During the last days I again read several times "that the stupid Devs do not listen to their community".
Which is something that actually makes us as a team always sad cause it couldn't be further away from the truth.
So let me first talk about what we are doing and then why people think that we are not listening.
So how come that despite these actions from our side still people are saying we are not listening?
I assume the answer is complicated. Let's give it a try by breaking it down into various aspects.
#1 Diversity of the Community
Sandbox games like EVE or Albion have a huge problem. Their player base is extremely diverse since the game offers many different activities. The different player groups are so different that each of them has completely different interests. You see these discussions in EVE ever since.
#2 Not only Care Bear vs Hardcore PVP Guy
When talking about the diversity of the community a lot of people only see the two extremes of the Care Bear who is afraid of PVP on the one hand and the Hardcore PVP guy who wants to gank innocent people all day long. But even among the hardcore players (short definition: people wo play a lot and are not afraid of pvp) you have a HUGE diversity.
A few examples of different hardcore PVP players
#3 Personal Agenda
When someone gives us feedback it is always important for us to understand where he is coming from and what is his playstyle is. There are only a few people who are giving very objective feedback, which is fine but which makes it harder for us to interpret everything correctly. Best example here was the "blobbing feature in the outlands discussion". For me personally I actually really don't mind so much if we are doing it or not, it was just one of many solutions which we think made sense. Random example: User X always goes to dungeon Y where he can easily solo fame farm because we made a mistake and the monsters give too much fame. We change it to align it with the rest, person is upset and posts in the forum why we are destroying the game.
#4 The Unheard Majority
I love forums or Discord, I've grown up with it and think all of these tools are great ways to stay in touch with your community. However we also have to keep in mind that there is another group of players who don't even know that the forum exists who can't be ignored. And this is not only carebears who are not aware of them. I've played in two top level hardcore guilds in recent betas (incognito) and even among these guilds the majority is NOT active in the forum. I even know a lot of guild masters who are not active here or are even reading what is happening. Of course they have other officers fulfilling that role.
So for us it is always crucial to see what most players think. We have done this with surveys in the past and will do that again (we have missed out on that opportunity for a while).
#5 Change
People hate major changes. People love small additions which make their daily routine easier but they hate all big changes coming their way.
It is a common phenomenon. And man have we done major changes the past two years and most of them for the better of the game (I know you disagree^^).
Most people don't remember that in 2013 we had so much more stuff you could pay with gold in the game and we removed it so we are not that much of a P2Win game. We then had people complaining that a) they have been worried that we would not earn enough money and b) others who said that we devalued their gold (which obv we did) and were upset that they could not pay for all these activities anymore.
BUT I truly believe that if a game does not make major changes over the years it will die out at one point. You have to evolve as a game constantly.
#6 Overvaluing the Past
In strong combination with #5 people also tend to overvalue the past. They have certain positive memories about Alpha 1 and how much better a game Albion was. Which is understandable but sometimes can be a limiting factor in certain discussions.
Overall you can be sure that we really think it is important to listen to the community, BUT there will always be people who do not like a new feature or certain approaches we are taking due to various reasons. We have reached a point as a community where there are so many people that always someone will be unhappy. Which also bears the danger that it is harder for us to see when we make a mistake. I hope what I wrote makes sense.
IMPORTANT: You can always do the following. Send me a direct message with something you think is going wrong in the forum (better in Discord) and two Things will happen:
a) 100% I will copy paste this to the appropriate department or person for that matter (we are 50+ people, I am not involved in all projects^^)
b) in 70% of the cases I will answer you and tell you if I agree or disagree (some things I just miss or don't have the time at that point to answer)
Kind regards,
Stefan
Which is something that actually makes us as a team always sad cause it couldn't be further away from the truth.
Why you guys, did not pay attention to what the players are talking about?
So let me first talk about what we are doing and then why people think that we are not listening.
- Key employees (Korn and me) read almost everything what happens here in the forum, on reddit or on Discord.
- Other key employees like Monocrhome or Eltharyon are reading a lot on the forum as well (they work harder than I do, so they don't have that much time to read everything)
- Even people working on very specific topics like our Game Designer Lino (H4n1baL) or Game Designer Michael (Retroman) are super active in the forum.
- Even more so Korn and me we are having over 2k posts here explaining a lot why we are doing certain things.
- I have plenty players to whom I talk on a daily basis.
