TBecause they may deny it or not, but one of the current Influencers' main concerns is getting more followers. Why not include some people into the programme who don't have that as a primary concern? Who aren't tied to community creation, merely community engagement?

 

That's one of my concerns as well. The influencers that have posted in the other thread already feels like a promo spot to get more viewers of their YouTube channel thereby making themselves more money. Like, I don't need the sales pitch for your channel, I already play the game. BW gives them perks, YouTube gives them money, it's a win-win seemingly, but how much does the pressure of making that YouTube money influence their content and how much of the be nice to us requirement influence what gets covered?

 

Then, of course, there''s the obvious problem of why make it so damn hard to get your voice heard? Why should we have to jump through hoops to kiss up to someone who also has to jump through hoops? There's a forum. A direct line to the company, supposedly. Why is it such a difficult concept for their "Community Team" to use it?

Edited February 22, 2019 by kodrac

It's outrageous that it has come to this. They've kept us in the dark about these special Influencer forums and engaged with them freely there, while completely ignoring us here and believing it was fine. That's not how customers should he treated, right? Because we pay our subs the same way the Influencers do.

 

Yeah, that would be BW's doing, not the influencers. Does that honestly surprise anyone?

Edited February 22, 2019 by kodrac

That's one of my concerns as well. The influencers that have posted in the other thread already feels like a promo spot to get more viewers of their YouTube channel thereby making themselves more money. Like, I don't need the sales pitch for your channel, I already play the game. BW gives them perks, YouTube gives them money, it's a win-win seemingly, but how much does the pressure of making that YouTube money influence their content and how much of the be nice to us requirement influence what gets covered?

 

Then, of course, there''s the obvious problem of why make it so damn hard to get your voice heard? Why should we have to jump through hoops to kiss up to someone who also has to jump through hoops? There's a forum. A direct line to the company, supposedly. Why is it such a difficult concept for their "Community Team" to use it?

 

You're hitting the nail right on the head if you ask me. Even if some of the actions of the Bioware Influencers aren't focused on generating new followers and keeping old ones, they have the disguised disadvantage of their actions always being perceived as self-promotion. Which is why I think there also should be a neutral party amongst the Influencers. Someone who has absolutely no interest in getting more followers, generating content and self-promotion. I really wouldn't mind the forums getting their own Influencer, especially if we could elect them. That would create a certain fairness to the current situation.

 

But in the end it's just endless hoops to jump through. We don't need the Influencers speaking on our behalf, we could do that ourselves here if only the devs communicated with us more. And the fact they're getting attacked by some severely messed up people when they come here is a valid concern but not an excuse to cease all communication with the playerbase. It's not okay to only stick to the private forums because no one's going to bite there. That's shutting yourself off and if you do that, how can you get an objective image of what your customers want?

We agree completely, even beyond the Influencers, no group should be receiving more engagement or transparency then anyone else (outside of specific circumstances, like Closed PTS, etc). As I highlighted in the other thread, I think there is a misconception that since an Influencer forum exists that it is the place that we are spending all of our time and that is where game information is being shared, which isn't the case.

 

I know a lot of these concerns are coming from a place of frustration where many of you feel that there is a lack of information being shared or feedback not being taken by us often enough. I don't want to speak for the Influencers, but I can tell you they have been expressing the same concerns both privately, and in their content.

 

I started a new thread here to talk about our gathering of feedback, so please head there and weigh in. We have made strides the past year (especially around PTS) to improve this but there is always more we can do.

 

Thanks all.

 

-eric

 

If anything I am happy this subject has sparked the thread you linked and a discussion about this subject. The response is very much appreciated, which I hope is something we'll see more of. More meaningful responses to players' concerns, questions and threads. Of course we don't expect everything to receive a response, but it would be great to just see more communication happen. Not just brief sentences of acknowledgement, but meaningful communication like this subject has received.

We agree completely, even beyond the Influencers, no group should be receiving more engagement or transparency then anyone else (outside of specific circumstances, like Closed PTS, etc). As I highlighted in the other thread, I think there is a misconception that since an Influencer forum exists that it is the place that we are spending all of our time and that is where game information is being shared, which isn't the case.

 

I know a lot of these concerns are coming from a place of frustration where many of you feel that there is a lack of information being shared or feedback not being taken by us often enough. I don't want to speak for the Influencers, but I can tell you they have been expressing the same concerns both privately, and in their content.

 

I started a new thread here to talk about our gathering of feedback, so please head there and weigh in. We have made strides the past year (especially around PTS) to improve this but there is always more we can do.

 

Thanks all.

