Believe it or not, devs are probably more frustrated by this problem than most of us. So how about show some support instead of shooting arrows at their knees.
That being said, @devs: if there is any way the players can provide data or any way to help out, please let us know. We are all very eager to help.
The real problem is lack of communication. Some communication would go a long way here. But according to my recent interaction with Gaile, communication occurs in terms of when it’s fixed = there was communication. In the meantime we wait to see if the fix occurs so we can see if communication happened or not. So people become upset and choose things like refunds or quite and never bother coming back to see if it was fixed. I don’t really approve of this form of communication. Granted I do appreciate the devs, especially Gaile and everything she does but I do not agree with how issues like this get handled.
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Believe it or not, devs are probably more frustrated by this problem than most of us. So how about show some support instead of shooting arrows at their knees.
I do belive. I think an answer from Anet would help here. Even if it will be something like: “Hey, sorry for keep you waiting. I guess the time we fix this will be in 2-3 weeks. Of course remmeber it can take a bit longer than that, beacouse problem is complicated”
It would be much better than complete silence.
I agree that waiting without knowing is frustrating.
But I don’t think it’s justified for people to blame dev for “not solving this problem soon enough”, or even saying “fix this kitten now or give my money back”. Like really?
Someone else already said this but people need to realize this: it ain’t easy debugging code, especially with a large system like GW2 and has got several revisions.
Communication to the player is a separate issue. And the following is my opinion:
- Efficiency
=> Is it efficient to ask devs to pause regularly and prepare reports to brief the players?
- Assuming dev has the time to brief other people, what kind of information can the dev share with the players?
=> Question of confidentiality and intellectual properties within the company
=> Do the players even need/want to know all the technical details about what tests they did, what they suspected to be the problem, etc
- Who should talk to the player?
=> Most likely there’s a lot of people working on different parts of the game (duh), so do they all talk about their own findings to the player?
=> What happens if they are wrong about what they suspected to be the problem? Is that even professional to give information without verifying?
- Etc
Of course, there are other considerations, such as competence, the maturity of the system they are developing on, structure within the company, and so on.
Other Comments:
Could ANet do better? Sure. One possibility I see is to have a spokesperson, an HR, or team lead, who deal with players.
Whether any of the suggestions is feasible for the structure within ANet dev team, I have not the faintest idea, so I’m not gonna pretend I know what’s best for them.
And even if the suggestion is good, who’s got the authority to install them in the company?
Conclusion:
- I believe talking to players is a HR job, and devs should not be responsible to do HR on a regular basis.
- I’m not saying the devs are saints and they are exempted from being questioned of the operation of the game, but I do ask those threatening to quit to think before they open their mouths. There are more things than most people realize that are not in the dev’s control."
- Again I must emphasize: customer relation is a different issue from development itself. I am not against people questioning ANet’s way of handling customer relation (in fact I support it), but if one knows little or nothing about development, they should shut it.
So this why I have to take all these godforsaken communication skill courses in my undergrad eng program… darn it.
