PC The Offtopic, A17 thread.
- Thread starter Royal Deluxe
- Start date
GenLeeKildenbattle
New member
Terminal Diseases confirmed for A17.
:strawberry: 
RavenGT
New member
The thing is, they're all customers and need a platform for their voice. It's not a bad thing that they are voicing their opinion and experience. Whether or not it's constructive on their part is another thing. Customers come in all forms and it's how you manage them that makes or breaks your PR.
SnowDog1942
Navezgane's Perv
I have to admit Roland does a damn good job managing people, even people like me.
RavenGT
New member
Yes, Roland and the other moderators do a very good job considering, as far as I know, they are not paid staff. Bear in mind that non-staff moderators can only go so far as to answering for others, and a reply from engaged staff will almost always outweigh that of an unpaid moderator. It goes to basic psychology at that point, but you will notice that threads that elicit replies from staff generally have a 'better outcome' than those where there's seemingly a shroud of mystery and absence. A lot of PR operations are hard to gauge quantitatively, but any good manager knows that even the angry customer who's being rude and belligerent is trying to communicate something to you. It's how you specifically manage those experiences that shows the quality of your PR plan. I could ramble on for days and won't even charge a fee (but seriously I need to fund my post-graduate degrees so if you WANT to pay me a consulting fee, I'd be happy to accept
).
RavenGT
New member
Think of it from a company's standpoint: Large companies spend HUGE amounts of money trying to get their customers to tell them a story or even pieces of their experience so that the company can better understand them. So in regards to that, TFP can gain some "free" market intelligence by paying attention to the voice of their customer and analyze what's being said and what, if anything, they should or could do about it. There's a lot more you can do with "I dislike x because it causes y and z. Maybe you could do a?" than "Your devs are stupid". However, again, there's still something causing that communication to take place and being keen to the temperature of your customer will reap large rewards for a company.
Merely telling people to essentially stop having an opinion and to clam up is not the best strategy for a company, a relationship, etc.
@ Alfonz,
Its nice that you finally decided to post. I think you are wrong. I have been part of this community now for a very long time. Each Alpha is a completely new game. I am getting near to 3000 hours of game time for this early access game that is still in alpha. By contrast AAA Civilization 6 or Fallout 4 (season pass too) cost way more money and got 10 times less play time. Now let us talk about how interactive the pimps are. If you are not a complete arsehat or doucheebahg (yes we must beat the spell check bots everytime) then they talk to you. They answer your questions. Just like God, they answer every prayer, sometimes the answer is no or like the magic 8 ball, sometimes it is try again later. Usually they answer off the cuff and then find out later that what they said was not completely accurate.
At this rate they are still more trustworthy than the main stream news who get major stories just plain wrong, fake being on site or live, use circular reporting to verify the lies they spew etc.
We were given a reason. It is a real reason why there is a delay. Suck it up buttercup, deal with it. Life is not a participation trophy for showing up. You do not get a ribbon. Life is hard, it sucks, you have to work for everything you get. If its worth it, it is worth the wait and the work.
Sorry about the rant but enough entitled crying has already happened. The steam forums, where I usually post are worse than here. Roland you have my sympathy and respect for the job you do.
Pimps, when it comes out I will be playing hard core yet again. Cannot wait to watch hundreds of hours of streaming of A 17, then getting to play experimental then when it finally ships. Breaking that game yet again, then playing the mods. Another 500-1000 hours of game time for my lousy $20. I have only one game in my entire pc gaming experience I have played more than this, Steel Panthers (and World at War adaptation to windows) a DOS game by Gary Grigsby who allowed its update for free by the community.
Good Luck All,
Whining and crying is acting entitled. You can say everything else you want to, before you start whining and crying but all I heard was the baby sounds.
Chris
Its nice that you finally decided to post. I think you are wrong. I have been part of this community now for a very long time. Each Alpha is a completely new game. I am getting near to 3000 hours of game time for this early access game that is still in alpha. By contrast AAA Civilization 6 or Fallout 4 (season pass too) cost way more money and got 10 times less play time. Now let us talk about how interactive the pimps are. If you are not a complete arsehat or doucheebahg (yes we must beat the spell check bots everytime) then they talk to you. They answer your questions. Just like God, they answer every prayer, sometimes the answer is no or like the magic 8 ball, sometimes it is try again later. Usually they answer off the cuff and then find out later that what they said was not completely accurate.
At this rate they are still more trustworthy than the main stream news who get major stories just plain wrong, fake being on site or live, use circular reporting to verify the lies they spew etc.
We were given a reason. It is a real reason why there is a delay. Suck it up buttercup, deal with it. Life is not a participation trophy for showing up. You do not get a ribbon. Life is hard, it sucks, you have to work for everything you get. If its worth it, it is worth the wait and the work.
