Thread: Replies from the dev to the threads

Greetings, Turbine

I'm so glad that I have been able to have fun in the world you made, Middle-Earth, for 3 years. To be honest, I do have many suggestions, but I always hesitate to write them on this forum because I wonder how much attention you pay for the threads.
Why do you not write your opinion about the threads anywhere? In my opinion, you should tell the players how you think about the suggestions and what you are going to about them if a thread gets many replies: 50+ replies, or 100+ replies.
At least, you can tell us if you're going to make the change or not in the near future.

I say this because I'm not a native English speaker, and it takes me a lot of time to write a text. So I don't want to spend time posting my suggestions for nothing. I believe there are many people thinking in the same way.

Only if the thread gets like 50+ or 100+ replies...
Please tell us YOUR voice!

I agree with you except for the +50 rule...
That the suggestion forum gets no feedback at all is not very motivating especially for those who have a lot of ideas like me.
If at all i would post my suggestion in the german forum but I assume they dont put any ressources of their translating staff into scouting for new/good ideas there.

Some thoughts:

1) Every post gets read. Development will see our feedback. I often done the development summary as a software developer where the suggestions have the nasty removed. Distill the comments into one line description of the problem. Proposed solutions are typically deleted.

2) Developers are busy people. They are busy changing software. Every minute they spend on the forum is more play time for a BUG. Or a feature is not going finished.

3) I don't know about Turbine time allocation for developers. For where I work, most developers only get one hour a week to review the summary. They are welcome to read forums and respond. It has to be done on their own time.

4) Developers do not make decisions on accepting a suggestion. Or scheduling. There is no possibility of providing any useful information. The people that make these decisions do not talk to us.

5) Often when management talks about schedule, they do not understand the technical complexities. Management will say, mounted combat is coming in 2011 before Rise of Isengard. It is scheduled to arrive 15-18 months later as part of the Riders of Rohan expansion.

6) Management is very good at getting an Update out on time. In order to get Rise of Isengard (or any other update) out on time, management tunes the work load as construction continues. You go thru the:

a) Management - Yula you are not packing and loading fast enough to get everything on the shuttle bus in time.
b) Yula - Yeah I know. I have too much stuff to pack.
c) Management - Grabs some stuff - Pushes this stuff into the corner.
d) Management - Keep working on what is left Yula.
e) Repeat a-d until it is time for the shuttle bus leave

You really do not know in this situation, what is actually on the shuttle bus until the doors close. The driver heads out. That is not a lot of lead time. Probably the time between deployment to Bullroarer and live - a month?

7) Do you really want a Turbine employee to post an unhelpful response. It is good idea. It will now join 18,538 other suggestions in the job jar. Estimated time to complete all good suggestions is now 27 years. Ideas are cheap. You always thousands of ideas and no workers bees available.

Summary, Could Turbine do more? Sure. A many companies do. It is typically not done by development. It is part of the public relations, customer service, sales and marketing organizations. Turbine corporate management has to decide to allocate dollars for specific positions to do this job.

Our development organization has a couple of embeds for this functionality. They have offices in the development area. They are not part of development. There is some tension between the embeds and the development worker bees. A lot of development management does not want us causing trouble by talking to them. We have the concept of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The embeds are only allowed to talk to the SMEs.

It is up to the SME to bring other developers into the discussion. Or if it looks like it going to cause upset - get a development supervisor to talk to the embed. It is common to have the embed with or without advisers at one end of a conference table. The other end is a development supervisor, manager or director with a little flock of advisers. The embed will ask a question. The director will respond. Or the director will huddle with her advisers. The director responds. It works this way:

A) Embed - Asks question.
B) Director - huddle and discuss
C) Director - Development's position is
D) Embed - huddle and discuss
E) Repeat A-D until we are done.

Conference calls you mute the connection. You sit watching the red LED waiting for it to go green.

Originally Posted by Schinderhannes

If at all i would post my suggestion in the german forum but I assume they dont put any ressources of their translating staff into scouting for new/good ideas there.

