Why does everything has to be so hidden and mysterious ?

[Ketog 1031]

Hey, im Ketog, a long time player of APB 

 

I've been playing apb for years just like a lot of you guys here, and some of the people i met early in the game still play today and also are friends i can count on today.

 

To all the long time players, have you guys realized how everything about apb is always hidden, or secret ? From how teams are managed, to development, and roadmaps , how the community always asks for things and never get an answer, or where actions are taken and the reason behind them is always blurry.

 

One of my APB friends told me yesterday "Ketog, do you know why GM's always have to hide who they are, while you have the spct kinda guys in open sight and their fancy tag?"

 

For all the GM's that have been in citadel, and talked to me, you guys know how much people appreciate when you guys are just being yourselves.

 

I've always wondered, what's the reason , anything APB related has to always be hidden, in my opinion people are so much happier when they're open about everything:

 

Imagine if players knew exactly what Little Orbit was doing on the engine upgrade, what they were planning

what they try and what fails/works, LO never gathers proper feedback from the community always because they hide so much,

Gm's , or team members always appear and vanish all the time and somehow get replaced, we never have any true contact with our community manager, and no one ever properly represents the player base neither LO themselves as a whole

 

The day LO talked about RIOT every single veteran of APB knew it was about to fail, and a huge waste of time and ressources, but guess what, LO was too far in the development to stop, and they kept going on

 

What if they told the community their interests into trying new things, and asking for opinions before any movements.

 

Players wouldn't expect so much from APB content if they knew everything they see on forums is always Experimental.

 

 

APB is a small game and it has a hard time living when managed as if it was a huge Brand.

 

What's the real reason behind APB being so closed from the outside ?

 

What prevents LO from taking a more Open minded path with APB, im sure having a PR person sharing all the work LO does on a daily basis, would bring incredible positive support for the game, rather than daddy matt having to do all the work himself.

 

 

Anyway, i know this is not true for everything, but in my case, me being completely open about what i am, made me much happier, rather than wearing a mask and hiding things that i am unhappy with

Now people like me for what i am, instead of a mask i wear all the time.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Ketog

[vsb 6171]

probably to avoid the ingame or irl harassment that i think we both know is all too common amongst the apb community 

[Ketog 1031]

9 minutes ago, Solamente said:

probably to avoid the ingame or irl harassment that i think we both know is all too common amongst the apb community 

But then why do the SPCT's exist, that's where it's conflicting, SPCT's are publicly known "special" people and can even have a fancy tag yet than can be themselves,  but somehow GM's are not the same, im not saying it matters if we know their real identity or not, it's more that, they have to act so much different than a normal player, they can't do missions, they can't play, neither really be themselves, and always answer in a robotic way to questions almost.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Ketog

[Kevkof 806]

1 minute ago, Ketog said:

But then why do the SPCT's exist, that's where it's conflicting, SPCT's are publicly known "special" people and can even have a fancy tag,  but somehow GM's are the same, im not saying it matters if we know their real identity or not, it's more that, they have to act so much  different than a normal player, they can't do missions, they can't play, neither really be themselves

Because we don't have any power, we just test some stuff and provide feedback. 

That's why it's not important for us to be anonymous, though I wouldn't mind if it was anonymous as well. That would mean less issues and harrassment in general

[CookiePuss 5378]

3 minutes ago, Kevkof said:

That would mean less harassment in general

I promise, I'll stop.

---------------------------------------

I don't know the answer to these questions.

SPCT was more Matt's thing, and the GM program I think was Lixil. I guess that could be a reason too?

Or what Kevkof said, maybe GMs need anonymity to work. And maybe SPCT needs to be publicly accountable. I've no idea.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by CookiePuss

[Rebelliousness 85]

25 minutes ago, Ketog said:

Imagine if players knew exactly what Little Orbit was doing on the engine upgrade, what they were planning

what they try and what fails/works, LO never gathers proper feedback from the community always because they hide so much,

Imagine having the common sense to realize that for a game to succeed, it requires the investment, dedication and interest of the people who actually have played the game for years,,, imagine buying a game and trying to change it all around and not giving a dingdang what the playerbase wanted, felt or hoped for... and just messing it up with modifications unasked for... or worse... abandoning it to total neglect.

