A Quick Note For The COH2.org Community

Id imagine this has something to do with BB and Sib, in addition to the threads/replays. Its good to see Relic is aware of it. Hopefully that improved community network gets set up so we can move forward together.

On the other hand, I don't like how Relic employees misbehaving is being represented as the ONLY problem here, when it is very clear to me, at least, that harassment in general is also an issue.

I am very aware this is also an issue. Toxicity in an online community is impactful in so many ways, and we want (need) that to change in ours. This is also currently being reviewed.

I am very aware this is also an issue. Toxicity in an online community is impactful in so many ways, and we want (need) that to change in ours. This is also currently being reviewed.

That is why I suggest introducing a chat mute option, it can address so many situations. It would be good to know if Relic is wiling to implement something like this.

Is he being sent to the Gulag?

Good to see this acknowledged and handled here well. you dont often see devs post in the night

That is a great idea Abdul. We could use something like that.

Good to see this acknowledged and handled here well. you dont often see devs post in the night

Sleep is overrated, right? Or so I keep hearing!

That is why I suggest introducing a chat mute option, it can address so many situations. It would be good to know if Relic is wiling to implement something like this.

Our in-game chat uses Steam's functionality, and there are some limitations that come with that. But I want to look into possible avenues to help improve things.

It's 11:42 PM in Vancouver and you are posting on a forum of internet nerds. I see some of that commitment coming out now.

Fair comment, Nape.

tbh i think its excellent that you guys actually play the game with the community and test out potential exploitive strategies and are actively aware whats going on in the community. In terms of producing quality patches in the future I think its a great thing.

It perhaps would have been best for him to exercise the option to not speak to someone who was clearly having a bad day. But I'd rather have the chance of this minor incident to happen than to have a relic that tries to isolate themselves from the community.

On the other hand, it also feels like this is largely a case of butthurt rather than actual harm.

Relic being the employees and us being the customers, I agree that it's more important for them to behave reasonably ... it's their job and we're just playing a game, after all. On the other hand, I don't like how Relic employees misbehaving is being represented as the ONLY problem here, when it is very clear to me, at least, that harassment in general is also an issue.

Obviously the community members behavior was inflammatory, but IMO this whole thing stems from the fact that Relic(Brad) is using ranked automatch as a testing ground for balance issues. I'll go ahead and give Brad the benefit of the doubt that he was testing the Kubels performance in a competitive setting(at the cost of an extremely frustrated community member) rather than actively trolling for a reaction, although his comments in the replay thread suggest otherwise.

I guess I could see automatch being a good competitive environment to evaluate a units performance, but when you represent the company (and the specific department) that is responsible for obviously imbalanced(or at the very least extremely frustrating) units, and then you abuse the strength of the unit by both trolling in game and in the replay thread, you're going to come off as both incompetent and rude.

Sounds good, and good job on clearly stating a stand from community manager and company perspective.

On Relic side, yes I think more emphasis on professional detachment and reminding staff that they represent the company first on paid time is good. Also Id encourage directing feedback through more official channels and structured formats (such as standardized feedback questionaires on specific issues and directed itemised discussion), rather than privileged buddy lists on Steam as is worrisomely prevalent currently. As the saying goes, "familiarity breeds contempt". A more formal, standardised and structured feedback system helps keep issues on point, get feedback on what is really needed, improve quality of feedback and more transparency without suspicions of biased or preferential treatment of individual community members.

Currently it bares more resemblance to a school playground, rather than an adult, structured, company/community interface. Informality has its perks, but also runs the risk of incidents like this. Its better to have a core formalised structure around which to have some informality towards trusted community members who have proven themselves by contributing through that system.

From a community perspective, its somewhat hypocritical to take umbrage at Devs, as individuals, being "toxic" to certain community members, who themselves are evenmoreso toxic in much of their conduct both towards Relic and community. We may not have responsibilities to an employer in terms of our conduct, but that is no excuse for bad behavior. Unfortunately, we have many such people, and they in turn represent the community badly, and as is shown now force Relic to formalize and restrict freedoms in community interaction. If we cant be trusted to behave, then we cant expect Relic to extend more casual and less restricted feedback channels to us in turn.