 

-eric

It's not a "misconception" when there's literally a screen shot of you answering their concerns and not ours Eric...there's actual proof of communication that we didn'tt get. We have asked the very same question over and over and over on this 'normal' forum too Eric, but for the past few months, we've been met with mostly silence, on everything from Anthem to bugs...it's frustrating.

 

I understand the program. I get the desire for smaller scale discussions away from the daily crap posted here. I'm actually thrilled that people like Dulfy and Swtorista get recognized for all they contribute to this game, because they, and the many like them, pour a TON of work into your game. They make the game better for ALL of us...and I appreciate them like no others. They absolutely deserve to be noticed (and rewarded) by Bioware for all they do. It's not easy work and they don't get enough praise.

 

Where I take issue is when you keep them a secret. I do NOT think they should be anonymous. I think that's unfair to the rest of your customers and it was bound to create drama the second we found out about it all.

 

I also take issue with the feedback you seem to be listening to over there at Bioware. I'm not talking about Ossus or the bug queen - I love those additions, I don't even take issue with the 252 gear...I actually love that as well. I'm talking about system changes like the inability to swap mods and enhancements into different pieces. Or the steep price on crystals (should be 250/500 tops). Or the design of the new Huttball map...who's feedback are you listening to with those changes Eric? It didn't come from this forum...and I highly doubt it came from influencers...but they were bound to get blamed for your poor choices.

I gotta ask, what the CRAP is an influencer?!

 

I've been here since shortly after launch, active on the forums for years...NEVER heard of an influencer till today...lol

I don't have a problem with an influencer program or listening more closely to influencers, in general.

 

I do have issues with any program that only recruits influencers from those who create content on social media. You shouldn't have to make YouTube videos or podcosts (for example) to have a louder voice.

 

There are a number of people in these forums and on Reddit who obviously care deeply for the game and put a great deal of thought into its development. There also leaders of large guilds who establish amazing communities from within the game, rather than without. These people need to be heard, too.

 

I also hope that they will make sure to have influencers from all aspects of the game -- Ops, PVP, roleplay, strongholds, etc.

Influencers are likely very open-minded, wide eyed, and make suggestions that have a lot of forethought and limited amount of personal interests in mind. So they have earned the right to provide feedback because their feedback, while not every piece is guaranteed to create a great world, at least utilizes more than just passionate, selfish intentions. Edited February 22, 2019 by olagatonjedi

I gotta ask, what the CRAP is an influencer?!

 

I've been here since shortly after launch, active on the forums for years...NEVER heard of an influencer till today...lol

 

It's someone who is under heavy influence from free but illegal drugs handed out by Bioware. :-)

 

Seriously, you've never heard that term before? An alternative term would be promoter.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Khaleg

I'm by far the largest forum troll in my guild. We have an Imp side and Pub side guild who always hit the high yield for conquest. I interact with the players who do HM and NiM raiding. I interact with our GSF fanatics. I interact with our solo players, the F2P players, the new people (ran with 3 of them this week), the daily Ops SM players, the story oriented players, the Reg PvPers, the Ranked PvPers, the elite and the struggling players (ran with both groups this week as well).

 

When I make a suggestion on these forums, it's because every one of those groups of players matter to me. Every one of those players is special to me - from the guy hitting 12k DPS on the Hive Queen to the guy barely able to hit 3k in ToS (as a DPS). I may not be posting content online, but I'm actively interacting with nearly every group of player type in this game. I don't look down on our RPers, our PvPers or our new or struggling players...I listen to them all.

 

 

*face palm* Sure.

 

Seriously, you've never heard that term before? An alternative term would be promoter.

 

LOL

Honestly yeah, Idt I have. Granted in the past few months I've quit being on here as much. I will skim it & move on.

I do not think that the person, who creates these topics, wants something bad for the game. We know and have seen more than once what happens to companies that fall under the influence of EA. And the rumors that the Internet is not very pleasant. The lack of a roadmap in January, compressed new content, the launch of the Anthem ..., this is all embarrassing. We are all here on the forum, as well as other resources we are experiencing for this project. Yes, we often disagree with the decisions made by the developer, this is true. BUT, we are interested in its development, interested in the continuation of the story, new mechanics were developed, the existing ones were improved. We don’t want to lose this project, we don’t want the game to become a project from which EA squeezed all the juice and threw it away. We try to help the project in terms of our knowledge and understanding of the situation. Perhaps we are doing something wrong, and here we would like to hear from the guys from BW feedback: how we can help for our part. This person is trying to find some points, to draw attention to the problems in the game.

Of course, telling all the players all the secrets ... this is absurd. But ... to give some information and set the direction in time is possible.

