Radio silence

I haven't come around on anything. We don't have any legal rights. But that doesn't mean we have to act like lapdogs.

"Qeltar;190581" wrote:
But someone has to hold their feet to the fire and be the resident grouch and I guess that's my specialty.

The difference between you can most other "grouches" is the you actually make decent arguments without decending into mean spirited ranting and personal attacks.

I work in the IT department of a billion dollar company, and my team is responsible for developing software and working with software vendors (ah..the glories of being in Middleware). And we would never accept being treated this way by a vendor, and we would never get away with treating our customers (other people in IT and business users) like this. It is unprofessional. And given the amount of money this single program is bringing in, they can afford to make time, whether that means hiring more people or whatever. Interns can take and compose notes.

But I do hope they are learning. And when they take a step in the right direction, I try to let them know. Thus my post about being happy about the weekly updates. I hope they are learning their lessons, and we will see what this new promise of weekly updates entails and if they follow through with it. It is sad that I have to say "if", but that's where we're at right now.

But don't ever think I am being a lapdog. I know how it should be, and I know this isn't it. It is obvious we are paying to be beta testers. The only difference is, in most of the beta programs I have been involved in, there was a lot more communication between the testers and the devlopers.

@Krey - Thanks, and well-expressed yourself.
I didn't mean to suggest that everyone who gave them positive feedback on their responses was a lapdog, that wasn't right.

I think the next "big" update will say a lot about where things are headed.

EA/CG can either create a lot of warm fuzzy feelings from their current player base or alienate a lot of them, depending on what the next roll-out has under the hood.

If it's got some new content (and specifically content that non-whales can access), cleans up some bugs and maybe even makes some things more "reasonable" (either a fairly priced pack or a credit event that isn't actually worse, etc.) there is a good chance fences will be mended, faith restored and the forum flames will die down.

If, on the other hand, it's simply a cap level increase, a buff to GG, a nerf to GS and a new chromium-only toon. Well, let's just say it'll make the last few days on the forums look like a garden stroll.

"Qeltar;187923" wrote:

"CronozNL;187864" wrote:
The amount of complaining is amazing around here. Better if I leave silently in the night!

You used to be one of the posters I looked forward to reading here. Now all you ever do is jump into thread after thread with fanboyish meta-complaints about other posters' complaints.
Yes, this thread contains a complaint. It is a single complaint, politely-expressed, with a valid reason and a specific purpose. What is your endless flaming of other posters in thread after thread meant to achieve? Other than making it so I now am tempted to no longer read anything you post at all?
Nobody here is asking for anything unreasonable. Just to not be left in the dark.
Some of us have paid hundreds of dollars to this company in a short time. Some have paid thousands. The company represented to us that it would communicate regularly, and it is not living up to its end of the bargain.
When the company does something people like, they get compliments. When they do the opposite, they get complaints. They have complete control over this. We have very little.

I do have better input, just not in the complain threads. I'm not always positive in replying but I do see the potential this game has to offer and I see improvements nevertheless.
If you let go of all the complaining, the game gets more enjoyable.
Also it's more the way complaints are being formulated than the complaint itself.

"DarthCyren;188693" wrote:

"Rolf;188659" wrote:

"Qeltar;188194" wrote:

"HanSlowMo;188176" wrote:

My suggestion, hire one personn...the REAL conduit between their team and their player base. Have a meeting for an hour twice a week, take notes, let that person reveal things and get us excited. Ease some questions, or raise some concerns on balance...EVEN if they don't agree. Just something. Heck, even just give a post once a week on upcoming things. SOOOO many other games do this...

There are many people here who would do this for free.
I have a software engineering background, work professionally in QA, and have an MBA from a top school. I'd do it for free. And I'd do it well and gladly.
I'd even volunteer to give up playing the game, despite enjoying playing it still, if that were required to avoid accusations that I were getting an unfair advantage.
This is just not important to them. I'm sorry, I know people hate "complaining", but it is what it is. People and companies take actions based on what they value.

I'd hire you, if I were them. :)

I agree, we're not really asking for that much here. This is the sort of thing I'd write:

---------
Hey GOH fans!
Thanks for all the continued interest and high traffic on the forums! Here's the "State of the Game" for now:
-We're working hard on our next release patch, target mid-April. We've got some bug fixes coming, some Quality-of-Life improvements (moving the auto button away from the options cog), and look out for a new character! (Spoiler: He's blue with red eyes.) We're also looking at possibly revamping how defense works, stay tuned for more info! Advance patch notes will be posted when we're closer to launch.