__________________________________________________

-Relic: Structure and direct feedback through proper channels, in formats that are professional, organised and as transparent to the rest of contributors as possible. The Steam buddy list thing has to stop. No more private PMs as "feedback". Route feedback through designated forums, moderated membered chatrooms, and directed discussion on specifics that are of concern to you.
-Community: Coh2.org has a remarkably tolerant moderation. Dont abuse it. Its verynimportant to this site and all the effort that has gone into it, that they maintain a reputation of respectful relatiins with Relic, dont endanger that. Dont piss on our hosts efforts here in that regard, or you are pissing on all of us. To coh2.org moderation, try to promote as objective and rational discussion as possible, so we can maintain a standard of posting worthy of this site.

The site itself, in terms of functions and interface, is seriously first class, but quality of content also matters, as does board culture. We dont want another GR! No buddyism, no gangbanging, as little shitposting as possible. Know what I mean? Everyine loves a little drama from time to time, but really what we want is threads with as informed, respectful, constructive and objective discussion related to the GAME. There is a lot of unregistered traffic, and registered lurkers. Try to remember what the vast majority of readers want. They dont want to wade through threads of trash. They want the quality stuff, as concisely, ontopic, objective and relevant as possible. They have neither the time, interest or care to wade throught the shit. We dont have an upvote or "like" function to support real quality posters, but that doesnt change that the vast majority of traffic simply disregard or at worst close the browser when certain shitposters try to drag threads down to their level and bias.

One serious cause of this, is your restricted internal boards. If you skim the cream of best posters off to a private board, you leave the public side in the hands of lower quality posters, and board culture and content takes a nosedive. I strongly encourage you to return our best posters back to the public. We need them to keep up the niveau. They can and do post with real knowledge, experience and authority, as well as generally having moreobjective interest in thr game itself. We need them back to keep up quality of discussion dor the majority of readers/lurkers who are currently at the mercy of shitposters who are steadily dragging down the board culture to their level. We want, and need, these guys back. I know they also dont want to deal with the shit in public board, but believe me, the overwhelming majority of lurking readers will support them and read them, and I for one, of more vocal posters, also will do my damndest to give them the respect and consideration they deserve for their efforts. That is a good board culture, and the overwhelming majority of lurkers will appreciate that immeasurably, as well as encoutaging many of them to become vocal in the tone that is set by these quality posters.

tbh i think its excellent that you guys actually play the game with the community and test out potential exploitive strategies and are actively aware whats going on in the community. In terms of producing quality patches in the future I think its a great thing.

It perhaps would have been best for him to exercise the option to not speak to someone who was clearly having a bad day. But I'd rather have the chance of this minor incident to happen than to have a relic that tries to isolate themselves from the community.

We won't be isolating ourselves from you guys, the relationship with we have with our community is important. It will simply be evolving, and it's clearly evident that needs to happen.

I'm heading home for the evening, hopefully we can all agree that we want to move on and establish a strong mutual relationship built from respect.

Thank you to those that have taken the time to share their thoughts in this thread

Some very valid points have been raised, and we've got nothing but opportunity to grow from here!

We won't be isolating ourselves from you guys, the relationship with we have with our community is important. It will simply be evolving, and it's clearly evident that needs to happen.

I'm heading home for the evening, hopefully we can all agree that we want to move on and establish a strong mutual relationship built from respect.

Thank you to those that have taken the time to share their thoughts in this thread

Some very valid points have been raised, and we've got nothing but opportunity to grow from here!

Thanks Cynthia!

Thanks for taking the time Cynthia.

These issues affect those who are deeply rooted the most and it is extremely unfair for people who have no idea what transpired to stir the situation and make it worse. Having said that, thank you for reaching out to us regarding these issues rather than being silent.

I have a few things I'd like to comment on since I am usually somehow dragged into things sooner or later.