- We as a company have several community members involved into our design process. (Big thanks to Rosalia and Substanz_D for the awesome effort in helping us in PM)
- Another interesting point to know is that we are after each update sitting down and discussing what the problems are of the newest patch. And these problems we are talking about our too a huge part problems we read in the forums or on discord.
So how come that despite these actions from our side still people are saying we are not listening?
I assume the answer is complicated. Let's give it a try by breaking it down into various aspects.
#1 Diversity of the Community
Sandbox games like EVE or Albion have a huge problem. Their player base is extremely diverse since the game offers many different activities. The different player groups are so different that each of them has completely different interests. You see these discussions in EVE ever since.
#2 Not only Care Bear vs Hardcore PVP Guy
When talking about the diversity of the community a lot of people only see the two extremes of the Care Bear who is afraid of PVP on the one hand and the Hardcore PVP guy who wants to gank innocent people all day long. But even among the hardcore players (short definition: people wo play a lot and are not afraid of pvp) you have a HUGE diversity.
A few examples of different hardcore PVP players
- People who like Zerg Fights and people who don't
- Or people who like to do pvp in small groups and are pissed off when they get zerged away
- Or people who like to do pvp in small groups and are pissed off when they get zerged away
- People who want to be able to solo pvp all day long and people who pvp only groups (either small or large)
- People who want to do only pvp against weaker targets (gatherer) who don't fight back vs people who want to have a challenge (be the best)
- People who are owning a territory versus people who are living out of the city
- People who want to grind hard to unlock a weapon vs people who rather unlock plenty weapons
- People who don't want to grind at all to do pvp vs the ones above
- People who like the blobbing system in the outlands vs people who don't
#3 Personal Agenda
When someone gives us feedback it is always important for us to understand where he is coming from and what is his playstyle is. There are only a few people who are giving very objective feedback, which is fine but which makes it harder for us to interpret everything correctly. Best example here was the "blobbing feature in the outlands discussion". For me personally I actually really don't mind so much if we are doing it or not, it was just one of many solutions which we think made sense. Random example: User X always goes to dungeon Y where he can easily solo fame farm because we made a mistake and the monsters give too much fame. We change it to align it with the rest, person is upset and posts in the forum why we are destroying the game.
#4 The Unheard Majority
I love forums or Discord, I've grown up with it and think all of these tools are great ways to stay in touch with your community. However we also have to keep in mind that there is another group of players who don't even know that the forum exists who can't be ignored. And this is not only carebears who are not aware of them. I've played in two top level hardcore guilds in recent betas (incognito) and even among these guilds the majority is NOT active in the forum. I even know a lot of guild masters who are not active here or are even reading what is happening. Of course they have other officers fulfilling that role.
So for us it is always crucial to see what most players think. We have done this with surveys in the past and will do that again (we have missed out on that opportunity for a while).
#5 Change
People hate major changes. People love small additions which make their daily routine easier but they hate all big changes coming their way.
It is a common phenomenon. And man have we done major changes the past two years and most of them for the better of the game (I know you disagree^^).
Most people don't remember that in 2013 we had so much more stuff you could pay with gold in the game and we removed it so we are not that much of a P2Win game. We then had people complaining that a) they have been worried that we would not earn enough money and b) others who said that we devalued their gold (which obv we did) and were upset that they could not pay for all these activities anymore.
BUT I truly believe that if a game does not make major changes over the years it will die out at one point. You have to evolve as a game constantly.
#6 Overvaluing the Past
In strong combination with #5 people also tend to overvalue the past. They have certain positive memories about Alpha 1 and how much better a game Albion was. Which is understandable but sometimes can be a limiting factor in certain discussions.
Overall you can be sure that we really think it is important to listen to the community, BUT there will always be people who do not like a new feature or certain approaches we are taking due to various reasons. We have reached a point as a community where there are so many people that always someone will be unhappy. Which also bears the danger that it is harder for us to see when we make a mistake. I hope what I wrote makes sense.
IMPORTANT: You can always do the following. Send me a direct message with something you think is going wrong in the forum (better in Discord) and two Things will happen:
a) 100% I will copy paste this to the appropriate department or person for that matter (we are 50+ people, I am not involved in all projects^^)
b) in 70% of the cases I will answer you and tell you if I agree or disagree (some things I just miss or don't have the time at that point to answer)
Kind regards,
Stefan