A Call For Better Communication

In 2008, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning released to much critical praise and fanfare. It hit a healthy 800,000+ subscribers and looked to have a solid future.

In less than a year's time, this number plummeted to only 300,000 and just over a year after its release, the wheel was still spinning, but the hamster was well and truly dead.

So what went wrong? And what on earth does this have to do with Planetside 2?

Without going off on a tangent, the game suffered from a number of issues, many of which are common MMO problems: Faction imbalance, Class imbalance, Lack of long term incentives to play (many of which also apply to Planetside 2)

However, the single worst thing and (in my opinion) the thing that doomed the game to failure from the first few months, was the lack of competent communication from the developers to the player base. While I don't believe Planetside 2 is as colossally doomed as WAR was, I cannot help but see shades of the same PR negligence. (Even a free to play game can die)

Now before anyone (including any devs reading this) bite my head off, I do get it: You have just launched the game and are trying to frantically fix a thousand and one things, and add new content at the same time. Not to mention continuing to try and spread the word about the game. Tall order indeed.

But I'm not asking for the world here. Rather, I'm imploring SoE to start addressing (on a day to day basis) some of the more common issues that are popping up with the game. If a photo is worth a thousand words, than an official response or comment is worth a thousand threads. Not only will it serve to placate much of the rage that is flying around on here, but it would also go a long way to reassuring what is quickly becoming a very frustrated player base.

Great ideas and discussions are currently getting buried under a torrent of 'NERF THIS' or 'BUFF THAT' threads, and all because we still (for the most part) have zero clue as to what SoE has in mind. Even just an acknowledgement that you are 'working on it' or 'discussing it' would be great!

Furthermore, we need better information regarding updates and hot fixes. I find it disappointing that so many undocumented changes are being made and that it's been left up to players to figure out what exactly is going on. Please, in the future, no more 'unintended changes' and if something has been snuck in by accident, LET US KNOW!

Be specific about the changes! Don't use terms like 'slightly', give us a hard percentage or number. I'd wager 90% of the current rage forum posts are the result of placebo effects due to the lack of any actual hard data. Maybe this doesn't bother the development team and you can ignore it, but it is becoming maddening to us.

As I understand, there will be a 'future plans' statement being made next month and I look forward to seeing the ideas presented, but I would argue that here and now, you have a great opportunity to gain our trust and so far I can't help but feel that trust is slipping away.

So while it's early days, please don't set a negative precedent. Don't become just another DICE or EA. Don't let Planetside 2 become another Warhammer Online.

They do communicate. In January they'll release their plan for the next 6 months.
The game hasn't even been out a month and a big chunk of that time since then was spend by the devs finding sleep again after weeks of overtime. Calm down.

I assure you, I'm very calm. And I realise that statement is en route, but I feel there is still a lot they could do on a smaller scale and what better time to start than now? Set a great precedent now and you'll have that many more people looking forward to the bigger picture statements.

January is going to be too late.

Players (consumers) do not care about the "hardships" of a company.

I don't understand you. You can talk to any of them on Twitter, Facebook etc, those seem to be staffed 24/7 particulary Smed's, Higgles (on vacation), Tray's and Purrfect's.

Ignoring the fact that a lot of people don't use or have social networking accounts, I would argue that is a ridiculously reactive way of going about things. A lot of the twitter feed stuff I read has comments such as 'yeah that's a known issue, looking into it'.

I'd argue, if it's a known issue or they have definitive information regarding changes, why not make it official and post it in a statement capacity on here?

Not to mention I don't believe they are answering a number of big queries given the number of enraged forum posts and discussions taking place on here.

They will. They have repeatedly said so.

I think they've been quite communicative (compared to most, if not all, game dev companies). It's the lack of long term content and features what's gonna kill most of the nowadays active player base.

Yes, loads of ppl playing now cos of the novelty... but when they get bored of the same meaningless fight over the same conts in the next very few months... they re gonna start bailing out. And once they do, they won't come back I tell you (cos really, how many games have u tried some random game cos it was free, thought it bored you, and when they bombed your mail inbox with 'we got new things' you just dropped off that list and never thought of it again?). Too bad theywon't be including all that load of new content they expect to soon enough to keep those ppl in interest.

On the good side, fewer noobs will mean more teamplay and fun for those of us who continue in, but just for how long will a game with a little playerbase be profitable and enjoyable? Dunno.

And yet will still routinley have threads like this popping up:

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/why-all-these-phantom-changes.65905/

Not saying I expect them to cover everything and I sure as **** understand how hectic a launch must be, but nothing leaves a worse taste in the mouth than a developer that is seen to be ignoring the player base or making random changes. Even if it is only a perception.

