These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE General Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

The fate of the "Answer everything" thread

First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Lady Spank
Get Out Nasty Face
#21 - 2011-09-12 13:36:05 UTC
Trolls Troll wrote:
Lady Spank wrote:
tl;dr Once again we at CCP failed to keep our promises.



Give Guard few points for admitting it though. probably not his fault someone above him took all his henchmen away to work on another game Cry


True enough. I guess that looks like an angry post rather since I forgot the :oops: emoticon.

I'm still impressed at how long it takes CCP to produce 'minutes' for their meetings which are meant to address CCP's lack of communication with the player base; this thread just adds to the amusement.

(ಠ_ృ) ~ It Takes a Million Years to Become Diamonds So Lets Just Burn Like Coal Until the Sky's Black ~ (ಠ_ృ)
Xearal
Dead's Prostitutes
The Initiative.
#22 - 2011-09-12 13:36:52 UTC
347 questions awnsered is still not a bad amount I think. Especially if some of those got into more complicated bits of the game.

Does railgun ammunition come in Hollow Point?
Mendolus
Aurelius Federation
#23 - 2011-09-12 13:38:26 UTC
Thanks for the reply CCP Guard! I know what it is like to imagine a wonderful project, get the green light from the boss, and then not have the time to complete it and have to rush through or set it aside.

Next time maybe lock the thread sooner so you can then say you answered 347/500 questions instead.

Between you and me I would have been pleased if you guys just picked 100 of the most pertinent questions and spent all the time you did have on those, but I'm fairly unconcerned overall with all the hype that bothers so many others so I would never have thought holding you guys to a promise to answer every question would be reasonable, esp. when there were more than a thousand.

I am still able to logon, jump in a spaceship, undock, and shoot stuff, so all is well in the grand scheme of things! Thanks again for the honesty that you guys bit off way more than you could chew with the answers thread.

...clearly the Ishukone Watch Scorpion is the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse, i.e. the Brown Rider, otherwise known as Poopie.
Shadowsword
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#24 - 2011-09-12 13:41:05 UTC
This was one of the very few source of learning at least a bit how CCP plan to deal with Eve's issues.

I am disappointed that, even knowning that lack of communication with the playerbase is an issue, and got you burned pretty badly recently, even knowning that the winter expansion's spaceship content is going to be critical for Eve, we still don't even any scrap of concrete information about what we can expect in the near future.

The timing for stopping this could hardly be worse...
Grey Stormshadow
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#25 - 2011-09-12 13:43:42 UTC
CCP Guard wrote:
Friends,

You all remember the „Devs answer everything thread“ (I know for a fact that some of you do at least) that we started this spring, with the intention of – as the title subtly hints at - answering every question therein.

As a brand new Community Developer, I started this project with the full intention of pushing it through no matter what. Then summer came with the final Incarna sprints, the Incarna launch, and all that followed. The summer period was extremely hard in terms of securing any „extra“ time from developers to spend on answering questions from the thread, and it‘s not going to get any easier. Answering this amount of questions publicly takes a lot longer than many would expect because often you get second thoughts about details that you then want to research, or you want to polish the wording so it´s clear and understandable for what you intend it to convey.

Long story short, I grossly understimated the time it would take to finish answering all these questions, and overestimated the man hours I would be able to secure. And I learned a few valuable lessons along the way. One of them being never to use the word „promise“ unless you KNOW the result.

It is time to step up and admit defeat and apologize - we will not be moving this thread over from the old forums. Statistically speaking the project was two thirds of a failure. We answered 347 questions out of the roughly 1100 we received, despite repeated attempts at securing manpower. I can only hope that the questions we did answer made all of this at least somewhat worth it for some of you.

We‘ll go back to the drawing board and figure out different ways to do similar things in the future. To those that took part, waited, and never got what they came for, I humbly offer my most sincere apologies.

-CCP Guard


Well said... this is direct, open and honest communication and I give you plenty of respect from that.

There is no need to apologies as the event was completely voluntarily arranged by you in first place. No harm done.