This situation is going to be a real problem. Turbine probably does not have many developers that can read German. Same issue with their full time community relations people. It really depends on the Mithril Guards translating everything in English summaries.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Ideas are cheap. You always thousands of ideas and no workers bees available.

This won't surprise Yula, but writers have the exact same problem. Ideas a really cheap. Getting words on paper...not cheap. The fastest way to generate uproarious laughter on usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.composition is to post, "I have a great idea for a novel. I'm looking for a writer to write the book. I'll split the proceeds 50-50."

The follow up posts will point out that (a) all writers have more good ideas than they know what to do with, (b) the idea is the cheap part, which leads to (c) the appropriate split would be 99.9:0.1 in favor of the writer.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by whheydt

This won't surprise Yula, but writers have the exact same problem. Ideas a really cheap. Getting words on paper...not cheap. The fastest way to generate uproarious laughter on usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.composition is to post, "I have a great idea for a novel. I'm looking for a writer to write the book. I'll split the proceeds 50-50."

The follow up posts will point out that (a) all writers have more good ideas than they know what to do with, (b) the idea is the cheap part, which leads to (c) the appropriate split would be 99.9:0.1 in favor of the writer.

Yes. Or as I once posted on rasf.c, deliberately misquoting Robert A. Heinlein:

"The value of yet one more idea in a writer's life is approximately that of yet one more kitten on a Missouri farm."

Thanks for the insider informations!

Thanks for all the replies, especially, to Yula and Schinderhannes.
I learned many things from them

So, I don't say Turbine needs to have feedbacks for all of the posts. Only to a few popular suggestions.
They shouldn't keep sending no single reply forever. It is just like how parents treat their kindergarten kids -- decide everything without saying anything
We want to know if they still keep our ideas in mind, and we want to do a bit discussion, because we want some short explains.

So, how about placing "Signed" button on the threads on suggestion forums? Only subscribed users or VIP users can click them for once, and what Turbine does is, once a month, answer to the 5 threads which got the most signs in that month.

Edit:
Oh.... And yes, I hope Turbine do something to prepare for that feedback system just like Yula said.

Originally Posted by Fingoras

So, how about placing "Signed" button on the threads on suggestion forums? Only subscribed users or VIP users can click them for once, and what Turbine does is, once a month, answer to the 5 threads which got the most signs in that month.

When the devs do reply, I would much rather have their reply be their own words, written by their own choice, not a forced reply just because too many people clicked the like/upvote/retweet button.

With that aside, let's imagine this plan in action. A thread gets enough signatures, and a dev pops in to answer.

If the dev says "this is on our to-do list", people will interpret that as 'it's going in the next update', and complain after every server reboot. When the feature makes it in five years later, most people won't even remember the original thread.

If the dev says "we don't have the tech to do this right now", people will reply with their own ideas about how the servers work, and how the dev obviously knows nothing about the system they created. (For a real life example, read the Armor Stands thread: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?209881)

If the dev says "we have no plans to implement this", there are many of the same problems as above, but with an implied promise that it will likely never happen, regardless of tech upgrades. A few suggestions already fall under this category, but only after many rounds of flame wars (eagle mounts). If they later change their mind and add the idea anyway, they have to face complaints from those who remember the old thread (in-game store, store-bought armor, etc).

For Turbine to implement something, it has to benefit the company in some way. In this case, a forced-reply doesn't add much for the company, and can potentially turn in to a PR nightmare if someone "misinterprets" what was said.

Dont forget they do this to get your money.
They are not interested in you personaly.
And devs as creative persons dont care what you think if you dont share there vision.
Thats the reason devs dont like to post on forums or to get in touch with actual players in general.

Originally Posted by bastardoGrande

Thats the reason devs dont like to post on forums or to get in touch with actual players in general.

Actually, I think it has far more to do with the fact that too many people in online forums are immature, antagonistic, or just plain jerks. It just doesn't take too much of that type of exposure before most people will decide they're rather not be a "public persona" for the company they work for. This is even more true once many developers realize that they can get all the feedback they really need to do their jobs from their NDA forums and testers - a place where you're required to be civil (even when being critical) if you want to stay in the program.