Yeah this thread is complete hot air, all of the changes there were in fact mentioned in the patch notes and I personally went through the new weapon data a few hours ago and they changed exactly what they change they would, sans a small increase in ROF for all NC and VS weapons.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/undocumented-changes-in-the-patch.65092/

And all of those were documented as well? :/

It's not just the 'what' though. Rather I feel they need to better explain the 'why' in the future.

Take for example the SC price of the horn. There's like a what? 30+ page thread about it.

Surely they could have nipped that in the bud and quickly explained the rationale behind it?

And where are they supposed to explain the 'why'? Taking your horn example, the pricing is obviously so they make money. I dunno what there is to explain. If noone buys it, they'll lower the price and that's it. Also, Smedley will post the "why" in January. I am sorry that you can't wait that long.

Saying that SOE somehow ~doesn't communicate~ is complete hogwash. Smedley posts a weekly state of the game, The Hurtz gives people indepth explanations how frame is formed, arclegger was crying to be lectured on base design earlier and all of the devs you can even access directly via twitter.

It's more likely that these threads full of baseless accusations will result in the devs posting less not more.

Yes. I'm sure January announcement will fix everything and alleviate all fears and mend all fences.

Except it won't, because people are already becoming so cynical of SOE that the announcements will probably be met with as much excitement as scorn and scepticism.

Obviously it's to make more money. But it's making more money off something that is arguably a fundamental tool that should already have been in the game in the first place, hence the pages and pages of discussion.

And I'm NOT saying they 'don't' communicate. I'm saying that the quality of communication is important moving forward and can and should be improved.

No, the January announcement will be the roadmap for the next 6 months. It won't "fix everything" and "alleviate all fears", I don't even know what's so frightening about PS2.

Yes, 2.5 weeks into live and SOE is already the Devil.

So, what would you like to see improved in terms of communications then? Handwavingly stating the communication is "bad" and yelling "abandon ship!" is not exactly worth a topic.

w/ beta changes: SOE already announced that they're setting up a beta server, where you can test all the new stuff before it goes live. I don't think more communication is possible in that regard.
And the problem with the common issues is, that there are no common issues (and the few that actually are, are usually addressed as far as I have seen).

There is already a TON of information out there about what they plan to do with the game, what sort of things they'll be adding, what they are discussing for the long-term, etc. Go check out the Command Center videos, Friday Night Ops, twitter and twitch feeds from the developers. They're not going to compile everything into a detailed list and email it directly to you, but it's certainly out there if you want it.

I was pleasantly surprised at how transparent and forth-coming they were with their plans, changes, and things they were working on all throughout beta, and I see no reason why that won't continue.

The fear? That they actually don't acknowledge or understand some of the fundamental issues with what has the potential to be an enjoyable game and will instead let it die in the *** through either incompetence or inaction. Given the track record of so many other FPS developers of late, this is a legitimate concern for lots of players.

And yeah, a few glances at their official forums and I'd say that is the general consensus of a lot of players. Whether it's justified or not is irrelevant. Perception is everything, and a lot of the negative perception both currently and in the future can be easily deflected with better communication.

I agree but its not easy. If they communicate tomorrow but say something along the lines of this game has problems and we'll try to fix it: Some people will roast them for officially damning themselves, others will say good things about how they are trying, and the rest will shrug their shoulders saying prove it to us SOE.

I imagine they already have an idea of how big the issues are that they need to address. Its written down somewhere, and everyday someone's talking in some meeting room about it. The real question that keeps us up at night (figuratively) is that do they have the skills to take this big game and fix all the problems without introducing new ones? I'm talking the skills to do things like, take away vehicle/air freedom on the entire map, and create zones that infantry must proceed on foot while support vehicles move to another location without losing any EXP or bonuses for helping in the area. Stuff that makes sense and helps people do things based on goals while making the cash shop more attractive by examining every item and redoing its costs and worth.

I remember smed saying there will be open forum for next 6 month workflow. Can't wait to see some of the ideas the players have. I've already read a lot of great ideas, hope some of them get a look.

I fixed this for me and my friends outlook.

All true, but lets face it, the average player is going to do what? Play the game, get frustrated, come onto the forums, look for a thread or start a thread to vent in and then get pissed off more that there's no acknowledgement day in day out of their particular bug bear.

Look at politicians or political parties. More often than not they have tons of information available regarding their policies and future plans, but that's useless if they don't promote and communicate that information properly. Again, perception > reality.

Anyway, in no way am I vindictive or anything. Just wanted to raise the point that this can and will be a game-killer if a standard isn't maintained.