Hey folks,

I wanted to jump in here to hopefully shed some light on the situation.Apologies for the wall of text, but let's break this down a bit:

1) Influencers are content creators. This is probably due to the fact that influencer programs in general are tied to marketing. Content creators help promote Swtor.

 

2) Sometimes, BioWare will give us codes for giveaways and sometimes some support on the social platforms.

 

3) Influencers sign lengthy non-disclosure agreements. This covers anything on the forums, conversations, interviews, etc. Unless a special exception is made, we are not allowed to discuss anything that isn't already public knowledge.

 

4) Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes. We relay feedback from our respective communities, which is usually mirrored here in the gen forums, or reddit, or twitter, etc. (believe me, there are a few things that I personally argued against that are still in the game).

 

5) The NDA forums are usually discussing access to content pre-release. They also afford the devs a 'safe space' to bounce ideas around. If they post something in the general forums, players (justifiably) take that to mean that the something is going to happen -- think of Charles' post about adding weapons to outfit designer.

 

6) We're not paid shills. Some of the influencers are genuinely happy with the state of the game. Some are not, but don't announce it. Others (cough, bad feeling podcast, cough cough) are more open about what they like or don't like in the game or some of the decisions from BW. Our opinions do not have any impact on our status in the influencer program.

 

7) We don't claim to represent the entire playerbase. We all do different things in game, and its unrealistic to think we speak for every player and every playstyle. When asked, the Influencers can reply with "my listeners feel X" or "I got a lot of comments that Y is a bad idea" etc etc.

 

8) Rarely do we know more about what's coming up in the game than the rest of the players. I still don't know anything about 6.0, or if there will be any updates past 5.10.2 in early March. We've been asking -- a lot -- about future content updates and what we can tell our audiences. We are met with the same cone of silence as everyone else.

 

I hope this helps alleviate some of the confusion out there. If you have any questions / comments / hate mail, hit me up!

-Brian

Edited February 23, 2019 by Rockula

Hi Eric,

 

Personal those that are considered influencers give the impression they have money to throw around to buy there way to what they want this too me means corruption.

 

This is clear in my country right now that going to direct how my vote is casted .

 

There is a big different between expressing idea and making suggestions, voicing concerns to outlaying ones frustrations to those who have personal stake like investor in a company or personal friendship that goes beyond playing the game that would influence the way mechanics of the game are played to favour one person over another.

 

With that said Public test server is just that its for testing game mechanics to find out what's working and what is not this off course will incorporate degree of personal interest in design, outlay to what one would like to see happen.

 

When you put up site specifically for influencer that give strong indicator that swtor is only interested one sector over another i.e personal mates or someone that has a lot of money to spend on the game,

 

This defeats the purpose of the other sites especially general feedback and or the ticket system in game.

 

As for inhouse testing off course that would influence the way the game is going to be design and develop it is accepted fact it is like supermarket is going to only make a contract where it is going to increase its profits where as the consumer has no say in that contract outcome.

 

But if the consumer is not getting value for money or there products are not of standard and function they would ditch that supermarket altogether and or seek refund to remedy the problems.

 

What most gamers are asking of swtor team is keep them posted on issues and updates to in game problems and fixes and to give us times and dates of likely game changes acknowledge you have read the feedback even if you do not accept it in over all picture of where swtor is going to do.

 

one of the biggest issues I seen over the last year is this sudden swing back to out date story telling system that caused major issue in 2011 to 2013 where the game was in crises when you induce the chapters for knights of the falling empire and knights of the eternal throne it turn the game around it made it interesting but then you started to mess around with plot line that did not take the game forward instead you brought it full circle right back to 2011 all over again instead of address the problems of level syncing was causing to the nerfing and the bugs that plague this game over and over, to group runs through the chapters instead you appeared to ignored the feedback and cater directly to introducing operation world bosses and constant dailies for specific user feedback which I like to point out is boring the hell out of a lot of games right now.

 

You also did not address a lot of bugs in flashpoints and where people achievements were not showing the correct information and those who lost contents and cartel items at times it appeared were rushing out contents to meet dead lines to increase the number of gamers online that brought in more bugs into the game instead of stabilising upon what you have achieved.

 

As for the forums I consider swtor have too many forums they should be reduce to this in my opinion.

 

Help and Technical Support, Development Forum

Suggestion and Feedback

Public Test server suggestion and feedback

Servers, guilds and general chat forums

 

All other matters concerning accounts and cartel market purchases you will need to contact Swtor accounting department by creating a ticket or telephone.

 

One thing I have voice my opinion strongly over the years is do not release a patch or expansion if it is not ready and or has issues a delay to correct it is better than have angry mob of gamers flooding your forum sites and or in game bug reporting systems, which is where we are today and the root cause of all the issue your faced with.

