MMO budgets and development times

[schild]

Having been in a large number of Friends and Family betas, I'll say that's not even a "real" beta per se. By that point the people you're catering to are all... friends and family with a swath of friends giving their other friends codes.

Part of me wonders if a real beta ever happens. I just don't like the word. The web 2.0 movement uses it to make people feel special. And so do games. A beta is simply put, marketing. Sometimes a beta is just a beta. Sure. But not once the public (no matter how limited the group is) see it. There are some huge ways I'd like to see these "betas" changed that would maximize publicity (yay PR!) and maximize feedback (yay community managers!). But that's a discussion for another time.

Also, very seamless feedback forms, in game, would change everything. But for whatever reason, people seem to be hooked on supplying nothing like that. Players already make "Betas" hard enough, no reason for devs to make them harder on themselves.

[Venkman]

Real betas happen. They're just not for the public :)

For MMOs, haven't all semi-public beta tests really been little more than Stress Tests anyway, even before so many started defraying their costs by offering through Fileplanet? Inviting tens of thousands of people to anything pretty much means you a) know what they're going to do; and, b) know how you're going to handle it.

1.
...
9.

I consider this a good filtering process for what betas have become: marketing events. You get the people who really really want to be there.

For a "real" beta though, you go to your lists, draft a team by inviting folks, manage them as a QA Lead would, whether they are volunteers or paid, give clear objectives with measurable results, and make improvements where needed. Because even here, by the time you hit Beta, the core of your game pretty much is established, so you're leaning on testers to valid it.

[DarkSign]

I've definitely seen a change in betas over the years. The EQ and SB betas were longer, drawn out processes where servers went down for days, there were character wipes, and days of patching. You'd see many more messages about the types of bugs to be looking for and you'd spend your days trying to replicate that bug you found yesterday to see if some variation still worked.

Fast-forward to the beta-du-jour where people whine if the server is down more than 30 mins, getting your char wiped would just piss people off, and getting in en-masse isnt that hard.

I have to speak up for Waylander here a bit. I dont think that it's insane to state that an MMO elite (I hate that word but fuck it, that's what it is - not people who are better by character, but have played more MMOs and are "hardcore" another fucking word I hate) can give you better feedback than your WTFOMZBBQ! 10-year old.  Just about everyone in this discussion has either led a guild, been an officer, or knows someone who really knows his stuff and would be able to give "better" feedback than your avg mmo player.  (I put better in quotes because of course devs need some level of feedback from the avg guy who will make mistakes or approach the game as a larger % of the player base will...and that's of course valuable.)

I'd even go so far as to say that they could sit on a council that would discuss things like storyline and game rules. But here I go again...getting on the "wrong side" of the discussion.

[Draegan]

I've beta'd plenty of games in my time.  I would always submit bugs when they occur.  I would post my suggestions in the appropriate channels.  The one thing as a tester that frustrates me is that there is no direction.  I don't know what the devs want tested.  I could play a game and say, "You have a huge problem with combat Mechanics... <insert disertation about what is wrong or buggy>."  Then I never get a response from any part of the team.  Has my feedback been heard?  Has this problem been mentioned before?  Are you aware?  Are you ignoring me?  Is it being worked on?  Is it just not in yet?  Is it a placeholder?  Then I see the identical post from other people hours or days later with the same concerns with no response.

Most public BETAs at any stage hardly have enough feedback from the community team that helps steer the concerns of the tester base in the right direction.

[Venkman]

One thing I really feel could be handled better is the bug-/feature-request reporting process. Throwing up forum and expecting good feedback from anymore than the 15 people who vocalize the loudest is sort of a fool's errand. I don't think game company QA groups should be opening their Bugzilla or Test Track Pro databases to the masses of course. But I do think you really need to filter the information on the front end better if you expect than just randomly finding patterns in the static.

To me, the more text an end user has to type to explain the situation, the more likely you'll get many unique descriptions of exactly the same event. That's a lot of reading to substantiate what you already knew, when if you had more filters on the front end, you could know more readily what bugs there are, how many are being affected by it, and how much of an impact it has on the playability.

