Conan Exiles Allies - United Voices

[DeaconElie]

@erjoh

privatized community any different than the one already established?

Yes, I’m there. And how is it privatized?

@LostBrythunian

Who is still playing this game?

But none of this means anything with out funcom, maybe someone should go to the Dune discord and invite the half a dozen funcom reps there, you can chat with several of them daily.
For an unreleased game.
With no player base.

Face it folks, were the foster kids in the basement paying for the golden child’s new clothes and private tutors. They get the steak, we get the pan to lick.

What’s funcom going to do when Dune falls flat on it’s face? The movie hype has passed so they missed that. And Dune has a smaller niche fan base then Conan.

The discord has been losing members steady because people are tired of the hype, lot a of sizzle and no steak.

{haven’t had breakfast yet}.

[erjoh]

@DeaconElie

how is it privatized?

In the same sense as a private server. We have the official forums where we all congregate and devs and CSRs monitor and communicate and this seems to create a separate forum to which to congregate and discuss but I’m failing to see the advantage of this over just using the forums. Is it to vet ideas first and then present the collective’s ideas and concerns? And how is this done? Via direct email or posting DM via the forums?

Will this group accept FC design decisions outside of their control, IE dye bench, and move forward or will stuff like that sit and fester…feeding in an echo chamber of discontent?

[Kikigirl]

The original thought was to pull everyone together to harness the energy of the frustration into more positive collaboration. That collaboration as in finding ways to better communicate. A unification even in those who usually disagree based on niches.

We have a couple of initiatives within such as an optional forum post workshop. If a member would like to have their draft reviewed for grammar, tone, corrections and thoughts, it can be reviewed and feedback given. This was first done with the OP.

A couple of members have remarked that they feel their approach has changed on the forums, they’re less likely to be negative and instead are trying to be more constructive in their criticism. So the first intention is at least being fulfilled for some.

The caveat is that Discord is the space at this time because it is the best tool. There’s no exclusivity, anyone can join, discuss; upon joining the rules are there to be reviewed and can leave if they don’t agree.

Another thing is that while preferences are heavily discussed within, the original intent of this OP was not to focus on those preferences. We can’t have everything we want and in my personal opinion we have to respect the agency of the company to do as they will - even if that means the core of the concerns in OP are never addressed.

Again, as I’ve said in several comments (I know you didn’t read all of them as there are a lot), this might do nothing. But, it also might. It’s hope, an ask and trying to do better, be better.

[DeaconElie]

@erjoh

In the same sense as a private server.

Private has a different connotation for me.
If you can just log in, it’s not private. For me private means there is some sort of gate keeping going on.

Think about this, Jimbo and I are on the same discord and not at each other.
Luvya Jimbo.

@erjoh

Will this group accept FC design decisions outside of their control,

With out complaint
What decisions are in anyone’s control?
Not even the control group has any control.

@Kikigirl

The original thought was to pull everyone together to harness the energy of the frustration into more positive collaboration. That collaboration as in finding ways to better communicate. A unification even in those who usually disagree based on niches.

[Khaletohep]

@CodeMage

But it does give you the right to say that the organization is incapable of producing acceptable outcomes.

This.

Critizing the behaviour, skills or even character of individuals has a place in our society, but this forum (or social media) is not that place.

We don’t know the reasons for issue X, Y or Z. Maybe the individual developer messed up, or maybe he or she is held back or not given the necessary resources by management.
Maybe even management is doing a good job, but investors want things they cannot accomplish within the financial limits they most certainly have.
So, it would neither be fair or helpful to complain about the individuals. There probably is a person or group responsible, but we don’t know them, and it’s not productive to blame A, B or C for something that any one of them might be responsible for - or even D.

The collective, however, is not doing a great job. Whatever the reason, the company is losing customers it could have kept through questionable design decisions, buggy updates, unfortunate communication.

All in all, it just isn’t working. Bringing new stuff is great and keeps customers engaged, but if the stuff comes in such a low quality, it drives more people away than it keeps.

I repeat my advice: Dream big, but keep your feet on the ground. With a small team, you can still do big things, but one of them at a time, and with a realistic time schedule.

[Barnes]

@erjoh

We have the official forums where we all congregate and devs and CSRs monitor and communicate and this seems to create a separate forum to which to congregate and discuss but I’m failing to see the advantage of this over just using the forums.

The Beta players (invited, must sign an NDA) meet here, in private, on a section of this very forum.