 

You do not need to give individual feedback but to acknowledge your received the information and will give answer depending on whether or not it need individual reply or group reply and which site there reply with be conducted on if its a group reply other wise it will be posted for all swtor gamers and developers to read on the development site,

 

The only time I can see where a person reply is need is where there is a specific question related to individual problem that concerns accounting matters, or report of suspious activities and or where it involves harassment and intimidation etc.

 

but I am dead set against this influencers forum.

When you put up site specifically for influencer that give strong indicator that swtor is only interested one sector over another i.e personal mates or someone that has a lot of money to spend on the game, this defeats the purpose of the other sites especially general feedback and or the ticket system in game.

 

Your point about influencers I think is a great point.

 

It's hard to not to be suspicious of the fact there is a personal separate forum area just for influencers. This inevitably makes it seem our concerns on the forums go unnoticed because BW is preoccupied responding to the secret forum posters. This may be false, but who knows?

 

This also explains why I have never seen these influencers ever post in the forums. I found it so odd seeing some of them post here in the regular forum sections when none of them have ever done so before. It makes sense though if they have a separate secret area to post in. It was like seeing new players posting on the forums, only they are not new players and they probably post constantly, like many of us do. I have to wonder though, do they actually get feedback and responses from BW, while we do not?

 

It's sort of sad I think that they do communicate separately, because imagine the conversations and points we could discuss with them? By hiding their communication from all others makes it seem like there's something to hide. By them not ever communicating with non-influencers or in the regular sections of the forums really seems odd to me.

 

Personally I'd think they would want to interact with players more in the non-secretive parts of the forums for their own personal advertising on top of just having fun conversations and discussing the game with non-influencers.

 

By posting in the regular forums, the influencers would further their network of followers I'd think from the SWTOR community just by interacting here with us. (I never heard of Boomy until he popped in and said "hello" here.)

 

What's interesting to me is some of the most well-known and respected streamers and players who are very active on the forums (Snave, Hottie, Kre'a, etc.) are not influencers. What they have shown is you can find a following using the forums though, as all of these players I have watched or read articles written by them specifically because I seen them here on the forums. Had they not been active on the open forums, I would never have known about their SWTOR internet activities or guides.

 

Why do influencers not do the same?

I think the most important aspect to understand is that influencers actually make an investment in their own brand, publicly, which means they actually have something to lose when they put themselves out there in a negative light. Many of the posters on these open forums can rant and rave and complain and act immature, making unwarranted or unnecessary criticisms or suggestions about the game anonymously and without repercussions. The influencers can go from 1000s of followers to none as quickly as Rosanne Barr qent from a re-make of her old show Rosanne to out of a job by saying something in bad taste. With investment and value comes more responsibility to offer productive insight and suggestions, and to think about what you say before saying it, to give the impression you have spent time thinking about things on mulitple levels, and not just hot takes. Of course there are exceptions to this, and they get called out and spotlighted in every aspect of life, but it makes for a much more mature space to have meaningful, intelligent conversations.

I think the most important aspect to understand is that influencers actually make an investment in their own brand, publicly, which means they actually have something to lose when they put themselves out there in a negative light. Many of the posters on these open forums can rant and rave and complain and act immature, making unwarranted or unnecessary criticisms or suggestions about the game anonymously and without repercussions. The influencers can go from 1000s of followers to none as quickly as Rosanne Barr qent from a re-make of her old show Rosanne to out of a job by saying something in bad taste. With investment and value comes more responsibility to offer productive insight and suggestions, and to think about what you say before saying it, to give the impression you have spent time thinking about things on mulitple levels, and not just hot takes. Of course there are exceptions to this, and they get called out and spotlighted in every aspect of life, but it makes for a much more mature space to have meaningful, intelligent conversations.

 

geezus h christmas. A post of yours I agree with. Wow.

Hey folks,

I wanted to jump in here to hopefully shed some light on the situation.Apologies for the wall of text, but let's break this down a bit:

1) Influencers are content creators. This is probably due to the fact that influencer programs in general are tied to marketing. Content creators help promote Swtor.

 

2) Sometimes, BioWare will give us codes for giveaways and sometimes some support on the social platforms.

 

3) Influencers sign lengthy non-disclosure agreements. This covers anything on the forums, conversations, interviews, etc. Unless a special exception is made, we are not allowed to discuss anything that isn't already public knowledge.

 

4) Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes. We relay feedback from our respective communities, which is usually mirrored here in the gen forums, or reddit, or twitter, etc. (believe me, there are a few things that I personally argued against that are still in the game).