I'm a big fan of pulldown menus, radial buttons, 1-5 scales, and automated data collection (zone, location, targetoftarget, spatial conditions, etc) and then a text field that allows 256 characters at most.

It wouldn't let you collect everything, and isn't good for the meta stuff like look and feel. But that's the level at which forums become a good thing.

But I'd filter that too.

I wouldn't let "testers" onto the private forums until they met a few conditions:

1) Downloaded, installed, patched and logged into the game.
2) Played the game for 5 hours minimum, with actual activity (not AFKing)
3) Filled in a "first timer feedback" form, clicking voting buttons, entering lots of comments, having that read and then approved.

If you're only method for talking to your testers is the forums, then fine, let them read the FAQs and Dev info. But I've lost count of how many times tester impressions of a game are set when they're reading the other-tester feedback while downloading the game. Too much bias. Let them get their own impressions into the system and THEN release them into the wild.

[MikeRozak]

Random comments:

- "Pain in the ass to get into a beta" - Would it be preferable to let anyone in, in which case 90% of the people that download it will stop playing after a few hours. Then, someone could ask the people that left quickly why they left and fix those problems?

- Direction for testing - What kind of direction should be given, and how? A one-line bulletin at log-in? One-paragraph? One-page?

- Bug reporting UI - What about something built right into the game?

- Feedback about whether one's bug is fixed and/or that you're being listened to - I know why this happens, but find it silly that such a simple feedback mechanism slips through the cracks.

[Venkman]

- Direction for testing - What kind of direction should be given, and how? A one-line bulletin at log-in? One-paragraph? One-page?

- Bug reporting UI - What about something built right into the game?

- Feedback about whether one's bug is fixed and/or that you're being listened to - I know why this happens, but find it silly that such a simple feedback mechanism slips through the cracks.

Direction for testing: Be more strict about focusing player attention, particularly early on when specific systems are being added to the game. Late beta is that marketing period when you can let just anyone in to play the game for free.

Bug reporting UI- absolutely. My thoughts earlier were all about filtering the players feedback through an ingame dialog. EQ2 did this ok, with "report bug" options on almost every contextual/radial menu. Earlier, SWG tried this. Most others rely on some web-based thing, which immediately reduces the number of players who'll give feedback.

Feedback- This I don't consider as important. I appreciate everyone wants that ding of ego-stroking personal dev feedback. But to me the only important thing is well-documented patch notes.

[UnSub]

From my experience in betas -

• Known issues list should be thorough and widely available.
• Inviting the longest serving, highest posting members of your pre-beta community isn't likely to provide good feedback. Roughly 40% of them will find that the beta isn't the game they imagined in their dreams and get discouraged. Another 40% will love it dearly and accept no criticism of it. 15% won't be able to get in due to technical issues. 5% may be able to look at your game and provide constructive criticism.
• It's been said already, but any beta that just puts players into beta and says, "Go play" is going to underperform. Beta testers need direction about what they should be testing and be willing to accept that once that test has been completed, their beta-leveled character is going to be wiped.
• Although it will be in crunch time, devs have to appear in some sort of public forum and explain why they've made their decisions. Yes, players (which they are, unless you are paying them) will be annoyed by changes during beta, but 1) they should expect it and 2) they'll take the changes better when the reasons behind the changes are explained, rather than silently dumped on them. Especially when the change goes against public opinion and / or isn't for something that is over-performing.

I agree with other peoples' comments.

Also, CoH/V has an in-game reporting system - the /bug <title> and /petition <title> commands bring up a window with some basic choices and a text box to enter your report. /petition is for when you need a CS to help you.

[KyanMehwulfe]

I've beta'd plenty of games in my time.  I would always submit bugs when they occur.  I would post my suggestions in the appropriate channels.  The one thing as a tester that frustrates me is that there is no direction.  I don't know what the devs want tested.  I could play a game and say, "You have a huge problem with combat Mechanics... <insert disertation about what is wrong or buggy>."  Then I never get a response from any part of the team.  Has my feedback been heard?  Has this problem been mentioned before?  Are you aware?  Are you ignoring me?  Is it being worked on?  Is it just not in yet?  Is it a placeholder?  Then I see the identical post from other people hours or days later with the same concerns with no response.