Critics are a dime a dozen, and they can find plenty who are capable of being constructive, civil, and articulate. Why bother with most of the ones who aren't any of the above? I certainly wouldn't if I had a choice.

Khafar

I really can't see any of them posting because the forum members will pick apart every word they say and accuse them of lying if the situation changes in the future.

Not just devs either, people here still post quotes from Patience even though she has been gone for some time.

There are just too many mean and cruel forum members to deal with.

Originally Posted by Nymphonic

I really can't see any of them posting because the forum members will pick apart every word they say and accuse them of lying if the situation changes in the future.

Not just devs either, people here still post quotes from Patience even though she has been gone for some time.

There are just too many mean and cruel forum members to deal with.

I'm sorry but you can't blame people for quoting Turbine employees. After all, they represent(ed) the company and should be held accountable for what they say.

If the "Convenience not advantage" (Patience) and/or "LIs that grow with you" (Steefel) slogans are not applicable anymore since they don't represent the company no longer, then have the current representatives clarify it.

But you can't blame costumers for quoting what was said by the company or their paid employees.

Originally Posted by djheydt

"The value of yet one more idea in a writer's life is approximately that of yet one more kitten on a Missouri farm."

Bollocks -- the kitten is actually useful

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

I'm sorry but you can't blame people for quoting Turbine employees. After all, they represent(ed) the company and should be held accountable for what they say.

OK, but people complain endlessly that they're not told anything, and this is why: every utterance is treated like it's holy writ carved in granite. If they "clarify", half the people get up in arms because something changed, and the rest treat the new utterance as if it's holy writ carved in granite.

As a result, what they do say winds up having so many disclaimers and weasel words, such vague phrasing, that you cannot really tell what it means. Most developers (who tend to be more blunt) will just bow out altogether instead of walking through that mine field.

I wish it were different, on both sides. But we wind up with this sort of nonsense from our politicians too, and for many of the same reasons. If my company came to me and told me that I had to post on official public forums as a regular part of my job from now on... I'd start sending out my resume to other companies that afternoon. Dental surgery would be more fun, in my opinion.

Khafar

Originally Posted by Khafar

OK, but people complain endlessly that they're not told anything, and this is why: every utterance is treated like it's holy writ carved in granite. If they "clarify", half the people get up in arms because something changed, and the rest treat the new utterance as if it's holy writ carved in granite.

As a result, what they do say winds up having so many disclaimers and weasel words, such vague phrasing, that you cannot really tell what it means. Most developers (who tend to be more blunt) will just bow out altogether instead of walking through that mine field.

I wish it were different, on both sides. But we wind up with this sort of nonsense from our politicians too, and for many of the same reasons. If my company came to me and told me that I had to post on official public forums as a regular part of my job from now on... I'd start sending out my resume to other companies that afternoon. Dental surgery would be more fun, in my opinion.

Khafar

Alas, too true.

As whh puts it, "Garbage in, gospel out."

And + rep, since the system relented and let me do it.

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

But you can't blame costumers for quoting what was said by the company or their paid employees.

No, you can't, which is one very good reason for the lack of communication: if you don't say anything, nothing can be held against you.

Quite frankly, I agree with Khafar: irresponsible, unreasonable player attitudes have a LOT to do with why MMO developers tend to be less talkative.

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

I'm sorry but you can't blame people for quoting Turbine employees. After all, they represent(ed) the company and should be held accountable for what they say.

You do not write anything then there is no possibility of their written word being used to beat them or the company over the head. This is as strong incentive to sit on your hands.

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

If the "Convenience not advantage" (Patience) and/or "LIs that grow with you" (Steefel) slogans are not applicable anymore since they don't represent the company no longer, then have the current representatives clarify it.

This best solution would have been to not have written anything. Attempting to write something to undo the these two mistakes, results in a Yula family situation.

Ms Yula "Keep Talking Bunny. You are digging that hole you are in deeper."

The solution to Patience's statement is to delete it from Turbine's web servers. It no longer exists. There is no need to comment on that which does not exist.