 

5) The NDA forums are usually discussing access to content pre-release. They also afford the devs a 'safe space' to bounce ideas around. If they post something in the general forums, players (justifiably) take that to mean that the something is going to happen -- think of Charles' post about adding weapons to outfit designer.

 

6) We're not paid shills. Some of the influencers are genuinely happy with the state of the game. Some are not, but don't announce it. Others (cough, bad feeling podcast, cough cough) are more open about what they like or don't like in the game or some of the decisions from BW. Our opinions do not have any impact on our status in the influencer program.

 

7) We don't claim to represent the entire playerbase. We all do different things in game, and its unrealistic to think we speak for every player and every playstyle. When asked, the Influencers can reply with "my listeners feel X" or "I got a lot of comments that Y is a bad idea" etc etc.

 

8) Rarely do we know more about what's coming up in the game than the rest of the players. I still don't know anything about 6.0, or if there will be any updates past 5.10.2 in early March. We've been asking -- a lot -- about future content updates and what we can tell our audiences. We are met with the same cone of silence as everyone else.

 

I hope this helps alleviate some of the confusion out there. If you have any questions / comments / hate mail, hit me up!

-Brian

 

Thank you for taking the time to clear the situation up in regards to Bioware-Influencer relationship, hopefully it'll be enough to calm down the forums on the issue.

Hey folks,

I wanted to jump in here to hopefully shed some light on the situation.Apologies for the wall of text, but let's break this down a bit:

1) Influencers are content creators. This is probably due to the fact that influencer programs in general are tied to marketing. Content creators help promote Swtor.

 

2) Sometimes, BioWare will give us codes for giveaways and sometimes some support on the social platforms.

 

3) Influencers sign lengthy non-disclosure agreements. This covers anything on the forums, conversations, interviews, etc. Unless a special exception is made, we are not allowed to discuss anything that isn't already public knowledge.

 

4) Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes. We relay feedback from our respective communities, which is usually mirrored here in the gen forums, or reddit, or twitter, etc. (believe me, there are a few things that I personally argued against that are still in the game).

 

5) The NDA forums are usually discussing access to content pre-release. They also afford the devs a 'safe space' to bounce ideas around. If they post something in the general forums, players (justifiably) take that to mean that the something is going to happen -- think of Charles' post about adding weapons to outfit designer.

 

6) We're not paid shills. Some of the influencers are genuinely happy with the state of the game. Some are not, but don't announce it. Others (cough, bad feeling podcast, cough cough) are more open about what they like or don't like in the game or some of the decisions from BW. Our opinions do not have any impact on our status in the influencer program.

 

7) We don't claim to represent the entire playerbase. We all do different things in game, and its unrealistic to think we speak for every player and every playstyle. When asked, the Influencers can reply with "my listeners feel X" or "I got a lot of comments that Y is a bad idea" etc etc.

 

8) Rarely do we know more about what's coming up in the game than the rest of the players. I still don't know anything about 6.0, or if there will be any updates past 5.10.2 in early March. We've been asking -- a lot -- about future content updates and what we can tell our audiences. We are met with the same cone of silence as everyone else.

 

I hope this helps alleviate some of the confusion out there. If you have any questions / comments / hate mail, hit me up!

-Brian

 

Somehow I missed this post.

 

Thanks for sharing this, and thanks for acknowledging the cone of silence which appears to have quite a large radius.

Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes.

 

-Brian

 

Hi Brian,

 

I appreciate you posting here with some insight on your perspective. Out of all the influence streamers, you guys seem to offer “some” balance between what the devs do and what the players like or dislike. Because of this, you guys are the only podcast I really listen too. (But I would like you to push harder in some interviews to get them to answer the less palatable questions. You know, the questions we all ask on the forum and BioWare ignore us like it didn’t happen).

 

I wanted to comment on a couple of you points.

4) Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes.

But you do have “some” influence over the direction (how ever much it is) because of your inside track. This is the problem with the system because each players feedback “should” carry the same weight. At the moment, BioWare can and probably do see your feedback as meaning more because you guys get feed back from players and can present a proposition based on what the majority of your listeners are saying to you.

 

I don’t begrudge you for that because that’s not your fault. The fault is BioWare should be getting this data directly from the players through surveys or polls on “official swtor” forums, login screens, in game mail or email. But none of that happens because they are too lazy (or worse, possibly arrogant) to find out what the players actually want. Instead, your limited influence carries more weight than it should.