Firstly, I'd like to discuss the behaviour of the community and the Relic employees as a whole. It's currently a vicious cycle with one side being frustrating because they're the ones that actually play the game on a daily basis and have to deal with (this is my view entirely) below satisfactory game quality. The community has a lot of backflash from ninja changes, broken implementions with no explanations (War Spoils, old DLC commanders) and the other, being disappointed in the behaviour.

While it is often unwarranted, these are direct consequences of Relic's lack of transparency and communication in these issues. I can't speak on behalf of the community but I am under the impression the Relic-Community relationship is pretty bad right now. Some people are defending Relic, some are holding them accountable and others are taking the sidelines. The community is fragmented, the communication is lacking and the game is in a state that does not encourage a healthy relationship but actually the opposite.

Secondly, I've encountered 44 "instances" of bugs since the last balance patch that was released (not the hot fixes) and I have to comment that it is rather disappointing to see that a hotfix, requires a hotfix to patch things, both of which have undocumented changes so I can understand why some people are up in arms about situations like this.

Finally, I have to bring this to attention since I am involved alongside the individual in question (most likely). Being called a "dick" by a Relic employee was kind of the tipping point at which I actually stopped bothering to push for any sort of affiliation (although I expected it from the employee in question). I have taken a lot of flak for things that I have said and every time, I have tried to justify why I said all those things and to reiterate what my intentions are. I told this individual that I got more done in half an hour to an hour with Matt (Eagleheart) and my viewers giving me feedback to pass on with regards to things such as the maps than I would've done had I been in the alpha which prompted the response. Maybe it was the way I phrased it, maybe it was something else but as it currently stands, I see a lot of people idle and inactive so it's not exactly a wise idea to push people who have stuck around despite all the controversial decisions on Relic's behalf as well as the community's reactions. I hope you guys can work something out and things improve (they already have in some regards).

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I expect nothing less than a civil discussion when things become too heated and conflicts of interest arise (such is the case here with regards to me and the said-individual). Without making this personal, the game and Relic are currently alienating and discouraging a lot of people from attempting to even bother to understand given the state of the game since the expansion launched. Personally, I am finding it extremely hard to sympathise and defend you guys right now.

Ultimately, I am glad to see communication is slowly improving and I wish you the best of luck with resolving these matters. I hope a civil conclusion is reached and everyone moves forward in a positive manner.

Yeah, cheers.

As for the private forums on this site, yeah this place has the whiff of smug cliques about it now and then.

I agree that maybe closing them except for mods might be a way forward.

Which private forums? Apart from the staff forums (that Relic employes cannot access) there is no private forum with Relic staffers here on COH2.ORG

I was responding to this, unless it is referring to Relic. In which case, my bad.

The point about cliques remains.

One serious cause of this, is your restricted internal boards. If you skim the cream of best posters off to a private board, you leave the public side in the hands of lower quality posters, and board culture and content takes a nosedive. I strongly encourage you to return our best posters back to the public.

Having dealt with public QA before, I would really like to suggest to Relic that perhaps you could consider setting up a public issue tracking interface which would allow users to submit bug reports and balance issues-- and then others would be able to comment, add information, and vote on the severity and priority of the bug or imbalance.

Personally, I've utilized both Mantis Bug Tracker in the past, as well as the Atlassian JIRA Issue Tracker. Issue trackers can be inexpensive (or free in the case of Mantis or something like Apache Bloodhound) and are not resource or infrastructure intensive to set up and run.

For all I know you may run one of these software packages internally, but from my experience both with the Alpha Stress Test and WFA alpha, most feedback is delivered either via forums or from personal contact.

Having a public issue tracker would not only allow members who wish to opt-in to provide input in an easily managed and aggregated way, but would allow the developers an easier way to interact with the public: It's a simple matter for marking whether a bug or balance issue is currently being looked into, worked on, solved, and whether they will be available in the next live branch. It would also importantly allow for developers to give this information in a centralized and appropriate location.

Sorry if I'm assuming too much here, I don't want to come off patronizing, but I would just hope that it's something that could be considered.

Jesus christ! It's like 1am in vancouver. Either Relic is a bunch of slave drivers or Cynthia is way too dedicated to her job. Get some sleep!