CEA is a natural and organic counter.

@Testerle embodies the Beta group perfectly. Read his posts, you’ll get the flavor of what being a Beta is like.

[Karlsony]

From the point of view of an ordinary player, it makes no difference who determines the development of the game - the developers or a group of players. The main thing is that it works. Right now, everything is bad.

[Khaletohep]

That, too, is an important point.

The beta testers / focus group / whatever members should also not be blamed for anything. We non-members do not know what feedback they give, if and how their feedback is incorporated and so on.

There may be room for improvement, but assessing responsibility would require a thorough review of facts most of us do not have (and possibly don’t care about).

A broader view on the customer base might be helpful, but if so, it’s not the beta testers’ decision to do that, and I assume that resources for queries or similar tools are limitied for Funcom, too. Again, we do not know and don’t need to know who’s responsible for what and shouldn’t blame any indvidiual or even subgroub of people for anything.

Who, to give a give a neutral and totally non-partisan example, is responsible for Telith’s ghost being lost and not re-implemented, we do not know. The person responsible should be tortured by having to watch all Hellraiser movies in succession, even the bad ones, with only pineapple pizza for sustenance, but unless we do know who is guilty for that, we shouldn’t throw stones at anybody.

[LostBrythunian]

@heaven13

Does it count as still playing if “playing” is setting up a new modded server (with living settlements off)?

Absolutely yes.
That is exactly why this one added a modded only option.
There is a difference between done and dusted, and still using the chassis for development in other directions.

[Pugilist]

@Taemien

I would consider joining this discord, but here is a guarantee that is required before I would consider doing so.

This suggests you would follow the conditions you list.

This would be quite the change.

The best of luck with your endeavor.

[LostBrythunian]

@erjoh

Will this group accept FC design decisions outside of their control, IE dye bench, and move forward or will stuff like that sit and fester…feeding in an echo chamber of discontent?

This is one of the reasons this one cannot and will not commit to a formal group.

The Dye change is, was, and (until they drastically increase that oversized, bloated thing’s storage and improve it’s functionality) will remain bad.

And every other little decision to make the game less enjoyable (for this one) that brings no benefit and only makes sense of one is deliberately ignorant of how such things work in the waking world.

The tank controls are another example.
A glorious example wherein reason prevailed and an extremely unpopular and unenjoyable development got fixed.

There seem to be two major (and a few minor) concepts at work. They aren’t as tightly woven as one might think. All they share is player frustration.

1. Direction of Development
2. Quality of Development

This one is dissatisfied with both at present.
However, there are plenty of people who are only concerned about the 2nd item there.
Honestly, if we weren’t in the midst of a buggy mess right after a six month extension designed to prevent just such things, there would be far less passion in these exchanges and less zeal for doing something, anything.

Development vector is a matter of taste.
Not everyone will agree and that’s perfectly fine, this is entertainment. Not everyone is entertained by the same thing.
The functionality of the game, regardless of agreement or disagreement on where it is going, is another. That’s not a matter of taste, it simply is or isn’t a janky mess. In this case, as we have all grown accustomed to, it is a mess.
It’s always a mess.
That’s not the kind of consistency any customer likes.

This one’s general loathing (informed by far too much experience) of bureaucracy, resentment at being muzzled, distrust of special advisory bodies, and deeply held belief that every @$$ that wants to sit in a throne should be kicked, and every head that seeks a crown should be smote from the shoulders it rides upon, make this one perhaps unsuitable for any such groups.
It is a contempt born of familiarity.

Which is why this one’s observations are posted here.
Others can agree or disagree at their leisure.
Sometimes a snark not appropriate for the public or a question extremely irrelevant to both the topic and the current place in the conversation come up, so those can go in direct messages.
It’s one thing to be part of an informal group brainstorming or venting the spleen. Quite another to be in a focus group or on an advisory panel.

Which, in an extremely round about way, gets to actual question.
Is the group formal?
A formal group can have a negotiator speak for them and make decisions on their behalf.
An informal assembly, less so.
Of course, there also a trade off, the more authority one has to speak for a group, the more that group quickly becomes an echo chamber as what topics are allowed and what views accepted become further and further curated, whether by treaty, or, eventually, by autocratic decree or tyranny of the simple majority.
Does this “group” have a central authority that can speak for it and hold it to it’s agreements?

