Relic, the Community, and the NDA

In case someone misunderstood what I said earlier, I never encouraged people to break the NDA. As retarded as the NDA is, you should honor what you sign up for. What I did say is this

1) coh2.org has no business being the NDA police, that should be solely Relic's responsibility
2)coh2.org is the main CoH news outlet, and for all forms of journalism (gaming most definitely not excluded) it is important to report on important news from reliable sources to maintain your journalistic integrity

I'm not saying we should have a thread devoted to people in alpha spilling the beans on everything they aren't supposed to talk about, or encouraging those types of threads. But if there is a big discovery, it is the responsibility of this site to post about it. If there is a video posted on youtube that shows Brits playing against a new 3rd Axis faction, shame on the guy that broke NDA and posted it, but at that point there is no turning back. At that point it is already news, and if Relic expects something like that to not be shared here they are out of touch with reality. News for the game should be shared, and this isn't exclusive to NDA alpha stuff either. Same thing goes for anything we find out before Relic intended us to. We already went through this a few months ago with some things discovered in the game files pertaining to Brits and war spoils changes or something like that. This site was buzzing about changes that were coming even though Relic hadn't intended for us to know about it, and no relations were soured then. Nor were they soured when we made the news post about CoH2 being leaked for the first time in pics from PCGamer magazine.

So in summary it is Relics job to enforce their NDA, and if this site only persecutes people for breaking alpha NDA and spilling classified information because "Relic doesn't want us sharing information before they officially reveal it" but not giving a shit whenever we share other classified information that wasn't bound by an NDA, well that is being really hypocritical because in the end Relics marketing strategy was undermined whether there was a NDA or no.

in response

Sure, if you wanted to take a purely critical stance on it, but I would argue that much like plagiarism there's something wrong with spreading information that you cannot verify. Something that breaks as soon as more cases appear, it's the Pandora's box that Basilone talks about.

First of all, I am absolutely no fan of the NDA either. I studied Design and Marketing and I know a lot about viral marketing itself because I have written my bachelor thesis about this topic and I know that Relic might miss some potentional players when keeping everything as a secret.

BUT

EVERYONE who participates in the Alpha had to accept the terms and conditions which included the NDA. There is a big red warning sign everywhere on the Alpha board which asks for keeping the stuff secret.

I want to say that, wether we like the NDA or not, it is not our business.
It's Relic's choice and just keep in mind that the Alpha is something purely voluntary by Relic because we asked many years for it.
Now they give us the chance to balance and take a look at the game before release and some jackasses simply think it's funny to leak the informations.

This will result in Relic stopping such events and the whole community would suffer under this decision because some few were simply not able to keep their mouths shut.

If you don't do it for Relic, please do it for us.

Well said by CieZ and nice constructive conversation in this thread at last.

I don't really understand the fuzz either. It's a normal contract. You have to sign these in normal life also. In this case you're just accepting the terms but it's a similar electronic signature. In real life, would you go apeshit and encourage to break the contract? Most likely not.

I'm not in alpha and I'm not mad either. I will decide later if the content is worth getting (most likely I will get it, since I still find CoH2 interesting).

For moderating the NDA, this is a fan site. I don't see a problem to follow similar guidelines that the company tells to follow. Also the comparison that why should we bend to Relic when they don't give anything to us, again.. It's a fan site.

It makes me angry and sad at the same time that something like the NDA could cause such angst here and create real anger and division in our small (mostly) tight knit community. It frustrates me EVEN MORE not knowing the reasons behind the decision by Relic to create such an instrument that stifles all legitimate enthusiasm and instead creates anger and bitterness with its prime customers!

I guess as with everything, their decision to enforce such a restrictive NDA comes down to money. Fair enough.

What they don't seem to factor in is how their past treatment of their customer base hurt them enormously. I've really never seen anything like it. Pissing off your customers is generally a bad way to sell your product. I personally know a dozen people who won't buy from Relic simply on principle. My clan at one point had 40-50 people playing Coh. Now, its pretty much just me. How they can't see how their decisions have damaged their own product, I'll never understand.

