Fuck, I'm old.
Not just in body, but as a "gamer". I remember when I first got into roleplaying games, it was the winter of 1981 and my first game system was the classic DnD basic "red Box" set. And surprisingly it was recommended to me by my 3rd grade teacher, through my parents, as a way to get my reading and math skills up. (And, if you think I have bad grammar now.... well just imagine! Read on.) And I have to say, it worked. I was hooked, learning to play these games required reading and understanding the rules, math as involved in figuring out if you succeeded or not.... by the end of the school year, I went from basically failing in both reading and math to very strong marks. By the end of 1983, I was a the top of my class (and lets be real here, this is grade 5... you still know shit for shit
)
But for me, it was more then just the numbers on the page, and the words, it was the worlds that those numbers and words unlocked. The gleaming knights, and castles, the giant dragons and horrible trolls. IT was the fact that you got to be not only someone else, but the HERO! You name the game system from 1985 to 1990 and I either played it, read it, or owned it. From the transformable mecha of
Robotech, to the mysteries of
Dark Conspiracies , from the rules light
Pathfinder: tales of Travel , to the rules intensive
Spy Games .
And, naturally I right there when computers and the first RPG games where coming around (MUDs). Naturally I bought and played every single Gold and Silver Box SGI game ever made
(And if you don't know what those are, you are NOT a true Gamer!!!
) Only my accountant knows how much I spent on computer game RPG genre over the years..... $10,000? $30,000? All I know is I have shoe boxes filled with 5.25' floppies..... and they are all store bought games. And I have equal boxes of 3.5' floppies, and several boxes of CDs/DVD... and thanks to Steam, over 100 games in my library... (and thank God for the new return policy! or it would be much higher!)
But we are getting off track.....
Back then, when there was an error or a bug, regardless of the media, you had no recourse. If you bought the Gold Box Pools of Radiance and killed the wizard BEFORE the elemental, you got a corrupted hard dive (SERIOUSLY!!). There was no internet to get a "patch" from, there was no "mail in" option. All there was, was a article in a games magazine from an other publisher, that you had to buy, in order to find this out... Usually several months after the game was released.
If you read a rule in a book that didn't make sense, there was no internet, or email to ask the developers, there was no FAQ departments at all. You could write to them at their publishing house, and hope to get a response of course. Not that I ever got a single response from any of the developers I wrote questions to. Not FASA, not TSR, not SJG, not Palladium, not White Wolf, not GDW. Not even when I included a self addressed, postage paid envelope.
Nope, if you wanted answers, you turned to the 'experts' in magazines like
Dragon and other war gaming journals for your answers. Heck, that is how many of these publications got their start! By publishing 'Unofficial' answers to the problems the communities where having. And as they gained subscribers, they gained pull with the gaming industry, going from 'Unofficial' answers to 'official' answers,, to even offering expanded and optional rules for various game systems. Again, if you are an 'older skool' gamer like me, you'll remember when Dragon used to publish all sorts of optional character classes and rules for AD&D....
And along comes the internet.... And shakes things up.
At first, it was just fan made sites hosting fan made content. Then the developers got in on it....
Finally, a low cost effective way for developers to offer up their own errata and fixes to problems without undue costs of completely printing their own magazines! Soon, every major developer that could afford to was online hosting their own forums (HI!! <waves>) and errata sections. Places where their customers could come and get a direct answer to their questions without the need or the expense of a middle man (gaming mag).
With emails, people could get their responses in days instead of months or weeks!!
And... It all went to hell in a handbasket.
The Developers were not ready for the influx that the new technology allowed, and its exponential growth meant they couldn't keep up. What went from a few dozen snail mail letters a month exploded into tens of thousands of emails a day! (Remember folks, we are talking the start here, not last week.....) Granted, many of these emails where 'junk' *thanks to the proliferation of spam mail in the early days. Something that gets filtered out almost automatically nowadays) but it also meant that their assumptions on manpower where dangerously off. instead of just one or two people answering questions, now they ended up with an entire department! (near the end days of TSR, they said their estimates where a department of 30 people to answer questions with a 72 hour turn around!).
What had looked like was going to be an "Epic Win" for customer satisfaction in war gaming, quickly turned into a sinking ship for many companies as the man power required to run their "Q and A" departments threatened to outstrip their budgets! Some companies tied the "paid Q and A" approach, arguing that the costs of such a service outstripped their monthly revenues. Not that that answer went over well... and the "Paid QnA" died out.
Some companies, have managed to find a model that worked for them for a time....
And along came Social Media......
And what can I say for THIS hot stinking shit pile of a mess? Well, I think it speaks volumes when the brightest and most creative minds of our generation are leaving Social Media in DROVES, leaving it to literally, the unwashed, uneducated masses..... (what's your share price NOW twitter??? Thank God I never bought stock)....
The rotting carcass that is social media is an other reason many companies are actually winding down their 'net interaction' behind automated responses and 'dead air'... They just can't win. No matter what they do, and what they say, it is never enough, and is always used against them in the end. Its a lesson companies have been slow to learn, but are quick to adopt. What, thanks to Social Media wonderful little 'trends" like Mizzou where they want to REVOKE freedom of speech and re-adopt SEGREGATION (you know, the very thing many people died to end back in the 50s and 60s, and something that is protected in the constitution.) or the Boaty McBoatface naming, or even just the public shaming of someone's life.... Social Media has proven to NOT be the friend of companies or even it's users....
FFS, just look at the first 5 pages of THIS thread! there are about a dozen posters, and TWO DOZEN different 'solutions' to the 'problem' !! Even among the small sample size of a single thread you can't reach a consensus....
I dare many of you guys who came here after the release of 5e to go back a few dozen pages and actually read some of the threads and posts... FROM DAY ONE of release, the writers, editors and developers have been attacked. Some attacked with consideration and honesty, pointing out small errors and omissions, but the vast majority just piled on shit and venom. And at first, we DID hear from the developers and editors.
And every time we DID hear from an editor or a developer... the venom and shite got flung faster and harder then before......
And now here we are, 3 years later.
Not an editor in sight on the forums.
Not a developer in sight on the forums.
Freelancers, once prolific on the forums, a rare find....
You want to know why? Might I suggest you look in the Mirror? If day in and day out you had dozens to hundreds of people saying "Fuck you! you Fucking suck! You're a fucking idiot! You can't do your job! You're a waste of space! You should be fired! You're a loser!!" How long until YOU quit responding?
IMO This Community is getting EXACTLY what it deserves. Silence...
