Vanguard Round 2 - Post Mortem

[Ixxit]

Heh, thanks for clearing that up.  Personally I try ignore all the hype and/or negativitey on game specific forums except when there's entertainment value (like in the FOH instance).

I'm suprised that more mmo companies haven't made more of a push to collect feedback via other means.  Some have exit interviews, but by then it's too late or  the occasional focus group (but then you have small sample unrepresentative of your customer base).  There are tons of ways to gather data and analyze it that   are more meaniful and efficient  that listening to the vocal few on your average mmo forum.

[EDIT]  Given the amount of times Sigil has raised/nerfed/raised/raised/nerfed experience (as only one of many examples)  it kind of looks like they listen to who yells the loudest on any given day.

[HaemishM]

It always amazes me why devs would care to get down in the muck there and reply to these sad, basement dwelling individuals with ulimitied time on their hands, yet Brad and gang have been quite willing to continually be slapped around by them  looking absolutely foolish.

For the same reason Kunark got tuned for the most vocal, hardcore minority, the same reason Rogues went broken for a year in EQ, the same reason alchemy was "working as intended" for so long in EQ1. Because it's a competition, an ego dick-measuring contest with the loudmouth hardcore people like Furor and everyone else on the FOH boards. Brad has always tried to compete with this sack of mouthbreathers.

These are also the only people who will treat him like the rockstar he thinks he deserves to be.

[Ixxit]

Thanks for the little bit of history. Puts a lot of things in perspective.

[Calandryll]

I'm suprised that more mmo companies haven't made more of a push to collect feedback via other means.  Some have exit interviews, but by then it's too late or  the occasional focus group (but then you have small sample unrepresentative of your customer base).  There are tons of ways to gather data and analyze it that   are more meaniful and efficient  that listening to the vocal few on your average mmo forum.

Well we do. I think there is a bit of a misconception that all we do is listen to message boards when we take feedback because that's where you see us directly reacting to the feedback. At Turbine we used the boards, surveys, e-mail focus groups, live gameplay focus groups, market research studies, and a bunch of other things including of course the developer's own knowledge. The key though is you have to do all of this stuff early enough and often enough to actually digest and use the feedback. You can't just have a focus group 3-4 weeks before the new design goes live or just do one survey and not do any follow-ups, and expect the feedback to be useful. Sadly, I see that too often.

[shiznitz]

I have been an SOE customer since 1999. My email has not changed. I have never received anything but promotional emails from them.

[Morat20]

I have been an SOE customer since 1999. My email has not changed. I have never received anything but promotional emails from them.

I have. The two survey's I filled out for SOE had one thing in common: They were designed to elicit a certain response -- they were biased, so to speak. They were very obviously designed to get numbers that would allow someone to show someone else that he/she was right.

I never saw one that actually seemed to be after information.

[Lantyssa]

The whole thing seems rather "old school".  And by "old school" I mean "bad".  This type of stuff needs to be reigned in and they need to let their CM do his/her job.

Do they even have a CM?

[shiznitz]

I re-rolled a human Psionicist this weekend. He is level 6 after about 2 hours. My Station Pass ends 4/1. Some tick keeps me wanting to log into VG every now and then. Bouncing between EQ2 and VG just makes VG's world look like an ass omelet, but I like having something different to do.

[raydeen]

I have been an SOE customer since 1999. My email has not changed. I have never received anything but promotional emails from them.

I have. The two survey's I filled out for SOE had one thing in common: They were designed to elicit a certain response -- they were biased, so to speak. They were very obviously designed to get numbers that would allow someone to show someone else that he/she was right.

I never saw one that actually seemed to be after information.

I've been paying for EQ for eight years and the only survey I remember taking was related to how EQ2 was to be sold (to DVD or not to DVD). I think there was another minor survey related to the test server but that's about it.

[garthilk]

Well their CM was Cindy Bowens, but she left nearly a year ago. After that Nick Parkinson took the reins. Unfortunately despite having previously been an admin at the Safehouse, his apparent success as a CM is borderline catastrophic. Management and marketing, along with issues with SOE have doomed that community IMO. With that, it's basically running on itself atm. The community is the one manning the community with a few vocal developers striving to bring a point across in the absence of any real voice.

