Putting yourself in a developer's shoes.

Tbirds01
1235 posts Member
Hey everyone,
This is something I’ve been thinking about lately. A lot of players seem to dislike Carrie and her ways of running the game. Let me tell you a true story of someone I know closely.
This man once was a teacher at a school. He would always think, "Why doesn’t the principal of this school do this, or that? If I were principal I would definitely fix that problem. Not sure why he isn’t." Well one day he got his wish. He became principal of that school. No sooner had he become one than he realized how difficult and hard the job of the principal was. Everyday he dealt with being in charge, running, and keeping in order that school. Hundreds of parents everyday came to him angry about something that they heard their kid went through that day (most of the time they never went through what the parents thought they did). Everyday this man had to put down the fire these angry parents were shooting at him. One parent even said her daughter would commit suicide due to how he treated her. She obviously never did. Anyways, this went on and never stopped when he was principal, until he finally quit due to how much stress he needed to deal with every single day.
Now think about this. Did this man ever have any interaction with the children? Sometimes, yes, but most of the time it was the teachers who were interacting with children. So why were the parents always coming to HIM? Because he was the one in charge. Because he was in charge, he was responsible. Because he was responsible, he had to deal with every problem that was thrown to the school.
Now, switch that whole scenario around and imagine Carrie as the school principal. But think about it. She’s not just in charge of a private school, she’s in charge of a multi million dollar company. Now, think of what the principal went through, and think that 10x more, but still laying all on one person. Now you understand what she goes through every single day.
Lots of people say the devs party on the weekend, they think they come up with stupid ideas on the weekdays, and they have no idea what the community says they want them to do.
Those are all false. Okay, maybe not completely. I’m sure they go have fun every once in awhile, and not all of their ideas for this game are very bright. But it’s an exaggeration to say that’s all they do all the time.
Now, I’m not going to spend long on this subject, but here we go. Communication. This is probably one of the most understandable complaints against the devs and Carrie. They promised it. They should keep their promise. In any relationship communication is the MOST important thing. The MOST important. But try to remember that they aren’t just sitting around doing nothing twiddling their thumbs and staring at the ceiling wondering why they are doing just that. They are very busy trying to get things done. On top of all that, I’m sure some of them have families that they need to spend time with, loved ones as well. They’re real people with real lives, they aren’t gods.
All I’m trying to come across with in this post is try to put yourself in Carrie or any of the devs shoes. Please understand I have no personal relations with them and have never actually seen them live their normal day lives. I’m just showing that they’re probably going through the same things that that principal went through all the time. And I hope by reading this post we can all have a little more compassion on these people.
Tag me if you reply to my comment so I know I should answer you!😀 My roster: https://swgoh.gg/p/842694912/

Replies

  • Aydnie
    432 posts Member
    How much did CG paid you for writing this ?
  • kello_511
    1648 posts Member
    Aydnie wrote: »
    How much did CG paid you for writing this ?

    Not as much as they owe me for reading it.
  • Iy4oy4s
    2923 posts Member
    kello_511 wrote: »
    Aydnie wrote: »
    How much did CG paid you for writing this ?

    Not as much as they owe me for reading it.

    Yup, couple mins of my life that I won’t get back.
  • Dk_rek
    3299 posts Member
    edited March 2019
    It does seem like your comparing the schooling of the future generation of humanity with me trying to get playable ship content

    J/K (I get what your saying and I get it)

    Then again the parents pay the salary of that principal who applied for and received that job it's his job to address the parents issues. It's his job to communicate to the teachers under him that some of the parents have valid complaints that must be addressed.

    A bad example of this would be be a student named Plo went to school everyday and the gym teacher what teaching him how to hit a baseball but his Basic swing was that of a tomahawk chop instead of a swing. His basic swing is broke. The principal knows the teacher can fix the kids broken Basic swing but refuses to. It's now 2 years later and the tomahawk chop kid is in prison for vandalism using his tomahawk chop with the baseball bat to smash cars with his friends....... see everyone lost
  • Maybe people just don't like carrie cuz she's not that nice a person and doesn't handle interactions with her paying customers well? That's what it is for me at least
  • LynnYoda
    1017 posts Member
    so you take a job of community manager and refuse to communicate with the community you are supposed to be managing.... how long do you rekon you would keep that job for?
    even then in almost any job you promise to communicate with your customers but dont bother doing it, you dont reply to thousands of complaints on multiple topics... how long do you rekon you would keep that job?

    yes they have a job to do but a big part of that job is communication and not hiding whenever things go wrong.
    i really wish they would bring back jesse or kozi at least they came onto the forum and spoke with us especially when things went wrong and they didnt post "news" on 3rd party sites that spam your phone with stupid pointless ads, they actually posted on this the official forum for the game.
    i do see your point but at the end of the day for a start a community manager who cannot communicate with the community is not doing their job and thats not even starting on carries money grabbing tactics either.
  • Tbirds01
    1235 posts Member
    LynnYoda wrote: »
    so you take a job of community manager and refuse to communicate with the community you are supposed to be managing.... how long do you rekon you would keep that job for?
    even then in almost any job you promise to communicate with your customers but dont bother doing it, you dont reply to thousands of complaints on multiple topics... how long do you rekon you would keep that job?