Meanwhile, what I'm hearing from some here is it comes down to trust and respect. Respect is a 2 way street. I applaud Relic and those in the community who are working to grow trust and respect. But its gonna take time. A LOT of time. You don't just put a band aid on a gaping wound and expect everything to be fine. So yeah...I understand the bitterness. I understand people who think F- Relic. I don't necessarily agree with them, but I empathize.

if relic decides to treat the development of content for a computer game as if it was the development of a new secret weapon at war time... its up to them.

but here on coh2.org people should act a little more relaxed.
"!Breaching an NDA will lead to an immediate 7-day ban." - seriously?
why not go with "please dont post anything that is under relic NDA" if you feel that it is really necessary

for me personally: if someone walks a red light on an empty street, or skips an hour of school on a sunny day or smokes some weed now and then, or posts something that technically falls under a silly nda, i dont care, and i certanly wont lecture him.

what would happen if something got out here on coh2.org? would relic retallyate and stop the support of this site, stop posting regularly, not sponsor the sites tournements, not give exclusive inside information anymore, not listen anymore what the folk here have to say? ....

exactly

if relic decides to treat the development of content for a computer game as if it was the development of a new secret weapon at war time... its up to them.

but here on coh2.org people should act a little more relaxed.
"!Breaching an NDA will lead to an immediate 7-day ban." - seriously?
why not go with "please dont post anything that is under relic NDA" if you feel that it is really necessary

for me personally: if someone walks a red light on an empty stree, or skips a hour of school on a sunny day or smokes some weed now and then, or posts something that technically falls under a silly nda, i dont care, and i certanly wont lecture him.

what would happen if something got out here on coh2.org? would relic retalyate and stop the support of this site, stop posting regulary, not sponsor the sites tournements, not give exclusive inside information anymore, not listen anymore what the folk here have to say? ....

exactly

Well said.

While I personally disagree with the idea of NDAs, at the end of the day those who were selected for the alpha are basically obliged by a legal contract to uphold its terms.

I mean early access open alphas are all the rage nowadays. They build up hype and a community around a product. From Relic/Sega's view, they presume that there would be a large initial rush to try an open alpha, and after the alpha had closed into a paid product there would be loss of revenue as players wouldn't buy it afterwards. Or if the community deemed the product unsatisfactory and not worthwhile. This is just plain wrong. How about you try leaving the hunger for money at the door Sega and give back to the community for once? ONE decal and crappy skins hardly cut it.

Information will be leaked in some form. Some little birdies have told me some things. If you know info on the alpha just be responsible and don't go blabbing about it in the public sphere. Simple as that.

if relic decides to treat the development of content for a computer game as if it was the development of a new secret weapon at war time... its up to them.

but here on coh2.org people should act a little more relaxed.
"!Breaching an NDA will lead to an immediate 7-day ban." - seriously?
why not go with "please dont post anything that is under relic NDA" if you feel that it is really necessary

for me personally: if someone walks a red light on an empty street, or skips an hour of school on a sunny day or smokes some weed now and then, or posts something that technically falls under a silly nda, i dont care, and i certanly wont lecture him.

what would happen if something got out here on coh2.org? would relic retallyate and stop the support of this site, stop posting regularly, not sponsor the sites tournements, not give exclusive inside information anymore, not listen anymore what the folk here have to say? ....

exactly

+ 1

Nice constructive thread guys, keep it up

sad thing is that Relic probably used alredy made models from CoH1 to make brits, maybe made some new units or changed them a little bit, if that's true, then 6th faction will be third german army which i find very ridiculous, i really doubt that Relic would make Italians or Japs, that's so sad

I hate todays generation whining about their rights, free speech, coh2.org are not relic employees etc.. if you sign an agreement you should honor it and alpha is early code not meant to be viewed by any other than testers. It is not a demo like other "open" betas are today which you people seem to think is a favour by other developers when its not... they charge you to preorder so you can have a early demo.

Long story short: even if you happen to get info about the alpha keep it to yourself.

sad thing is that Relic probably used alredy made models from CoH1 to make brits, maybe made some new units or changed them a little bit, if that's true, then 6th faction will be third german army which i find very ridiculous, i really doubt that Relic would make Italians or Japs, that's so sad

3rd Axis faction will be Poland...

3rd Axis faction will be Poland...

yea, and we've made polish death camps right?

yea, and we've made polish death camps right?

tankette BARTON nowwwwwwwwwwwww

The NDA topic in this community is elevated so much that is starting to look a bit ridiculous. No other community I participated ever gave that much attention to this topic.

