Alright kids, I'm going to try and provide a little bit of history here that should give you some perspective.
5 years ago (before the release of Shogun:TotalWar), the developers from Creative Assembly were quite active in the community (which at that point consisted of the forums at the org and about 200 patrons). A lot of the same things that we see now were going on back then as well. There were discussions over how people thought that CA should implement this feature or that feature. There were those patrons who were the "fanboy's" and there were also the "flamers", but in general life was pretty good and there were some serious heavy hitters from CA that were participating.
CA however was a little bit too open with their information, and when they announced that they were going to have to delay the release of the game for 6 months because they wanted to make sure it was done right, they had to endure a torrent of flaming the likes of which no-one should ever have to deal with. They did though for the most part. Some of the heavy hitters said "the heck with this" and have never come back. Things eventually settled down though as most people realized that would in fact rather wait an extra six months instead of getting a buggy game.
Then CA announced that they weren't going to be able to get the MP campaign working for the release and were dropping it from the feature set. Again, another "storm" erupted. This type of behavior continued, and actually got worse after the demo was released as everyone started spouting off their opinion about what they liked about it, and more often what they didn't like.
The truth is that the more information Creative Assembly provided to the community about what they were doing and where things stood, the more abuse they ended up taking from the community if even one thing deviated from what they had said. Given that the software development process is pretty much all about "change" they were screwed (name one programmer who's EVER written bug free code other than "Hello World"). Things got so bad that CA refused to take part in the community at all for about 6 months. When they did start to come back, they had learned their lesson the hard way, and would only give out the most general of information. Anyone who's been around since the Shogun days will remember "Two Weeks".
Point being, the voices of the community have changed, but our song remains the same. If CA were to provide some type of list that mentions what was being looked at, or what had been done they would be flamed by those who didn't get THEIR pet peeve addressed. Then they'd get flamed by those who wanted the patch NOW (which they get anyway). CA is damned if they do and damned if they don't. They have made a conscious decision to make their relationship with the community as hassle free to them as possible (as far as I can tell). You may not like the end result of that decision (I know I'd like more participation and information), but it's the reality that we are all faced with.
I realize that many of you are thinking "I wasn't here then, it's not my fault so why should I be punished for what happened then". The point is that you're all singing the same tune that CA and the staff here have been dealing with for years. It doesn't make any of the patrons here right or wrong in how you feel. It's just what we've been dealing with every day, and what you consider a lack of feedback is in truth the most effective way to keep the community from degenerating into something on the order of the AOE forums, or Battle.net
No matter what happens, there is always going to be that percentage of any given community that could care less about being civil, or being able to present their issues in a mature manner. Those people are more interested in causing problems that they are in solving them. Other parts of the community aren't happy unless they have SOMETHING to complain about, and that's all that they do. Sorry guys, but CA doesn't need the grief, and quite frankly neither does the staff.
There are legitimate bugs with Rome, and as many of these bugs as CAN be fixed WILL be fixed within the timeframe available. Telling you that CA is working on this or that, and what has been done is just opening up the door for those who will say "well what about THIS bug, or THAT issue", or "you've dealt with MY issue, why can't I have it NOW".
Even if Creative Assembly were to say "the patch will be done in a couple of weeks", how many of you would start complaining that it wasn't ready for download on day 13? And what if another issue cropped up in testing that delayed release for a week. Even if they said so, how much complaining do you think there would be about "yet another delay" and how much more "CA suxxorz" posts do you think we'd see.
I know that most of you reading this thread honestly believe that it would be far less than what we are seeing now. I'm telling you from 4+ years of experience that you are wrong. We would see SIGNIFICANTLY more complaints and flames than we do now.
That's life folks. So like Mike said, take the blue pill, and relax. The patch will be here when it's done! ;)
Re: Comparison of Support from CA
Originally Posted by Dionysus9
And....I need a new job.....
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