The Community and Relic.

Before I begin I just want to say that I mean no offence to those who run the community management side of things at Relic.

OK, so those of you who have been around a long time will remember the one of the old Community managers, THQLYNX, aka Bobby Miller. This legend knew how to run a community. You could ask him for a Facebook feature and it would be up within minutes. Have a tournament planned in advance? He would make sure people knew about it weeks before and actually post on the day when the event was live. Have a problem with abusive players? He would be on it asap. Now then, with all of this in mind why can't anyone else do the same? I'm sure many others including myself have pondered this same question. It really does not take much effort at all to do these things either.

Since Noun left I thought I'd wait awhile and see what Cynthia would bring to the table. However since the beginning of the year all I have seen is 2 Relic streams and nothing else. Therefore I ask what is exactly happening with the community management? Recently there have been plenty of staff at COH2.org leaving because morale is so low, that they see no way forward and their efforts are going to waste. Simply put, players are tired waiting for change. There are so many things that Relic could be doing too boost morale and the game's popularity. Here are two simple ways of improving the situation:

1. Engage with the Streamers of COH2.

I don't know if the devs realise this or not but every time one of you pop in to chat it means a heck of a lot for us. It shows that you care. Showing a community that you care about them goes along way. I bet you if Cynthia showed up to a COH2 streamer's channel and asked if they would like any promotional help to attract more viewers that streamer would go nuts. It doesn't even have to be much, a code here or there is nothing.


2. Feature Community Content on Facebook.

Currently the offical COH2 facebook page has 483,858 likes. Promoting community made content would do wonders for publicising their works. I know in the past there have been such features however they are very few in number. I great source of short clips can be found on various YouTube channels and on the trending section of COH2.org. Sharing them wouldn't hurt right? Here are a few examples:

Good posts, specially about engaging with streamer and sharing their stuff and moments. I don't know if this kind of PR policy is set by Relic or Sega, either way it is slowly killing the game.
People get frustrated and say BS, insult staff, troll etc. because of this.
Sharing these stuff doesn't seem to be very hard, and it could have a huge impact.

Cynthia use to post some of my shoutcasts to the official Facebook and it was amazing, I would get so many views and subs from it each time and the people seemed to really like our videos, but then all of a sudden she just stopped and hasn't for months and hasn't given any response or reason why. Every now and again they'll repost some really crappy video about something stupid, but there's so many amazing videos from many great people, that should be promoted and shared but don't.

I'd recommend just giving us a tiny little sneakpeak, surely that's not that hard right? Just a teaser of something they're doing. It could be really ambiguous or really specific, the point is that we feel like somethings coming. The community here is dedicated and whilst they're always arguing, they all more or less love CoH2 to bits. Show us ANYTHING and we'll start reaching for our wallets.

Currently it feels like we have a dead (non-developing) game on our hands here and it's not fun.

I really don't know if these issues are caused by incompetence, NDA, or simply ignorance.
Because relic refuses to answer to any of those threads, the communities frustration increases from day to day.

You address low morale at coh2 staff. I wonder if Noun and Pq left also because of low morale...

I'd recommend just giving us a tiny little sneakpeak, surely that's not that hard right? Just a teaser of something they're doing. It could be really ambiguous or really specific, the point is that we feel like somethings coming. The community here is dedicated and whilst they're always arguing, they all more or less love CoH2 to bits. Show us ANYTHING and we'll start reaching for our wallets.

Currently it feels like we have a dead (non-developing) game on our hands here and it's not fun.

I think we are far from that point... Hans is just asking for "reposts" and it's not 100% if they will do it or not, let alone teasers and sneak peaks.

PwnageMachine has a good point, the casting is great now. Every caster has his style, commentary, and even the time table is kinda good so you can catch most of them. Whey don't they "shout" these content more is a question. There is absolutely no reason not to advertise for casters. It has nothing to do with NDA, finance, morale etc. Just simple, totally free advertisement for their game and community.

Just take a look at LoL. They have facebook page, they have had some kind of weekly show (I don't remember the name), sneak peak, patch preview an a lot more stuff. Both Relic and the community are different from LoL I know, but that doesn't mean they can't promote casters.

It's an old game allready. How many other companies maintain an active community management that long? For a community of this size, i mean?

Cynthia is busy, do not disturb guys.