 

How much influence is unknown to the general players. This is a perception problem for you guys and BioWare. We have to take both your words at face value because the system is cloaked in secrecy. Maybe if BioWare were more forth coming in communication with normal players and didn’t lie by omission, ie moving servers (which you guys knew about before it happened), didn’t make ninja nerfs, admitted to mistakes and took responsibility. Then people would have an easier time accepting their word. Unfortunately for you guys being under an NDA, you can’t talk about what you do and don’t say to BioWare, so you are invariably linked to Biowares track record of bull s******* the players when it comes to giving their word.

 

I think there is a misconception that since an Influencer forum exists that it is the place that we are spending all of our time and that is where game information is being shared, which isn't the case.

-eric

How do we know this is true when we see how they basically don’t communicate with us, but you guys always seem to know stuff we don’t. Again, I don’t begrudge you for the access and I don’t think anyone would have a problem “if” BioWare communicated here.

The issue is one of perception. Which is, “BioWare feed you info, you get direct communication when you need or want it, BioWare listen to you guys over regular players”.

While that may not be the case, lack of communication and secrecy is how “tin foil hats” are made.

 

5) The NDA forums..... They also afford the devs a 'safe space' to bounce ideas around

This is just wrong in my opinion. If they learnt to communicate better, the things they say wouldn’t be taken as “it will be in the game”. They wouldn’t need a “safe space” if they did that. What are they, delicate flowers?

The regular players should have the option to voice their opinions regarding those ideas. They should not be limited to the influencers to say what they like and don’t like.

 

It’s because of this, players think you guys have had a hand in the piss poor decisions Bioware make in the direction the game takes and the changes that make it live and the players hate. Once again this is a perception problem because of lack of communication and regular player feed back being ignored after they’ve asked us.

BioWare could just as easily do a survey to ask leading questions to find out what players think instead of having a “safe space” to bounce ideas of you guys. Other games engage their players more directly and are successful because of it (they probably have a safe space too, but their direct engagement and listening “properly” to player feed back, out weighs that).

 

6) Some of the influencers are genuinely happy with the state of the game. Some are not, but don't announce it.

This is a major problem in my opinion because if they are supposed to be influencers and they don’t announce it or give feed back to BioWare, they are “Yes men” or “poster boys” and may as well be “paid shills”. They are not representing the player base, only their own self interests in maintaining influencer status with BioWare. If they were serious, they would do more of what you guys do. Anyone who is a “yes man”, doesn’t deserve to be in the influencer program.

 

Honestly, it’s a disgrace that true representatives of the player base aren’t part of the influencer program. ie, Snave, Dulfy and other real community members add more value to the players than most of the influencers (not including you guys and few others). If BioWare want a “safe space”, then these are the sort of people they should have involved because they tell it like it is and provide valuable feedback to BioWare (which is ignored because they aren’t influencers). I can only assume BioWare don’t use them as part of their safe place because they only want people who will be less critical of dumb ideas.

 

Snave is the only person I’ve seen interview Musco and not let him wiggle out of answering hard questions with vague answers or making him edit it out. He also asked the player base what questions they wanted him to ask Musco. This meant he had the right questions to ask and try and get answers for. He also used at least 3 or 4 social mediums to collect these questions. By doing so, he captured a much wider spectrum of players and their questions. This is something I would like to see you guys do before interviews. Come to the forums, go to reddit, twitter and your own listeners and ask what we want to know and then get answers.

 

I get that BioWare use you guys as promoters, but if you are also influencers or defacto player representatives, we need you to champion us players who seem to have no voice of our own. Which is how most of us feel when giving feed back to BioWare. We may as we be yelling into the void for all the good it does.

 

This whole topic is a storm in a tea cup mainly because of BioWare. But some of your fellow influencers don’t help when they are just “Yes men” for BioWares voice and openly mock ledgitmate player concerns in interviews. ie, after 5.10 was released, Musoc was on a podcast (sorry I can’t remember who’s. Definitely not yours) and they were joking and openly mocking people’s concerns about the pvp desync problems. With both them and Musco laughing the whole time like it wasn’t real and we were all whinging for no reason. It made me sick to know that “BioWare” considers these guys their favourite interviewers and it’s why they got the interview over other podcasters (Muscos said this in the podcast). It wouldn’t surprise me if they were also BioWares favourite pet influencers too

 

Hopefully you can understand why the influencer program has a perception problem. It’s not you directly, it’s the influencer setup, poor BioWare communication and some of your fellow influencers who’ve left many of us feeling this way.

 

I don’t think BioWare actually understand how serious this whole communication thing has become. Its finally reached “crunch time” It really is their last chance to prove they mean what they say. The community as a whole is sick of it. Even BioWares most ardent defenders have turned on them because of this. That alone is a good indication that they’ve reached the point of no return.

