Devs That Listen

I just went over to the CoH boards, and I had to come back here to make more comments.

Another reason why I like CoH? The developers listen. They contribute on their own forum boards. They actually say useful things. They say funny things too. They're really working on and caring about the game and bothering to show and share that passion with their players. As periodically as they can spare. How cool is that?

Another reason why I am also a Guild Wars fanboy. Where else can you send an email to their customer service/PR people and get a reply in a day or two, thanking you for comments, and with an email that doesn't seem totally "form letter?" Could have been one, but it was written to sound personalized. Thank goodness for those special touches, huh? Makes people feel good.

And I like customer service departments who realize their job is to make their customers feel good. Not frustrated. Not miserable. Not ignored.

I'm not exactly pointing fingers here, but RoD and WoW can learn a few lessons from this. Granted, RoD is free and staffed by volunteers who are masochistic (or brave or dutiful or devoted or dedicated) enough to keep staying and take all the abuse they get from people also screwed up enough not to want to leave for greener pastures - so I shall say no more about them...

How about WoW though? Had a bad bad bad beta-test experience with them, so I'm not paying one hundred bucks to try out the game again. But from what I hear of it, their customer service suckz0rs. Apparently, their boards are a flame-fest, filled with trolls, and the moderators/Blizzard reps aren't responding or reacting or in any way showing they are alive, in control or maintaining courtesy. Servers constantly down for updates and never seem to go back online. People have to QUEUE up to log in to play? *boggle*

Maybe the game in WoW is good, but if tech support is failing that badly, who would ever get to log in enough to know?

Back to CoH and a case in point: Post Issue 3, Statesman wanted to up the boss damage and he did so. People screamed. They wrote lots of thoughtfully reasoned out posts as to why this was a knee-jerk fix and a bad idea.

The devs didn't bend over and immediately retract the change and say, ok ok, you win. Newp, that would be stupid. That'll be like encouraging whiners to ask for a cheat code.

But they did say, they were observing and looking into it, data-mining and doing research. So sensible players were happy. And I'm glad to say a lot of CoH are sensible players.

After a reasonable amount of time looking at the change, they decided that their initial direction was wrong. And they came out and admitted it, and they announced they were going to roll the change back. And that this decision was both due to research as well as fan feedback.

WHERE can you find a place where the designers are willing to take back a stance and eat crow and say, Ok, I may have made a mistake here, let's put it back the way it was and try it from this angle instead?

RoD? Heh. 'Nuff said.

Chances are, you know of lots and lots of designers of virtual communities out there who believe they are gods and that only their precious paper design matters, not the happiness or the fun of the people living in that world.

Designers who realize that serendipity can happen and that you should grasp things that just happen to work out with both hands are a rare treasure.

Thank goodness we have that in the CoH team. (The GW team also, btw.)

And after that, Statesman bothered to write a long post about it, telling everyone his decision and sharing his plans in the short, medium and long term.

*gasp* No total secret NDA there!

Now isn't that PR to be admired? It placates and keeps everyone on tenterhooks anticipating at the same time.

That's smart.

I'm glad the games I'm aiming to play in the present and near future have teams that are really gosh-darned PR and customer service smart.

After all, I'm paying them to play a game I'll enjoy.