It's like you're reading my mind with the in-game polls! Since I started in Dev on FR I've been lobbying for that. Not sure what you are referring to when you say '20 minute time span'? Can you elaborate on that a bit?
Prone is a not-insignificant amount of work. We currently don't have plans on using it, but let's see where H1Z1 goes with it, and if it'd fit in out game. Currently, it's similar to ragdoll on our list - nice to have, but we have core features we want to put in first.
d_carey you have done great work, With the game and the community. Wish i could help(more then what i am trying to do )
I'd have to disagree that we don't use the forums. But if you are feeling that way, I'm sorry, and hopefully the new program I've laid out will help over the coming months. As far as 'hate talking with these people', I'd point out that I feel SOE is the most approachable company I've ever seen. Social media, events like the block party today, representation at all big game conventions, great CS support, and SOE Live...I really think we are hands-down a company that you can end up in a one-on-one communication with a company member. I'm sorry you don't feel that way. Hopefully it changes with our new communication. EDIT: Try and get a one on one convo with a ISP provider that isn't Customer Service. I just went through that. THAT'S bad communication/accessibility.
Great question! We have lots of new logging and reporting in for this. It's something we discuss every week and work on. I wish it was a clear "Fix this single line of code" type of issue, but it's very complex and the more feedback and concrete examples we get of it failing are helpful to diagnosing it.
Maybe engineers could get a turret replacement that lets them catch/block/absorb/reflect/deflect/nullify explosive ordnance I can dream. Also you're doing a damn good job of engaging the community. I never thought I'd see someone in a role like yours show up the amount of answering muldoon or malorn does on reddit.
The difference between pip boy and vault boy in the fallout universe is a very dangerous topic. I don't think that you realise what you have done.
Nice sig So bear in mind - nothing we implement is ever irrevocably final. If something does go live that really harms the game, it'll be be removed/adjusted.
Fantastic post! A month ago I was honestly going to quit, wasn't having a good time. Ever since you started to post a lot i've been hooked. The community is so active and the devs and been so transparent. I can assure with this new direction i'll be staying for hopefully years to come. You are for sure the best producer i've seen on any game, glad to have you around!
I'm looking forward to this july update overall. But if the community feedback( with those 2 sets of PTS notes about the Rocket & tank cannon changes) had such a negative community response(on reddit and the forums at the same time) for being even put on the PTS server in the first place immedately, that should be telling that those changes shouldn't be pushed to live, because down the road they will have negative impacts to gameplay, and leave a bad taste in the communities mouth over the fact that even with all the feedback against the balance changes, you still did them. Also to kindof bring up something about 1 part my feedback about the rocket changes.(I might have brought this up before on the forums aswell) People buy those 6 Lock on launchers for exactly what they say they are for. To Lock on to air or ground(the NS annihilator does both but is slower to lock on then the ES 250 cert lock ons). NOT to fire/be used against infantry. Having a Lock on Launcher is a trade off, since they cannot be dumbfired. But for some reason those 6 ES lock ons CAN be dumb fired against infantry. Even those 6 Launchers Fire rates are "Lock on", not "single shot" which is dumbfire. (I'm not mentioning the ES Special launchers, which while the Lancer is single shot/charged shot, and Phoenix is single shot player controlled, and the striker that is Lock on, they are not problematic like the 6 ES lock ons being dumb fired is) See how thats a problem that leads to rocket spam and how removing the Dumbfire ability from those 6 can stop alot of rocket spam without causing gameplay problems to infantry balance? anyways......... PS2 is definitely going to get exciting in the next months, and I'm looking forward to trying out all the new stuff, and seeing more epic scale battles! PS: You are doing a fantastic job!
