Call to action - Let's Be Awesome Together

One thing that would be cool is if we could get permission to monetize CoH 2 YouTube videos, like other companies have done. My CoH 2 videos get flagged as non-monetizable much more than any other game on my YouTube channel. Lynx told me to PM him about it so I did then he got fired.

As many people said before, I think the main issue isnt Relic not realizing something is Overpowered (or even wanting to release it that way) but simply the pace in which things get handled lately.

To increase speed, and community engagement i'd think something like a Watchlist would be great. Just make some (maybe 3) Forum threads, call them after a Element thats being looked on for the next Balance Iteration (e.g. Watchlist: Tiger Ace). Then make this a contructive Thread for the Community to engage in and Relic to take Ideas from regarding the Elements Balance. Maybe even add a poll (to strong, to weak, ok).

I think this could benefit speed of Balance Iteration steps and Community satisfaction with the state of the Game.

As for the Content Problem, why is there no such Stream again as you guys at Relic did (was it last year?) with Noun moderating some questions to some Relic Dev's, why dont do this again?

I think the community will be really enthusiastic if things would like this stream or the watchlist would happen...

If Relic shows enthusiasm for the game, Im sure the community will follow.

Some great ideas.

Just on the topic of polls, I'd never do that. They're too easily screwed with.

Time for some original content.

lol

Btw : mods, please sort this thread out. My bullcrap meter is once again of the charts.

One thing that would be cool is if we could get permission to monetize CoH 2 YouTube videos, like other companies have done. My CoH 2 videos get flagged as non-monetizable much more than any other game on my YouTube channel. Lynx told me to PM him about it so I did then he got fired.

a) Lynx wasn't fired. That makes it sound like he did something wrong. He was great.

How it worked was THQ laid off Thunder because they were months away from going out of business. They hired Lynx because he could work out of their head office and work on other games too. So rather than pay Thunder to work only on CoH, they paid Lynx to work on CoH and Darksiders 2 (and other stuff?).

When SEGA bought Relic the plan was to move community management back to Vancouver where the studio is. Thanks to your support Lynx was hired back on to help launch the game because we were right in the middle of launching a game.

Lynx was awesome. Everyone at Relic who worked with him loved him. I loved him. You guys loved him. SEGA loved him. But he lives in California and we're in Vancouver and going forward it wasn't working to have one person not here.

His contract expired and he's moved on to really cool stuff. I'd love if he came back to SEGA and love it if he could work with Relic again.

He was not fired. Fired makes it seem like he stole things or screwed up.

He was not fired.

b) You aren't able to monetize your videos? I know it sucks to start this process again but email me at jsimpson@relic.com. We're cool with people monetizing our videos. Let me know what YouTube wants and I'll do my best to get it for you.

Btw : mods, please sort this thread out. My bullcrap meter is once again of the charts.

Yeah, please no more Image Macro stuff, this is a good thread that's going well, think before you post.

Long post, bear with me as this was intended originally as a topic, but I was asked by a friendly mod to move it into this topic.

Recently, I posted this on the official Company of Heroes-forums (read the TL;DR if in lazy-mode):
Show Spoiler

The intention was not to rant, not to incite a ragewar, but to get an actual response about what I deem to be annoying issues within this game.

A mod comes over...

Welcome to the forum, gents.

... and closes the thread.

There was also this exchange of messages. You don't have to read them, but the mod does apologize.
Show Spoiler

Then I realize that it isn't as bad as I first thought. It is worse.

In my opinion, SEGA's and Relic's handling of Company of Heroes 2 has been nothing short of deceitful and horrible.

Have a look here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/231430/reviews/?browsefilter=toprated
Or here: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/company-of-heroes-2

These are the reviews. I don't want to delve into stuff like people complaining about lack of realism or balance, but there are a lot of thumbs down with high ratings (that is: negative reviews with which people agree).

They complain about the exact same things as I did and more.

Several people have pointed out the fact that several of the commander-DLCs are not visible from the Steam-store! This means that you get less of an impression of how much of the content you'll be missing and what kind of content it is. I would say this is lying and that the community should demand better treatment.

Changes (removal of commander-DLC) would be the friendliest way to proceed.

At least, the commander-DLCs should be visible in the store with the naked eye (and even while digging, a lot of the DLCs are hidden), but I still feel tricked.

[...]
Or here: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/company-of-heroes-2

These are the reviews. I don't want to delve into stuff like people complaining about lack of realism or balance, but there are a lot of thumbs down with high ratings (that is: negative reviews with which people agree).

They complain about the exact same things as I did and more.
[...]

A lot of complaints/bad reviews on metacritic are about the game being pro-nazi - I guess we all know who writes those reviews.

That couldn't be further from the truth really. Maybe in CoH the majority is English, but competitive gaming is far more popular in Europe and Asia than it is in America. Most of the popular SC2 and Dota 2 streamers are not native English speakers.

Can't agree with you at all here. If you look at sc2 for example which streamer has by FAR the biggest viewer numbers? idra, destiny, day9, artosis, incontrol, combatex and most EG guys. When a korean streams (who could be top3 in the world and is far better than any american player) he gets nowhere near the views. Korean guy could get 200 viewers while EG guys have thousands. So being native english speaker helps, it has a lot to do also with americans are more social and have an easytime getting a point across, being funny.. than a swedish or finnish guy would.

The meta critic was bombed by Russians who were butt hurt. End of story most of their ratings say "Nazi Game, Dont Support Nazi Canadians" ffs

Huge +1 Tommy. Huge -1 Noun

3. I agree we need to look for a way for players who want to play other game modes. It's something we're looking at but haven't found a solution to yet.

Sorry to hear it's too late for you guys. I understand.

You summed it up in 2 sentences perfectly Noun. The problems with COH2 game, casting, streaming, community toxicity, player numbers, everything pretty much.