[Alkiera]

Well their CM was Cindy Bowens, but she left nearly a year ago. After that Nick Parkinson took the reins. Unfortunately despite having previously been an admin at the Safehouse, his apparent success as a CM is borderline catastrophic. Management and marketing, along with issues with SOE have doomed that community IMO. With that, it's basically running on itself atm. The community is the one manning the community with a few vocal developers striving to bring a point across in the absence of any real voice.

Strange, for a CM, I've never heard anyone link to a post by him.  That doesn't bode well for his job security, methinks.

--
Alkiera

[Simond]

His job security is his surname.
As in "Son of the late Keith..."

[shiznitz]

I've been paying for EQ for eight years and the only survey I remember taking was related to how EQ2 was to be sold (to DVD or not to DVD). I think there was another minor survey related to the test server but that's about it.

I remember that one now that you mentioned it.

[Murgos]

I was getting surveys pretty regularly when I was playing EQ.  They would pop up between log in and character selection.  I remember them being frequent enough to be annoying.

[Sky]

I was getting surveys pretty regularly when I was playing EQ.  They would pop up between log in and character selection.  I remember them being frequent enough to be annoying.

Actually, I feel that is the very best way to do a survey. No message board drama, no players who aren't playing. Just the folks logging in, one survey per account. Even though that might give a slight edge to the multiboxers and folks with 6 max-level accounts...bah. MMO....it's fucked up. I once wanted to work in the industry...until I began reading LtM back in 99 or whenever....anyone working in MMO is nucking futz, man. Seek help.

[DataGod]

I'm suprised that more mmo companies haven't made more of a push to collect feedback via other means.  Some have exit interviews, but by then it's too late or  the occasional focus group (but then you have small sample unrepresentative of your customer base).  There are tons of ways to gather data and analyze it that   are more meaniful and efficient  that listening to the vocal few on your average mmo forum.

Well we do. I think there is a bit of a misconception that all we do is listen to message boards when we take feedback because that's where you see us directly reacting to the feedback. At Turbine we used the boards, surveys, e-mail focus groups, live gameplay focus groups, market research studies, and a bunch of other things including of course the developer's own knowledge. The key though is you have to do all of this stuff early enough and often enough to actually digest and use the feedback. You can't just have a focus group 3-4 weeks before the new design goes live or just do one survey and not do any follow-ups, and expect the feedback to be useful. Sadly, I see that too often.

Fixed; gamemarketmetrics.com

[Merusk]

I was getting surveys pretty regularly when I was playing EQ.  They would pop up between log in and character selection.  I remember them being frequent enough to be annoying.

Actually, I feel that is the very best way to do a survey. No message board drama, no players who aren't playing. Just the folks logging in, one survey per account. Even though that might give a slight edge to the multiboxers and folks with 6 max-level accounts...bah. MMO....it's fucked up. I once wanted to work in the industry...until I began reading LtM back in 99 or whenever....anyone working in MMO is nucking futz, man. Seek help.

*scratches Sky off his "Community Managers" list for that powerball-win project*  :-D

[Venkman]

I've long been a proponent of ingame-only polls, or at least polls relegated to ingame-only when they talk about specific game things. General community-management stuff can be public and whatever, but the only people affecting the game itself should be those booting the stupid thing up periodically.

One vote per account per month, server-side. It'll certainly be a lot more accurate than the forums. And if you do one question per week in a dialog box, with 4-option answers and a 256-character comment field, you could probably keep it from being intrusive.

It's just hard. As far as I know, the only time tools like that are built into games is in beta. After that they get turned off. This I never quite understood. How do you so separate the very person you want the MOST data on from opinion-collecting tools? This always felt more procedural ("because Live is different from Beta/dev") than justifiable.

[garthilk]

Actually the current CM is an individual who goes by the name Elrar. Nick Parkinson is now a producer. :)

Elrar has about as much community management experiance as I do, only less. He used to be a volunteer on a (mine) Vanguard fansite some years ago and then was hired on as a forum moderator. But this isn't Elrar's fault. After CB left Sigil, a lot of plans were left to rot. The resistance from one or two key mangement and some folks from SOE ensured that some of the best laid plans never came true. In absense of a strong CM, the community begins to flounder. Meanwhile, the game launches early. The Community is left without any clear community management. Any messaging from Sigil is lost in the haze of message board posts. Nino, who was orginally the sound guy for the game, steps up and puts his arse on the line, picking up where Sigil and SOE dropped the ball. He puts his arse on the line, trying to bring the message out to the community. Unfortunately he violates some of the very first rules of community management. Gets his butt handed to him, due to CM rookie moves.

