I have never really understood why devs are so secretive about what goes on behind the scenes. I can understand not revealing game content, but issues related to performance, server status/progress, general mechanics surrounding game playability, etc. etc. (fill in your blank here) seem to be kept very quiet. Transparency could do a lot for customer service, particularly when a large portion of your customers understand how the behind the scenes should work. And quite frankly, after personally paying for this game for 20 years I feel like we deserve it.
because they literally don't have time to answer all of the questions now, let alone the thousands that would generate if we knew it all. And then all the ways others would suggest they do their job better
#1 - It's not their job, and could get them in hot water. "devs" - people use that word to mean a lot of things, but literally, it means the people developing the s/w (graphics, network architecture, game design, whatever, not interested in splitting hairs here). I've never seen a company where "devs" have a big customer-facing role. When you do see devs post on here, it's because whatever they're saying is approved. Your beef (and not just you, I too feel DPG's communications with customers absolutely sucks) is with the community relations people (we're talking one or two people here) and the execs who control their actions. They're the ones who never seem to get the message that they don't communicate well at all.
I do think some communication could be improved. I mean hear we are within an hour or so of the patch ending but no notes yet about what is being patched. Although it usually runs true to what was shown on patch last week, ya never know with that group! Went commando today
Because if as much as a typo is different when it hits live the community empties their pockets of all the "BuT yOu PrOmIsEd!!" 2 copper pieces they have left.
I'm curious of what won't be in the notes when servers come back up .. seems there have been more and more stealth nerfs or things conveniently left out of the notes..
Wife #1- How was your day at work? Husband #1- Good. Wife #1- That is nice. Do anything special? Husband #1- No. Wife #1- I see. How did the project go? Husband #1- Fine. Wife- Cool! Wife #2- How was your day at work? Husband #2- Good! Heather and I finished the project today and we went to lunch. Wife #2- Wait Heather? Who is Heather? How old is Heather? Is Heather hot? Why did you never tell me about Heather? Is she single? OMG ARE YOU CHEATING ON ME? Wait did you buy Heather lunch? I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU ARE CHEATING ON ME I AM LEAVING YOU!!!!! I think the devs act like Husband #1 because they believe 99.99% of EQ players act like Wife #2...
I understand why they dont tel about it. What if a dev says. Oh we have a plan of making dragon mounts fly for real. People would become so exited and say: woow, that is so cool. 2 weeks later the dev then say, We tried to make dragon mounts fly for real, but we failed. The backlash and outcry from the players would be so great, and everthing the devs have coming would become totally lost, in the 500 pages that would come.
This could spawn a whole new series of conversations GM's have with their wives. Wife: I'm mad, you cheated on me in my dream last night. Husband: What did I do now? Wife: You were at work and had just fixed the server lag problem and then you slept with your co-worker on your lunch break. Husband: Hmm... Wife: What? I remember it all vividly. Husband: Do you remember how I solved the server lag problem?
Most likely decisions move so slowly in that company, they really can't commit to an answer until it's in motion.
Ngreth tries his best to actually engage with the forum community and has said on a couple of occasions that he sees that as part of his job, the other devs like Absor & even the coders like Niente do try to engage. Prathun used to enjoy chatting with folks on the forums & even had a bit of gentle banter with them. Fact is most of us understand the devs are never not busy, any time they are spending on the forums has to be judged against how much work they do, and its a lot of work for a small team that have to multi-skill & "wear many hats" as part of being on the DarkPaw team. They likely cannot spend as much time as they would like with the community just from the workload demands they have, paired with their passion for the game. Dreamweaver is also super busy given they manage the forums, the discord & do so for at least 2 games so everyone at DarkPaw has limited time to interact, even the folks like Dreamweaver whose job that is. Still, maybe with EG7 as owners the situation might improve, they at least have a functioning marketing company in house so perhaps this is something they can take on board and have the means to help address. Also I think it's worth checking out some of the longer format dev-engagements that have taken place the last year or so. Such as the streams former EQ Lead Designer Shawn Lord has had with past & present EQ team members - https://www.twitch.tv/alovingrobot - there's a notable stream with Jchan amongst those. The EverQuest Show - https://everquestshow.com/ - has a good interview with Holly (former studio Head) Plus - https://www.everquest.com/news/get-to-know-your-dev-abell
at the end of the day they are employees,.. if i liked my job or needed it i wouldnt say much either~
