Relic; It's Time We Had That Talk

Noun, you've proven your qualification as a community manager in this thread. It's almost unbelievable how calm you stay and how objectively you answered the questions of haters and crybabies, who no matter how detailed their question is answered will cry on anyway.

I am actually surprised how efficiently this method works to make themself look like fools to all others =)

Whats the story about matchmaking? I can't believe they went with the one that is currently in use.

I'll be honest... as a player that just jumps on for a few games in the evening. I don't care what they do with COH2 if the current mm stays in place with only random map, random pug teams (vs usually the premade teams and only VP 500 point games.

Is relic going to dump the current matchmaking system and put in the one used in COH1? Simple yes or no (all people want). Or at least give us some freaking options to pick ie - choice of map, custom victory conditions. Cause this 500 VP games, with random map, random winter or summer weather....just ain't cuttin it!

Sheessh ---Whats the freaking secret! The only secret I can think of is....Relic isn't going to do anything to the mm system.

Eagerly await a response from Relic!

With Rome Total War 2 in 29 days...ya best get your ass in gear on dumping this matchmaking system currently in use.

Relic also had a plan to support Dawn of War II for a number of years. Then the entire team got laid off and who gives a shit about promises amirite?

A healthy skepticism of the developer team is always good. No disrespect intended Noun, but aren't the guy in charge and you can't guarantee me or anybody anything, so while your comments are appreciated on my part, I don't quite believe them. Not out of any possible malice intent you may or may not have, but simply due to the fact that you aren't in charge of where this game goes, and when it comes right down to it you're doing your job. But you've said as much yourself.

Fantastic point. We had more planned for DoW II. We wanted to keep up the DLC we were doing because it was both making money and making people happy. I know, DLC people like hard to believe.

I was so mad when I read that they had laid off the DoW team but pretended that DoW III was still right around the corner. I was at EA by then because I didn't want to move to California to work at THQ HQ, but I vented a lot to people like Marcus and Gorb.

So that's why I want us to only talk about stuff when we know it's happening. At times we have said "we intend to do that" or "hope to" when asked about things. But putting up a list even without dates is just asking for us to have to apologize for something later. Even if the list had 1,000 things and we did 999 of them that one thing would be something that someone had bought the game for and now felt lied to.

Roadmaps are too easily misunderstood as promises, and are empty without timelines. Members of this forum have seen our internal roadmaps, but they're people we know have an understanding of development and we prefaced it by saying it's stuff that we'd like to do and are working towards without promising it.

Relic has in the past said that they were going to do stuff and then not done it, and it's something we'd like to stop doing. SEGA will help us with that, they're far more understanding of... well everything, than THQ was. THQ was big into promising things before anyone was ready. Space Marine 2. DoW 3. DoW 3 Free-to-Play. Homefront 2 & 3.

I'd much rather we do stuff first, then brag about it second. Maybe that's being overcautious, but we've in the past given easy answers that we thought the community wanted to hear. All with the best of intentions, but not always with the ability to carry those out.

So we're going to shut up and ship.

Take the Leaderboards for example. We wanted them in at launch. We were confident we could do that and now there are people who rather fairly feel upset because we said they'd be in at launch and they're not. It would have been better had we not promised them and then failed to deliver.

If we say we're doing X, I want to know that we're 100% doing it. Or at least as close to 100% as we can get.

Hopefully that's an explanation. I understand that you're frustrated, and hopefully our dedication to support the game long term will change your mind. If you want to take this as the game being in trouble that's all on you.

Personally I view it as us getting our shit together and not talking out of our hat as before.

The age old prophecy "Under promise, then over deliver" I like the theory Noun, but lets hope for the fans sake it isn't a case of "Under promise, under deliver". But, I have faith, just like I had faith in CoH Online. I was burnt with that one, but I know Relic have good intentions this time around.

Tell me about the time frame on implementation of the Leader-boards? 2 weeks, 2 months? or year? Or is it, hard to say because you actually don't really know what's happening with regard to it? If you do know what's happening with it, tell me about the problems you had implementing it at launch? Tell me about the type of Leader-board system you are trying to implement and how?