One thing I recall from my "boomer" days... when SOE ran old Everquest, and there were actually paid monthly subscribers... they sent out a detailed questionaire asking the paying playerbase what changes they wanted to see, and giving multichoice options as to what needed work.  Well... Everquest is a 20 year old game... and it still have 100x the playerbase... and those guys, a majority of them still pay a monthly sub. Just my 2 cents about how a business can FAIL... and how it can SUCCEED.

Also... listening to a tiny circle of unbanned guys... is following the worst advice possible... not that they don't have valid input... but that it's extremely biased, and therefore not providing the company an overall accurate viewpoint of what the ACTUAL playerbase is wanting... and oftentimes CONTRARY to what that playerbase is wanting.

[vsb 6171]

35 minutes ago, Ketog said:

But then why do the SPCT's exist, that's where it's conflicting, SPCT's are publicly known "special" people and can even have a fancy tag yet than can be themselves,  but somehow GM's are not the same, im not saying it matters if we know their real identity or not, it's more that, they have to act so much different than a normal player, they can't do missions, they can't play, neither really be themselves, and always answer in a robotic way to questions almost.

SPCT doesn’t ban people, and i’d wager they still get harassed ingame because there are numbnuts who don’t understand they just test stuff 

[greenfield 135]

I understand what you're saying Ketog, but i don't quite agree with it. Being open will bring more trouble then benefits. Imo so far LO is doing a good enough job. 

 

Merged.

 

Just one exception - RIOT. (which concept i didn't like from the very beginning as well)

APB is already amazing with its customization and the standard missions related gameplay. Imo they should stick to these.

[VanilleKeks 735]

I think a reason as for why the development process is so selectively revealed is because a lot of it is probably boring and could potentially give bad PR. It's not like they are developing a lot of new and cool features.

 

If the process was more open it should be restricted to only actual APB players.

 

Edit: Warframe devstreams are pretty succesful, but I would argue that is mostly because we usually get the stuff within a few weeks after they are shown. With APB no one can say how long until we get the stuff.

Edited March 28, 2020 by VanilleKeks

[SmilyFace 300]

Im one of those peoples who played and still play this game everyday since a lot of years.

 

During my APB experience, i found and seen so many secrets, got also blocked before finding them, and in general.. well.. I need to agree with almost everything you said except one.

 

I just wish, want, would like, to see Little Orbit being a lil bit more open with things related to the game, it's future (real one), updates or explanations about things not clear for the community or for some players (APB Brand Expanding etc) and much more.

 

Also, i think i would like to see more interactions between the company itself and the community such as livestreams, show how (for example) they develope something or anything other.

Matt said something like that was being worked on but never made to the end (at least for today).

 

An interesting discussion would be why GM's disappear and reappear, why why have so many community managers and why everybody except Sakebee are inactive or even unknown.

This bring such confusion for newbies or for who want to contact them.

 

They should be more open next time to bring something "big" as RIOT, too much hype for something too much hidden for over.. i think some months or even an year.

You can't just do these moves in a game like that, or at least not instantly, low population, big issues behind etc.

 

Through, APB is still my favorite game and it will be that forever, anything that could happen, will not change my mind.

[Guest]

For me I just dont even bother giving the forums the time of day anymore because one of two things happens when you make a massive well thought out post / go out of your way to help the new players / give ideas and thoughts for this game; Nothing happens or Nothings happens and you get shit on cause lol xd its fun.

I hate being negative about everything but I really dont see a future for APB anymore.. I dont know whats really changed ( cause tbh nothing really has for years now lmao ) other than I no longer enjoy the game / have nothing left to enjoy about the game. All my friends have quit and the only people left I see are extremely toxic and/or near "shroud level" of skill and you just que up to be points for other players

Edited March 28, 2020 by Guest
I dont want this game to die but Im not going to play something if its no longer fun.

[SkittyM 287]

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

Snip

This has less to do with APB and more to do with just development in general.  Keep in mind that you gain nothing at all if you hype up something and can't deliver or it not happening as promised.   LO does in fact get proper feedback on things as they do actively read the forums and even the discord server, just note that not everything is feasible.   Core reason they don't talk much is because its virtually crunch time.  Nearly all resources go into APB 2.1 with some "crucial" quick stuff dropping in on Live.

Edited March 28, 2020 by SkittyM

[TheMessiah 430]

i dont see hidden things last couple of months( i guess thats why are called "hidden" lol)

[Queen of Love 452]

In other games every my capriccious and wish are always developed without ton of forum post.

usually in 2-3month.

maybe they play and know their own game without listen tryhards than complain about a death more due to a balanced and fair p5n5 system.