Sorry about the rant but enough entitled crying has already happened. The steam forums, where I usually post are worse than here. Roland you have my sympathy and respect for the job you do.
Pimps, when it comes out I will be playing hard core yet again. Cannot wait to watch hundreds of hours of streaming of A 17, then getting to play experimental then when it finally ships. Breaking that game yet again, then playing the mods. Another 500-1000 hours of game time for my lousy $20. I have only one game in my entire pc gaming experience I have played more than this, Steel Panthers (and World at War adaptation to windows) a DOS game by Gary Grigsby who allowed its update for free by the community.
Good Luck All,
Whining and crying is acting entitled. You can say everything else you want to, before you start whining and crying but all I heard was the baby sounds.
Chris
i disagree. Taking away peoples voices is the worst thing. Putting those people in their place, for sure.
The self entitled will rage and rage and rage. Its what they do, they feel that they're owed something more than what they paid for. Ridicule or shutting them up is always better than preventing them from talking, thats a slippery slope and gets dangerous. Not Darkwing Duck Dangerous.
But I do agree that if its just going to be blatantly rude with no constructive criticism, why even post anything. It'll achieve anything.
Basically, people need to proof read what they feel that they need to say. Catch more bees with honey
Jedo
New member
I think this is where we disagree: I don't know any company that needs to hear from the gripers. Generally, they are the people for whom nothing is good enough, so their feedback doesn't provide anything measurable. When a more moderate person complains, you know that a problem might be emerging, and you can look into it.
I have worked in the fast food industry multiple times, and there were those regulars who would complain about anything. The management would cater to them, and it was just a waste of time. Their feedback was not useful (though I will admit that their money was seen as useful).
I never said "take away their voices," just that the forum and TFP would be better without them. I'm not into censorship, but I wouldn't mind utterly obliterating them with ridicule and shame such that they don't want to talk anymore. Sadly, the ones with mouths tend not to be affected by those things.
Roland
Moderator
The problem is not the griping. TFP WANTS to hear griping if it is things like:
"I hate the current progression arc because...."
"The current zombie horde maximum numbers suck because...."
"The lag and networking are making me rage quit and..."
"The water is like jello and doesn't flow and that breaks my immersion so..."
That is the type of griping that will help TFP.
The griping that doesn't help and that TFP doesn't look for or listen to and won't make a bit of difference and that these forums were not set for is....business management griping for their studio. Sorry guys. They conduct business the way they do it and they're not going to take your advice on it.
So gripe away and give advice and share ideas about how to make a better game but stuff it when it comes to how to run a better company.
RavenGT
New member
See, the problem here is that a legitimate business shouldn't lower itself to "ridicule and shame" to make a voice go away. That's horrible advice. It's one thing for a company to professionally joke and kid around with it's customers, and it's another thing to resort to school yard bullying. Like Roland succinctly said - There's a lot you can get from an angry customer that provides information as to why they're upset - Maybe what they expected and what actually happened - stuff along those lines.
So you get the angry person to open up and let them know that their opinion is just as important as anyone else's, and build a useful conversation. That is solid management and isn't always easy. You can't win over everyone, but brushing off people who bothered to create an account, login and write something is definitely not the right way to go about handling things as a legitimate company. Neither would outright ridicule. This is why a lot of companies who wish to be truly engaged in meaningful relationships with their customers will hire full-time staff to do these things. It is a skill and art form that can be very time consuming but ultimately beneficial. At this point, the angry person also has a responsibility to provide whatever they can to better illustrate their problems and at least work towards a mutual understanding.
Again, this isn't me trying to tell TFP what to do, this is what I'd tell a client who hired me as a (qualified) business consultant. I have no idea how TFP works more than the next guy here so let me be clear.
I almost miss the posts about inane banter. Almost.
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A. Thats just 1 step away from censorship, a very fine & dangerous line (me being paranoid and such)
B. I think a company needs to hear those complains to better separate the legitimate complains to those that cry just to cry
C. yeah, those that do cry just to cry usually arent affected by those things, but its sure as hell fun to try!
Just my thoughts though... But the people you've referred to as the "angry person" that would open up usually have a proper concern but maybe phrased their thoughts poorly. Those people maybe can't type properly or english isn't their primary language or just wanted to get their thoughts out and didn't care much about proof reading.. I respect that and i dont think those people get ridiculed or shamed.
I'm more so referring to those that just get on the boards, read a few posts, get angry over an opinion theyve built within a few seconds... usually from misunderstanding or lack of context, and then post something that usually sounds like they've got single digit IQs. Those are the ones i thoroughly enjoy trolling.