Also what's the time frame on Anti-Cheat?

Fantastic point. We had more planned for DoW II. We wanted to keep up the DLC we were doing because it was both making money and making people happy. I know, DLC people like hard to believe.

I was so mad when I read that they had laid off the DoW team but pretended that DoW III was still right around the corner. I was at EA by then because I didn't want to move to California to work at THQ HQ, but I vented a lot to people like Marcus and Gorb.

So that's why I want us to only talk about stuff when we know it's happening. At times we have said "we intend to do that" or "hope to" when asked about things. But putting up a list even without dates is just asking for us to have to apologize for something later. Even if the list had 1,000 things and we did 999 of them that one thing would be something that someone had bought the game for and now felt lied to.

If there is one thing I have learnt from working as a video game developer for the last 10 years is that the only certainty in games development is uncertainty.

Publicly promising any feature even if you believe it is 100& within your development scope is always a risk, a myriad of factors often delay a feature or end up cutting it, And there is nothing more disappointing to a customer than broken promises.

I think Noun and Relic are doing a great job and they remain one of the most respected studios within the world.

After reading through the topic kind of fast, I would like to thank Noun for taking the time to talk with us on this particular forum, which isn't even the official one!

Somehow there are alot of ppl who think that nobody, absolutly nobody makes mistakes. It's baffling to see all those posts that stuff wasn't right on the launch or whatever. No product, not one is completely perfect in the entire world?! If you ask someone or a company to produce or manufacture anything, the first product always needs tweaking or whatever. Same goes for games, they're never 100% finished, it's a work in progress.

Anyways, I for one am satisfied with the game and info Noun gave us. They are doing their best, and thats all they can do. Keep it up Relic!

Why are people with around or less 50 posts leaving their negative feedback? So much hate on the balance from some who i pressume dont have total 100 hours played or dont even know game but just comment on random stuff they dont like without realising that this game is rly hard to get into and hard to get a grip on
Ive seen so much players when i either play soviets or germans , opponent saying the nation i play atm is OP
Im sick and tired of that so i would ask for experienced players to leave their feedback if they either love or dislike certan things , and imply what things need more work or tweak

Why are people with around or less 50 posts leaving their negative feedback? So much hate on the balance from some who i pressume dont have total 100 hours played or dont even know game but just comment on random stuff they dont like without realising that this game is rly hard to get into and hard to get a grip on
Ive seen so much players when i either play soviets or germans , opponent saying the nation i play atm is OP
Im sick and tired of that so i would ask for experienced players to leave their feedback if they either love or dislike certan things , and imply what things need more work or tweak

Don't worry, If a developer took action on every comment left you would end up with this.

Why are people with around or less 50 posts leaving their negative feedback? So much hate on the balance from some who i pressume dont have total 100 hours played or dont even know game but just comment on random stuff they dont like without realising that this game is rly hard to get into and hard to get a grip on
Ive seen so much players when i either play soviets or germans , opponent saying the nation i play atm is OP
Im sick and tired of that so i would ask for experienced players to leave their feedback if they either love or dislike certan things , and imply what things need more work or tweak

Who is experienced after three weeks? Noone is, the meta hasn't even fully developed yet, it can sometimes take months for that to happen.

Too many people have or will walk away from coh2 before things get for the better . Anyone would think coh2 has been out for 5-6 years , with the lack of people actually playing auto matches.
The first few years with coh had a strong following , Lots of people posting on the GR forums & people were enthusiastic about it .
Updates will come and thing's will improve . I have no doubt .
Having no Lobby is a big killer . Don't get me wrong i was never a fan of the lobby's , but without it.... You're keeping the newer player base away from hosting friendly aka (noob games)
New players need to start somewhere , And without the lobby system , people wont spend the time learning the game and hurting longevity of the game .
Lets get the community involved with helping the relic team out!!!
what can we do REL ????
*Map contest would be good . Winner have their map added to the game =)
*Old Coh maps added to coh2 . ( i don't need to list them . we all know the good one's)

Noun, you've proven your qualification as a community manager in this thread. It's almost unbelievable how calm you stay and how objectively you answered the questions of haters and crybabies, who no matter how detailed their question is answered will cry on anyway.