 

oh, and the old teamkick was bad ,but this is a real pain.

and it's not a secret.

 

[MattScott 15242]

Hi Ketog,

 

You raise some good points, and I think the answers are a lot more simple than you might expect.

 

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

I've always wondered, what's the reason , anything APB related has to always be hidden, in my opinion people are so much happier when they're open about everything

When we took over APB, we only had Reloaded as an example of how to run things. So largely we started by following their previous policies with some smaller changes. I also took a very conservative approach, because aspects of the community were very scary (ie. calling bomb threats to Tigg's home). For the safety of my staff, I chose to expose my identity up front, but that allowed everyone else at LO to remain somewhat anonymous till we got a better feel for things.

 

Beyond that, we stepped into a very difficult spot. Towards the last couple years, Reloaded promised a lot of things and never delivered. Initially, we tried being more transparent with dates and things coming up, but most players responded either neutrally or negatively because those dates are often challenging to hit.

 

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

Imagine if players knew exactly what Little Orbit was doing on the engine upgrade, what they were planning

This is really the only comment that confused me. I post every week about the Engine Upgrade - good, bad or ugly. I also post Customer Support stats every week. Those are areas where we are already giving 100% transparency. For the most part, I see those efforts as successful, so I am looking for more opportunities to continue doing that.

 

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

we never have any true contact with our community manager, and no one ever properly represents the player base neither LO themselves as a whole

Lixil lasted more than a year, and while she wasn't perfect, I think it's tough for a CM to "compete" with me. I try to get on the forums, twitter, Facebook, and discord as much as possible to stay aware of what is happening. I also try to respond when I can. We made some changes with SakeBee, so that he would have a clearer space to manage without me constantly jumping in. He's still new, but we are working on ways he can hang out with the community and get to know you guys better.

 

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

The day LO talked about RIOT every single veteran of APB knew it was about to fail, and a huge waste of time and ressources, but guess what, LO was too far in the development to stop, and they kept going on

I'm not going to defend RIOT. It had its benefits for my team, but we did it mostly because it was "low hanging fruit" that Reloaded had mostly finished. There were some hard lessons learned there.

 

 

5 hours ago, Ketog said:

What if they told the community their interests into trying new things, and asking for opinions before any movements.

There are going to be a lot of opportunities for this coming up. But right now, we have to focus on the Engine Upgrade. It's blocking everything else, and a lot of the tasks for the Engine Upgrade are more "mechanical" to just getting it working like Live. However, the upcoming Beta will very much be work in progress. It will be a chance for the community to jump in and give us feedback, so we can make corrections.

 

Thanks,
Matt

[Helix Reloaded 102]

18 minutes ago, MattScott said:

I also took a very conservative approach, because aspects of the community were very scary (ie. calling bomb threats to Tigg's home). For the safety of my staff, I chose to expose my identity up front, but that allowed everyone else at LO to remain somewhat anonymous till we got a better feel for things.

 

18 minutes ago, MattScott said:

Initially, we tried being more transparent with dates and things coming up, but most players responded either neutrally or negatively

Damn.. I feel bad that this is the reputation the playerbase has..

 

Sorry LO.

Edited March 28, 2020 by Helix Reloaded

[ChellyBean 200]

20 minutes ago, MattScott said:

I also took a very conservative approach, because aspects of the community were very scary (ie. calling bomb threats to Tigg's home). For the safety of my staff, I chose to expose my identity up front, but that allowed everyone else at LO to remain somewhat anonymous till we got a better feel for things.

LO Employee: "Its these players. They're just so... toxic. They made a bomb threat against the last CM, did you know that? In her own home! Can you believe that? I just... I'm just saying that don't know if its safe for us to be putting our names out there, is all..." 

 

Matt: 

Edited March 28, 2020 by ChellyBean

[Ketog 1031]

30 minutes ago, MattScott said:

 

 

 

This is really the only comment that confused me. I post every week about the Engine Upgrade - good, bad or ugly. I also post Customer Support stats every week. Those are areas where we are already giving 100% transparency. For the most part, I see those efforts as successful, so I am looking for more opportunities to continue doing that.