Maybe you can communicate this to them. Because I doubt they really understand that no one will ever believe a thing they say again and they are actively driving subscribers from the game and part of that is the bad communication.

If they don’t change their communication practices and change course with what they are doing with the game, there won’t be one.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading my long post.

Great post TrixxieTriss.

 

A couple of points that I'd like to add - why should BioWare require a virtual 'safe space'? We are after all their customers. We subscribers pay their pay cheques. I always thought that the 'customer was always right' so a business isolating itself from its customers is poor strategy, especially when the business is making crappy decisions and putting the customer offside. Also, a business should not listen to yes-men. As a writer I like positive reviews, but i also know the benefit of considered negative reviews, because only then can I improve my product. Same with a computer game/company. If you want to improve your product then you listen to your customers, especially the ones who are consistently saying that something (or many things) are wrong and are offering considered ideas for improvements.

 

This is customer service 1.01 and it blows my mind that it has to be explained.

Edited February 24, 2019 by AureliaSulis

Great post TrixxieTriss.

 

A couple of points that I'd like to add - why should BioWare require a virtual 'safe space'? We are after all their customers. We subscribers pay their pay cheques. I always thought that the 'customer was always right' so a business isolating itself from its customers is poor strategy, especially when the business is making crappy decisions and putting the customer offside. Also, a business should not listen to yes-men. As a writer I like positive reviews, but i also know the benefit of considered negative reviews, because only then can I improve my product. Same with a computer game/company. If you want to improve your product then you listen to your customers, especially the ones who are consistently saying that something (or many things) are wrong and are offering considered ideas for improvements.

 

This is customer service 1.01 and it blows my mind that it has to be explained.

You have much to learn about business, my friend.

I think the most important aspect to understand is that influencers actually make an investment in their own brand, publicly, which means they actually have something to lose when they put themselves out there in a negative light. Many of the posters on these open forums can rant and rave and complain and act immature, making unwarranted or unnecessary criticisms or suggestions about the game anonymously and without repercussions. The influencers can go from 1000s of followers to none as quickly as Rosanne Barr qent from a re-make of her old show Rosanne to out of a job by saying something in bad taste. With investment and value comes more responsibility to offer productive insight and suggestions, and to think about what you say before saying it, to give the impression you have spent time thinking about things on mulitple levels, and not just hot takes. Of course there are exceptions to this, and they get called out and spotlighted in every aspect of life, but it makes for a much more mature space to have meaningful, intelligent conversations.

 

There's logic to this point, minus the little dig you put in about how people on the forums "rant and rave" and "act immature," all qualities/traits that even influencers have as people are people.

 

Anyway, I do agree that they do have more to lose if they come off poorly in the general forums whereas if they come off poorly in their private forums area only they and other influencers see it.

 

That being said, an immature/ranting influencer most likely would have shown this side of himself/herself on their stream/podcast etc., so chances of them losing emotional control of themselves on the regular forums is highly unlikely.

 

I honestly think it would help not only them and their brand but the community if they were more interactive with players here. They would pick up fans, and we would have influencers in direct conversation with us on the forums. How is that a bad thing?

 

By keeping to a secret forum it comes off as if they are above posting on the regular forums or even worse as if they really have something to hide. We as people only hide things when we don't want someone to see it, right?

 

It's nice to know but truly irrelevant that influencers have little impact on game design changes... However despite there being a chance they could fumble and write something that comes off poorly to readers costing them personal followers and/or fans or harming their brand I believe the majority of this community would really appreciate them using this open platform to communicate with not only BW but the non-influencing fans too.

 

I wouldn't expect them to never use their personal Influencer Forum section, I am just saying popping in occasionally (or frequently!) would be nice in the PVP section, General section, etc., and would only build their brand not damage it.

 

 

 

TL;DR

 

I have never seen any influencers use the regular forums until a day ago when this topic came up. I think they are missing opportunities more than avoiding harm by not being more visible on this platform.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Lhancelot

There's logic to this point, minus the little dig you put in about how people on the forums "rant and rave" and "act immature," all qualities/traits that even influencers have as people are people.

 

Anyway, I do agree that they do have more to lose if they come off poorly in the general forums whereas if they come off poorly in their private forums area only they and other influencers see it.

 

That being said, an immature/ranting influencer most likely would have shown this side of himself/herself on their stream/podcast etc., so chances of them losing emotional control of themselves on the regular forums is highly unlikely.

 

I honestly think it would help not only them and their brand but the community if they were more interactive with players here. They would pick up fans, and we would have influencers in direct conversation with us on the forums. How is that a bad thing?

