Your prayers are not answered!

[Sheri]

glad this had been brought up. I wish for the English forums to be more of a balanced organised place. not sure if a new strategy like merging similar topics should be implemented?

personally I get intimidated to share feedback and I hope I don't get flamed by this.

The forums should be a place for players to communicate together nicely and give feedback to developers. As a player, I find it difficult to keep up with threads and when I do, I try to make sense of things and then...many times it ends to be a commotion of something that had been misinterpreted/ doesn't exist & the problem is it's a bigger crowd than yourself so there's no point in trying to clear the confusion. so I wouldn't be surprised if players ideas/ suggestions gets lost in between which is a total shame.

There are different ways to give feedback, I read a lot of the raging type, unfair judgment vs. constructive criticism. It's important to voice feedback like how you would like to receive it yourself. If the way is unacceptable to yourself, then it's unacceptable for others..

I have posted in the Japanese forums before, my experience was that my topic stayed in the first page for 1-2 weeks giving greater opportunity to be seen, while in the English forum it goes to 2nd-3rd page within seconds. Maybe we have a bigger population and isn't a definitive comparison. but no one can deny how it can contribute positively/negatively to the structure of the forum for both players and developers in terms of discussion, game feedback & receiving direct developers replies.

[Aldora]

Devs don't speak English. Only people that can communicate with English and other language forums are community reps. There are far more Japanese devs who don't speak English than there are community reps. Thus, the Japanese posts get more responses. That, and the community reps need to run everything by their superiors before they post/give out information. Devs have a lot more freedom.

Actually, Yoshida-san has been commenting on a handful topics in English. Normally, when a formal reply has to be given on the English, German, French, etc forums, they will leave it up to the Community Reps to translate it to the designated language. But, if he wants to show his sincere thanks to his fans, he tends to reply in English in person.

Even though it might just be as a reply to threads dedicated to celebrating his birthday or a successful release, he still does it in English.

Also, during the Gamescom as well as Live letters, he does pop up on one of the live servers, addressing the players in English. For instance:

Both Yoshida-san and Foxclon have a fairly good understanding of the English language. But, they do feel uneasy replying in English. (^_~ )

Yes, that's why we have community reps who are suppose to relay information between the community and developers, it's quite literally their job. God only knows why they have to keep a "It's not possible yet" under wraps til a Q&A Live Letter.. And while I'm definitely simplifying the process here, I'm sure it doesn't take too long to translate "Is it possible to make the Au Ra horns an option? - No, it's not possible yet, memory issues are maxed", neither am I aware why incredibly minor information like that needs approval that'd take months to go through. Heck iirc the person even made a thread on the Japanese forums and there was still no dev response.

And really they do relay the information to the Developers. It’s not a matter that they can’t translate the Japanese text to English swiftly, but the Community Reps do need to get the verification from the Japanese office that they are allowed to post the text they’ve translated.

I personally believe that the English Community Reps don’t really contact the Developers nor Yoshida directly. What i believe is that everything they read on the forum is being discussed with the Japanese Community Supervisor, which will collect all of the feedback from all regions and send it to the Developers after filtering out the ridiculous requests, demands and complaints.

The Supervisor will receive word from Yoshida-san as well as the Developers, which will be edited and spread throughout the different regions. They will then translate it their own language and post it on the forums.

On top of that, Yoshida-san or even the PR department of SE can decide to keep their lips sealed on specific subjects, because it might be too soon to make an announcement or that they simply don’t have a clear answer on the subject at hand (like technical issues or timeframes).

The players would probably say, “Well, if you don’t have an answer, why not say so?”. They could do that. But, as a paying customer, would you want to hear:

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have a definite answer to that question.”
“We are still working on it. Please stay tuned for more info / look forward to it!”
“We can’t tell you more about it right now, but please stay tuned / look forward to it!”
“Your inquiry has been sent to the developers. Stay tuned for more info / look forward to it!”

After a while, this will get old and people would still complain about the lack of information. Yes, it’s better than staying quiet, but they have to be careful not to overuse it. It’s up to SE to find the proper balance between the two. But, it’s also up to us to remain calm, keep an object view on things and be patient.

The Community Reps are reading the threads on the forums and they are aware of our feedback and requests. They will do what they can (at the best of their abilities) to relay this to the developers, while keeping us up to date with the latest developments.

[abzoluut]

You should also consider that it's a Japanese game, and there will be more Japanese responses due to both community reps and developers alike being able to communicate with less channels used.

Nope, the major part is our (NA/EU) forums are a huge mess. People feel the need to start their own thread because they think they can make a bigger impression where it really would help if one topic in one thread would be full of the same complaint.

Also, go take a look at the Japanese forums. People actually keep an eye on a thread and watch it develop. You can find a post on page 7 with 50 likes. On our forums people read the OP and the last page and reply.

