Very good thread over on the UK EA Forums I thought I'd post a link to for people that don't normally visit that site.
http://forum.eagames.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=28525
Here it is as well, to give you two different color formats to read it in :
http://forum.eagames.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=28525
Here it is as well, to give you two different color formats to read it in :
Elsewhere on these forums, in response to comments from the community regarding its frustration over the current state of affairs, the following response was tendered to the readers of that thread:
EAUK_Sentience wrote:
"We appreciate there is significant frustration at the delay of the patch and that there is not more information forthcoming on when the patch is likely to be released. However this is for one simple reason - that information is unavailable at this time.
We will only give updates and information regarding the release of the patch if we're satisfied that it is 100% accurate. We do not deal in speculation or "possibilities" as the outcome of this tends to be highly negative when, as will frequently occur, it end up being inaccurate.
I appreciate that your comments are constructive in nature, but unfortunately that's the way it is. We're doing what we can to keep you up to date on how things are, but if there's no new information then there's no new information.
If you'd like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me by PM."
Comments such as these, while probably true, are hard to appreciate as they have been shared with the community on these and other forums to such a degree that there should scarcely be a gamer seated in front of his/her monitor, reading such words, who has not already heard them in one form or another. I feel it is safe to say that we are all well aware of EA/Dice's policies regarding the information blackout that exists between their developers and us, their client gamers. I do sympathize with the position that our admins find themselves in, more often than not being asked to step into the line of fire day and night, in order to hand feed us what ultimately amounts to EA/Dice's imperious, pluralis majestatis (using the royal "us" and "we") response, as much to them as to us, "You will not get anything from us until we want you to have it."
Having said that, I believe there has been some misunderstanding on just what the community wants when it clamors for, "Updates from EA." Certainly, and official statement regarding the intended release date for a delayed patch, for example, would be well received by most in the community. However, this really is only one pigment in a much larger picture.
The community wants to be kept abreast of EA/Dice's current developments. To that end, we were lead to believe that EA/Dice had hired "global community managers" to fill that role and keep us informed with regular, substantial updates regarding everything from progress on fixes for common bugs and exploits, to gameplay/balance tuning and new content. However, what we seem to receive is lots of information from EA/Dice with regard to new (retail) content updates, and very little about their progress developing fixes for game-breaking bugs and balance issues. Little has changed in that respect and it is here that I believe that EA/Dice has missed the boat completely.
Perhaps, to some extent, it is the fault of the community in the way that it has phrased its requests for information. Phrases like, "When will Feature_X be available," as often as they are used, express a very finite thought or sentiment. What the community really wants to know and see is what "progress" (a better word) is being made with Feature_X. We want to know "where Feature_X is at" in terms of its development cycle. What parts of it are completed, what parts of it seem to be giving the developers trouble and what they feel are some solutions, how do the developers intend for it to fit in the game (an excellent question that should have been asked of the infamous cartillery feature), and so on. The actual "when will it be ready" questions are less important to a degree for those of us who realize that more time to perfect said feature(s) is more important as long as we know what is actually happening with it.
A community that is already discouraged by a deeply flawed product, kept in the dark about developments to fix it, is a remarkably poor idea. Such a community will flounder and finally fail completely for such things remove from many the spark of hope that keeps them active and passionate about the game that they are attached to. While it may be true that giving statements that appear to commit developers to a certain course of action (ie: deadlines for patches to go live) may offend some when those commitments are not met, not saying anything seems to have offended just as many, if not more, over the long term. Recent polls and other general threads appear to have shown a significant shift in the balance of opinions coming from "happy" and "angry" players compared to results in the past.
Lastly, I would like to give an example of an industry leader who has provided detailed information to his community members for the better part of a decade. I am sure that many of us here are already familiar with the ".plan" documents (later kept in blog format, links below) that John Carmack has published with regular, highly detailed, online updates since 1997 at least. In so far as I can tell, in all of these Mr. Carmack expressed both his plans and what he thought were good and/or bad ideas, going on to explain why, for whatever game engine he was working on at the time. People who knew where to look almost never had to ask an ID representative, "What's up with Feature_X in <insert ID titled software here>?" It was practically all there already.
I'm not saying there weren't any whiners and complainers in forums related to ID products. But EA/Dice must be aware that it is possible to provide the community with good information without making either commitments or entering into the realms of speculation and "possibilities". Any decent communicator worth two wits will be happy to confirm this. And an informed community is generally a happier one. Finding updates from EA/Dice of similar caliber/quality as those published by Mr. Carmack over the years would probably go a long way toward strengthening community relationships with EA/Dice.
On a personal note I've never ever felt left in the dark by ID Games' administration as I do now with EA/Dice's. Regular updates from game developers are more than possible, as Mr. Carmack has shown us, and can only benefit their client communities. Someone, somewhere out there must have a clue as to what is going on with BF2 and we want to hear what they have to say. We're not necessarily asking for committals in their responses, we just want to know what they think.
Links to John Camack's .Plan documents and other material:
GameFinger Plan - John Carmack, id Software, Owner / Lead Programmer
doom-ed.com blogs – John Carmack - This site takes a while to load up... must be low on hamster food.