Ultimately the game is solid at it's core. Just needs more development time. It's going to mature probably a lot like AO did.

[Strazos]

Rogues went broken for a year in EQ,

FIFY

[Falconeer]

Actually the current CM is an individual who goes by the name Elrar. Nick Parkinson is now a producer. :)

Elrar has about as much community management experiance as I do, only less. He used to be a volunteer on a (mine) Vanguard fansite some years ago and then was hired on as a forum moderator. But this isn't Elrar's fault. After CB left Sigil, a lot of plans were left to rot.

What?
The CM is a guy who was a volunteer on your Vanguard fansite until a year ago?
WTF?! Was he especially good, or he just lived in Austin?

[garthilk]

Note, some YEARS ago, more than 2, less than 3. Was he especially good? Not particularly, but he was a good guy. Honestly though he's a smart guy, but smart guys with little experiance don't do well in situations where there are folks working agianst you to push their own community agenda. Then of course you're working with SOE, who already pushed the game out the door for money reasons. You can better belive they're breathing hard on the CM, to do things their way in order to bring the community back in line. Honestly I feel bad for the guy. He needs a lot more support, a lot more resources.

[Margalis]

Then of course you're working with SOE, who already pushed the game out the door for money reasons.

What would you have them do? Hemmorage money for another year for Le Art?

People make it sound like SOE pushed the game out early. The fact is they pushed it out on or after when it was supposed to be done, and it is clear to everyone that even 6 more months would not have made a big dfference. When you rely on a publisher for funding those are the risks. MS dumped Vanguard entirely! SOE had no obligation to pick it up at all, let alone continue funding it for a number of years.

As far as community agenda goes - what they hell *IS* their community agenda? Can anyone explain that? No official communication at all? Why even have a CM guy? Anyway it does suck to be a CM guy because community problems stem directly from game problems and all the crap Brad has spewed over the years. They made a game for people who see tolerating bugs, grinding and boredom as a badge of honor, then act surprised when the game isn't very popular and people badmouth it - lol.

The community is only as toxic as the game - or put another way the community is very fitting.

The only reasons VG won't go down as a SWG-sized clusterfuck is because most smart people knew it was going to suck years ago, and because SWG at least did some interesting things. VG is predictable in both what it delivered and how badly it delivered it.

[Monika T'Sarn]

That's so funny, a community manager nobody ever heard about. Together with a lack of official boards, thats the worst communication I've ever seen. The unofficial boards are either little used, impossible to use - or totally ignored. And the most dev response is actually on the FOH boards - which are not even an official fansite.
DAoC is the only game I remember not having their own boards, but they did very well with the semi-official vault forums and  a great CM.

On the plus side, there's actually a bunch of devs that are much more responsive then I'm used to from other games, just check the silkyvenom dev tracker. But seeing them bluster around just shows how unprofessional the whole game is managed.
Some highlights:
I just itemized the only lvl 50+ zone on my spare time - but don't ask my about the npc's immunities in this zone, not my job. I just added this quest, the reward sucks right now but thats just temporary. This quest is working right. Oh, its not. Should be fixed soon - but I dont know if this patch or next. Oh, I accidently removed the graphics for all your weapons, should be fixed next week.

Wasn't a CM's job as well to stop the devs from talking to much ? Guess he's not doing that either ...

[Venkman]

Ya know, I keep hearing it was pushed out "for money reasons" in a number of places. But given everything about it (lack of readiness, lack of community management, BC launch, January altogether), at this point I side with the folks that think VG could have launched at any point and done no better nor worse.

Figure they're not going to sell a lot of boxes in general (hardcore, old-school, quality, high-barrier, too many forward-looking games coming this year). So maybe they calculated out and realized that far and away most of their accounts were going to come Station Pass anyway. Under that scenario, it actually doesn't matter when they launch, whether January-WoW/BC, April-LoTRO, Summer-AoC/PoTBS because the people coming are already in the system.