I wish Yoshia would make a "git gud" comment about our forums, because we aren't worth a reply.

[Kaedan]

Actually, Yoshida-san has been commenting on a handful topics in English. Normally, when a formal reply has to be given on the English, German, French, etc forums, they will leave it up to the Community Reps to translate it to the designated language. But, if he wants to show his sincere thanks to his fans, he tends to reply in English in person.

Even though it might just be as a reply to threads dedicated to celebrating his birthday or a successful release, he still does it in English.

Also, during the Gamescom as well as Live letters, he does pop up on one of the live servers, addressing the players in English. For instance:

Well, Yoshi-P is the producer and one of two people involved in the project that actually speak some English, so that's pretty much a given that he would communicate now and again. But that's not what was being discussed. The OP was making an observation that the JP threads get more responses from devs (not Yoshi-P/Foxclon) and was whining that we don't get nearly as many responses. And we're explaining to him that the reason for that is because the devs don't speak English, or at least the ones that understand a little aren't confident enough to respond and post in English.

But you are right about the Community Reps. They're doing their job, even if they don't respond to every thread.

[FallenArisen0990]

Like 97% of the English Forums is just pointless aggression on how a JP game favors JP influence more

[MistyMew]

Nope, the major part is our (NA/EU) forums are a huge mess. People feel the need to start their own thread because they think they can make a bigger impression where it really would help if one topic in one thread would be full of the same complaint.

Also, go take a look at the Japanese forums. People actually keep an eye on a thread and watch it develop. You can find a post on page 7 with 50 likes. On our forums people read the OP and the last page and reply.

I wish Yoshia would make a "git gud" comment about our forums, because we aren't worth a reply.

Are not worth a reply?..how utterly wrong.

The forum moderators could easily clean up the forums...I could in about 15 min/day easy. Less once the initial catch up is over. ...whats so difficult?
To condense /close and redirect takes minutes.

Now we should know better we certainly could search topics more often and such, that is 100% correct, but its also easily dealt with in a few min by anyone with the authority to alter the forums.

Imo, we don't get enough acknowledgement ...I don't expect the dev. to do so..I agree with the language barrier it would be very awkward for them, but that is what our cms are for and if they are possibly not given information or replies to relay regarding NA concerns (which is totally possible)...then that IS the fault of dev. and should change. who knows...unless you work for se not one of us is qualified to answer that.

I certainly do not think our posts needs to be outright agreed or disagreed with, that's not our Cms job!!..but acknowledge they they are aware of the concerns, that they have read suggestions?..oh yes.

That is where wow is vastly lacking and is another factor that has hurt them.

English or Japanese is totally irrelevant. Customers are equal.

Their forums are possibly more condensed and organized because they actually DO get a reply...regardless!.They don't have to repeat and repeat...wonder or guess, they know! they get acknowledgement.

If posts are perceived as ignored then yes ppl WILL keep posting about topics whether it be their own thread or joining another..its guaranteed, of course ppl will continue to suggest if they haven't a clue that it has even been read. To think otherwise is just, naive. (Now again,I said acknowledge...not agree with us lol.)

Its only common sense and common courtesy to acknowledge what is said. There have been many many great suggestions on this forum, some have actually come into effect which is awesome :O)

Not every single post requires it,but there are few replies in NA forums, its almost..."wowish" in that regard, and that's a bit scary. Not saying its intentional either..just saying lol

There is not much worse then thinking ones opinion doesn't count or matter or worse...is being ignored...very little.

i think the cms here are pretty darn good, not knocking them in any way

I do think they read the players posts,...i do think that sometimes they relay information to the "higher ups" ......but my only gripe is that its just a guess ...a hope....a /fingerscrossed post based on faith that they will more then fact.

meh. ♥

[Kallera]

I think a problem is that in addition to the language barrier, people expect a reply after a certain number of posts or threads, even if its reduced to just two dunces bumping it repeatedly.

Add this to the desire to shoot down threads to further you own requests, and you have general discussion.

[Mimilu]

You should also consider that it's a Japanese game, and there will be more Japanese responses due to both community reps and developers alike being able to communicate with less channels used.

This.
Most Japanese developers focus on their Japanese audience first and foremost, with everyone else being secondary or collateral.

[Sapphic]

So the west is just americans. Noted.

You have the american union, Soviet state of america. Germerica, united america, and France :P

[Rafaelhades]

They have community reps for every language the game is available in. Don't fool yourselves into thinking they focus on the JP forums more because they're a Japanese company. The reason they don't bother with the NA forums is because it's filled with garbage threads. Nothing but whining and complaining and overall useless topics. Not to mention, some of them outright attack SE and the devs. Would you respond to a bunch of overly aggressive and self important people that would more than likely bite your head off and claim their ideas are better than have a calm and intelligent discussion if you were in the same shoes?