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DOTA 2 |OT6| Plz vote for Keeper of the Light Arcana

I agree and disagree.

I agree that some people will be mad and toxic matter what. but those aren't the only people in the audience, and regardless the solution isn't to shove your head in the sand anyway.

Trying to say that communication doesn't help is just ridiculous. It is a proven fact that effective communication is key to easing tension and solving problems of all kinds. From global politics to interpersonal relationships to solo que dota to message boards centered around video games. We're doing it right now, and we are all better for it.

Maybe people's expectations are out of whack, but you know an easy way to fix that? COMMUNICATION.

You can say that it's the customer's own fault, and it's not valve's job to fix it. But at that point you're just deciding to have shitty customer service. If they want to have shitty customer service then that fucking sucks. I like valve, I'm pretty sure valve likes valve, and I'm also pretty sure they don't want to be shitty at anything... including customer service, which includes communication.

I'm also pretty sure the definition of mismanagement definitely doesn't include making the most money per employee of any company out there. But it does include consistently missing deadlines and pissing off customers.

They communicated. They said HOPEFULLY end of August. It's not even the end of August and people are already freaking out. There is nothing to do other than write off the crazy people who will shit their pants no matter what.

Hi brick wall. How are you doing today?

I'm always amazed at how freely points can fly over some of our posters heads. It's like a group of midgets.

You didn't answer my question. Why do you believe parity is worth the change in their workforce when you know almost nothing about it?
 

Acinixys

Member
༼ຈل͜├┬┴┬┴ pssᴛ, ʜᴇʏ ᴋɪᴅ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ʙᴜʏ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴅᴏɴɢᴇʀs?

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ノ ༼ ºل͟º ༽ ୧༼ ͡◉ل͜ ͡◉༽୨ (ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง ヽ༼ʘ̚ل͜ʘ̚༽ノ୧༼ಠ益ಠ༽୨乁( ◔ ౪◔)ㄏ─=≡Σ((( つ◕ل͜◕)つ (ง •̀_•́)ง┌(° ͜ʖ͡°)┘(ง ͠ ͠° ل͜ °)งᕙ༼◕ل͜◕༽ᕗ Sorry, I dropped my Ultra Variety Pack™ of Dongers. ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ノ ༼ ºل͟º ༽ ୧༼ ͡◉ل͜ ͡◉༽୨ (ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง ヽ༼ʘ̚ل͜ʘ̚༽ノ୧༼ಠ益ಠ༽୨乁( ◔ ౪◔)ㄏ─=≡Σ((( つ◕ل͜◕)つ (ง •̀_•́)ง┌(° ͜ʖ͡°)┘(ง ͠ ͠° ل͜ °)งᕙ༼◕ل͜◕༽ᕗ



Peaches was not the best name for her

Cause shes really scary looking

Also dat 240p
 
I agree and disagree.

I agree that some people will be mad and toxic matter what. but those aren't the only people in the audience, and regardless the solution isn't to shove your head in the sand anyway.

Trying to say that communication doesn't help is just ridiculous. It is a proven fact that effective communication is key to easing tension and solving problems of all kinds. From global politics to interpersonal relationships to solo que dota to message boards centered around video games. We're doing it right now, and we are all better for it.

Maybe people's expectations are out of whack, but you know an easy way to fix that? COMMUNICATION.

You can say that it's the customer's own fault, and it's not valve's job to fix it. But at that point you're just deciding to have shitty customer service. If they want to have shitty customer service then that fucking sucks. I like valve, I'm pretty sure valve likes valve, and I'm also pretty sure they don't want to be shitty at anything... including customer service, which includes communication.

I'm also pretty sure the definition of mismanagement definitely doesn't include making the most money per employee of any company out there. But it does include consistently missing deadlines and pissing off customers.

It's clear they have a very passionate fan base. Better communication could help them guide that passion in a positive direction rather than a negative one. Some people will continue to be jerks regardless, but just look at this thread for example... there are plenty of reasonable, level-headed people here who are getting antsy and a little bit frustrated with the lack of updates, myself included. We're not the ones spamming PLS VOLVO GIFF TECHIES but with a few minor updates our fears would be put to rest.

Communication will not solve a damn thing, and people being impatient for patches or having crazy expectations will not be remedied by status updates or even the actual content they were waiting for. If Valve "communicates" like some suggest then it'll just be a constant stream of minor details that provides information that:
  • People probably already know
  • The average player doesn't care about
  • The entitled player won't be appeased by
  • The dedicated press won't bother covering
  • The general press won't bother covering
  • ends up diluting your message
  • ...and eventually makes it so that people don't care what you post

Valve is quiet because they probably have nothing worth saying about this update other than "it's almost done, we don't know when it's done" which no matter how you word it or massage it with PR isn't going to actually achieve anything. Remember, people forgot about diretide immediately, and even if outside press or people outside of the community vacuum paid any attention all it did was make the community look stupid as fuck.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
If Techies isn't coming how hard is it to just say

"Techies won't be released this month, stay tuned."

