Developer lack of communication

[Felis]

Oh but the Dev's dont communicate..
Nope I dont see anything...
/facepalm

I swear sometimes they have to get hit with it, in the face, with a wrecking ball...

Someone could say that Zhexos is not a dev, but a forum rep.
So, let write more pages into this thread until a dev write something in japanese ^^

[Altena]

This thread is entirely nonsensical.

So many other games would just give you a CGI trailer, maybe some in-game footage and that would be it.
Stuff like skill potencies and rotations wouldn't even be touched.

Be thankful that you know the rough idea of what a good portion of the skills do, and what the general mechanics are about.
There is inevitably going to be some rebalancing through the first couple of patches, and if WHM is really in such a sorry state - it will get looked at after release when everyone has had the chance to play the "final" version of the revamp on the 16th.

You watched the letter with the understanding that potencies and skills aren't final and will likely be adjusted between when they were released and launch.

[Jetstream_Fox]

This thread is entirely nonsensical.

So many other games would just give you a CGI trailer, maybe some in-game footage and that would be it.

And a few of those games get sued or get tons of bad media coverage. Alien Colonial Marines was one in particular that got sued because what they showed off wasn't anything in the game, both the recent Call of Duty and Battlefield 1 had some scrutiny, though BF1 sold well there was still people mad at the fact nothing in the trailer was game footage. Halo 5 was another one, showing constant trailers of Master Chief and Locke doing battle, but they never fight except I've brief moment toward the end of the game. Want other ones? The Division, Watch Dogs, and Ghost Recon, coincidentally all big Ubisoft games have had tons of backlash for showing off different builds of games or not using any footage at all.

You can't blame people for getting sick of game development companies doing this, it's not ok for a company to show you a game engine trailer and then the entire game isn't even close to that level. If many other types of professionals from doctors to mechanics, sold people on false pretenses, everyone would be up in arms. So why do game devs get a pass?

[Felis]

snip

Then people should only watch the "Revolution" musicvideo. All what the video show will be in the game for sure.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Then people should only watch the "Revolution" musicvideo. All what the video show will be in the game for sure.

Revolutions would serve as a great game trailer. Even better than the reveal trailer, since it used actual in game footage, the Revolutions trailer is likely the most accurate look at the game. But why was a trailer promoting a song, using more up to date game footage, but a key video depicting very important job changes, allowed to use old builds portraying as new?

[Altena]

snip

There is an advertisement out at the moment for the new Hyundai i30.
It shows the car falling from a ridiculous height (like a comet) and smashing into the ground and driving away.
You think that car can actually do that?


It's marketing.

I mean the CGI Stormblood trailer isn't in the game. Not even as a CGI cutscene.
The devs stated over and over that the content was "still in development and subject to change". It "wasn't final".
Last minute balancing and adjustments are bound to happen.

What we have been shown was content from April. They were previewing what they had back then, for a game that was still in development.
All of the content was subject to change, and that was announced a hundred times.

Would you rather they showed us nothing? Or some cheesy action-trailer showing us a character with a hidden UI running around the new zones?

Be thankful you have as much information about the battle system changes as you do. It's not false advertising.

[Welsper59]

And a few of those games get sued or get tons of bad media coverage. Alien Colonial Marines was one in particular that got sued because what they showed off wasn't anything in the game, both the recent Call of Duty and Battlefield 1 had some scrutiny, though BF1 sold well there was still people mad at the fact nothing in the trailer was game footage. Halo 5 was another one, showing constant trailers of Master Chief and Locke doing battle, but they never fight except I've brief moment toward the end of the game. Want other ones? The Division, Watch Dogs, and Ghost Recon, coincidentally all big Ubisoft games have had tons of backlash for showing off different builds of games or not using any footage at all.

You can't blame people for getting sick of game development companies doing this, it's not ok for a company to show you a game engine trailer and then the entire game isn't even close to that level. If many other types of professionals from doctors to mechanics, sold people on false pretenses, everyone would be up in arms. So why do game devs get a pass?

Because the games that deserved actual backlash (to the extent that the legal system became directly involved) was relevant to the product itself. I noted this earlier in this thread, but A:CM was a different and clearly substandard game at its core compared to the demo. Nearly everything about what made the demo appealing did not make it to the final product. The demo showed Xenomorph AI actually react to the situation, instead of blindly charging forward. It showed great level experience that weren't in the game and graphic quality that stood above and beyond expectation. Add to that Randy Pitchford's false commentary through interviews and making-of promotions that used the demo, rather than anything akin to the final. Everything that would make a modern game appealing. Sadly, they even went to the extent of hiding the fact they outsourced nearly all of the game, despite claims through those interviews/promotions that they were implying it was developed in-house.

The situation here is absolutely nothing like that. What we have here is the equivalent of a gun in Halo not functioning exactly as we'd see in a demo. That's all. That's why the devs here get a pass. People making comparisons between those games and what is happening here is ridiculous and evident of folks who are 1) making a big deal out of what is essentially nothing and 2) failing at understanding the situation. Part of said failure being their lack of remembering that this is an MMORPG. Nearly everything about the gameplay (besides the genre itself) is subject to change for better or worse.

