Relic and the Long Distance Relationship

by Cynthia in official forums:

Ooof. Well. I can't really agree with referring to anyone as a dick. My post sort of addresses all sides of the discussion in this thread. By all sides I suppose I mean two sides. Also: I don't think anyone here has claimed to speak for everyone. I'm going to go a bit further and also address a few comments I've seen pop up lately, in some threads that have had to be 'dealt with' for various reasons.

I think the bottom line is this: the community is REALLY passionate. This is a good thing. We know people want us to improve, and it's nice that people care enough to get so worked up over things. As a game developer, your dream is to work with a project that people care passionately about, just as much as the internal team does. So hey... we totally have that covered!

Regarding criticism - it can fall into different categories. Constructive, or ... less than constructive. And we're trying to make sure that our forums are a happy, constructive and open place for people to discuss our titles and share their experiences. I want conversation to flourish here.

We have to walk a line where the negative stuff is dealt with, but we still allow constructive criticism. It seems that no matter what we do we will still attract ire, or calls of RELIC Y U CENSOR us?! This is specifically why we have moderators edit comments. Sometimes within a comment is a very valid criticism, sandwiched between a string of insults that violates our forum rules. We could simply have all posts that contain the violations deleted entirely, but instead our aim is to have the offensive comments removed but still allow the constructively negative parts. Do you have to speak with respect here? Yeah, you do. I don't think anyone would want someone to come into their home only to see that guest 'pudding' all over things. That would be gross, and a horrible clean-up job that might require dry cleaning. We will show those people the door. Other cool people aren't going to want to come hang out in our home if it's covered in pudding. Can you imagine how horrible that would smell?

The onus is on us to provide a good experience here in these forums, and we're still working to provide that. We will do that by:

1. Cleaning up the way people interact with each other. Chill the hate comments, cull the insults, encourage conflicting opinions to become discussions and not flame wars
2. Offering up new events and initiatives for our community to enjoy our game with, and better interact with our dev team.
3. Deal with some of the frustrating technical issues this forum faces. I think everyone can agree that some of them are just... painful. Like a million papercuts on the same finger level of painful. And that probably doesn't help when people are already frustrated about something related to the game.

We are still early on in this journey. There is still more to do.

I'm going to take this as another opportunity to shout out to our awesome moderator team. The team has grown from one to six in only a few months, and they care quite a bit about what goes down in these internet halls of ours. I've already seen a shift, and it's thanks to them.

Regarding transparency - no, we don't tell you guys everything. I think that the community may always disagree with us to some extent on when the 'right time' to discuss new stuff is. We listen to your feedback on this, and it results in us trying things like the public beta for the October Patch, more stuff going through Alpha. But we are still not going to share all of our Future Plans (patent pending) straight away because our team needs time to be able to grow their vision, work on things and develop their ideas. Sometimes all you get is hints. When we finally get to tell you guys stuff, we get really excited! It feels great to be able to do that. We want to do it ALL THE TIME but the time has to be right. Me, whenever we know it's the right moment to tell the community something:

http://bit.ly/CynHappyYelling

For bug fixes, sometimes a bug that we're aware of can take a while to reproduce in ways that allow the team to fix it. Sometimes even after diagnosis, the fix can be more complicated than we'd originally thought. Sometimes a fix breaks another thing, and a different fix has to be found before pushing that fix out. Bug squashing is an interesting sport and skill. But our team that works on these things is VERY dedicated (and some of the funniest people in the office, I might add) and I think this needs to be mentioned.

I hope this helps to clear a few things up for people that have voiced their concerns recently.

http://community.companyofheroes.com/forum/company-of-heroes-2/company-of-heroes-2-general-discussion/134961-my-conclusion?p=135192#post135192

This thread is a depressing read. -1 for bad feels.

Cynthia, say something.

It's not about being "too passionate" or something similar, it's about very logical things not happening and it's about very weird decision making.

lost good people this year.

makes me sad


comparing relic to other companies reveals how bad their communication is

for example: ive been apart of the War thunder community before the game had 1k players (since private alpha)

ive been apart of many flight model test groups and the ground forces alpha and beta.

The open feedback between the players and Gaijin I something that relic should strive for. I would email a developer and get a response within a business week, DESPITE the language barrier.
with this in mind, im excited to be invited to their future testing events.

Relic needs to step it up. a week before WFA released. it was nearly impossible to to find any videos or screenshots of the expansion. How the hell are consumers supposed to get excited for content so secret?

Actually, loving Relic / Company of Heroes is like supporting a crappy English football team. You grudgingly learn to love it's faults while simultaneously despising them, the scars on your back a badge of honour.

Every defeat and set-back is tempered with utterly futile optimism of the glory days you imagine will come. They don't, but you love the core experience so much you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it.

