddit has been night and day in response.
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