Most public BETAs at any stage hardly have enough feedback from the community team that helps steer the concerns of the tester base in the right direction.

For the most part testers have delusions of grandeur. They go in looking to impact ideas in an individually focused manner, but in reality they're just there as part of an aimless mass meant to stress test the execution of said ideas. They want to help design the game where the developers just want them to test their own design.

As mentioned ad naseum, ideas are the easy part yet most testers somehow think they have the Midas touch when it comes to ideas whilst the developers are incompetent. It still amazes me how useless some testers seem to think developers -- folks who often put up with shit wages to do their passion for a living -- are when it comes to actual design, as if the execution is easy and they couldn't come up with good design to save their life. Ludicrously so, even, on the most simplest things; "you really think that a person who does this for a living somehow never fucking thought of that?". This isn't general developer praise either; it's a testament to how useless I've seen many tester 'elite' think of developers (of a wide range of background) and their creativy capabilities.

That grasp of development problems or gameplay flaws being issues of execution rather than issues idea is really the great hurdle that seperates a rare truly useful beta tester and just stress_tester_0432.

So it's no wonder that most betas are so unfocused and intangible. Testers end up harping strongly enough from their own armchairs of flawless design as it is, let alone if you engage and cater to them even more specifically and individually. That said, given the right context and the luck of having a truly constructive and mature beta community, a strong line of communication (and a tangible sense of result) can result in great progress and it's wonderful to be a part of. It's just that having all those stars align is a touch tricky. Many developers just don't end up with that base (or a community team able to filter through to it) to turn to; most couldn't afford to take such suggestions to heart anyhow.

[lamaros]

Just because testers think they're better than they are doesn't mean that those that they criticise aren't as bad as the testers think they are.

But don't let that get in the way of your rant.

[Draegan]

When I'm BETA testing something, I don't expect a 1 on 1 dialogs with the devs, nor do I think I'm shaping the game at all.  But when I see that something is broken and there is no acknowledgment it's pretty stupid to see 100x posts on the same subject on the forums.

[KyanMehwulfe]

I agree. My goal wasn't to justify either extreme (or to come off as ranting or confrontational; it was genuinely meant as constructive debate) -- whether on developer dialogue or developer creative competence (or the lack there of) -- as much as delving into the middle ground. On either side there are instances of superb dialogue or ridiculous denial but most major betas fall more in a sort of comfort zone where they may still communite with mass, they do so very carefully and often impersonally with said mass.

WoW was the strongest example of that. There was communication (though not quite as strong as, say, StarCraft or WC3x) but for the most part, they only wanted raw stress testing and cared little for personal take on design; they were set in there own and cared little for what anyone said beyond whether or not their design was polished.

The idea I was aiming it was that in many cases, though greater dialogue can sometimes work out given the right context, I can certainly see why many developers would want to try keep the beta tester mass at a certain bay.

[Morat20]

When I'm BETA testing something, I don't expect a 1 on 1 dialogs with the devs, nor do I think I'm shaping the game at all.  But when I see that something is broken and there is no acknowledgment it's pretty stupid to see 100x posts on the same subject on the forums.

A "known bugs" list is a huge thing that I don't see enough in betas. And when it is there, it's always really out of date. If I'm testing your game, while I'm sure the bulk of my contribution is just being there stressing your server, I'm quite happy to report bugs.

Just give me an easy way to give you the detail you want, and a way to make sure it's not something you already know about.

[tmp]

WoW was the strongest example of that. There was communication (though not quite as strong as, say, StarCraft or WC3x) but for the most part, they only wanted raw stress testing and cared little for personal take on design; they were set in there own and cared little for what anyone said beyond whether or not their design was polished.

