Relic and the Long Distance Relationship

NDA is so stupid, especially in this age where we have social media, network, etc. It would make sense these days, that increased communication with fans and community can make the game much better = the game being more successful and selling more. It seems so strange and idiotic to me

I don't get why there is an NDA in place, even for seemingly benign things. I can understand if it was for things like new expansions, campaigns, etc., but why not tell us stuff about balance patches?

kreatiir i like your view

Relic tries its best, example ? They wont bring new content/patch/whatever this year ...

WOW 1 month after AA and 2 months since the last big patch and they arent capable of doing a small patch before x-mas (shreks,industry,obers). Furthermore they could wait till they are back from holidays and can instantly analyse the results and maybe add or change anything.

Great work guys ! You know how to prepare for work.

As an aside, what is this big deal with NDAs. I've been knocking about gaming, betas and following dev cycles since the late 1990s and I've never seen it being such a big deal as it is with Relic.

Admittedly, I am / was more of a CRPG fan but if you hang out at Bioware / Obsidian / Bethseda you get a load of feedback. OK, at Bioware it's about having sex with aliens but you get my drift.

I'd guess it may be part of the corporate culture .i.e. 'this is how we did it before, it worked for us then and we will do it again, bcs it works for us'

Which is, as you and several others here have observed, potentially total cr@p.

Relic remind me of the Morgan Car Company.

Did you ever see the BBC program - approx. 16 years ago - where the late Sir John Harvey Jones took Morgan apart in 'the Troubleshooters'? Morgan were - still are - a successful sports-car company. They were using out-dated manufacturing techniques (see the vid).. still do ....and importantly, their sales team consisted of one person....whose only task was to explain to customers, why their car might be delayed in production!!

Harvey-Jones observed that they had survived the full wheel of car manufacture, and still kept going, whilst the rest of the car world in UK had fallen, or gone global. He was non-plussed


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7182857.stm




-----------------> Retro is cool...... or is it?

from the Cynthia quote: "Sometimes all you get is hints. When we finally get to tell you guys stuff, we get really excited!"

Every single patch has had secret undocumented changes, bugs and glitches.


The NDA makes absolutely no sense.

It's not even as if there's a horde of WW2 RTS games out there, waiting perched nearby to steal Relic's thunder. I just don't get it.

Sounds like Arsenal then D:

> insert emoticon flipping off repeatedly <

Sounds like Arsenal then D:

The Arse? Nah....more like Swansea City

NDA is like shoooting yourself in the foot. Relic need to at least attempt to create some hype and interest. Fex, just state what is being worked on, what is in the pipeline in general terms. Is it:

Japanese and British factions?
North African maps?
New commanders?
or something else entirely

Give people *something* to look forward to or this game will depopulate

I just hope both Relic and SEGA have learned something from this fun but flawed game. If CoH3 has a similar release - with a lot of negative hype because of shitty DLC policy and poor communication - it will probably mean the end of the franchise.

If I can be honest outside of this site and other Relic dedicated forums nobody is talking about CoH2, even after the really bad launch last year and the Russians tanking the metacritic user score. Nobody out side of the community sites were talking about it.

I think that's terrible. Even when something goes wrong, no one outside of the die hard fans can be bothered to talk about it. The game just has no mind share and it's a tragedy because at it's core it's a really, really good game that I think more people should play.

I certainly saw people everywhere talk about CoH2, but pretty much only negatively and only around launch. The only two things mentioned were the DLC strategy and the unhistorical parts of the campaign (and people's overreaction to that). Not a word since then.

well rts games are really a niche genre nowadays, but regardless, there was like no advertisement at all for coh2 when it launched

US army releases more info on weapon development programs than Relic on a game about to hit the market in 2 weeks time.

Enough said.......

US army releases more info on weapon development programs than Relic on a game about to hit the market in 2 weeks time.

Enough said.......

that's a really bad comparison.

I don't need to explain why

that's a really bad comparison.

I don't need to explain why

Excellent

I have literally nothing to write about, as a writer for the biggest fan site dedicated to coh2. : \ Makes me sad. I want to hype the game and promote it, but there is nothing to hype or promote.

Please go read my post about Coh2.org community mod !!!!

We don't have to wait for Relic anymore !!!!! (while we wait at least)

As someone with a business degree, and a history in customer service I can honestly say that Relics communication with their consumers is not acceptable. Yes, they have improved but that only goes to show how unacceptable their communication channels were before. And further more what has been labelled as "improvement" shows how little they really understand about the changes that need to be made.

The worst part about this is it's not some giant business secret, most people will actively tell you what they want. Hell, with the internet these days you can find all sorts of solution with a quick Google search. And on a very serious, probably demeaning note, a college level business communication course will cost maybe 500$ and tell them exactly how to rectify all their problems. Yet still, these problems exist within relic? At what point do you just call it ignorance?

I really do enjoy playing Company of Heros, I've played it since the first instalment and would like to continue playing. but the reality is at their current rate I don't know how much longer it is till people give up on the game and move elsewhere.

relic's communication has improved, but there is nothing tangible. all we are getting more of now is "we value your feedback" or "we understand your concerns", "we are looking into this issue", or "we will have something new and exciting in the future!" type of deal.

As someone with a business degree, and a history in customer service I can honestly say that Relics communication with their consumers is not acceptable. Yes, they have improved but that only goes to show how unacceptable their communication channels were before. And further more what has been labelled as "improvement" shows how little they really understand about the changes that need to be made.

The worst part about this is it's not some giant business secret, most people will actively tell you what they want. Hell, with the internet these days you can find all sorts of solution with a quick Google search. And on a very serious, probably demeaning note, a college level business communication course will cost maybe 500$ and tell them exactly how to rectify all their problems. Yet still, these problems exist within relic? At what point do you just call it ignorance?

I really do enjoy playing Company of Heros, I've played it since the first instalment and would like to continue playing. but the reality is at their current rate I don't know how much longer it is till people give up on the game and move elsewhere.

Since you got Business degree you will know 2 cardinal mistakes:
-Don't be in love with your product
-Make product to suit customer's wants, not what you think it should be.
Both abc's of product development, both not familiar to Relic it seems.
Add communication and few other issues and you start wondering: 'how is this possible'
Like you said, kid can google these things in 5 minutes.