[Hansel]

@Testerle

how many people do you think are working on conan?

from the point of view of a customer that is ABSOLUTELY irrelevant for us players. it is funcom. if it is disfuctional or incompetence , is again something for funcom to look at and or fix, what we do know is the game is in a very sorry state! and it should not be as it is now.

@Testerle

incompetence or rather a decreasing number of team members and thus decreasing available resources?

yet the only thing we were told is that CE team is growing…(Said by @AndyB) and that they have completeley separate teams , something here does not adds up. or we are not been told the whole story.

my theory is there is a bit of the two, could be fewer and fewer resources plus some level of “dysfunctionality” only thing we can do is to guess but only funcom knows…

@Testerle

everyone I knew is no longer on the conan team and no new faces have appeared

yup that is called the effect of dune awakenings… despite of what they said many of the CE people has moved to Dune… this is rapidly becoming an abandoned game…

here is where the “incompetence” theory gets stronger,. why would they do all of this settlement system mess for a dying game? why would they spend the resources to change something that was working perfectly fine? for a totally broken system? it almost looks like sabotage, (i know its not it, but i simply cant understant their logic)

@Testerle

’m also convinced that this is also a result of the shrinking team.

again it was said the CE team was growing…, not shrinking! , is it a lie? or what should we think about what has been said and what has been observed ? (sadly both dont match)

[Whitequeen]

Sounds like you’re working up to a steak and eggs breakfast

[Lucidique]

Well, there’s probably going to be another drop in player numbers at the end of the month as Conan Exiles leaves Game Pass. It could be why there’s a delay for the Hyrkanian Warlord set on Xbox. Though, that’s just a guess.

[CodeMage]

@Testerle

…and I don’t think you have to explain to me how it works, but every point of your description needs time and therefore available resource.

The explanation isn’t only for you. We both have a larger audience than each other. My target audience for this discussion is anyone who saw your comment about how people here need to understand QA and release planning in software development. I want them to have enough information to form their own conclusions about whether your defense of Funcom’s QA outcomes has merit.

@Testerle

of course they are not the same things, but bug analysis and prioritization also take time and are therefore a direct part of work planning and not just something that influences work planning with its results.

A software development organization that doesn’t have the capacity to do the work necessary to assign priorities to bugs is a dysfunctional organization by definition. Being able to reason about your bugs without fixing them is not some optional, nice-to-have process. It’s an essential part of software development.

@Testerle

that’s the theory, but it also presupposes available resources.

No, it doesn’t. Read carefully the part you quoted. All it says is that you treat the bug as high priority instead of lowering its priority or pretending that it doesn’t exist. How you schedule work based on that priority is something else, which I also covered in that same paragraph you quoted:

@CodeMage

Instead, you treat it as high priority, which should hopefully result in scheduling the work to produce the information you need.

The key word in that sentence is “hopefully”.

@Testerle

why is that? yes, of course, incompetence and a dysfunctional company would be an explanation, but I have a slightly different guess.

how many people do you think are working on conan?

Again, an organization unable or unwilling assign enough resources to perform the minimum work necessary to maintain an acceptable level of quality can be argued to be dysfunctional.

However, I acknowledge that this hinges on the relationship between maintaining an acceptable level of quality and hitting revenue goals. In other words, if the company can rake in enough money without giving a flying fuсk about quality, its investors might consider it functional

@Testerle

incompetence or rather a decreasing number of team members and thus decreasing available resources?

From a consumer’s perspective, this is a distinction without a difference.

@Testerle

of course, you could now say that this is exactly the definition of a “dysfunctional company”. or it is a targeted and planned reduction in costs in a project in order to use the freed-up resources in other projects from which you simply expect more profit…

And there we have it. You hit the nail on the head, although it took a while to get there.

Like I wrote above, the rapidly deteriorating quality can be explained either through the inability or the unwillingness to do the necessary work.

The words people colloquially assign to those two alternatives are “incompetence” and “greed”, respectively.

Yet, many people here – including you from, judging from your contributions in this discussion so far – insist that we’re not allowed to use either, regardless of how we phrase it. Instead, the demands to maintain quality are labeled as “unreasonable”, because of course the company should prioritize profits over the satisfaction of their players as long as it can get away with it.

I’m not saying this to attack you. Instead, I’m using it to explain why the players at large perceive the beta testing group as “yes-men”. Sure, every business has to find a balance between profits and customer satisfaction, but justifying and defending the level of negligence we see in Conan Exiles is not okay. It’s an attitude that doesn’t have the players’ best interest at heart.