If you arrange similiar event in future, perhaps it would be wise to limit the questions to one/account holder.

Get classic forum style - custom videos to captains quarters screen

Play with the best - die like the rest
Richard Aiel
The Merchants of War
#26 - 2011-09-12 13:49:09 UTC
At least this is pretty much the admission that they're working more on WoD an Dust than EVE related things

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r188/buddahcjcc/SOA-3-2.jpg
Stitcher
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#27 - 2011-09-12 13:54:53 UTC
Richard Aiel wrote:
At least this is pretty much the admission that they're working more on WoD an Dust than EVE related things


How the dancing frak did you arrive at THAT conclusion from this thread?

AKA Hambone

Author of The Deathworlders
Mara Villoso
Long Jump.
#28 - 2011-09-12 14:02:15 UTC
Finally, a mea culpa.

I do believe someone in management finally handed down some marching orders related to PR. This admission comes on the heels of the release of the fabled CSM minutes, and both topics were "imported" from the old forum to this one. Next thing you know they might actually get back on track. We'll see.
Xearal
Dead's Prostitutes
The Initiative.
#29 - 2011-09-12 14:05:20 UTC
Richard Aiel wrote:
At least this is pretty much the admission that they're working more on WoD an Dust than EVE related things

OR, they are working on EVE as the people who'd have to be awnsering those questions would be, I don't know, the people buildin Eve.. so every second they arebusy awnsering questions, while very nice, means less time to work on the problems Eve is facing.

I mean, why would someone who's doing the art in WoD awnser questions about lag?
That would be something someone from team gridlock would be awnsering, and if he's doing that..

At any rate, I think the project was still a success. Not as much a success as was the dream, but a success at any rate.

Does railgun ammunition come in Hollow Point?
Alundil
Rolled Out
#30 - 2011-09-12 14:09:25 UTC
CCP Guard,

Thanks for setting this up and answering, and getting other Devs to answer, questions. That was one of the threads that I made sure to check every time I hit the forums hoping for some new answers.

Hopefully you can figure out a way to bring this back, perhaps in a more limited manner as has been suggested.

Regards.

I'm right behind you
Razin
The Scope
#31 - 2011-09-12 14:16:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Razin
It's definitely good to communicate with your customers and put things to rest when required, and this issue did require that for a long time.

Still, pretty disappointing in an already long line of disappointments.


P.S. However, CCP really doesn't need that thread to see the customer questions that urgently need definite answers. There's still time to post those blogs.
Tethys Atreides
The Audacity of Huge
#32 - 2011-09-12 14:18:15 UTC
Guard,

This kind of attitude will go a long way towards regaining the trust of the community. Please impress this on your co-workers.

Thank you.
Gogela
Epic Ganking Time
CODE.
#33 - 2011-09-12 14:19:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Gogela
I'm very unimpressed.

When I'm at work and I don't get a project done, I stay late and finish it.

Maybe I should look for an easier job.

meh.

I'm actually surprised. Up until I read this I assumed you would get to it EVENTUALLY... but quitting is cool too.

A+ for fail

Signatures should be used responsibly...
Florestan Bronstein
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#34 - 2011-09-12 14:30:25 UTC
Maybe a compromise could be to get answers for a fixed number of questions with the selection of questions being determined by some crowd sourcing effort?

e.g. just make a "ask a question thread" and then get answers to the 30 questions which have received most likes over a certain period of time.

maybe add some restrictions to make sure not one team of devs has to answer all questions...
Drifnir
Zealots of Bob
#35 - 2011-09-12 14:41:23 UTC
Thank you for an honest and frank answer. Wish this kind of communication was the text-book example from CCP.

When you fail (or in this case, fall victim of your own succes) at least be open with us and not sweep it under the rug, like so many other devs have done in the past. The disappearing 5th T3 sub springs to mind. When you are honest with us like this, you will engender significantly less anger and disappointment, than the usual PR tripe.

Good on you Guard....tell the other Devs that THIS is how it's done.