    yes they have a job to do but a big part of that job is communication and not hiding whenever things go wrong.
    i really wish they would bring back jesse or kozi at least they came onto the forum and spoke with us especially when things went wrong and they didnt post "news" on 3rd party sites that spam your phone with stupid pointless ads, they actually posted on this the official forum for the game.
    i do see your point but at the end of the day for a start a community manager who cannot communicate with the community is not doing their job and thats not even starting on carries money grabbing tactics either.
    I completely agree with you dude which is why I mentioned I do not think the miscommunication can be quite forgiven until they make up with it. Communication is huge in a relationship of any kind, and they’re lacking in it. That’s about the only thing I can think of that’s a big problem with them.
    Tag me if you reply to my comment so I know I should answer you!😀 My roster: https://swgoh.gg/p/842694912/
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    if she can't handle it, she isn't suited for the job and she should resign to find something she is suitable for just like your friend did. There's no shame it that.
    I don't feel sorry for her that she has to deal with the issues that come with such a job, that's what she signed up for and is getting paid for.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Throwing in my 2 cents...
    Similar games like strikeforce, age of magic, and looney tunes (lol) offer WAY less comunication and take 3 times as long to fix issues.

    I have many complaints where things xan be improved, but they do WAY beyter than the competition for sure.
  • kello_511
    1648 posts Member
    There are a couple of points to be made here.

    First, I don’t buy the whole “poor whoever, it’s not fair that people are expecting him/her to do their job”.
    Your principal friend signed up for a principal job. It came with more money and along with it increased responsibility. All that stuff he is dealing with is part of the job - he knew that going in. If he is lousy at it, he will (and should) be held accountable.

    On the other hand, I feel like a lot of people on here look at someone’s job title and assume that they know everything that the job entails based on it. “Community Manager - obviously her job is to be at our beck and call, answering every post on the forums 24/7”.

    The truth is that there are various aspects to any job. I’m sure that dealing with us is a part of the Community Manager job, but I’ll bet that there are also tons of other responsibilities that don’t involve directly interacting with the community. Think about your own job and apply the same thought process to it.

    Saying that, there IS an obvious need to communicate with us better. What angered me the most recently was the 100+ page thread from us which was almost entirely against the idea of tw character bans. It was completely ignored. A simple:
    “Hey guys, we hear that this is. It what you are looking for. It’s too late for us to make changes to this upcoming tw but we will certainly take this into account going forward. In the meantime please try to make the best of this 1-time format and we will work on finding a better option for next time”. A post like this would have been enough for me and many others Being totally ignored is what bothers people.

    And then the flip side of this - there is a responsibility on us to be understanding that the Community Manager isn’t all-seeing and all-powerful. Sometimes, the above statement may be as good as it gets - and we need to understand and accept that.

    I believe that this is why we go through so many Commjnity Managers. I believe that they want to do well, but they can’t always give us the answer that we want - and when that happens we tend to throw them under the bus and flip out about it. Which then leads to them disengaging with us until another idealistic person takes the job. And the cycle repeats itself.
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    crumb is community manager, not carrie.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Nikoms565
    14242 posts Member
    Games are supposed to be fun. Carrie's job (and the developers "under" her) are to maintain a game that is both fun and profitable.

    Judging by most of the people bored out of their skulls here, on reddit, in guild chants over the current arena meta and the boring ship meta, they are failing miserably at the former (fun). Judging by the number of whales quitting long-time guilds (including 3 who just left mine this past week - but "passed" their accounts to others) - I'm not sure how good the long term aspect of the "profitable" part of that equation is going to hold up.

    TL;DR - bad analogy, because in your example the principle was doing his/her job well.
    In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie

    In game guild: TNR Uprising
    I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
    *This space left intentionally blank*
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Games are supposed to be fun. Carrie's job (and the developers "under" her) are to maintain a game that is both fun and profitable.

    Judging by most of the people bored out of their skulls here, on reddit, in guild chants over the current arena meta and the boring ship meta, they are failing miserably at the former (fun). Judging by the number of whales quitting long-time guilds (including 3 who just left mine this past week - but "passed" their accounts to others) - I'm not sure how good the long term aspect of the "profitable" part of that equation is going to hold up.

    TL;DR - bad analogy, because in your example the principle was doing his/her job well.

    happy with the TL;DR, no way i was going to read that wall of text ! ;)
    other than that, i don't agree entirely. Mostly due to GA.
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • I am and have been a manager at various positions throughout my career. You are responsible for the people under you. If they aren’t doing what they should be, then you need to train them to do the correct thing. If they can’t be trained, then they need to be replaced. It ultimately falls in the person in charge. And if you can’t do that, then the manager above you will find someone who can.

