An article I think many of you should read

[MochaLatte]

Without paying customers there will be problems. And yes people will vote with their dollar and leave if they don't feel things are being handled as properly or quickly as they could, bottom line.

The devs are doing their job to make money, and catering/serving/listening to paying customers goes hand in hand with that.

[Shizue]

Without paying customers there will be problems. And yes people will vote with their dollar and leave if they don't feel things are being handled as properly or quickly as they could, bottom line.

The devs are doing their job to make money, and catering/serving/listening to paying customers goes hand in hand with that.

Well, actually that's the Product/Project Manager's job. Developers will just end up implementing whatever direction they decide the product will go. Developers are basically grunts that implement the specifications and requirements for whatever they are working on. The management above them often lays the specs/reqs out.

And yes, I agree. Customers will vote with their money and it is important for any given company to hear what their customers want and what their grievances are to keep them coming back.

[fixitman]

TenTonHammer is the LAST site I would visit for information of any value. I've dealt with their garbage in the past, and refuse to do it again. They are literally the Digital River of gaming sites....

[Sapereaude]

http://www.tentonhammer.com/the-delu...ation-requests

I found it to be a good read and thought I'd share.

Enjoy

Awesome find. Being on both sides of this issue I can emphatically state that some developers simply refuse to communicate or shouldn't. Heh.

[ZakarnRosewood]

I have a question though. Where do you draw the line of communication? How many times does it need to be said that "X is being worked on" or "we know its an issue"? I would say about 80% of the comments that are prevalent on the forums here have already been addressed and mentioned by the devs. Now is it poor communication if they dont repeat themselves for every single person who comes here and makes the same complaint? How many places does it need to be said before people see it? Where is the best place to communicate? Where should they draw the line, after they respond to 6 posts about the same thing? 3? just make one dev post? It seems regardless of how the "complaint" is responded to by the devs its not good enough or people pick it apart and find 5 more complaints. What qualifies as a sufficient response? I can tell you that the answers to these questions will be different for almost every one of you reading this, at that point, the most important question becomes "How do you make everyone happy?" Answer: You can't. You will drive yourself insane trying. So if you have a magical formula that will solve everybody's problem for every situation, you could possibly win the Nobel Peace prize for creating World Peace. Until then,"you can only please some of the people some of the time". What more do you want?

Now if they start just copy pasting the same thing every time someone thinks they are the first one to mention something you will have the backlash of "its just a copy pasted response! they dont take the time to even leave a personal message. they don't care about the community!". How much spoonfeeding do devs need to do? I remember during the beta they had bold large letters about a "read this before participating in the beta" that had download links and what the beta was testing. yet daily there would be threads upon threads looking for a download or confused about the point of the beta or asking what they needed to be testing.

I can see the frustration on both sides, but I do think a little more effort on the person seeking the information needs to be done. If there was a bit more of this, there would be fewer junk threads crowding out more interesting and legit threads leaving it easier to find the info you are looking for in the first place.

I love the link in the OP and think it is a very good explanation of why communication is what it is and it can easily be summed up in this quote from the article

The sad reality though is that while communication between developers and players can change and improve, until there's a shift in human behavior on the internet, it will never happen.

Just my 2gil.

[Khalette]

There can be teasers without communication, such as videos (a method done by NCsoft, who I hate, butthis is tthe one thing they did right).

People get caught up in words, I find. For example, the transfer announcement came out and instead of being happy about the service, the fact its free for 5 days, or we have details on the service -- people started complaining about how its done.

I was happy to hear the announcement and I enjoy the way SE reps speak (they are so humble). I hope they stick with communication. Its such a nice change.

[XNihili]

Some people are saying that customers are kings, they are entitled to things because they pay top dollars. Right.
Am I allowed to slap some Mc Donald clerks because I did pay for the french fries ?

[Borland]

Some people are saying that customers are kings, they are entitled to things because they pay top dollars. Right.
Am I allowed to slap some Mc Donald clerks because I did pay for the french fries ?

Of course not. That would be totally inappropriate even if the french fries weren't cooked.

Now if you wanted to complain to the manager to complain about the service and uncooked food, then that would be appropriate.

Also you can easily talk to the people that run businesses and mention problems like this without it seeming like a problem to most. Many even like it if you point out something obviously wrong. Like in a grocery store it would seem kinda bad if someone was sleeping at work and you could mention it to a manager and likely have them be glad to know. You can even suggest to the manager about carrying certain items like bean sprouts and many end up starting to order certain foods solely because someone mentioned they'd like it in the store.

[IMStarbuck]

This kind of outdated thinking have to stop. MMO is a business, do you see any business can continue to proceed without proper communication with the customer?
Look at this Path of Exile's reddit post (redirect to their official forum)
http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/...ff_is_awesome/

The staff do a funny reply to a troll post. To some, it's insulting the customer, but to me, it just awesome. Maybe the developer is angry and it show in his reply but hey, at least we all get a feedback from developer.
Ignoring the customer only work for awhile, and eventually, the discontent will grow and player will leave. Then the game start dying down and this kind of communication coordinator will look for new job.

[Sixmp]

I trust SE they have earned my trust with years of quality games. While i may have not liked every game, each one of the games has been a quality product.
When i played FFXI for well over 9000 hours, i had my complaints and things that made me pull my hair out, i also had things i really liked. The point is, it is just a matter of taste for many things, bugs get prioritized on how many people it is effecting.
SE use common sense, they have the numbers to make intelligent choices. I trust them to do what is right. I just hope the game turns into something i will continue to like.

People on the forums however, it is all opinion be it their own or one passed on from another person. We don't have figures, we only have our experiences and the experiences of the small percentage of people who talk on various forums and the people we know in game. Yet people carry on like they know what is right for the game. forum users know what is more important to them, not what is right for the majority.