Have a nice day.
Raid'En
#36 - 2011-09-12 14:58:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Raid'En
at least we finally got an answer.

also about "promises" and CCP ;
(this is not about you only Guard, don't take it as personal)

the biggest problem is NOT that CCP don't keep them
the biggest problem is that CCP don't communicate about issues when they realize they may not be able to keep them

most of the time we have to wait, without any infos. seems it won't happen, but no one tell us, so we don't know at all if it will be a bit late, a lot late, or canceled.
so please, when you see things are not going well say it.

if for example CCP say that "X will be released on september" and that on the 30th august we have no news it's terrible.
if however at the 15th of august you say "got issues - give basic infos - and we won't make it in time, we think it will be done in october
but what you do most of the time is doing nothing. then only one month after we got confirmation it won't happen

it has been said a lot of time ; we need more communication.

if something **** up say it quickly, don't wait the last moment to say it.
it will be better accepted if you warn us before that a problem may happen. if you wait we will be angry cause you never said it could not happen.
if you said it but all goes well it's fine also, don't wait to tell it because you're waiting to be sure it may goes wrong
dgastuffz
#37 - 2011-09-12 15:04:00 UTC
"We answered 347 questions out of the roughly 1100 we received,"

and how many answered about FW i would say you fail
Abrazzar
Vardaugas Family
#38 - 2011-09-12 15:04:02 UTC
I request this thread to be archived as a prime example on "how to communicate failure of delivering promised performance without inciting dissent in your customers" for review for the other devs and CCP upper management.

Admitting defeat is the first step to victory.

Sovereignty and Population

New Mining Mechanics
Zagam
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#39 - 2011-09-12 15:04:29 UTC
CCP Guard wrote:
Friends,

You all remember the „Devs answer everything thread“ (I know for a fact that some of you do at least) that we started this spring, with the intention of – as the title subtly hints at - answering every question therein.

As a brand new Community Developer, I started this project with the full intention of pushing it through no matter what. Then summer came with the final Incarna sprints, the Incarna launch, and all that followed. The summer period was extremely hard in terms of securing any „extra“ time from developers to spend on answering questions from the thread, and it‘s not going to get any easier. Answering this amount of questions publicly takes a lot longer than many would expect because often you get second thoughts about details that you then want to research, or you want to polish the wording so it´s clear and understandable for what you intend it to convey.

Long story short, I grossly understimated the time it would take to finish answering all these questions, and overestimated the man hours I would be able to secure. And I learned a few valuable lessons along the way. One of them being never to use the word „promise“ unless you KNOW the result.

It is time to step up and admit defeat and apologize - we will not be moving this thread over from the old forums. Statistically speaking the project was two thirds of a failure. We answered 347 questions out of the roughly 1100 we received, despite repeated attempts at securing manpower. I can only hope that the questions we did answer made all of this at least somewhat worth it for some of you.

We‘ll go back to the drawing board and figure out different ways to do similar things in the future. To those that took part, waited, and never got what they came for, I humbly offer my most sincere apologies.

-CCP Guard



Thank you for taking the time to answer 347 of the questions!

Also, kudos do you for stepping up to the plate and admitting that the tsunami of questions was more than you planned for, and apologizing. Takes some courage doing that anywhere in business (and especially on these forums...)

+1
Potato IQ
Doomheim
#40 - 2011-09-12 15:12:54 UTC
CCP Guard wrote:
Xtraneous wrote:
CCP Guard - I appreciate the work you put into this even if it wasn't completely successful.

Would you consider a more manageable version in the future? Possibly a short window of time for asking questions or a finite number of questions you answer each month?


Something like that sounds more doable for sure :). One of the mistakes I made was to not put a limit on questions per person. Another thing I'm thinking is something where we limit the range of questions, i.e. have a fairly limited topic to focus on each time.

We'll see.


Limited topic likely easier as curtailing the amount of questions per person will fail because there’s going to be some that have more, and the best, that must be put forward Roll However it’s done, let’s at least ensure it returns in some format

btw, are you purposely going for the Eve Dev blue eye mask to protect your identity?