Wasn't stuff like the final version of rest xp, some deep changes to class skillset (invisibility for mages and whatnot) and other pieces and bits of mechanics ... essentially result of testers telling Blizzard where they could stick their original version of the design?

and re: "you really think that a person who does this for a living somehow never fucking thought of that?" argument, the thing is some of stuff you see put in the games really make you wonder exactly that. 'They do it for living' does't carry that much weight when it comes to such hit-and-miss field as inventing ways to have fun.

[DarkSign]

Yeah, I seem to remember people on the Codex boards complaining that WoW was markedly different from beta and they stomped their feet and pouted about playing.

[Venkman]

Features like Mage Invisibility do not fundamentally change the vision of a game. Blizzard was set on the overall design of the game (which is the same now as it was then, and then was a better EQ1), and they care little for what people think of the overall design of the game, because they don't have to. And for the most part they don't really care about the random thoughts of forum trolls either, having said just about that much when reluctantly putting up their Suggestions Forums. In their view, this is why they pay professionals. This is not some focus-group candy-assisted circle-jerk. Not at these development budgets. If they were so dried up on ideas, they'd take another two or three years, shift more staff around, and import new thinking. Why take a chance on the average public that doesn't have a game design job?

As to testing itself, we're circling around the same stuff we did pages ago

[tmp]

Features like Mage Invisibility do not fundamentally change the vision of a game. Blizzard was set on the overall design of the game (which is the same now as it was then, and then was a better EQ1), and they care little for what people think of the overall design of the game, because they don't have to.

If the 'overall Vision(tm)' is simplified down to "better EQ" then i guess it can indeed be said the overall design wasn't changed. But in the meantime they had quite large shift from open world PvP idea to instanced CTF games, stronger focus being put on small group content rather than large scale raids, etc... all of these as result of 'beta feedback' that's being provided daily by their customers. So dunno, from very distant point of view it appears there was design changes to overall concept of WoW. It could be just as well wrong impression though given i don't follow the game too close.

And for the most part they don't really care about the random thoughts of forum trolls either, having said just about that much when reluctantly putting up their Suggestions Forums. In their view, this is why they pay professionals. This is not some focus-group candy-assisted circle-jerk. Not at these development budgets. If they were so dried up on ideas, they'd take another two or three years, shift more staff around, and import new thinking. Why take a chance on the average public that doesn't have a game design job?

But aren't their lead content designers basically not "game design profeshionals" but pair of outspoken forum hacks from EQ times? In this sense, they not only already took chance on the average public that doesn't have game design job, but keep doing it because hey, it actually somewhat worked out...

[Venkman]

It's not as though they went from trolls to autonomous designers A company that size, a group that size, they have a few layers of review and approval.

Otherwise, I get ya about what systems did change due to feedback. I just don't see them as fundamental as not having classes or xp or levels. Open world PVP or instances, it's still level-based with required PVE progression first. What you get when you get there doesn't change the process you used to arrive.

[Dash]

Another problem is that most MMO dev teams have no lack of feedback. At all. The problem becomes how well that feedback can be implemented. Sadly there is no "make it more fun" dial. If there was I would jack that sucker up to 11. However there are other constraints, usually budgetary and/or time. Even the most hardcore of beta testers never understand that, and get (understandably) frustrated when the bug fixes and feature requests they demand are consistently ignored in favor of things they find unimportant. Because someone else (the producer, usually) is doing triage, and that triage is going to cut in places people don't like.

This gets to my main point very nicely.  Like anything else in this world, a good "fun" product takes time and money.  A truly unique and revolutionary idea can mitigate that to a degree, but that's a rare situation.  Obviously, the efficiency and experience of a design team matters as well. 

Overall though, i'm trying to get my head around what we're going to be seeing from MMO's post WoW.  How many game devs can commit the time/money of Blizzard?  Is that the new standard?  If so how can others reach that benchmark when they spent so much?

Clearly there is money to be made, so I'm wondering how this plays out.  If EA and Microsoft types throw their hats in the ring as they seem to be doing, do they box out everyone else?  Does everyone else disappear or do small outfits shift paradigm to smaller niche games? 