    I have no idea how this applies to CG and what their hierarchy is, but my point is that the argument that you can’t blame the person in charge, they aren’t the ones doing it, is terrible logic.
  • Nikoms565
    14242 posts Member
    leef wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Games are supposed to be fun. Carrie's job (and the developers "under" her) are to maintain a game that is both fun and profitable.

    Judging by most of the people bored out of their skulls here, on reddit, in guild chants over the current arena meta and the boring ship meta, they are failing miserably at the former (fun). Judging by the number of whales quitting long-time guilds (including 3 who just left mine this past week - but "passed" their accounts to others) - I'm not sure how good the long term aspect of the "profitable" part of that equation is going to hold up.

    TL;DR - bad analogy, because in your example the principle was doing his/her job well.

    happy with the TL;DR, no way i was going to read that wall of text ! ;)
    other than that, i don't agree entirely. Mostly due to GA.

    Except even that is a good idea...poorly implemented. The 3v3 GAs when squads are built for 5v5 synergy and matchmaking based on overall GP when ships aren't even used both scream of "rushed content poorly planned". Don't even get me started about the inability of the devs to figure out calendar overlap so they had to cancel the last one. This game is over 3 years old - and there are literally bugs on every release - and some of them break things that were fixed years ago. Try to do an arena battle on auto - and watch the target icon randomly jump instead of staying fixed. Remember when they fixed that? yeah, it's broken again.
    In game name: Lucas Gregory FORMER PLAYER - - - -"Whale blah grump poooop." - Ouchie

    In game guild: TNR Uprising
    I beat the REAL T7 Yoda (not the nerfed one) and did so before mods were there to help
    *This space left intentionally blank*
  • jkray622
    1636 posts Member
    You can't make all players happy all the time. I've also seen across many games where the Devs communicate early, and then when changes happen, it enrages some of the players who were expecting something that matched the original communication.

    I would like more advance notice of the "future" - but I recognize that we won't get it. I'd rather have accurate, timely communication that I can rely on.
  • leef
    13458 posts Member
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    leef wrote: »
    Nikoms565 wrote: »
    Games are supposed to be fun. Carrie's job (and the developers "under" her) are to maintain a game that is both fun and profitable.

    Judging by most of the people bored out of their skulls here, on reddit, in guild chants over the current arena meta and the boring ship meta, they are failing miserably at the former (fun). Judging by the number of whales quitting long-time guilds (including 3 who just left mine this past week - but "passed" their accounts to others) - I'm not sure how good the long term aspect of the "profitable" part of that equation is going to hold up.

    TL;DR - bad analogy, because in your example the principle was doing his/her job well.

    happy with the TL;DR, no way i was going to read that wall of text ! ;)
    other than that, i don't agree entirely. Mostly due to GA.

    Except even that is a good idea...poorly implemented. The 3v3 GAs when squads are built for 5v5 synergy and matchmaking based on overall GP when ships aren't even used both scream of "rushed content poorly planned". Don't even get me started about the inability of the devs to figure out calendar overlap so they had to cancel the last one. This game is over 3 years old - and there are literally bugs on every release - and some of them break things that were fixed years ago. Try to do an arena battle on auto - and watch the target icon randomly jump instead of staying fixed. Remember when they fixed that? yeah, it's broken again.

    I like to focus on the possitive.
    Also, they fixed jedi counsular, so there's that haha
    Save water, drink champagne!
  • Zinke7
    194 posts Member
    Everyone is complaining about metas (current and past ones) and then they turn and complain about 3vs3 GA and buffed or nerfed TW. Think about them as a devices used to see how good of adjustment you can make in using your freshly bought meta characters.
    I am sure that somebody with all "good" characters at G12 and 7* would not be having problems using them but they might struggle in these special TWs and GAs and that is why these things are welcomed by me and should be welcomed by you as well as it will save you lots of time complaining how stale TWs and GAs are due to OPed metas.
  • TLDR
  • Yes yes, CG good, us bad.. we know we know..
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    Agreed. The communication is the essential part here. The problem on that is two folds. They can't just go out and communicate their intentions because each word they say is taken on absolute terms. But then we have no idea if any particular thing is gonna be addressed or not which causes grief. They should at least be able to tell if they consider something should keep running as is or is under consideration for a possible change.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    Not how, not when, but what.
  • No_Try
    4051 posts Member
    The type of thing I expect from them (which rarely happens)

    gn6top8sb41t.png
  • Dk_rek
    3299 posts Member
    Lol wow did this get banished to neither regions QUICK lol
  • "...and now, the end is near, I must face a fate uncertain. They've thrown this in a hole so dark and dank, and pulled the curtain.." lol
  • Developers don't wear shoes
  • Honestly, id say this a better community then some of the others from games ive played, so i kinda agree with tbird on this point.
    Get good and get a Revan. Ryanwhales
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