Here, I'll write the blog post for valve, they just need to provide the photos.

It's not time yet!
August 28, 2014 - Dota Team

We are sad to announce today we won't be able to reach our targeted August release for our next Major Update, "The <Insert Update Name here> Update", which will include the likes of Techies and a whole heap of new content. We are hard at work here at Valve, and hope to have our update out in several weeks, but things have taken longer then we originally had planned. We hope you can bare with us while we finish up, but in the mean time, here is a sneak peak at a few things we have been working on.

<Picture of Techies Arcana here>

<Picture of Base Customization Here>

<Updated Picture of Shadow Fiend Concept Art here>
 

Ketch

Member
They should hire Kaci DrKirby to be their community manager.

Also, agree with the guy below me. joshrholloway, ur the best. steves the worst.
 
Again, this isn't just "be more specific about when patches are coming" or "hire a community manager." It goes way deeper than that. It's a complete shift in how you communicate. Diablo III is a great example of that for me. Shortly after it first came out, the players started to realize the problems with it and how shallow it was. Blizzard really wasn't saying much, and when they did, they dug in their heels and it just made things worse. More recently they have been putting out more videos, blog updates, interviews, live streams, and other information related to what's coming and how they are changing the game based on feedback.

It's not just one thing, they've revamped their strategy completely and it's worked. There's not nearly as much backlash from that community now. The jerks are still there, but they always will be. It's the fence-sitters that you really have to convince.
 

Razzer

Member
Again, this isn't just "be more specific about when patches are coming" or "hire a community manager." It goes way deeper than that. It's a complete shift in how you communicate. Diablo III is a great example of that for me. Shortly after it first came out, the players started to realize the problems with it and how shallow it was. Blizzard really wasn't saying much, and when they did, they dug in their heels and it just made things worse. More recently they have been putting out more videos, blog updates, interviews, live streams, and other information related to what's coming and how they are changing the game based on feedback.

It's not just one thing, they've revamped their strategy completely and it's worked. There's not nearly as much backlash from that community now. The jerks are still there, but they always will be. It's the fence-sitters that you really have to convince.

How much of that was them talking and how much was it actually changing the content as people desired tho? If they had communicated etc but not actually changed what they were doing development wise, would it have done anything? Because Valve react to stuff all the time. When bugs get posted on Reddit and make it to the front page of the Dota sub reddit, 9/10 times Valve fixes it in the next small hat patch. They've added several quality of life features this way too. People seem to just ignore that.

However, your example has merit. I will show skepticism, however, as it seems like a change in development, in tandem with the communication, that has caused the turnaround there. Which means that actually what people want is not simply communication, it's a refocus in the way the Dota 2 team operates (aka people want them to focus on heroes rather than stuff like improving the mod tools, which are still being worked on all the time btw, they are still in Alpha after all).
 
Drkirby
Corporate Apologist
(Today, 06:19 PM)

he's getting paid brah



^How are we gonna know if having someone from Valve doing talk, video, live stream or whatever will have a positive or negative effect in their game development and/or community managment when they don't even dare update a blog. Or perphaps like Steve says, leave the insane (man)children, AKA customers, alone since when the patch hits everything will be fine and they will buy whatever hat Valve puts in the game.


I said a few times, but this problem isn't unique to Dota 2, it is a Valve problem that extends to Steam. That said, whoever calls them lazy, or something similar, is nuts.
 

Randdalf

Member
i notice some change numbers are sequential through updates and some are not, what does it all mean?

the latest one goes from 659425 -> 659426 (in sequence)
and the one right before that goes from 658088 -> 659425

Likely because the change number is based on commits by the developers in Mercurial or whatever they use at Valve. Most recent update probably had some mistake in it that could be fixed by making 1 change.
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Two updates in 2 minutes. itshappening.gif

Actually the exact opposite of what I was implying. People with more knowledge than I have generally implied that before a public update there will be a bunch of private beta updates followed by a day or two without any signaling that the work is done.

Before the last few minutes there was a fairly long gap without any updates so I hoped maybe the work was completed late last night.
 

Wok

Member
Arcana better be good.

4t5rgHO.png


Give news update, Volvo, it has been 23 days already.
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
I would love to see Lycan nerfed into oblivion. That's kind of the only reason I'm excited for a patch. I'd love it if they just accidentally hit the delete button on that entire hero. Tinker too I guess, but I don't see him as much in the trench.
 
It is least happening before it happens.

Also, if you are out there Matt, is there anything delaying the Star Ladder 10 Compendium?
Just an admin panel issue which has been sorted now plus me finishing off/updating a few things.

It will go live before the games start tomorrow.
 
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