There is little to no benefit to posting on the forums. There is a lot of down side risk. I never respond to public forums as a corporate speaker. That is why we have Public Relations staff. It is real easy for the Yula types to upset the animals.

I only respond to private forums where everybody is under a Non Disclosure Agreement. Most of the people are official representatives of the corporations that are our customers. Their employer would punish them if they broke the NDA or were nasty enough to be removed from the program by our company.

The worst situation I remember was years ago, where a couple of customer representatives for a big account came on site. They started screaming, yelling and cursing at our development staff including me. They were escorted off site by security. We called the company send some better behaved people. These jerks became "persona non grata". In business environment that means they can't enter any of our facilities. No company employee will communicate with them. Their employer had to transfer them internally. I sometimes wonder what impact being ejected had on their annual review. There is no way acceptable to get that information.

I actually had a person come across a table after me before to choke me. Honestly, I wasn't deliberately poking the wild animal to see how far I could push em. I've seen it happen more that once though. I remember two coworkers rolling around on the floor kicking, screaming and wrestling.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

I actually had a person come across a table after me before to choke me. Honestly, I wasn't deliberately poking the wild animal to see how far I could push em.

Bunny, does software development require hazard pay?


OFF TOPIC: Good Grief, I honestly and truly hate these new emoticons. I can't stand them.

It's never just one side's fault.

Both players use and abuse the system and devs/company representatives could do a much better job.

I'm totally against blaming the devs for not communicating more. But you can't just turn and blame the players for their behavior. My point stands: things were said BY company representatives. The company is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment.

Respondeat superior. Does it ring the bell?

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

It's never just one side's fault.

Both players use and abuse the system and devs/company representatives could do a much better job.

I'm totally against blaming the devs for not communicating more. But you can't just turn and blame the players for their behavior. My point stands: things were said BY company representatives. The company is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment.

Respondeat superior. Does it ring the bell?

Ok, I have to agree with this, especially with it never being just one side's fault. Very true.

Originally Posted by Nymphonic

Bunny, does software development require hazard pay?

Sometimes it does. I've never known it to be paid for having to deal with potentially angry customers or your peers. We have paid developers extra including me when:

1) There is possibility of mayhem to humans if the software fails. Typically this occurs in control software. I got an opportunity to ride shotgun in a car with test driver. I had my labtop connected to the car computer. I remember a conversation along this line:

a) Driver - Are you sure this custom hardware and software will work?

b) Bunny - No. That the entire purpose of this test.

c) Driver - Your stuff messes up. It could get very ugly.

d) Bunny - We are both going to be in that car. I willing to risk injury and or death via a driving error on your part. Are you willing to risk injury or death due to a hardware or software engineering error on my part?

e) Driver - Lets get Yula into a suit. We got a test drive to do.

It is a mixed bag. You find development folks being required for navy especially submarine work, tanks, some car, train, commercial plane to be in the vehicle or close to it.

They don't put engineers in military planes or rockets for test flights.

2) There are field work situations where it is not safe. You might be looking into issues with equipment there are hostiles in the area.

a) We sent a software engineer to oversee a communication system upgrade in Latin America. The system was buried underground with a locked armored hatch. There was concern that we might get attacked. With the possibility of something like a hand grenade being tossed down that hatch. Grenades in closed spaces. Very bad for people and equipment.

b) Another case was repairing a satellite ground station. This was back when you had 10 meter dishes. The resistance had hit the horn - electronics in the center of the dish with a rocket. One of our engineers had to climb on that dish and run diagnostics to figure out what it was going to take to fix it. Yeah right. Climb up on a white dish. Very visible. Might attract a explosive device.

c) We had a case where a Line of Sight communication line existed. Each unit was on a rock using tight beams to talk the stations on either side. Solar powered. Camouflaged. The locals would tear them apart for salvage. There was no way to reach them from the ground. There was concern if a war broke out. They would become attacked. They had to be hidden from the air. When it was time for hardware and software upgrades. You came in via helicopter. Some of the locals would shoot at the copter.