It's an old game allready. How many other companies maintain an active community management that long? For a community of this size, i mean?

Well the whole gaming market has changed. Right now even big companies still support their older games for many reasons, instead of letting it die. Look at vCoH, it is still a great game, and people still play it.

When they still can profit from a released game, they should. Specially an online game like this.

PS: This might be unrelated, but I suggest everyone plays "Game Dev Tycoon" or at least look it up. It would give you an insight about game making, decisions and cherishing your community.

What Cynthia would bring to the table.

Honeymoon is over.

Frustrated at what I perceive to be Relic's blatant mismanagement of a fantastic franchise.

Worried that SEGA or factors we don't know about might be to blame rather than staff incompetence.

Still sticking with the company hoping for better days.

I've tried, asked, begged, bribed and even threatened( )CM's to engage and advertise more of the community work. Turns out it's not their call to make. I think the problems we're having in getting our stuff advertised are more the fault of the Brand Management departement of Relic/Sega. I can't blame Cynthia for this, she has craploads of work and god knows what her bosses say in terms of what can be publicized and what not.

Good post Hans, sadly I have to admit that I agree with it all... it's a shame that Relic is so closed and distant. I feel like I used to be one of the most positive guys in the community but my morale has dropped a lot recently and it has killed my motivation to commit time to the game. It's a shame because there was such a passionate community here at coh2.org, great staff and awesome streamers/casters that Relic could have engaged with. I hope they wake up and realize that we're living in a world of transparency and social media when it comes to games. People want to know what's happening and they want to feel connected to studios. Silence and NDAs kill opportunity.

I can't blame Cynthia for this, she has craploads of work and god knows what her bosses say in terms of what can be publicized and what not.

That is true!

+1 to all this, obviously.

Also, Kristof is right, the issue is internal brand management/Gestapo at Relic (the developers are no longer allowed to communicate with anyone, for example -- everything has to be done through Cynthia) and the apparently extremely contentious issue of the SEGA legal team. This is also linked to the twin problems of the official forums being horrendous/buggy/staffed by the worst moderators in the history of the Internet, and absolutely everything taking literally months to be followed up with a response of any kind from the powers that be.

In short: things are shitty and won't get better soon. Either suck it up or just move on (as some have chosen to do).

PS: Hello Joe >3

+1 to all this, obviously.

Also, Kristof is right, the issue is internal brand management/Gestapo at Relic (the developers are no longer allowed to communicate with anyone, for example -- everything has to be done through Cynthia) and the apparently extremely contentious issue of the SEGA legal team. This is also linked to the twin problems of the official forums being horrendous/buggy/staffed by the worst moderators in the history of the Internet, and absolutely everything taking literally months to be followed up with a response of any kind from the powers that be.

In short: things are shitty and won't get better soon. Either suck it up or just move on (as some have chosen to do).

PS: Hello Joe >3

whats with segas legal team?

whats with segas legal team?

Nothing too different from any other publisher, I guess. They just have to rubber-stamp everything that is said/done, which seems to take forever. That makes communication between Relic and the fans much slower, and a lot of these complaints (which are perfectly valid, btw) stem from that.

They have a Master Plan, you just need to wait. They said they are committed to supporting the game for 5 years, which leaves their brand management 3,5 more years to attract all the players. Remember, it's an iterative process so it's normal that it takes some time. They have a roadmap full of features for CoH 2. It's so full that sometimes they have to release unfinished features, but remember: they still have 3.5 years to polish ( ) them. You should be excited for what will come next!

As for their facebook page, it's full of witty questions that bring a lot of traffic. They simply can't feature casters and streamers anymore or they will lose their facebook rank, calculated by a complex algorithm based on advanced machine learning. There is a fine balance to achieve that you don't know about, so I understand your frustration.

They have at least four different target audiences. That makes a lot of potential customers and they totally have the resources to satisfy all of them. I am excited by the amount of players that will join us in the future! And besides, CoH 2 is already doing better than vCoH so I don't know what your are all complaining about.

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Nothing too different from any other publisher, I guess. They just have to rubber-stamp everything that is said/done, which seems to take forever. That makes communication between Relic and the fans much slower, and a lot of these complaints (which are perfectly valid, btw) stem from that.

I wonder how creative assembly can do so much marketing then...