-Looking toward the future, our next planned table content opening will be . We can't give too many details yet as there's still lots of work to do, but we're hoping to get this up and running by . There should also be a companion event for Yoda soon.

To some of the more talked-about topics here on the forum:
-The level cap raise . We're targeting , and will fine-tune the date release as we know more.
-We're still working on the answers to the Q&A thread from way back. We know how important this is to you, and we're committing to getting you the info you asked for. We're setting ourselves a hard target of to have the replies done, and we're going to work hard to meet that.
------------
See? Wasn't that hard!

I would weep in joy if a developer gave us that kind of post. In fact, I welcome them to just copy and paste that and provide those details.

This is exactly how they made their patch notes last time. Remember the backlash it got?
You get positive replies, if a dev copies it it will be flooded by negativity and complaints shortly after.

"InternetSwag;190698" wrote:

"Krey;190675" wrote:

"Qeltar;190581" wrote:
But someone has to hold their feet to the fire and be the resident grouch and I guess that's my specialty.

The difference between you can most other "grouches" is the you actually make decent arguments without decending into mean spirited ranting and personal attacks.

I work in the IT department of a billion dollar company, and my team is responsible for developing software and working with software vendors (ah..the glories of being in Middleware). And we would never accept being treated this way by a vendor, and we would never get away with treating our customers (other people in IT and business users) like this. It is unprofessional. And given the amount of money this single program is bringing in, they can afford to make time, whether that means hiring more people or whatever. Interns can take and compose notes.

But I do hope they are learning. And when they take a step in the right direction, I try to let them know. Thus my post about being happy about the weekly updates. I hope they are learning their lessons, and we will see what this new promise of weekly updates entails and if they follow through with it. It is sad that I have to say "if", but that's where we're at right now.

But don't ever think I am being a lapdog. I know how it should be, and I know this isn't it. It is obvious we are paying to be beta testers. The only difference is, in most of the beta programs I have been involved in, there was a lot more communication between the testers and the devlopers.

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/The+ea+cycle+my+opinion+on+ea+is+probably+not_0254a1_4939384.jpg

Yeah...I have seen this one before. The thing is, this and Mass Effect (do not get me started on ME3) are about the only 2 EA games I play. I keep waiting for them to put out something Star Wars related that is worth playing (SW:Battlefront just isn't my thing), and this is as close as I have come. Longing for another KOTOR...and that MMO doesn't count. I enjoyed some of the story elements, but that game could have been so much more as a single player game.

If they just gave us more to do to waste our time we would not have the time to complain/rant/praise/joke in the forum.

"CronozNL;190851" wrote:

This is exactly how they made their patch notes last time. Remember the backlash it got?
You get positive replies, if a dev copies it it will be flooded by negativity and complaints shortly after.

If they make changes that people like, they get positive feedback. If they make changes that people do not, they get negative feedback.
If they make hidden changes that have a major impact and don't appear in the patch notes at all, they get even more negative feedback. That's mostly what happened last time.
That's how it works in business.
So what's your suggestion? They should never release patch notes because they might get some criticism? Maybe they could instead make more accurate patch notes, and make changes to the product that paying customers like?
Nah, let's just make lots of excuses. The poor fragile darlings can't possibly handle some negative responses to the glorious tablets of wisdom being handed down from the mountain. Sycophants like yourself never cease to amaze me.

"Qeltar;190560" wrote:
The bottom line is simple: I was looking for a new game in late November. I love Star Wars, this looked like it could be a good one, and I wanted to get in on the ground floor. I replaced the other main game I played with this one. I've spent now on the order of around $350 on this product in around 3.5 months. I don't want to be talked down to or ignored.
The people who have spent 10x as much deserve it even less.
People need to stop acting like they are doing us a favor every time they give us the slightest little thing, when we are the customers.

Very well said sir. I am in the same situation. I am now unfortunately looking for a new game though (which I found and love) as I have no faith left in EA/CG at this point. I am the type of person who only plays one game at a time, and there just isn't enough content here for my play style.