When your team's management sell out to shitty corporate sponsors and raise ticket prices you go anyway - mainly 'cuz you've no place else to go and your emotional investment is too deep.

Every victory is pyrrhic and fleeting - every set-back bitter and black.

This, gentlemen, is fan-dom. It's not a million miles off sub-dom. It doesn't get better. It only gets worse.

See you on the battlefield!

Actually, loving Relic / Company of Heroes is like supporting a crappy English football team. You grudgingly learn to love it's faults while simultaneously despising them, the scars on your back a badge of honour.

Every defeat and set-back is tempered with utterly futile optimism of the glory days you imagine will come. They don't, but you love the core experience so much you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it.

When your team's management sell out to shitty corporate sponsors and raise ticket prices you go anyway - mainly 'cuz you've no place else to go and your emotional investment is too deep.

Every victory is pyrrhic and fleeting - every set-back bitter and black.

This, gentlemen, is fan-dom. It's not a million miles off sub-dom. It doesn't get better. It only gets worse.

See you on the battlefield!

Sounds like Arsenal then D:

It seems like Relic is mistaking the communitys frustration for an actual hype of what's coming next. It's understandable that they might not want to talk about things they are planning but may not be possible to implement in the game in the future. But what if they could at the very least tell us what they are working on right now?

Relic is remarkably bad at creating any kind of fuss around this game and any kind of curiosity is slowly choked to death by their NDA. The "passionate community" is a remnant from CoH 1 and is slowly dying, just look at how many significant and "passionate" community members that have left us so far: Inverse, TFN (Tommy and Fatal), Krebs, Rogers 'n Pounder. Just to name a few. The only one still going strong is ImperialDane but it is just a matter of time before he get's too tired of this game.

These guys had thousands of subscribers together and thousands of views every day. If Relic would have cooperated with them more CoH2 would probably have been a lot bigger today than it is now. Some of these guys have been relentless in their effort to try to get Relic on the train but it was impossible, they were simply not interested. They offered a big, free and effective marketing team but Relic fumbled it all away.

ImperialDane will never tire of CoH2. He is carved from an adamantine block of stoic enthusiasm.

I dunno, look at Blizzard or Bioware. They are much better at showing some ankle. And I'm not talking about resources, I'm talking about the philosophy of engagement.

Sounds like Arsenal then D:

Let's look at the 2nd Division first before Arsenal.

I remember CoH2 was finished downloading on Steam at midnight, than i played it until 5:00 in the morning. Came with complete red eyes on school but it was worth it
After playing a couple of matches you saw the game needed (some) tweaking, but I thought that would be done in few months.

I was so hyped about this game and played it a lot, but now I just play it occasionaly and most of the time I just watch streams instead.

Really, I hope Relic can change their way of communicating with us and stop with this stupid NDA stuff. In case they didn't know: NDA is not the way to get people hyped about something...

Hopefully things change soon or I'll just waste my time on some other game.

Why isn’t she answering her phone? She is surely out doing massive amounts of ecstasy and getting gang banged in some wild orgy, that’s the only explanation!

I think this is correct. Not in a metaphorical term, but in a literal. People live. Videogames is bad for your ecstasy intake. When you havent done ecstasy in a week, then you know youre addicted to Coh2.

What's wrong with doing extasy and the odd gang bang once in a while?

Back on topic

There is a lot of stuff that Relic has no control over but the dudes over at Sega. They run some aspects of Relic so blaming Relic for everything would be a bit short sighted.
However, I think Relic did a splendid job in denying any form of hype because of their NDA policy.

I think this issue has more to do with Relics policy on what can be said than the community managers willingness/dedication to let us know whats going on, considering that not much has changed between how Relic communicates with the community since Nouns departure.

This is a correct statement. As I attempted to extract information on air during the Twitch stream with her...staff are limited in what they are able to talk about because NDA. If you want more information one must start with challenging the NDA and the caretakers of it.

I am working in a customer-oriented company and the way Relic handles its communication or just in general his relation with the customer is just inadequate.

Better than before, that might be but (I'm speaking for myself) that's just not enough. When you get a 2/10 on your school report and you had a 1/10 before, you can talk about progress, but still very very poor.

The amount of good people lost the previous year is just too much. Rogers and Ipkai are only 2 examples of it.

Not only that, but their priorities are very strange.
DLC content has not been brought out for a very long time. Easy money and pleasing customers with skins, stickers or commanders.

It's not going to take a long time untill I say goodbye to this game too.
I don't care anymore about 'oh but it's going to change' or 'it has been worse'. Communication, service 0.

These are my two cents.

+1

What kreatiir said is correct.
You can have the best product but if you have such a poor marketing you won't sell anything.