NDA is a legal contract established between two parties(people, companies, etc..) in order to maintain/preserve confidential material until it's release. This practice is not an invention from Relic and its not only used by Relic. Its a practice spread out around all companies or studios that works with IP's (Intellectual Propriety).

This community is constantly bombarded by treads and complains regarding NDA and I wonder if certain people are not using this as an excuse to bark at the game. Seriously folks, leaking the next faction, patch notes or bashing NDA will not solve any problems related to Game Balance, Game Optimization, Meta Game or what ever complain you have.

Further more I seriously doubt you take your NDA outrage standards on Relic to EA, Ubisoft, Paradox or Activision for "not being so open to the community". I never saw any of the NDA Rebels complain about any of the companies above. If you don't use the same standards you use on Relic on those companies, you are a spoiled hypocrite with the entitled feeling that Relic should be giving you information as you see fit.

Now regarding the lack of information/ bad communication. Yes, I would love to know more about what is being developed at Relic. Yes i would love to have more balance patches and content. But Relic is a studio of not more then 70 people. It takes time to develop content for a huge game like CoH2 and even if every Friday Cynthia showed up on twitch and said they were working on X or Y you will still be complaining that the content is taking too long. Game Development is a long a time consuming process so stop blaming the NDA for the decadence of the game. This topic is extremely overrated in this community and deserves no special attention, especially coming from entitled kids.

That enough of a rant for me.

Fortune Folks!

if relic decides to treat the development of content for a computer game as if it was the development of a new secret weapon at war time... its up to them.

but here on coh2.org people should act a little more relaxed.
"!Breaching an NDA will lead to an immediate 7-day ban." - seriously?
why not go with "please dont post anything that is under relic NDA" if you feel that it is really necessary

for me personally: if someone walks a red light on an empty street, or skips an hour of school on a sunny day or smokes some weed now and then, or posts something that technically falls under a silly nda, i dont care, and i certanly wont lecture him.

what would happen if something got out here on coh2.org? would relic retallyate and stop the support of this site, stop posting regularly, not sponsor the sites tournements, not give exclusive inside information anymore, not listen anymore what the folk here have to say? ....

exactly

Please, you dont do something simply when you are allowed to do it, or no harsh consequences that will result from it. Relic has its own corporate social responsibilities to follow, and we the community, and especially, as fans do also have our own responsibilities to follow. If you violated NDA, you are (simply a dick). If you gained secondhand information, and shared them publicly, you are being an irresponsible community member.

The NDA topic in this community is elevated so much that is starting to look a bit ridiculous. No other community I participated ever gave that much attention to this topic.

NDA is a legal contract established between two parties(people, companies, etc..) in order to maintain/preserve confidential material until it's release. This practice is not an invention from Relic and its not only used by Relic. Its a practice spread out around all companies or studios that works with IP's (Intellectual Propriety).

This community is constantly bombarded by treads and complains regarding NDA and I wonder if certain people are not using this as an excuse to bark at the game. Seriously folks, leaking the next faction, patch notes or bashing NDA will not solve any problems related to Game Balance, Game Optimization, Meta Game or what ever complain you have.

Further more I seriously doubt you take your NDA outrage standards on Relic to EA, Ubisoft, Paradox or Activision for "not being so open to the community". I never saw any of the NDA Rebels complain about any of the companies above. If you don't use the same standards you use on Relic on those companies, you are a spoiled hypocrite with the entitled feeling that Relic should be giving you information as you see fit.

Now regarding the lack of information/ bad communication. Yes, I would love to know more about what is being developed at Relic. Yes i would love to have more balance patches and content. But Relic is a studio of not more then 70 people. It takes time to develop content for a huge game like CoH2 and even if every Friday Cynthia showed up on twitch and said they were working on X or Y you will still be complaining that the content is taking too long. Game Development is a long a time consuming process so stop blaming the NDA for the decadence of the game. This topic is extremely overrated in this community and deserves no special attention, especially coming from entitled kids.

That enough of a rant for me.

Fortune Folks!

tankette BARTON nowwwwwwwwwwwww

Sneak Preview:

I have never posted so much on any topic but in my opinion it boils down to honor.It works both ways Relic and the community either you have it or you don't.I might also add that COH2.org is entertaining,informative and needed.