is the forum support good?

[klausD]

Everybody says that the support of SE4 is so good. I am not so sure for my part. At least I think that the MM support (or shrapnel) for this forum is not good. why?
How many Posts did MM directly at this board which is IMO the most important forum for SE4. Some post are coming from Richard of shrapnel games but these Posts are mainly official or business things. I can not remember Richard told us even once about his opinions about our numerous ideas and suggestions, mods and strategies.
And Aaron? (or the second guy of MM)
No Posts of them at all.
Is this a good forum support? I say no.

Dont get me wrong, guys, I love Se4 and I think MM did a great work and a big step forward in 4x games in releasing this jewel. I know he is only one guy and he works hard on the patches. But I work also hard in my job and I take my time to look 10min. per day in this forum to read all those ideas. It should be in MMs own interest to post some Messages per week in the forum too. MM should consider this action as part of their daily work on the SE4 game. Maybe Aaron read the Messages in this forum, but why didnt he post any Messages? I cannot understand this.

For example I am coming just from the Age of Wonders message board (a fantasy strategy game) and there I feel that there is a really good forum support. In every second thread there is a (or more) message from the programmers or producers of the game in which they comment the ideas and suggestions of their customers.

sorry for the rant but someone had to say it.

klaus

the adress: http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...&fn=10&f=,,,10

[Suicide Junkie]

If you want Aaron to respond to you, sent him an E-mail yourself.

On these Boards, there is always a ton of people Online who will help you.
Response time for any question is on the order of an hour, day or night. That's what I call a good, supportive forum.

Aaron dosen't need to post in this forum, cause by the time he's read anything, there is already an answer or solution posted .
Very little ever goes over the heads of the forum veterans.

edit) Response time = 0:20

Check a few of the threads around here, and you'll notice that only threads asking about a specific person's mod, or requiring people to download something, have a delay in response.
Most of the other threads asking questions have the second post within 1&1/2 hours of the first, with a half-hour being a common time delay.

For any basic question, you can expect a response almost instantly.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 30 May 2001).]

[klausD]

Thanks for your prompt answer.
But I think you misunderstood me a little bit. I dont have much questions about the game itsself.(I am playing the SE series since several years)
And I dont want MM to answer questions of newbies or solve rule problems if they appear in a forum thread. For this I think - the same as you think - the helpful veterans of the board should answer those installation, rule or bug questions.

But what I really miss is the dialogue MM should have with all you guys in THIS forum. MM should post sometimes a message in which it takes position to new ideas and suggestions of the members of the forum (wheter they are good or not) But Aaron does not. And thats why I think that MM support is not good in this forum.


I dont say that this forum is no good. I think its a very excellent forum. But that is only because the posters are so excellent. The quality has nothing to do with MM.

Ok, I can send Aaron an email with ideas and if I have luck (3 times out of 10) I get a short reply. This is ok and I am not complaining. But the sending email story was not the point of my critics.

The thread is called "is the forum support good?" And because MM seems to ignore the forum I have to say "no". (sorry SJ)

bye
Klaus

[Matryx]

Well actually I have to say "Yes" to your question.
The question you asked is "Is the forum support good?" and yes it is.
if a question is asked here it is quickly answered.
If there is a problem with the forums, it is remedied asap by Richard (or whoever)
And if a nasty situation develops, a remedy is found faster than I certainly could.

The forum support is excellent, however I think the question you meant to address is "Does MM take an active role in the forums?"
For this, the answer would be "No"
They may read the forums and take our ideas under consideration but they dont post (to my knowledge)

Just my view

Matryx

[jimbob55]

1st off, how do you know Aaron doesn't post?

2nd, imagine the carnage if he did. The hundreds of people who would demand responses for their requests for info, rating ideas, blessing of children etc would crash the board server pretty quick.
Then when he doesn't address each and every little detail, people would become bitter and grumpy that they didn't get an answer.......
Bad Public Relations is probably the reason why we see no Posts by Aaron.