They dug their on grave before CoH2 was even released.
NDA prevented any hype and the Pay2Win policy broke their neck.

Look at CoH2 Youtube videos. Mostly under 1.000 views which is absolutely NOTHING. I could film mysef sleeping and could get more views. Even the videos of Relic don't get more than 10k.

They have never realised that marketing is the key to be succesful.
See - Call of Duty releases bullcrap every year but they create such a hype that people tear the game out of their hands.

CoH2 only showed a little clip with few to no information at all and blocked everything else under the NDA. It's predecessor was the best-rated RTS of all times, there was so much potential. But no - NDA. We don't know nothing but get preorder bonusses, lol.

The saddest thing is that they did not learn anything because it was the same thing a year later with WFA. I was in the Beta and was really enthusiastic about all the new things but I was not allowed to talk about it.

I do not know if this is the fault of Relic or SEGA but I feel sorry for Cynthia.

It's just like dropping her and a shovel into a destroyed City with the task to rebuild it on her own. She surely is a very charismatic girl and I am sure she knows her job very well. But the City "Company of Heroes" got wrecked insanely bad.

And the most ironic thing is that there are thousands of willing helpers wanting to help her but the NDA and poor public relations have blocked all access to CoH-town.

Being part of a bigger corporation (Sega) Relic must sit tighter than a more agile indie developer house. While i stand with all others who ask for more communication from them, i understand them a bit.

Ardenne Assault seem to be some kind of a success and it's a big DLC, so Relic being a small house they had to focus on it.

I sure they will be back in force after the holidays.


We are the community, we make this game live. This site play a big part of what make COH fun. (Relic or not). The last big 1vs1 tournament demonstrate clearly the positive impact of COH.org on the Coh2 world.

Let not be depressed, rather contribute positively to continuous effort people on this forum are making to the make the game better. It take time, but we are listen to.

I wish a merry Christmas to all COH2 players, especially to those who try to make this game even better and those run this great Community Forum!

Thank you for your efforts, they are greatly appreciated.

Being part of a bigger corporation (Sega) Relic must sit tighter than a more agile indie developer house. While i stand with all others who ask for more communication from them, i understand them a bit.

Ardenne Assault seem to be some kind of a success and it's a big DLC, so Relic being a small house they had to focus on it.

I sure they will be back in force after the holidays.


We are the community, we make this game live. This site play a big part of what make COH fun. (Relic or not). The last big 1vs1 tournament demonstrate clearly the positive impact of COH.org on the Coh2 world.

Let not be depressed, rather contribute positively to continuous effort people on this forum are making to the make the game better. It take time, but we are listen to.

I wish a merry Christmas to all COH2 players, especially to those who try to make this game even better and those run this great Community Forum!

Thank you for your efforts, they are greatly appreciated.

+1.
Amen to that brother

Being part of a bigger corporation (Sega) Relic must sit tighter than a more agile indie developer house. While i stand with all others who ask for more communication from them, i understand them a bit.

Ardenne Assault seem to be some kind of a success and it's a big DLC, so Relic being a small house they had to focus on it.

I sure they will be back in force after the holidays.


We are the community, we make this game live. This site play a big part of what make COH fun. (Relic or not). The last big 1vs1 tournament demonstrate clearly the positive impact of COH.org on the Coh2 world.

Let not be depressed, rather contribute positively to continuous effort people on this forum are making to the make the game better. It take time, but we are listen to.

I wish a merry Christmas to all COH2 players, especially to those who try to make this game even better and those run this great Community Forum!

Thank you for your efforts, they are greatly appreciated.

Wow that was really well said.

Though you can be very "constructive" and say it's not their fault and they will be "back", it doesn't change a damn thing that they dug their own grave.

There are so many games on the PC, every day there is another game that tries to push away another similar one. We have so much choice.
Also, don't expect a boom in players, no sir the release of the game has to be the boom. The release of WFA has to be the boom. AA had to be the boom. The constant release of content has to maintain the growth. Marketing and constant enticing maintains a playerbase.

But non of that is happening. Quite the opposite. It's just not working guys.

Though I'm still organizing tourneys, my will to do so has completely vanished. My fellow caster knows I'm completely sick and tired of the game and its way its way it is handling new releases and his community. (Though I'm not saying "Fek off Cynthia" or "Stupid PQ" - absolutely not because they are really good people who are doing their best, especially Cynthia is a great person, I've been in contact for some time now and she's a great person) - The game is just a sinking ship and there is no single point in denying that.

"Stay positive, you'll get burned out after a while." - Ipkai

I first thought "yeye Ipkai sure", but I now agree 100% with the guy.

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.

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.

NDA is no more of this time.
Transparency and constant enticing is.