Mike O’Brien: Für mehr Kommunikation
In einem Post im offiziellen Forum äußert sich Mitbegründer und Präsident von Arenanet Mike O’Brien über die Kommunikation Arenanets mit der Community.
So geht er auf die Verwirrung um die Kommandeurs-Farben ein, und dass man auch Willens ist, auf das direkte Feedback der Community zu hören. Zusätzlich entschuldigt er sich, dass man inzwischen nur noch bereit sei, über fast komplett fertige Features zu reden. Dies sei aber vor allem notwendig, um die Community vor Enttäuschungen zu schützen, wenn sich ein Feature verzögert – wie die Precursor-Schnitzeljagd (Anm.d.Red.) -, oder erst an einem nach Einschätzung der Entwickler wichtigerem Feature gearbeitet werden müsse.
Generell geschehen Developer-Posts im Forum auf freiwilliger Basis neben der eigentlichen Arbeit – die Foren würden aber weiterhin gelesen werden.
I know some are concerned about whether ArenaNet is communicating with you and listening and responding to your feedback. As you saw with yesterday’s announcement, we do. All of us at ArenaNet play the game with you, chat with you and read your forum posts, and work on the things that we think will most delight and entertain you.
We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.
Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap. The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap. We want to talk design philosophy with you and hear how you want to see the game evolve. When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.
A lot of the questions I’ve seen posted this week are as simple as this: does ArenaNet have an agenda to never do something? That’s almost never the case, and if it is the case you deserve to know and we’ll make sure we get more clear. In general the simple truth is this: when we’re not currently working on something, it’s because we’re working on something else instead that we think is more important for the game and community.
Our developers post on these forums on a voluntary basis, and in addition to developers, we have a community team who can clarify and be the bridge between players and developers. They’re ready to engage you on these topics. And I know it’s hard for the community team to engage players across all the forums and sites where these questions are being discussed, so I’m going to support the team in consolidating and focusing as necessary, so that we can be clear to the community where you can go to get a response.
See you in-game,
Mike O’Brien