Communications..again.

So... I'm stumped. A week ago we had a discussion about communications and how things have been handled. I was slightly hopeful that maybe we had gotten some good points across.

Today we got a Kickstarter update. Official communication from Uber. About achievements.

When I heard about achievements last week, I sent this to Uber:

"As a case in point, if you were to announce right now on the forums just the fact that you're adding trading cards, heads would explode left right and center because it'd be seen as a de-prioritization of the promised release goals. However, if the announcement contained a comment about the server, such as "We have our two top back end guys working on finalizing the server side of things, but we believe that some trading cards and achievements would add a bit of content to enhance the replay-ability of the game and it was a fairly low hanging fruit and a cost effective use of our art department" - it would silence pretty much any legitimate criticism immediately."

The response? None. And then this update.

Not a word about the server. Not a word about anything in the community, and worst of all, not a word about priorities.

So, big suprise, shitstorm over in the kickstarter comments. Is this really what you want Uber? Negative, unrelated feedback to every announcement you make?

"Is this really what you want Uber? Negative, unrelated feedback to every announcement you make?"

Just like this then huh?

I predict second locked thread.

Days since last double lock: 8 ZERO
​

Have I posted something unjustified, misleading, or incorrect? - No
Am I attacking someone personally or being abusive? - No

Has there been negative feedback to the announcement? - Yes

I guess I'm not allowed to post about it then.

jesus... I'm tired of people trying to say to Uber what they need to do. Let them do their job.... they are the ones most interested in the game success.

While the initial post is a bit - lets say confrontational (due to the mention of 'I told you it should have been done this way') I agree with it wholeheartedly. people are upset because they feel their 'I want this now!' feature isn't being worked on.

And while I understand that Uber has different resources for different problems a 'what's hot/actively worked' list would go a long way toward quelling the sensationalized fears of abandonment.

Few people would be upset at the art team doing achievements, most would be upset if they (wrongly) assumed it was Uber's best dev's.

Christ people don't seem to understand that not everybody at Uber can work on the server, or offline, or enter pet feature here.

Chances are this was a tiny team that worked on this, there's a group of animators/modelers/, texturers, programmers, programmers with knowledge on the server, etc...

It's like any other work place, people always need to be working, stop making assumptions that because such a small feature was worked on to make the game look more polished that means every animator or programmer stopped what they were doing to help with achievements, as that's a ridiculous assumption and would make no sense work ethic wise.

It's not you. It's just that once a conversation ends in a lock it gets to be impossible to have an actual discussion about it for a while. I'm willing to try if you are, though.

It is completely true that sometimes Uber does things in ways that result in massive anger and unrest among the less informed fans and customers. This has happened over and over often enough that it can't really be denied. Even most of the vocal opponents of Uber have recently been saying their biggest problem is with the way some things are hard to interpret or easy to miss. Those people have been given clear responses often enough that it can't be them that are actually confused; they make it clear that they are just being advocates for the less informed. That's fine, but I can't understand why someone would consider this such an important cause that they would start a big fight over it.

The people that complain about poor communication and poor interpretation of announcements all have been universally placing 100% of the blame on Uber. What they fail to recognize is that some of the responsibility is on the customer for seeking out information that they so desperately want. That the server is being worked on is public knowledge, but some of the more immature customers find it easier to complain until they get a direct response from Uber rather than just look it up.

I'm not saying Uber is doing things perfectly; all I want to point out is that some of the blame for poor communication should be placed on people that are crying too loud to be able to hear anything.

Uber could do more to make this information more accessible. Customers could look a little harder for answers to their questions. Creators of the biggest and best fan sites with thousands of internet points can gather this information and make it available rather than pooping on everything. Forum warriors with question marks for faces can stop jumping in to save the day every time someone is wrong on the internet. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Yes, some people don't seem to understand that. Not everyone are developers and not everyone knows what Uber is doing. All they see is things being added that aren't important to them.

The issue being brought up isn't that Uber did achievements. It's that we don't know what Uber is working on and we still don't have things that were promised.

Personally, I believe Uber will come through on their promises.

Other people look at MNC and SMNC and see two dropped games with features missing that were promised at one time and are predicting that it'll happen to PA. It's a legitimate concern that a lot of people have that Uber is doing nothing to deal with.

I'm just waiting for offline at this point then onto modding to make a shield gen mod.

Topic at hand, would love it if uber talked more about what their developing, can understand the frustrations about seeing negative comments, but some can be legit concerns though, should want to put those to bed rather then just simply not communicate hardly at all I would have thought? If they didn't want us to be part of the development process with out ideas, directions ect, then they shouldn't have done a kickstarter in the first place really and pitch us that.

it gets annoying when people demand feedback specifically back to them, im more worried about Ubers communication to ANY threads and the community as a whole, which has been cut back recently.

