is the forum support good?

[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

[Atrocities]

I am not Richard, but I can tell you that YES Aaron is quite busy. In fact, he is extremely busy.

From what I gather, he likes to keep to himself thus being PRIVATE means he does not post at this or other forums that I am aware of. At least, I can not recall in recent memory ever reading anything he as posted.

I do know that he does appear to read this forum though.

Hope that help answer some of your questions.

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

[PsychoTechFreak]

Maybe Aaron is posting sometimes undercover to this forum. I can imagine, that he sometimes would like to check out the opinions to a new idea or something similar to this. If he would do this without alias then I guess the responses would not be very objective.