Maybe I'm being too dramatic.  I'm a MMO gamer since the original EQ and I never got into WoW although I do appreciate it's console-like level of non-buggyness  and streamlinification of the genre ... so I suppose there is still a market out there for other games.  I just dont think I'll get used to the constant comparisons to WoW when what they compare to spent 1/3rd of what Bliz did and had 1/2 the time.  Not sure what people expect.

[Ratman_tf]

Overall though, i'm trying to get my head around what we're going to be seeing from MMO's post WoW.  How many game devs can commit the time/money of Blizzard?  Is that the new standard?  If so how can others reach that benchmark when they spent so much?

My armchair general opinion is that anyone who tries to compete directly with WoW is commiting suicide. In order to beat Blizzard, you would have to be another Blizzard, with the track record, expertise and existing video game franchises to leverage.

Now, other games have shown that you can make a different type of MMOG and make a profit. (Eve Online is our big poster child there)

There is no "better WoW". More productive is to break off in your own direction with a game and work your specific angle.

I think we will still see a lot of WoW clones, because developers and their financial backers are glacially slow to realize important signposts in the genere.

[KyanMehwulfe]

Wasn't stuff like the final version of rest xp, some deep changes to class skillset (invisibility for mages and whatnot) and other pieces and bits of mechanics ... essentially result of testers telling Blizzard where they could stick their original version of the design?

There was concern expressed about it but it was rather tame relative to what I've seen in other betas. In any case, though, Blizzard was never going to go live with it anyhow. They were just experimenting and the -75% XP version was either purposefully or accidentally extreme, in that no matter how it was received they were set on their leveling curve -- it was just a matter of deciding on tweaking Rest and whether or not it needed an offset. They would of got there regardless of the forums just based on looking at leveling speed and downtime of testers as a statistical mass. They knew the pacing they wanted.

It's likely the closest example though I suppose since almost everything else save the Talent system revision was tweaking; either dungeon balance or removing dead weight (e.g. original Skill Point system). If anything they've considered feedback a lot more outside of its two betas and rather from their subscriber majority of what sort of content they want.

Which isn't to totally devalue the role they chose to hold beta testers to (something I especially wouldn't care to do) or say there's no communication. They're just very set in their direction, and mostly just open to tweaks to the systems which support it. Everything tangible I can cite anecdotal-ly has always stat tweaking; almost everything I recall from the eight months of forums was as well. Their RTS betas were the same way; there was a lot of uproar (much more than I ever saw in WoW's) about... something with items or heroes or taverns in TFT, I can't remember.. and Pardo basically told them to shove it and focus on tweaking how it works rather than demanding a redesign/removal of it.

[eldaec]

Real beta with the public involved only creates even more bad press when you do make a change, so it is hardly surprising devs want to get it all locked down before the public arrive. But at the same time, there have been examples of genuine significant change during betas:

 - WAR's decision to go back and make RvR matter.
 - Mtgo3's decision to start again in order to make the UI completely unusable following Friends and family beta, then during public beta, to delay a second time in order to make the UI marginally usable.
 - I vaguely remember PS going through any number of changes, espeicially around MAX suit capabilities.

[SnakeCharmer]

I have my own personal list that I treasure highly and most MMO devs have similar battle-won lists.

This bothers me, and has since I read it, but I just really thought about as to why it bothers me...

It tells me that the same old devs are making the same old games are using the same old testers/feedbackers that have been playing the same old games by the same old devs.

The circle of development is complete.

Crap goes in. 
Crap goes out.

[Venkman]

It's more that you find an array of testers who will help you realize your vision than an array of designers to help you create one. At this phase, you're substantiating, not conceptualizing and don't really need a bunch of free-game-seeking neophytes to come along and armchair the whole thing for you.

The conceptualize bit happens in the beginning, when hopefully you've got good talent internalized (otherwise, why have them on staff)? Everyone who enters a late Alpha or Beta likes to think they're helping design a whole game. But they are not. This ain't no democratic process

[waylander]

I have my own personal list that I treasure highly and most MMO devs have similar battle-won lists.