In this regard I think the biggest issue is that Uber doesn't really have many "in-house" options for getting information to it's user base that I'm aware of. So on one had yeah it sucks that we don't get as much communication as we maybe should, on the other hand as per Uber We are not only a tiny, tiny minority of the entire player base but also for the most part not actually part of the main "target demographic" and thus even if we did get communication it wouldn't realistically accomplish all that much you know?

I don't think that's a good reason to stop communication thought, at the end of the day you should be communication, especially given PA's circumstances.

Mike

I'm kinda not following you.

There are plenty of ways for Uber to get information out to everyone. Kickstarter emails and blog posts, and of course social shared away. They could even go as far as to put a pop up when you launch the game, or a giant news box on the game home screen.

Getting information out to the userbase is definitely not an issue at all. Uber simply doesn't want to communicate.

KS Emails only go out to KS Backers, so only a small portion of what PA's user Base is by now, I do feel that currently it is Uber's most reliable in-house tool at the moment. Social Media and the Official Website aren't reliable, they have the potential to reach the entire player base(as it's openly available) but requires action from the players initially to actually benefit from it.

Doing something in the game at this point is the most reliable way to get something to PLAYERS, but it doesn't do much for people who haven't bought the game and realistically, those are the people that you need to get the information to because either they just don't know because they haven't come upon it themselves or they're "on the fence" as it were because of the current reviews or even just the current lack of outreach on Uber's part.

It's not so much a problem of Uber not having options as much as the best options are harder to set up right now compared to 1-2 years ago.

Mike

Hum...the last kickstarter update....basicly trumps around about steam achievements and cards, yet has no mention of offline mode or saving.... =P hope they follow up quickly on forums or through updates about the general area PA is in....

...or better yet....another live-stream ^^

If I could double like this I would....

Kickstarter page is getting ripped up and down - it's unfortunate they didn't actually post the patch notes there, because whoever got that Kickstarter update email got a pretty limited rundown of what was in the release.

Steam page update news also has nothing about the patch, just the same KS text. Patch release thread on the forums is getting torn up about priorities again.

Uber's main News page has only the KS text.

Google+ page is still dead.

Hey, Reddit is doing fairly well. Garat's been posting there pretty consistently and so far so good - I think it's really positive to see some things get answered immediately, and an Uber rep being there keeps things on track.

Actually I think it's the opposite way around - it's very EASY to get information out to all your users, you have multiple channels all of which take a minimum amount of time. Case in point, we all know about achievements by now.

I just don't understand the logic that says "Its better for us to say nothing at all about the biggest concern players have"

It just leads people into coming up with their own ideas on what's going on - I've seen people claiming it will never come, using it as evidence that Uber won't finish the game at all, Uber doesn't have enough money to finish it, Uber thinks achievements are more important than offline play & saving... and so on. And nobody has a response other than 'well, uh, someone somewhere said something 3 weeks ago about it's still being worked on.'

Is it not common for you to have a thread locked, you remake it title by title with a pretty direct challenge, and it not get locked again?

I am sure there is nothing wrong with making a 3rd one afterwards though, right? So go on ahead.

Considering my original thread was locked due to being derailed into a stupid discussion about specific Uber employee faults or not faults and personal attacks, I don't think the original question is invalid to be opened up again, especially considering the current events. I will stick within forum guidelines for good discussion and hopefully everyone else will as well.

Just because it's a topic that some are frustrated or disappointed about doesn't mean it has to degenerate into bad behavior. Nor does it, I believe, warrant the opposite - lockstep cheering for everything Uber may do.

My only option to change things for the better is to continue to raise awareness that there IS a better way. So. *shrug* here I try again.

Usually I am very understanding when it comes to things Uber does, but I think people have the right to ask, discuss and demand. It is ok if Uber declines certain suggestions or leave comments unanswered at all. But, what is happening the past few weeks, is really not a good development in terms of information and communication with the community.

I totally understand that Uber is pissed about some members, that behave too demanding, too aggressive and insulting, but that's the business. I don't think it is a good way to punish the whole community with being calm and leaving us in the dark about the future of PA. I am not an active member here, but I check on daily basis, if there is a new update or new bit of info or any announcement from the staff.

I miss the taste of things to come Uber gave us, like with the portal screen shot or little vids/screens about new commanders or planet types and stuff. Garat is pretty much the only one who's writing frequently... I am actually wondering what the actual community manager is doing... all I remember is he's been closing threats.

Anyway, I am pretty much relaxed about how things are going and I have much love for PA and the Team behind, but I can share the feelings of some complaining members and it is legit to ask and I can agree that Uber could do some things a little better.