Also a desire to do something other than sit in front of a monitor all day may have something to do with it.

[God Emperor]

I've emailed suggestions to Aaron in the past and usually got a positive comment in return, but, I must admit, I'd be interested to occaisionally see MM's views on major changes proposed by people in the forum.
Regards,
GE

[Marty Ward]

I have seen many questions posed on this forum that only Aaron or someone else from MM could answer. It would be nice if these questions were answered. Most questions are answered quicky by forum members though so I agree forum support is good, just not from the designer.

[Atrocities]

Yes, it is the greatest. Best game support I have ever had. Everyone of my email has been responded too, and any issue of importance on this forum has recieved excellent attention. MM/Shrap are both small companies, but they are committed to seeing that the customers are treated right. Or at least that has been my experience.

[This message has been edited by Atrocities (edited 31 May 2001).]

[Richard]

To begin with Aaron is kindof a private guy so that has something to do with it. Second he is quite busy. You mention AOW (which is a GREAT game BTW) but they have a full time staff of folks who do this. Shrapnel has only one full time employee and so does Malfador. Everyone involved either works off of percentages or are volunteers. I know Aaron gets a ton of email from folks and works closely with his own beta testers and our testers as well as the numerous folks who email him privately.

Myself I can't post as often as I like because my daily routine consists of answering somewhere close to 100-200 emails, handling Shapnel business and helping our developers and testing, and then checking out the double digit forums and newsGroups I check every day. Many times I don't even get a chance to read every thread because of that.

But to answer your question I think it is pretty good (as far as support goes). I have been involved with the gaming industry in one way or the other for 5 or more years now and I have seen the great support guys like Tiller, Reynolds, Grigsby, Moylan, Koger and several other I am forgetting. When I recruit a developer I try to find someone who has that level of commitment to their customers and in almost every case that has been the case.

You may want a more personal response on the board bu take it from me in his own way of doing things Aaron is very responsive .

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[klausD]

thanks all for your comments.

Richard you wrote:
"To begin with Aaron is kindof a private guy so that has something to do with it"

Sorry maybe my english is not that good, but what do you mean with "private"? Do you mean that he dont like to post in the public?

"Second he is quite busy"
Believe me, I am very busy in my job too, but I take 5-10 min. per day to look at this forum.

Again I want to point out that I think that the shrapnel forums are excellent in their responsiveness and quality. But IMO this is not due to MM. Its the result of the quality of the members of the forum. (and thankfully of course because shrapnel - or you - provide this platform for us)
Some guys here say that there are some very important questions which would IMO deserve at least a short comment of the inventor of the game. I agree.
questions which comes into my mind:
-Add-On: a lot of people would like to pay for an Add-on (with some new features) etc.

-Scenario editor? Does MM plan to bring out a scenario editor (to enable shorter scenarios which can be played by TCP/IP)

Whats the opinion of MM about these topics? I am sure if we look a little bit closer there are several other important questions about SE4 which deserve the attention of Aaron.

Richard, my Posts should not be an attack at you or Aaron. IMO its not your job to post at the forum more than you do and I see that you are reading the forum every day. This is good.
But I cannot understand the total absence of MM in this forum. There could be several reasons why:

1. Aaron is not absent. He reads it, but dont post something. (maybe because he dont like to post in the internet at all)
2. Aaron is absent. He dont read it and dont post it, because he works intensivly 16 hours per day without having time to read, eat, sleep etc. (in this case he should consider to change his day time job, )
3. Aaron is absent. He dont read the forum and its not very important for him what the people in this forum post, maybe because he has enough feedback with his betatesters or personal emails.

Maybe the reason why we hear nothing from MM at this board is a mixture of all three points.

My rant is about the MM support of this forum. In other ways (beta tester, email) MM have a good support. I dont negate this and I find it good.

I dont want Aaron that he responds to everything, (working on patches and new features is more important) but it would be fine if he could post one or two statements per week about hot questions and ideas in our forum.

Is this too much?

thanks for listening
klaus