Nothing new here of course.

[slog]

Rogues went broken for a year in EQ,

FIFY

Oh look another idiotic "I FIXED YOUR POST FOR YOU ME SO FUNNY"

[shiznitz]

It looked for a short while yesterday that SOE had opened official Vanguard forums by porting the old beta forums into the SOE framework, but today the only topics available are tech help related.

My new Psi is level 8 now. I saw two new areas last night, both meant for small groups (3dot mobs were rare.) Both were around the Tursh (Thestran human) newbie area.  The first, Rindol Storehouse, was just awful looking. I play on low settings but this "zone" looked about the same as something from launchday EQ1. Yes, it is a just food storehouse filled with angry brownie mobs but still. Later I went through the teleporter in Riftseeker's Torrent and saw the kind of area one expected - detailed and interesting, if a bit linear.

Just more anecdotes about the un-polish. I do find the Psi significantly different from my druid, though both are the same archetype.

[Rodivar]

If ever a game needed a communications upgrade, this it the one.  It was clear by launch that due to the state of the game the affilate program was not going to work, too much bad news to manage.  DAOC was able to pull it off because it came very close to delivering a solid/complete product *and* had a strong community relations team,  VGSOH has neither of those factors.

[Cheddar]

I am going to install this game tonight and play it for a bit tonight/tomorrow.  :)

[Rasix]

I am going to install this game tonight and play it for a bit tonight/tomorrow.  :)

 

You've got low standards, mang.

[Morat20]

I am going to install this game tonight and play it for a bit tonight/tomorrow.  :)

1) Nice picture.
2) Why is your name pink?
3) Writing this post was more fun than playing Vanguard.

[DataGod]

"The community is only as toxic as the game - or put another way the community is very fitting."

I usually agree with much of what you post, but, I have to disagree with this Margalis.

Community is a function of the values embedded into the community at the start, theres a huge difference between people who value their community (customers) as collaborative partners and those who do not, or rather those who view their community as an income stream to be exploited for maximized profit.

Therefore if the organization takes a broadcaster model:
WE are the GAME COMPANY, and the ALMIGHTY developers, and YOU are dumbass gamers who PAY US for the PRIVLEDGE of PLAYING OUR game. WE will tell you what WILL and WONT  happen in OUR Game.

This is much much different than:

WE value your input as our customers, as co-owners of this community and hope you will collaborate with us to make the product better by providing us with constructive input, which we will vet against our organizational goals, we will be transparent about our decision making process so you know why we do or do not adopt new features.

There is an entirely different tone and tenor to the latter. The former sets an adversarial hierarchical structure to community relations, with no opprotunity for transparency, the latter co-ops the population and brings them into the collaborative process. Big difference, and different eventual outcomes.

One is a monologue one is a dialogue

[Venkman]

I think this is a great point DataGod, yet another point missed by the old-school mentality from the days of Whineplay.

[Sky]

WE are the GAME COMPANY, and the ALMIGHTY developers, and YOU are dumbass gamers who PAY US for the PRIVLEDGE of PLAYING OUR game. WE will tell you what WILL and WONT  happen in OUR Game.

See, I favor this philosophy. No matter how much people bitched about the "Go To Jail" space on the monopoly board, it was never changed.

Game designers design games. Players play games. MMO has created a niche of amateur wanna-be designers who should probably shut the fuck up or get a job in the industry.

Community relations is a waste of money. Want to know what new changes are coming? Read the news on the website. Want to report a problem? Make a bug report. Then shut the fuck up and play the game. I was thinking about this in the LotRO thread where Nyght said something about GMs being swamped with support calls. I think I've made a single support call once, ever, back in UO when some guy was looting my house through the wall. That's it. Why the hell are so many people swamping the GMs? Wasteful and makes people feel like they are entitled to personal interaction with the game company.

[Calandryll]

Community relations is a waste of money. Want to know what new changes are coming? Read the news on the website.

Who do you think updates that website? ;)

Community Relations isn't just about posting on message boards. In fact, I've argued it's only about 25% of the job.

Edit: and I agree you should never let your community dictate your designs and if you disagree with the playerbase it's perfectly okay to say "no, we don't agree". But to say its not important to solicit ongoing customer feedback is setting yourself up for trouble - in any industry.