Quote KeithKanneg Quote: Originally Posted by Wellll...I was just going to sit back and read all the discourse, but both Eric and Charles committed me to posting tonight about feedback, so with it getting late here in Texas, I figured OK, stop reading and start typing.



Since Eric already explained where we get feedback and essentially how we use it, let me provide some perspective about what I look for and what's important to me.



• Specific ideas about gameplay improvements

• Ideas on how we can enhance existing game features

• Conversations about Gearing, Class Balance

• Details about likes and dislikes about an area or type of content

• How we can improve communication and provide better insight

• Kudos for the team when we do something right

• Constructive criticism when we don't do things right. Note I tend to read everything, while disregarding rants or dumping on the dev team as I don't find it helpful

• Virtually all of the comments in our discussion threads



You get the idea...truth be told, I don't have time to read everything, but I also get messages from a variety of people using social media, email, LinkedIn, forums, and PMs. With the exception of PMs I try to to personally respond back to every one of them in a timely matter (sometimes right away). PMs - honestly, I have so many I can't possibly answer them. What I've decided to do with those is simply read and pass them along to someone on my team to review and decide how to handle. You won't get direct response, but the details will be communicated to the team, and hopefully, you'll notice something you've suggested has been implemented.



I like how Xo-Lara put it about minor changes can get added in quickly, but major changes need to be worked into our pipeline. Yep, that's exactly right!



From all the messages I have received and reading many posts here on the forums, it's quite apparent the change in communication has been greatly appreciated. Internally, there's also an increased willingness to provide you with better insight about how and why we made a decision and to ask your opinions. Personally, I like seeing this happen and look forward to fostering even more communication.



So, what does any of that have to do with "How does our feedback work"? Everything. Specifically, I leverage all the feedback you provide, I personalize it by blending it into how I play the game, then I communicate it to the Dev Team, and I follow up to see how best to respond, determine the priority of the request, add it to the backlog, or adjust the schedule to incorporate the change into the game. But, we all know talk is cheap and until there's action behind our words, skepticism remains. I'm OK with that!



--Keith-



As a thought on future communication though - you should all look into making your presence more seen on reddit as you have done on these forums.

Reason being is there are lot of non subs there that you are have a shot at attracting back into paying customers if they see this same level of increased communication there as well - imo anyway.



Engaging the non paying player base has the benefit of attracting them to more specifically post on what is deterring them from paying (aside from "poor" or "I think it should all be free!") which can help give you decent insights into directions to take to increase the paying player base.

I generally believe anything you do to please that aspect into paying is going to be well received by those already paying (and well if you are communicating correctly you would have already quizzed your paying player base on these changes ahead of time to be sure).



Plus on a whole the medium is generally more positive than the forums I've found over the past couple of years since using reddit (even though the forums had me believe it was a negative cesspool which was why I had previously avoided it) - debate is more constructive and arguments more focused instead of the more personal nature they seem to take here.



The whole up vote/down vote system seems to work wonders I've found for the majority of topics with the obvious trolls or people being negative for negativities sake being down voted to the point of being invisible.



Now none of this is an "instead of forums" point of view but an "as well as". Good post, thanks for the insight.As a thought on future communication though - you should all look into making your presence more seen on reddit as you have done on these forums.Reason being is there are lot of non subs there that you are have a shot at attracting back into paying customers if they see this same level of increased communication there as well - imo anyway.Engaging the non paying player base has the benefit of attracting them to more specifically post on what is deterring them from paying (aside from "poor" or "I think it should all be free!") which can help give you decent insights into directions to take to increase the paying player base.I generally believe anything you do to please that aspect into paying is going to be well received by those already paying (and well if you are communicating correctly you would have already quizzed your paying player base on these changes ahead of time to be sure).Plus on a whole the medium is generally more positive than the forums I've found over the past couple of years since using reddit (even though the forums had me believe it was a negative cesspool which was why I had previously avoided it) - debate is more constructive and arguments more focused instead of the more personal nature they seem to take here.The whole up vote/down vote system seems to work wonders I've found for the majority of topics with the obvious trolls or people being negative for negativities sake being down voted to the point of being invisible.Now none of this is an "instead of forums" point of view but an "as well as".