This bothers me, and has since I read it, but I just really thought about as to why it bothers me...

It tells me that the same old devs are making the same old games are using the same old testers/feedbackers that have been playing the same old games by the same old devs.

The circle of development is complete.

Crap goes in. 
Crap goes out.

And they continue to design games where you need an organized group to participate in the Elder game, but somehow the word "Guild" is dirty.  People who actually run and lead guilds try to give them advice on design ideas so we can manage guilds more efficiently, and then help guild members so they don't quit the game.  No, we get told to shut up because think tank's know how to run guilds better than us.  Then said game launches without much thought to guilds other than a cloak, tag, and a chat channel. The game is guild unfriendly so few quality people want to even bother to lead a guild, many guilds die out because the leadership burns out months into the game, and the organized clan community is in a constant state of turmoil.

From a dev standpoint that may be a good thing because people aren't burning through their EPIC raid content. But from a player viewpoint the game sucks beyond a certain point because they need a clan to experience the content, and their choices are few or none.

No one ever really thinks about guilds as a critical community component to a game, and then they wonder why their server pops decline until there's hardly anyone left

Oh well. That's why we don't have loyalty to companies anymore, why some guilds will never play future games developed by certain companies that consistently get it wrong, and why many guilds will simply jump ship as a full clan to a new game when they get tired of getting the shaft from their current one.

[Lum]

It's more that you find an array of testers who will help you realize your vision than an array of designers to help you create one. At this phase, you're substantiating, not conceptualizing and don't really need a bunch of free-game-seeking neophytes to come along and armchair the whole thing for you.

Yeah, what he said. I wasn't talking about design feedback, which should be happening up to and well past release, but simply "this is broken, here's how to duplicate" stuff. Few people WANT to do that sort of work (it is work) and fewer are good at it.

Considering the project I'm on now is my first design gig (I was a programmer on DAOC), I sort of take issue to the "same old people" thing!

[Lum]

People who actually run and lead guilds try to give them advice on design ideas so we can manage guilds more efficiently, and then help guild members so they don't quit the game.  No, we get told to shut up because think tank's know how to run guilds better than us.  Then said game launches without much thought to guilds other than a cloak, tag, and a chat channel.

I missed where you had actual positive design ideas. (I'm not being snarky - if you had some I missed them) Negative design ideas -- "You should not do this because it sucks! You shouldn't have a grind because grinds suck! You shouldn't have level differentations because levels suck!" -- only go so far. Board warrioring is almost always negative feedback because it's easy and fun (see: most of this board).

Take a specific example: an arcane system of slash commands for editing guild ranks that the server programmer added for debugging which never got improved, ever. This should probably be fixed!

Not helpful feedback: "Your guild system sucks and I can't run a guild. None of my guild will play your game and I hate you and hope your cat dies."

Helpful feedback: "Nobody can understand the slash commands used to control guild administration and they're not documented anywhere save a patch note from 2 months ago (link). What we need specifically more than anything else is a UI screen that lays out guild ranks and permissions. Given what the game supports, it needs to be able to designate which member can do X, Y or Z. It also needs to be able to support editing offline members (the current system only works with members who are online at the time which makes it impossible to demote problem children who know how to game the system)."

The not helpful feedback is funny, but I like my cat. Sorry.

The helpful feedback is good because:

* It's a punch list of action items. Developers love punch lists! It makes us feel like we're levelling up when fixing things.
* It points out specifically what problems are facing people and suggests a solution.
* The action items for the solution are major, but probably doable, assuming the interface is still editable and there's a UI guy with cycles free.
* It points out an exploit of the current system (the online/offline thing) which needs to be fixed before the game goes live.

Another thing to remember is that core design differences probably are never going to be solved via the testing process. If a game has levels and classes and you think level/class systems suck, no amount of design feedback is going to change that because it's a core system of the game which was architected two years ago in a design doc used to pitch the game to a publisher. You might have issues with the margins, such as "The XP curve in this game is way too punishing and there's no way to shepherd/sidekick new players", which could be actionable. You can say "I don't think this game is going to do well because level/class systems inherently are flawed" but your feedback at that point can be boiled down to "you know, this really isn't the game for me. Sorry."