John Carmack's Blog
Discuss/Flame as you will, but if you didn't read it, don't post saying how terribly long it was. Use your grey matter instead.
[Edit] Spelling and grammar; work in progress. Shocked
EAUK_Sentience wrote:
"We appreciate there is significant frustration at the delay of the patch and that there is not more information forthcoming on when the patch is likely to be released. However this is for one simple reason - that information is unavailable at this time.
We will only give updates and information regarding the release of the patch if we're satisfied that it is 100% accurate. We do not deal in speculation or "possibilities" as the outcome of this tends to be highly negative when, as will frequently occur, it end up being inaccurate.
I appreciate that your comments are constructive in nature, but unfortunately that's the way it is. We're doing what we can to keep you up to date on how things are, but if there's no new information then there's no new information.
If you'd like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me by PM."
Comments such as these, while probably true, are hard to appreciate as they have been shared with the community on these and other forums to such a degree that there should scarcely be a gamer seated in front of his/her monitor, reading such words, who has not already heard them in one form or another. I feel it is safe to say that we are all well aware of EA/Dice's policies regarding the information blackout that exists between their developers and us, their client gamers. I do sympathize with the position that our admins find themselves in, more often than not being asked to step into the line of fire day and night, in order to hand feed us what ultimately amounts to EA/Dice's imperious, pluralis majestatis (using the royal "us" and "we") response, as much to them as to us, "You will not get anything from us until we want you to have it."
Having said that, I believe there has been some misunderstanding on just what the community wants when it clamors for, "Updates from EA." Certainly, and official statement regarding the intended release date for a delayed patch, for example, would be well received by most in the community. However, this really is only one pigment in a much larger picture.
The community wants to be kept abreast of EA/Dice's current developments. To that end, we were lead to believe that EA/Dice had hired "global community managers" to fill that role and keep us informed with regular, substantial updates regarding everything from progress on fixes for common bugs and exploits, to gameplay/balance tuning and new content. However, what we seem to receive is lots of information from EA/Dice with regard to new (retail) content updates, and very little about their progress developing fixes for game-breaking bugs and balance issues. Little has changed in that respect and it is here that I believe that EA/Dice has missed the boat completely.
Perhaps, to some extent, it is the fault of the community in the way that it has phrased its requests for information. Phrases like, "When will Feature_X be available," as often as they are used, express a very finite thought or sentiment. What the community really wants to know and see is what "progress" (a better word) is being made with Feature_X. We want to know "where Feature_X is at" in terms of its development cycle. What parts of it are completed, what parts of it seem to be giving the developers trouble and what they feel are some solutions, how do the developers intend for it to fit in the game (an excellent question that should have been asked of the infamous cartillery feature), and so on. The actual "when will it be ready" questions are less important to a degree for those of us who realize that more time to perfect said feature(s) is more important as long as we know what is actually happening with it.
A community that is already discouraged by a deeply flawed product, kept in the dark about developments to fix it, is a remarkably poor idea. Such a community will flounder and finally fail completely for such things remove from many the spark of hope that keeps them active and passionate about the game that they are attached to. While it may be true that giving statements that appear to commit developers to a certain course of action (ie: deadlines for patches to go live) may offend some when those commitments are not met, not saying anything seems to have offended just as many, if not more, over the long term. Recent polls and other general threads appear to have shown a significant shift in the balance of opinions coming from "happy" and "angry" players compared to results in the past.
Lastly, I would like to give an example of an industry leader who has provided detailed information to his community members for the better part of a decade. I am sure that many of us here are already familiar with the ".plan" documents (later kept in blog format, links below) that John Carmack has published with regular, highly detailed, online updates since 1997 at least. In so far as I can tell, in all of these Mr. Carmack expressed both his plans and what he thought were good and/or bad ideas, going on to explain why, for whatever game engine he was working on at the time. People who knew where to look almost never had to ask an ID representative, "What's up with Feature_X in <insert ID titled software here>?" It was practically all there already.
I'm not saying there weren't any whiners and complainers in forums related to ID products. But EA/Dice must be aware that it is possible to provide the community with good information without making either commitments or entering into the realms of speculation and "possibilities". Any decent communicator worth two wits will be happy to confirm this. And an informed community is generally a happier one. Finding updates from EA/Dice of similar caliber/quality as those published by Mr. Carmack over the years would probably go a long way toward strengthening community relationships with EA/Dice.
On a personal note I've never ever felt left in the dark by ID Games' administration as I do now with EA/Dice's. Regular updates from game developers are more than possible, as Mr. Carmack has shown us, and can only benefit their client communities. Someone, somewhere out there must have a clue as to what is going on with BF2 and we want to hear what they have to say. We're not necessarily asking for committals in their responses, we just want to know what they think.
Links to John Camack's .Plan documents and other material:
GameFinger Plan - John Carmack, id Software, Owner / Lead Programmer
doom-ed.com blogs – John Carmack - This site takes a while to load up... must be low on hamster food.
John Carmack's Blog
Discuss/Flame as you will, but if you didn't read it, don't post saying how terribly long it was. Use your grey matter instead.
[Edit] Spelling and grammar; work in progress. Shocked
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