Edit: For clarification, my mention of "nothing" there is referring to severity, rather than discontent. Express concern and all that, but people should learn to not treat it like some kind of crime against humanity. This game, like many others in the MMORPG genre, are known to adjust things or make changes... in case anyone forgot.

[Noata]

There's literally a giant post right on the front page of MMO-champ with a blizzard dev having a conversation with the elemental shaman community about what they feel is wrong with the spec and what Blizz is doing to tweak it. There's a large amount of notes not far under it regarding upcoming raid design and changes being made to it.

I wonder if there's a class community in 14 that could really benefit from a dev speaking to them about their distressing changes right now? Hmm.

I am going to clarify a few things, and MisterLucie I am just quoting you to provide context to my response.
FFXIV has live letters, with Yoshi-P and that is something far more relevant than a single developer, and he does it way more often. SE has both written and live responses to the community all the time, I honestly don't think you can compare Blizzard to SE because they are not nearly as interactive. SE also goes all over the place for the fan festival, listening and communicating with the playerbase.

For those that don't know, when you create a PV or in this case a Preview of the game to be presented you have a team that puts it together in conjunction with development. They were never going to have the latest version, and the warning that things are subject to change is simply because when they bundled it up back in April they had no way of knowing how much would change. The game was essentially a closed beta at that point, no one should expect every aspect to be done.

It is understandable to be emotional, but before you go on a mission to burn the world to ash, it would be helpful to analyze what you are truly mad about. I saw youtube videos on every class, minus black mage and there was plenty of complaints about white mage, but they also mentioned... well everything is subject to change and no values are permanent. It is also hard to say at what stage when they bundled up the game for the preview that the white mage even was in completion. They had more then a month to finish up classes and their are a lot, some were going to be further along then others.

Lastly unlike Blizard the dev's have a language barrier, They can't just read what you say, or even respond to you efficiently. How many people can scroll over to the Japanese forums, read their posts, and then respond to them? Let alone be a developer for the game in question where mistranslated become Lies. Watch, Listen, Think, Feel

This is of course... just my opinion so feel free to scroll to the next post ^_^

[Moonlite]

Oh but the Dev's dont communicate..
Nope I dont see anything...
/facepalm

I swear sometimes they have to get hit with it, in the face, with a wrecking ball...

I am saving this for when the next housing fiasco gets ignored on the forums so I can link back to how awesome communication is. Also maybe for the next Diadem because that has been pure gold so far. Or maybe when the bots are rampant in N than leveling rdm/sam to 70 and that gets ignored.

It is easy to say they communicate. Any little info or gesture can count.

[Belhi]

Really that is what you take away from the live letters and community management? You know how many times questions get ignored because they don't want to answer them. Or when they implement major systems and put little fore thought into how the community is going to play it and having someone who can respond.They can plan to hang out in Germany/UK/US but can't have a dev and translator when new content goes live. I don't mean a patch with two dungeons and some clicking on npcs.

Hunts and the pure server melting system they were at launch. No one could have fore seen it and been ready to respond? Housing and reclamation? Diadem v2 was slightly faster. But I chalk that up to timing/luck, not them planning and responding.

Would you prefer a developer to be adjusting content due to feedback from the CMs or would you prefer them to be talking on forums (slowly since they don't actually read English and there are 3 different forums they would have to read)? Even then they wouldn't be able to give any definitive promises or assurances till they looked at what they could adjust. Then there is the fact that the official forums are actually a pretty small part of the player base and their draw feedback from multiple other sources. Lets not forget that often feedback can be contradictory or unfocused.

I say they pay attention to feedback because Yoshi P has referenced conversations on the official forums several times during interviews and Live letters meaning the CMs are doing their job. The CMs are the communication point for players, particularly in English speaking countries since the devs aren't native English speakers, and I would prefer if they mainly get involved in discussions when they have some solid information to contribute rather than just popping in to give vague assurances which won't satisfy anyone or people will take as ironclad promises that they clearly aren't. Development teams need to be extremely careful what they say because players almost always take anything said as a promise or a guarantee. If Yoshi said 'We might look at a glamour system' you would have people posting a couple of months later complaining that Yoshi P promised a glamour system and that the dev teams break their promises.

Alterations are generally slow because any change they make requires a lot of checks to make sure it doesn't break anything else. MMOs are extremely complex games technically speaking and one small change can throw a lot of other things out of whack. You don't do sudden turns with an MMO without risking breaking things and making the situation worse. They address stuff but they take the time to make sure what they are addressing and consider how to and how they can address it.

It is easy to say they communicate. Any little info or gesture can count.

I wonder how many 'we are looking at the issues' you would get before you started say they need to stop saying they will do something and do something. that is usually what happens with little gestures.