Had I needed any proof that CEA needed to exist, this would have been it.

[LostBrythunian]

@CodeMage

beta testing group

To be entirely fair, are most likely under some form of NDA and may have other restrictions upon what they are allowed to say publicly.
Whether explicit or implicit.

@Testerle

of course, you could now say that this is exactly the definition of a “dysfunctional company”. or it is a targeted and planned reduction in costs in a project in order to use the freed-up resources in other projects from which you simply expect more profit…

From a public relations perspective, that’s worse.
Much worse.
Time and again it has been stated on Devstreams that resources are not being taken away from Conan to work on Dune.
Further, there have been claims of a growing rather than shrinking team. If that comment about team size is only true in a tiny snapshot, as you mentioned, it’s extremely disingenuous to tout it.

Never lie, but if you must, never get caught in that lie.

As for how many people are working on this game, this one guess at least three (Den + the art team that Eradication interviewed) probably with another 3-5 in various support roles.
This does not include middleware which, last time that this one heard anything, was outsourced.

If the corporation as a whole is denying a team the resources to succeed…
There aren’t many polite words one can expect the customer to have about such a deliberate decision.
At the end of the day, Funcom is a business.
A wholely owned subsidiary of Tencent, which is another, larger business.
Businesses exist to make profit.
If the business has decided that the product this one uses is no longer to be supported, this one has no reason to feel any affection or respect for the business. Especially if they are moving towards EoS, as has been floated numerous times, aggressively denied, and due to patterns of veracity, still feared, there is little reason to bother with pretenses of esteem.

Pharma Bro turned a tidy profit, but it is still a vile thing that should be reduced to compost.
Video games are far lower stakes.
But if this game is circling the porcelain throne…
We can point out some key updates and obvious disdain for the customer base that certainly didn’t help drive positive engagement or desire to support.

[CodeMage]

@LostBrythunian

To be entirely fair, are most likely under some form of NDA and may have other restrictions upon what they are allowed to say publicly.

Huh. I confess I don’t know enough about NDAs. I never thought that an NDA would be so broad as to require people to actively defend the company’s reputation. My bad.

@LostBrythunian

If the business has decided that the product this one uses is no longer to be supported, this one has no reason to feel any affection or respect for the business.

Personally, I have no problem with the company deciding to end support for a particular product or a version of the product. That’s perfectly normal, as far as I’m concerned.

But there are certain expectations about how the sunsetting is supposed to be done. “Let the quality go down the tubes until we can’t squeeze a penny out of this thing and then put it out of its misery” is not generally how one does these things. For some unfathomable reason, the users don’t take kindly to that behavior.

[Hansel]

@CodeMage

but justifying and defending the level of negligence we see in Conan Exiles is not okay. It’s an attitude that doesn’t have the players’ best interest at heart.

this is usually what sets me off, @CodeMage … i look at things as a customer, and in my role i expect reasonable level of quality . i do not ask for bug free, (thats imposible) but it should be in a state that is decent,

CE always had bugs, but never at this level…

hope for changes, but , i have very little faith left.

[DeaconElie]

@CodeMage

I never thought that an NDA would be so broad as to require people to actively defend the company’s reputation.

None I ever agreed to did.

@CodeMage

But there are certain expectations about how the sunsetting is supposed to be done. “Let the quality go down the tubes until we can’t squeeze a penny out of this thing and then put it out of its misery” is not generally how one does these things.

[LostBrythunian]

NDAs don’t, but the standards or rules of the closed beta might include, explicit or implicit, expectations of certain levels of, if not defense, then at least lack of anything that could be construed as defamation.
Construed is important here.

If some proles speak unkindly about a product or it’s makers (direct or corporate master) it’s barely relevant on it’s own.
But if someone known to be on the inside starts airing the dirty laundry, that has significantly more bite.

But beyound all that, there could also be personal factors at work. People have ideals and their own internal sense of what is or isn’t correct. Also, people in charge of projects are no less (and no more,) petty and thin skinned that any other human. So there’s that to consider as well.

This one doesn’t mean to establish axioms, merely noting possibilities.

As for EoS.
This one simply has no more business with Funcom when they sunset this game.
There will be 0 incentive to care about them in any other way shape or form.
If a company doesn’t offer a product this one wants, then this one doesn’t give a cluck if it exists, unless it is some kind of Captain Planet/Werewolf the Apocalypse villain, at which point, it can fall and feed the earth.