I avoided all three of these fun trips. Unlike some of the staff, I was very familiar with the countries and areas these assignments were. I did go on the Alaska tour with a bush pilot. Landing on grass strips. In places where there is no maintenance and refueling.

The pay was really good for a - c. We got 500 dollars a day over our regular and overtime pay for hazard and hassle factor. They were paying this kind of dollars back in the 80s and 90s. You didn't have any expenses. It was hard work. Long days 8 am to 10 pm 7 days a week. Nothing to do when you were off.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Sometimes it does. I've never known it to be paid for having to deal with potentially angry customers or your peers. We have paid developers extra including me when:

[long list of really "fun" anecdotes elided...go back up and read 'em. --whh]

In the 1950s my father worked on a civilian contract with the USAF on electronics in B-52s. The Air Force would use fake door-to-door insurance salesmen to check for security leaks from spouses & families. Conversations with my mother would go something like...

"Agent": What does your husband do?

Mrs. Heydt: he works for the Air Force.

"Agent": Does he fly?

Mrs. Heydt: Only when there's something wrong with the plane.

Real insurance agents tended to make fast excuses and leave at that point... In point of fact, my father didn't fly on Air Force planes and refused to fly on commercial aircraft. As he put it...he knew of too many things that could go wrong.

Between assignments at one point he was at his employers main office for a couple of months. The company had gotten a sub-contract to design an antenna for the Apollo space program. All the engineers were delighted because they got to design an antenna that didn't have to take wind resistance into account. This lasted until my father pointed out that the antenna was going to be in the direct exhaust path of one of the attitude jets...

(My own anecdotes are much tamer than Yula's, though they do include the time there was an explosive concentration of natural gas in a mainframe computer room, or the time we had a computer room flooded...on the 13th floor.)

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by RicardoFurriel

The company is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment

But, not necessarily to the player base.

I've had devs post in some of my topics. They do read them if it catches their eye.

There is a huge difference between giving helpful advise and suggestions and being rude. Unfortunatly, 1% of our population makes 99% of us look lrude. We are customers with valued opinions; we are not the chairman of the board.

In our small cafe I listen to customers with reasonable suggestions and nod at the rest. Yes, I agree that the corned beef needs some more seasoning and I will even try some of the suggestions. No, I don't think purchasing the corned beef from a local famous deli at $14+ a pound would be in my best interest.

Talk to me on a friendly basis and I will respond in kind. Trashing my employee, operation, menu and the like when we are quite successful with a great following of customers? That won't fly. That makes you part of the 1% that I tell to have a great day and ignore.

Telling me that the deli is so much better because they have 20 employees and make corned beef better than I do makes little sense because it's an item on my menu, not a specialty of my store. Obviously I can't reasonably, at my level compete with that because of budget constraints.

Telling me that a cafe needs to add Taco Bell or Pizza Hut items to the menu because they are successful at that does not help me at all. They don't sell gourmet espresso, latte, cappuccinos and the like. There must be a reason for that!

Telling me I am a total fail because the sandwich is not perfect is wrong. Tell me what you don't like and suggest how I can fix it and I will do my best to do so. Telling me the meal should be free because I forgot the pickles is not reasonable either. I might throw in a small perk or discount, but no, I can't operate for free.

Don't tell me what my meal deal package should include. I priced it out to be a discount for you and a profit for me. I know what the items cost me. The fresh brewed iced tea and fresh squeezed lemonade cost far less than the Peak Tea, even though as a premium item, I charge the same. The competition knows what it costs them to operate and item costs, so do I.

I don't sell deep fried goods because an additional hood for a fryer would cost in excess of $15,000. I'm not stupid for not having the fryer, it's simply not cost effective for me.

Yes, I based my response on my cafe, a business. That's exactly what Turbine is, a business.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

This situation is going to be a real problem. Turbine probably does not have many developers that can read German. Same issue with their full time community relations people. It really depends on the Mithril Guards translating everything in English summaries.

Not entirely accurate. We do have full time fluent staff. We see a great deal more than people think.

Also, as a general rule, suggestion threads do not recieve replies. We read them and we've implemented a very great many of them over the years and will continue to do so in the future.