Hello! You've been doing an excellent job with communicating recently. It's especially useful to know about the reasoning behind decisions, both to reduce frustration and so feedback can be given from the same page. The problem is that reddit has a very short attention span due to topics being buried within 24-48 hours. Reddit also has reasonably poor formatting (no colours), and does not have a WSYWYG editor (you have to learn markdown). There is also no topic subforums on reddit. Reddit is dominated by: montages, funny stories/ragetells/social interaction stuff, 'lol, my drop pod bounced' glitch videos, QOL complaints - which are straightforward and don't require much discussion, and bug reports. There's nothing wrong with these things, but they drown discussion. The vast majority of replies are clever quips (the forums also have this issue). There is the occasional massive campaign topic about a big issue like monetisation or nerfs to vehicles which affect the vehicle stat padding lobby. There is very little detailed gameplay/balance discussion on reddit. Posts about specific balance issues that don't affect vast areas of gameplay don't really get much visibility. What I'd suggest is adding the features you like in reddit to the forums, and having a subforum where tweets automatically create threads. One thing that reddit is good for is threads on topics started by devs on twitter. Another thing is the vast majority of players do not engage in providing feedback; either because they don't realise the continually developed MMO/nature of software dev, or they don't think they will be listened to. This includes many players who have more than 50+ days of playtime. The best way to reverse that is to have a presence on the official medium and have visible sections for places where devs engage e.g. weekly Q/A subforum. Partly the issue is whether sitting there and clicking on a big yellow splotch as a gunner deserves much XP compared to an actual fight. Similarly sitting behind shields is just like sitting invulnerable in a tank/lib against infantry fire, and XP for kills from the spawn room is a problem and promotes camping in a spawn room instead of being elsewhere where there is a chance of making a military difference. XP should be for 'experience' achieved by doing difficult things against actual odds as XP determines the right to cert and progress a character - as opposed to doing a completely obvious/easy thing like killing the last enemy who was revived which currently gives a low amount of 'spawn kill' XP. XP should be different from the war score. (Because of upcoming spawn changes killing players close to the spawn room makes little difference in a military sense as well because players they can respawn and get back to the position pretty much instantly.)
If you popped in once a week and shanked a few controversial threads with reason that would seriously paradigm shift the crap out of the community and my perception of dev-player relations in a game of this scale. I suppose that doesn't mean much since you don't know specifically where I'm coming from, but gotta say that nonetheless lol Edit: especially if you responded on some of the issues, many of which are clearly baseless, that pop up over and over and over and have not died!
I remember reading an article on Eurogamer or wherever it was a couple of years ago that you guys were going to do a better job with the communication (not just SOE). When I read a forum post about an issue right after the Landmark Alpha launch that explained why things didn't work and how it worked internally before launch I actually thought about that article because I was impressed by the honesty. I think EA etc. have a long way to go if they're going to catch up to you guys, except for when you guys made sure I couldn't use my engy tools for a whole week(!). I don't really like that I have to check the forums, Twitter and Reddit but I guess I'll just have to get used to it some time. I would like to have a "SOE Post Tracker" that pulled in the all the "official" posts from Reddit and (maybe) Twitter too but I guess we can't have it all. On a side note: Would love a Linux version, but only after you have optimized the game again
I like notifications of stuff via twitter. I don't have to specifically check the Planetside 2 forums or reddit to get those. I don't think these forums or Reddit are great for discussing design. It's hard to write good posts, and it's hard to read good posts. Unfortunately, that promotes quick, easy responses that bury thoughtful posts - and, in so doing, discourage them even further. It's probably possible to make a discussion format that would work otherwise (or to moderate very heavily to keep the discussion on course, maybe?) but that would be an entire project of its own. I do think the forums should be favoured over Reddit on principle, and that if they're lacking in any particular area then that should be addressed. Thanks for this letter, and best of luck.
Please urge the team to focus on fixing existing problems and improving performance, first and foremost. I know this is exactly the route the dev team took last year with the OMFG patches. However, overall performance (hit detection, hardware optimisation, etc.) has deteriorated since then and requires attention once more. There's also a few things that have been broken for months, ever since the 64-bit client update. The ingame video recorder is one of them. Please address these acute issues first, if you're serious about bringing in and retaining new players. People won't be able to take the game seriously if you keep churning out new content that doesn't even work properly because of old problems that are being overlooked.
Congratulations on your new position David I would like to say that I agree, 100%, with AdmiralArcher's post:- Other than that, you have my full support
A definite side grade to the communications, looking forward to see how it plays out. I have to agree with the others on here that have said that some more automation here on the forums would be good. If an important post is done on reddit that generates more user posts, it becomes a chore to trudge through reddit (reddit's search function is ****e). A forum post with a link or a tweet with a link would be good. Also it looks like we need to get you added onto the twitter feed list on the front page of the forums (which I enjoy immensely as it means I don't have to sign up to twitter).
I understand, there's just this level of separation between the official forums and third party sites. Telling your entire player base that they should subscribe to each and every one of your individual twitter feeds, and many of us are, because developments and updates won't, and often don't, hit your official channels until well after the fact, if ever, does not send the right message to your community.