COH2 is failing on fundamental business principles. ABC's of every product/service business enterprise:

- Cater product to what customer wants and they will buy/use it. We (the customer) have told you what we want. You do not need to look for solutions. In this example you already have solution from COH1 (Custom game Lobby). Not perfect but infinitely better than your 'solution'. Just make it happen if technically possible.

- Do not be in-love with your product. If customer does not like the product IT IS YOUR FAULT, not customers. One and only solution is and always will be: change your product, not futile attempt to 'educate customer' or blame customer for not liking the product

- Companies exists to fulfill wishes of customers, if they do not they will cease to exist.

You/Relic know what we want, give us what we want.

My personal opinion now: Relic is treating its customers like some Communist era dictatorship regime. Regime that tries to force people to conform to delusional beliefs and opinions of ruling class. Ruling class that hears peoples complains, but instead of embracing them, instead looks for ways to suppress them and mute their voice.

Bottom line is: Who ever is making decisions at Relic would be instantly dismissed from his position at my company. I mean, that is stuff one teaches work experience students as ABC's of successful management practices.
No excuse what so ever

I would love to hear relic just for ONCE say where they stand with coh2. Is it still just a "casual" game mostly intended for comp-stomps and derp around in teammgames, mass arty, mass tank style? Or are they finally going to start supporting AND developing more into the competative side of things?

Would be nice to hear so I know if im just wasting my time or not. Sometimes it feels like they refuse to answer so they can keep fooling the competative scene into keep playing the game.

NEWS RELIC!!! A strong and healthy COMPETATIVE scene is free and powerful advertisement to a game. Counter-strike, dota, LoL, warcraft 3 where all games like coh2 as in easy to play but unlike coh2 they still had a hard to master gameplay, years of developing new strategies, new tricks to do that CASUALS enjoy to see and follow and dream that they too can one day do the stuff the best of the best can.

Thats the difference between a well executed casual game to yours relic.. a casual game doesnt have to be shallow to draw in casual players.

Can't agree with you at all here. If you look at sc2 for example which streamer has by FAR the biggest viewer numbers? idra, destiny, day9, artosis, incontrol, combatex and most EG guys. When a korean streams (who could be top3 in the world and is far better than any american player) he gets nowhere near the views. Korean guy could get 200 viewers while EG guys have thousands. So being native english speaker helps, it has a lot to do also with americans are more social and have an easytime getting a point across, being funny.. than a swedish or finnish guy would.

Stephano gets a ton as well. So did MKP when he streamed. So does Jaedong, and so will Flash if/when he starts. Hell, even HerO gets a whole lot of viewers when he streams. Most, if not all, of these have achieved success comparable with the names you gave; the only difference, really, is how often they stream.

Language really doesn't matter as much as people think; it's a combination of skill, personality, and name recognition. Sure, speaking English helps, but the original complaint wasn't non-English, it was non-native English.

Look at Dota 2. Everyone on Na'Vi get 10k+ viewers when they stream. The people on Alliance who stream get a ton as well. Iceiceice gets 10k+, Dredd gets 10k+, n0tail gets 10k+. These are the most popular streamer in the game, and not a single one is a native English speaker.

Some great ideas.

Just on the topic of polls, I'd never do that. They're too easily screwed with.

Why not setup a poll with 1 vote per IP address? Would easily stop anybody's attempts to try and screw with them.

My personal opinion now: Relic is treating its customers like some Communist era dictatorship regime. Regime that tries to force people to conform to delusional beliefs and opinions of ruling class. Ruling class that hears peoples complains, but instead of embracing them, instead looks for ways to suppress them and mute their voice.

hahahaha

why do people think they are in control of relic just because they paid $60 for the game? its fine to voice your opinion and disagree with how they do things, but you should realize its their game. they can do whatever they want with it. that doesnt make them a "communist era dictatorship".

Why not setup a poll with 1 vote per IP address? Would easily stop anybody's attempts to try and screw with them.

because spoofing IP addresses (or just changing them) is easier than taking candy from a baby.

Relic is a studio with talanted people but they have no idea how internet and casual/competative communities work... I just cant understand it after the tragedy that was vcoh that they failed to make it one of the biggest esports games (it was within their grasp) and they mess it up EVEN MORE with the sequel... i always thought coh2 was the golden oppertunity to show the world that RTS combined with moba gameplay could be right up there with dota and sc2. I concider coh warcraft combined with dota gameplay.. atleast in teamgames.

because spoofing IP addresses (or just changing them) is easier than taking candy from a baby.

Then have the poll setup for trusted people.

Stephano gets a ton as well. So did MKP when he streamed. So does Jaedong, and so will Flash if/when he starts. Hell, even HerO gets a whole lot of viewers when he streams. Most, if not all, of these have achieved success comparable with the names you gave; the only difference, really, is how often they stream.

Language really doesn't matter as much as people think; it's a combination of skill, personality, and name recognition. Sure, speaking English helps, but the original complaint wasn't non-English, it was non-native English.

Look at Dota 2. Everyone on Na'Vi get 10k+ viewers when they stream. The people on Alliance who stream get a ton as well. Iceiceice gets 10k+, Dredd gets 10k+, n0tail gets 10k+. These are the most popular streamer in the game, and not a single one is a native English speaker.

Sure there are always exceptions, but most guys you mentioned are guys who have been at multiple events or are otherwise charismatic. Stephano fits that excactly, guy sits and plays and doesnt say a word, i cant understand how it can be entertaining unless he just is well known for winning an event with a really wierd and new kind of strat (mass roaches). People want to be entertained and listen to a native english speaker making jokes and gives his thoughts on the game is 9/10 more fun than watching some polish guy that has to make an effort to complete a sentence.