[Nerion]

My 2 cents is that at the head of these million dollar projects are the completely wrong type of people. From my understanding, you progress through the ranks over time from usually an artist or programmer, to head honcho. These people dream real hard about creating their own MMO's but in reality they have no business running any kind of business. Especially one with millions of dollars and stake and scores of people to look after.

[waylander]

I missed where you had actual positive design ideas. (I'm not being snarky - if you had some I missed them) Negative design ideas -- "You should not do this because it sucks! You shouldn't have a grind because grinds suck! You shouldn't have level differentations because levels suck!" -- only go so far. Board warrioring is almost always negative feedback because it's easy and fun (see: most of this board).

Sorry Lum I was not neccessarily referring to our discussion in this thread. I should have just stated that that's been an observation of mine over several years. Obviously this forum and this discussion is out of context, but I have seen some very good constructive feedback in my time where people have tried to ask for games to make guilds easier to manage, be able to develop some guild based incentives, etc.  And the basic response was that they usually just ended up with a clan interface, guild chat, a cape, and a tag.

General board warrioring is counter productive I agree.

[Nerion]

It is interesting you are talking about guilds needing more attention in MMORPGs. I personally think that guild problems are almost always the trigger issue that causes players to leave a game. They may never say it was because of guild problems they quit, but players will put up with the issues that they say are the reason they are leaving, until their guild gives them a reason. If MMO's can cater to guilds, by making the games built around helping them stay together and work smoother, then there will be significantly higher retention.

[Venkman]

A lot of guild drama comes when guilds evolve from leveling and growth to splintering between tier 1 endgamers, really-endgame endgamers, and everyone else. Even that structure can work (with some hierarchy and a thinking leadership). But things really begin to fall apart when most of the guild is blocked from some content (and the really-endgamers splinter off), or new content isn't coming fast enough.

A well-designed intuitive guild management UI and NPC guards that salute as you walk by isn't going to solve those problems

Helpful feedback: "Nobody can understand the slash commands used to control guild administration and they're not documented anywhere save a patch note from 2 months ago (link). What we need specifically more than anything else is a UI screen that lays out guild ranks and permissions. Given what the game supports, it needs to be able to designate which member can do X, Y or Z. It also needs to be able to support editing offline members (the current system only works with members who are online at the time which makes it impossible to demote problem children who know how to game the system)."

Given the amount of "your [thing] [adjective] [biological part] [species]" that comes through even the bug/request feedback system (be it some Jira/Bugzilla type thing or just forums), how easy is it to spot the actual Helpful Feedback?

[UnSub]

A lot of guild drama comes when guilds evolve from leveling and growth to splintering between tier 1 endgamers, really-endgame endgamers, and everyone else. Even that structure can work (with some hierarchy and a thinking leadership). But things really begin to fall apart when most of the guild is blocked from some content (and the really-endgamers splinter off), or new content isn't coming fast enough.

A well-designed intuitive guild management UI and NPC guards that salute as you walk by isn't going to solve those problems

Helpful feedback: "Nobody can understand the slash commands used to control guild administration and they're not documented anywhere save a patch note from 2 months ago (link). What we need specifically more than anything else is a UI screen that lays out guild ranks and permissions. Given what the game supports, it needs to be able to designate which member can do X, Y or Z. It also needs to be able to support editing offline members (the current system only works with members who are online at the time which makes it impossible to demote problem children who know how to game the system)."

Given the amount of "your [thing] [adjective] [biological part] [species]" that comes through even the bug/request feedback system (be it some Jira/Bugzilla type thing or just forums), how easy is it to spot the actual Helpful Feedback?

Said feedback is great, but the number of times I've seen such feedback 1) never acknowledged by the devs, 2) refuted / argued over / picked apart / derailed by other forum posters and / or 3) repeated several times written in several different ways... well, I don't know the exact number, but it's a lot. 