 

By keeping to a secret forum it comes off as if they are above posting on the regular forums or even worse as if they really have something to hide. We as people only hide things when we don't want someone to see it, right?

 

It's nice to know but truly irrelevant that influencers have little impact on game design changes... However despite there being a chance they could fumble and write something that comes off poorly to readers costing them personal followers and/or fans or harming their brand I believe the majority of this community would really appreciate them using this open platform to communicate with not only BW but the non-influencing fans too.

 

I wouldn't expect them to never use their personal Influencer Forum section, I am just saying popping in occasionally (or frequently!) would be nice in the PVP section, General section, etc., and would only build their brand not damage it.

 

 

 

TL;DR

 

I have never seen any influencers use the regular forums until a day ago when this topic came up. I think they are missing opportunities more than avoiding harm by not being more visible on this platform.

People are people, but many people dont care about the responsibility, or more importantly the accountability, of their words. The influencers, at one point or another, have either shown very clearly they are trying to help this game, its players, or its marketability. Their words arent muddied by thousands of forum posts that can hide their contributions.

 

As for more interaction, i would assume there is and its just not known. For as much as people complain that Eric isnt viewing or responding to the public forums, its highly likely the influencers are actually taking the role of damage control, enlightenment, and sifting through the open forum feedback to help them draw intelligent conclusions about whsts best for the game, and bring these to the other influencers in a more concise manner. Eric doesnt have time to bury his head in thousands of forums about "no way to kill off Lana" posts. The influencers do. And it gives them popular or controversial topics to focus on during their blogs, podcasts, etc. Yhst ssid, NDA plays its part too.

The influencers, at one point or another, have either shown very clearly they are trying to help this game, its players, or its marketability.

 

If that were the only requirement for someone to become an influencer you'd see Dulfy, Snave, Hottie, and a plethora of other well-known players being influencers. I am pretty sure there's a lot more to it than those requirements. Kind of naive to think that's what it takes to become an influencer imo.

 

 

As for more interaction, i would assume there is and its just not known.

 

It's irrelevant if communication is active with Eric and the influencers, that has no impact on the communication between the playerbase/forums which is what players complain about. Players on the forums complain about the lack of communication and transparency shown to them. You are confusing two separate things into one.

 

 

Some examples of influencers personally explaining their relationship with BW/Eric, in case you missed their posts:

 

SWTOR Central:

 

We can talk we can chat but to be honest, we don't know more then you guys. I really wish we do. We just ask questions. But we don't know more then anybody else in the forums. Feel free to belive me or not, but that is my honest opinion.

 

 

 

Brian from The Bad Feeling Podcast:

 

we are not allowed to discuss anything that isn't already public knowledge.

 

Influencers don't have much (if any) say over what direction the studio takes. We relay feedback from our respective communities, which is usually mirrored here in the gen forums, or reddit, or twitter, etc. (believe me, there are a few things that I personally argued against that are still in the game).

 

We've been asking -- a lot -- about future content updates and what we can tell our audiences. We are met with the same cone of silence as everyone else.

 

 

 

And, Eric Musco himself even explaining that the influencers have also the same complaints as players on the forums do:

 

I know a lot of these concerns are coming from a place of frustration where many of you feel that there is a lack of information being shared or feedback not being taken by us often enough. I don't want to speak for the Influencers, but I can tell you they have been expressing the same concerns both privately, and in their content.

 

 

 

 

For as much as people complain that Eric isnt viewing or responding to the public forums, its highly likely the influencers are actually taking the role of damage control, enlightenment, and sifting through the open forum feedback to help them draw intelligent conclusions about whsts best for the game, and bring these to the other influencers in a more concise manner.

 

I think you are mistaking influencers for game design consultants.

 

They are promoters, not part time BW game developers. Some have already explained their minimal impact on decisions made by BW regarding actual game development as you can see from their personal posts in this thread. As wise and intelligent as these influencers could be, I don't get the feeling any of them have this strong communication bond with Eric as you assume nor do they have sway over what the developers create.

 

Basically your entire premise that influencers have this strong control over BW's game development as well as them having these secretive esoteric meetings of boundless intellectual transference between themselves and Eric has been explained as nothing of the sort. This is more of a fantasy in your mind, my friend.

 

Like you, I too wish it were the case! Seeing that the influencers all enjoy different niches of the game, it would be like having representatives for specific departments of the game. For instance if Brian from The Bad Feeling Podcast was a PVPer, he could be our community PVP Representative. As it stands right now, it seems we have no one capable of swaying BW to do what any of us want, feedback simply seems to be ignored or tossed away no matter what source that feedback comes from.

 

Hopefully this helps clear up any confusion you had about influencers and their impact on Eric and BW!