Fucking idiots

This post actually comes after the one above, but I used the time warp to shift the priority.

To begin with a quote from a funny piece written by Jeff Freeman that was linked pretty much everywhere and that I now use for my own purposes:

This was a rather perverse aspect of the system. People complained about it constantly on internet forums, accused the developers of a having fairly peculiar if not downright twisted outlook on life to have implemented the system this way. If the devs had any sort of official website beyond 'Billing & Tech issues', Jack might have posted complaints about it there himself. But the devs never talked to anyone, and only a 3rd party company handled that bare minimum level of support.

Then a recent quote from WoW community managers:

Occasionally, you might see a developer relay information, but typically if they have something they wish to share, it's done through us. I'm sorry that this method of communication is unsatisfactory, however, I can assure you that it is done this way for several reasons. In addition to many of those reasons please be aware that having members of the development team post on the boards regularly would only result in a loss of time that they could be working on more important projects necessary for World of Warcraft's continued growth.

I don't know why but posts like this one put me on rage. What a fucking idiot. I can accept the fact that these points are always brought up by random fucktards on the boards along the even more popular "it's just beta", but here it's about the community managers themselves and I really wonder how they can expect to feed us that SHIT.

I have already explained my stance on the relationship between devs and the community, so lets just take the evidence of what is happening recently, because it's all strictly tied together.

Mythic just trashed two *years* of development by cancelling (postponing or whatever) Imperator and months of work by removing a complete expansion from DAoC. To an extent because they decided to isolate themselves from critiques and a positive confrontation.

Now. Who is wasting time? (aside me, of course)

misunderstanding?

I hope I'm not understanding what you're saying about the Wow post. Are you suggesting that developers should spend more time on the forums (We all know that game forums contain only kernals of value mixed in with all of the garbage), "communicating" with the players (Only a small portion of the players actually participate in the forums...you know this), and less time acually developing? When was the last time you needed customer support for any product and spoke directly with the person on the assembly line, or even in the engineering department?

Now, MMORPG companies tend to be liars or idiots (usually the management), so it needs to be taken with a grain of salt when a company claims they are facilitating player to dev communication through a community manager. What isn't taken into consideration by players (customers), is that those participating in forums are a vocal minority.

I don't mean to antagonize, but expecting direct dev to player communication may not be such a good idea.

Abandonded Forums, DUH!

Have you never seen a well run board? MMOG forums are dismal because nobody makes any serious effort to moderate them. Unfortunately, that would require hiring competent professionals, which would ( OH NO! ... GASP ) cost the company extra money.

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