Point 1 is actually the most important. If a dev acknowledges the feedback as what they want and that it is helpful, then players will follow that example. Ignoring it or reading it silently doesn't actually make the person who gave the feedback (or the people who agree with them) feel like they've made any sort of meaningful contribution, so they stop.

For betas moving forward, every single department should have its own beta forums where players can post their feedback (so: Gameplay, Art / Graphics, Sound, Networking, etc). Each department should have someone - NOT A CM WHO CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE ISSUE AT HAND - post a reply to feedback to something they find useful. (On CMs - a good one could do such a job, especially if a lot of feedback is coming in, but they will filter out some of the good stuff too, so it's better if someone who actually works on the problem gets to cast their eye over the posts too.)

Reward good testers with public recognition ("Hey, that was great feedback and we're going to consider it") and they will love you and keep testing for you (until you screw up a design decision that nerfs their favourite class, but dem's the breaks).

A side point - every MMO should have a dev digest, where you can easily see every single post made recently by a dev. It makes dev stalking easier but also means dev comments get widely read since they are centralised.

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Each department should have someone - NOT A CM WHO CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE ISSUE AT HAND - post a reply to feedback to something they find useful.

Then why bother having CM's? That's THEIR JOB. Newsflash: not only can Joe Coder not "do anything about the issue at hand" (because he doesn't get to just randomly pick what he works on based on message board traffic), the time he's spent reading 50 threads on why Panzerelf Stormtroopers are clearly overpowered is time he's not actually... you know... working on stuff.

Some coders can work boards to get and give good feedback. Many can't. It's not fair to make that part of their job anyway because you want to feel like Someone Really Important signed off on your post.

As for actually acknowledging bugs, I'd like to see real bug tracking systems used by beta/test server users but I'm not sure it's possible. Second Life uses JIRA tracking on their stuff and it gets hijacked constantly by board warriors who glory in their ignorance of how software development works.

[MikeRozak]

As for actually acknowledging bugs, I'd like to see real bug tracking systems used by beta/test server users but I'm not sure it's possible. Second Life uses JIRA tracking on their stuff and it gets hijacked constantly by board warriors who glory in their ignorance of how software development works.

I never thought of bug databases as totalitarian tools for world domination...

The biggest problem I see with the SL database is featureitis; Everyone has a pet feature that they'd like, but add enough and the UI soon becomes very complicated. One request I saw was that screendumps should have the options of a transparent sky so that photoediting would be easier. Yes, but the screendump UI suddenly becomes much more complex (and likely to have bugs).

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Each department should have someone - NOT A CM WHO CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE ISSUE AT HAND - post a reply to feedback to something they find useful.

Then why bother having CM's? That's THEIR JOB. Newsflash: not only can Joe Coder not "do anything about the issue at hand" (because he doesn't get to just randomly pick what he works on based on message board traffic), the time he's spent reading 50 threads on why Panzerelf Stormtroopers are clearly overpowered is time he's not actually... you know... working on stuff.

If it's their job, then why does it often appear that they do nothing at all, or that issues that tend to have broad-ish forum community support run on without comment for a long time? I did say that a good CM can do that job, but it isn't optimal if Coder Joe doesn't pay attention to how the changes he is coding in are being received, or if reasons for the changes are never communicated back to players.

MMOs are service industries, and while I think Coder Joe should spend most of his time coding and CM Mike should spend his time community managing, it isn't a good thing if Coder Joe works in a vacuum without ever realising what impact his changes have on how the paying customers play (or that CM Mike has no idea what Coder Joe is working on). Better Joe reads 50 threads on Stormtroopers and then helps formulate a reasonable solution than cook up a fix without ever bothering to find out what players want, how they currently behave and maybe how well they'll receive that fix.

However, if it makes a stronger point, replace the NOT A CM bit with "someone who is able to start the ball rolling on a fix and to post feedback". Too often I've seen CMs as company mouthpieces who's only authority is to delete offensive forum posts - if it is their job to pass on important information back up the chain (which yes, should be part of their job) then they certainly never comment on it.