I am actually surprised how efficiently this method works to make themself look like fools to all others =)

i don't think there are a lot of people that are more discontent with the state the game is in right now, but you are absolutely right. expectations from most people are not just unrealistic, they aren't even utopic, they are outright impossible.
and i'm saying this despite wanting to have a roadmap of some kind.

bottom line is: support so far has been good, and if they keep that rate up there is absolutely no reason to complain about anything (except maybe the patches coming in too fast).

So that's why I want us to only talk about stuff when we know it's happening. At times we have said "we intend to do that" or "hope to" when asked about things. But putting up a list even without dates is just asking for us to have to apologize for something later. Even if the list had 1,000 things and we did 999 of them that one thing would be something that someone had bought the game for and now felt lied to.

You could try like SOE.

No disrespect to the developers, I am actually amazed to see Noun responding the way he is. A lot of forums never get responses from devs, so this is a good sign.

However, people need to stop using the entitlement argument. I am sorry, but as consumers, we are entitled to features advertised in the product. If some of those features aren't delivers upon release, then there is a problem. Consumers are using their hard earned money to buy products by developers who advertise the game in a way to make us want to buy. There are many examples I can use, but I believe my point has been made. Sure we don't understand nothing is perfect and things do go wrong. But god damn things like the multiplayer features, the boring DLC (basically commanders that are just reused abilities), and game performance really make me angry. I understand the frustration of some people, especially knowing that mistakes have been repeated from previous titles. I should have never happened at all. I say give it time, which is what I am doing. My coh2 experiences is losing its drive a bit, but I am willing to wait for improvements before I have given up. Once some of the patches come along and fix it I am sure people will start flocking to it again. At least I hope so.

You could try like SOE.

That's an awful idea. PlanetSide 2 is a failure and that Roadmap is a large part of the reason.

No disrespect to the developers, I am actually amazed to see Noun responding the way he is. A lot of forums never get responses from devs, so this is a good sign.

However, people need to stop using the entitlement argument. I am sorry, but as consumers, we are entitled to features advertised in the product.............. .

Have you thought about starting a clan with PingPing and the OP? You could call yourselves "The Disentitled"

Relic dev victory, but I will admit, I laughed at this:

"blizzard is cool, ruins frames, reduces sight. How about an addon with emp weapons disabling our monitors. Having good graphics(good joke) is cool without seeing anything from it."

Sega is better of in revising this so called 'Pipeline project basis' release system.

I TELL YOU this game will dissappear if COMMAND AND CONQUER comes out as well as ROME TOTAL WAR

Than it is over!
With these silly all the same commanders and paper thin super tanks


WE WANT BRUTAL EXPLOSIONS< THICK ABILITIES< REALISM< BETTER MAPS< MORE UNITS< MORE CUSTOMISATION WITH ABILITIES THAT MATTER

Sega is better of in revising this so called 'Pipeline project basis' release system.

I TELL YOU this game will dissappear if COMMAND AND CONQUER comes out as well as ROME TOTAL WAR

Than it is over!
With these silly all the same commanders and paper thin super tanks


WE WANT BRUTAL EXPLOSIONS< THICK ABILITIES< REALISM< BETTER MAPS< MORE UNITS< MORE CUSTOMISATION WITH ABILITIES THAT MATTER

no, it will not the game will do just fine when rome releases and command and conquer has been dead for years in my book. The game isnt perfect yes, but it hasn't been a month yet and people are ready complaining just give relic time.

I cannot believe there is nothing about pizza's in this thread.

On a serious note. Will the sales numbers of CoH2 be revealed before the end of the Japanese fiscal year?

You guys must be hiding a secret from me!

Where could I get CoH2 for free so that I don't feel so entitled?