 

 

I mostly meant more clarity, like more screenshots of the issues your guys are dealing with, how far the overall progress is, as you know, even if it's not representative of what's actually happening, people like to see more than just text from you, they want to see the work, not read it, that's why the apb 2.1 screenshots had so much attention, because they could see the progress of you guys's work

 

 

Anyhow thank you for giving a word matt, and yes, you're doing an awesome job as the voice of LO, just doesn't always feel right as what you do is pretty much what the community manager should be doing.

 

Thanks again, really appreciated

 

 

 

[MurkTheMerc 111]

I'm just glad yall are making progress and not hiding or lying about it like the last group did. Honestly, I don't care that I have to wait for the upgrade cause at this point, it's not like I wasn't believing any of it before, but I'll be staying around till either the engine comes out or the game shuts down.

 

Just keep doing what you're doing, how you're pacing it seems fine, you know you need the upgrade done, then having it tweaked after launch is the biggest thing right now. So be  it, we have to wait for content but personally I'd rather help bug out the engine when it's released than get what's in testing and it be unplayable.

[ForeverCrooked 29]

16 minutes ago, Ketog said:

I mostly meant more clarity, like more screenshots of the issues your guys are dealing with, how far the overall progress is, as you know, even if it's not representative of what's actually happening, people like to see more than just text from you, they want to see the work, not read it, that's why the apb 2.1 screenshots had so much attention, because they could see the progress of you guys's work

 

 

Anyhow thank you for giving a word matt, and yes, you're doing an awesome job as the voice of LO, just doesn't always feel right as what you do is pretty much what the community manager should be doing.

 

Thanks again, really appreciated

 

 

 

^ This. Just add a disclaimer 'not representative of final product' or something if you feel the need. 

[PingOVER9000 189]

Matt,

If I may tell my little opinion, I understand LO is fully busy to give priority for the engine upgrade.

 

It's a well and good thing, everybody here want soon to see it as soon as possible, and all appreciate the efforts you are giving on it!

 

But for example.... about the weapon balancing is still a unfinished business (since when there was the old G1), and I cant sincerly accept you release new weapon (and it's that too a total gobus in kind words) when there are a bunch of weapon in armas that are totally TRASH, I mean so much of them that MY TWO HANDS' FINGERS ARENT ENOUGH TO COUNT THEM

 

Give to players as the SPCT team more power to make tests, relationship, give FEEDBACK between company and community.

For the players, just a bunch of players can help to resolve this matter as players taste desire.

 

Who better of players know his own taste? 

 

I mean at least, is it option that it can be take in consideration?

Have you already take it in consideration or discussed during your meetings?

 

If there is the possibility let more the players help you, I dont mean all of course, but I guess some time with someone of them is passed away, a little more trust can be a good way to resolve this matter one time for all.

 

Bye

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by PingOVER9000

[claude 223]

idk why anyone would ask why GMs have to keep their identities anonymous, pretty obvious if you knew the community at all. 

 

GM would be harassed, cringers would play favorites and stalk since some players love to express how much they APPRECIATE and LOVE you, and ask constantly if you can play with them on your main account. Also, imagine publicly announcing that (x) was made a GM... LO would be flamed because (x) player "used to cheat" or "is extremely toxic" etc etc.

 

who the GM is outside of being a GM shouldnt matter, and to be honest, doesnt matter. 

[mtz 496]

In all honesty, this dev post from Matt Scott is a tough pill to swallow.

 

I've had some people ask me (often in a confrontational manner) why I'm being optimistic/positive about Little Orbit when "all they've been doing so far was just ruining the game". It's because the only current alternative seems to be that exact type of unproductive babble.

 

We need to face this as a community: we fucked up. There's no point in pretending that LO is entirely responsible for what happens to APB, or that the game is going to magically save itself through no effort of our own. We fucked up by letting things reach this point where a new company which could potentially breathe new life into APB is scared of the community behind the game. Think of Tiggs what you will — hell, I personally believe she had made multiple severe mistakes in her plight as Community Manager — but threats to her life and safety are absolutely inexcusable. Threats to anyone's life and safety, especially over a goddamned video game, are something that never should even cross anyone's mind.

 

This sort of childish behavior is partly what got us into this mess in the first place. This is the reputation those individuals have given to our community. How are we supposed to convince anyone to join the game when its social landscape — one of its most important components, considering how this is an MMO — is a toxic wasteland where people get insulted, demeaned or threatened on the regular?

 

It's very easy to pretend that your actions don't have consequences; that "it's all just words on the screen"; that the victims of this sort of harassment "are too soft for the internet"; or that "it's just the way this game is", which is a laughably evil point of view. The real problems begin when suddenly you don't see those people in the game anymore.

Maybe they decided that they are not going to bother with a game with such a toxic community. Maybe they wanted to find new friends to play video games with, but all they got was taunts and insults and being told to "git gud". Maybe they wanted to play a video game and forget about their problems but instead they got told words that ended up making them feel even worse. Either way you end up being directly responsible for someone not being in APB anymore. No amount of excuses will bring us from low population numbers — only waking up and owning up to how we behave will.

 

If this post reaches even one person and makes them change their ways, I'll be happy. I don't want people to start behaving like Pollyannas because that would be 1) unrealistic, 2) unproductive, 3) obnoxious — I just wish some of us could grow up a bit. Hell, some people probably have literally grown up playing APB. It's high time they've started acting their age instead of trying to be the 12 year old bullies ruling the playground.

 

 

On a different note: thanks, Matt (sorry, couldn't resist :^) ) and other folks at LO. Really, thank you. For everything you've been doing for the game so far. Even for the bad decisions, since you've shown that you're willing to learn from mistakes and you've withdrawn or changed said decisions. The amount of developer-playerbase interaction we've been getting for the last two years has been simply incredible. Off the top of my head I can't think of a different company whose CEO is so active in interacting with the community. It saddens me a bit that, as it turns out, it was partially born as a cautionary measure to protect other LO employees from attacks, but ultimately — personally speaking — I respect the amount of interaction we ended up getting from a higher-up in the company. It definitely feels like the company genuinely wants to hear feedback from the playerbase. It's a bit reassuring that our opinions are actually seen and heard by those in charge, instead of pre-buyout G1's approach of never listening to anything, never saying anything and never giving a damn about what the community thinks.

 

Hell, the GMs are actually participating in the life of the community, the moderators are trying to keep the forums civil and organized... things are actually happening. Even if the game is not in tiptop shape yet, I believe we're slowly getting there. We're in this thing together. LO can keep working on the actual game, we can start working on making the game an enjoyable place to be. Not just for the elitists and cliques of "cool kids" — but for everyone. If we can start actually being a bit nicer to each other, that could be a good start for us, the players.

 

Cheesy movie-like pep speech over, but please do actually consider my words, kind traveller :^)

[Frosi 722]

18 hours ago, Ketog said:

But then why do the SPCT's exist, that's where it's conflicting, SPCT's are publicly known "special" people and can even have a fancy tag yet than can be themselves,  but somehow GM's are not the same, im not saying it matters if we know their real identity or not, it's more that, they have to act so much different than a normal player, they can't do missions, they can't play, neither really be themselves, and always answer in a robotic way to questions almost.

This is heavily because of how the APB community acts as a whole, do you really want volunteers that have special powers to take actions against players that are misbehaving while also having their main Character name revealed? This would lead to a shit ton of harassment due to players that feel like they got punished unfairly or are generally toxic. 

 

The reason why the SPCT players were announced publicly is because it would be incredibly hard to hide them, especially due to the SPCT skins that we can use freely on our characters, we also do not have any sort of extra powers that normal players do not have in the LIVE game which means that we aren't susceptible to harassment in the ways GM's are and yet, we still do get shit from time to time which simply shows that anyone helping the game is susceptible to harassment regardless of their intentions. 

 

 

I have a relatively thick skin mainly due to the fact that the community has been so extremely toxic over the years so things like these don't bother me, but I am happy that GM's have their identities hidden as it will only cause a shit storm, especially because players will start looking for favouritism and start whining about how a player that did this and that became a part of a voluntary team. Not to mention what would happen when GM's started playing missions, they'd be griefed, teamkilled, flamed and probably also accused of abusing their powers to get an upper hand.

11 hours ago, PingOVER9000 said:

Give to players as the SPCT team more power to make tests, relationship, give FEEDBACK between company and community.

For the players, just a bunch of players can help to resolve this matter as players taste desire.

I already have a few ideas for this, 2.1 needs to be properly tested which means that we as the SPCT and Community can come together and figure out what exactly is inconsistent to live or is flat out broken, this means that people in the SPCT that stream the game can use their streams to organize playtests together with the community.

Edited March 29, 2020 by Frosi

[KyoukiDotExe 231]

3 hours ago, MattScott said:

-snip-

 

I appreciate everything you've done for my beloved game so far. Please continue and I'll support where possible.