I do agree that having the Mod title/boarder/pic/etc often adds things to your and others perceptions of your posts. I felt like when I was a mod I had to do a little more research on looking up issues and communicate in a extremely pleasant way as I was representing the company (I tried to do so just like if the poster was a customer in a store and I was waiting on them). And as always I can say at specific times I was more successful them others in doing the basic things that needed to be done and try and keep reoccurring issues from cropping up.
I can say again that IMHO, communication is key, both good and bad but I understand and I hope others do that everything cannot be shared always.
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
Can you imagine how infuriating it is reading this in 2022? Four years from that post?
"I know there have been communication problems. It's been happening since before I was staff, here is an issue I had and then the developer ACTUALLY responded! WINKY FACE"
I don't think most people are conlfating meaningful vs actual communication when the reality is more often than not theres zero communication. We can move the goal posts and talk about Valve time and make witty retorts, but the crux of this thread boils down to that.
Why do you need to go radio silent when things break? Why not just give the actual reasons why?
"Hey, we were working on that project we announced last week and then Wizards dropped a huge bomb on us. Since our license with Wizards dictates we present the current content and its errata, we had to shift focus. This could possibly push things back weeks considering we are close to end of year, and we give our staff time at the end of every year time to rest up and hit the ground running next year. Apologies its happened, but rest assured we're committed to doing things for you guys and improving the toolset as best as possible and as often as possible."
Hell, we're not asking for INSTANT communication, just timely communication. I can't imagine this is a money issue, since online gaming exploded since COVID and before Adam bounced he communicated that active users/campaigns created DOUBLED. Fandom on its website touts how many D&D characters has been created as a main operating point on its careers page.
We're what, 4.5 and going on 5 years since D&D Beyond launched? Aug of 2017? I made my plunge Jan of 2018 with my legendary bundle. $1,150 from that day to own everything on this website except the Tactical Maps. I'm obviously committed on the development on this website, as I keep giving it my money.
Reading this thread as someone who was a site moderator in a past life gives me a headache
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I know this is a minor thing but a site I was on mods had a "mod hat" "fan hat" that people took fairly seriously. When the mod hat post was on they were being mods and trying to keep things civil. But when their fan hat was on they were just another user and could discuss and be argued and agreed with as a user.
When I have my mod hat on, I use a bold orange font which I'd hope conveys the fact I'm speaking explicitly with mod authority rather than just participating in the thread. However, this doesn't always work and many assume I'm always talking as a mod
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
Hey Gpyromania. I have to start out by saying I very much appreciate you chiming in. I'm replying in (and lurking in more) a lot of threads about this subject and I think this is the first one to have such active mod/dev engagement.
But I don't think you're making the point here you think you're making. You seem to frame that as "People have always complained about the communication", as if that means that the communication isn't a problem. You present it as that, but what I see is that you know that users aren't satisfied about the communication and you seem to choose to do nothing about it. You yourself complained about it four years ago, and it's still an issue now.
We're not asking for day-to-day updates. We're not asking for release dates, to address your Valve Time mention and you mentioning that you couldn't announce a cool thing because of unexpected circumstances. We're not even asking for a detailed list of what you're currently working on.
All we, or at the very least I, want is timely and clear communication. It can be as vague as "we're working on improving some classes that still have issues".
Honestly @Spideycloned pretty much hit the nail on the head: We all understand you don't want to disappoint us by not meeting dates or such that you've announced things at, but I'd much rather have 4 delays but at least know it's coming and you're actively working on it but there are delays, than getting the idea that the issues we bring up, common or uncommon, are not being heard or addressed.
My personal suggestion would be a simple "common bugs" FAQ so people that posts those bugs won't have a reason to whine about mods/devs not responding to their threads, and second to give us a general idea of what you're working on, even if it's vague. I've made a thread about this, but I think users would feel far more heard if the Feature Request portal was actually checked, and requests actively denied/planned etc. Currently, that portal seems to have not been used by DDB staff for at least 3 years, and it's not helping your case. I do understand if you might not have the manpower to realize that latter bit, but if you're not going to use/check/mark threads on the Feature Request portal, you should just shut it down.
TL;DR: I'd prefer unclarity over silence and uncertainty.
Leaving OGL 1.0(a) untouched and making SRD 5.1 CC-BY-4.0 is a great first step. The next is a promise to do the same for future editions. Here's a discussion thread on that.
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
Hey Gpyromania. I have to start out by saying I very much appreciate you chiming in. I'm replying in (and lurking in more) a lot of threads about this subject and I think this is the first one to have such active mod/dev engagement.
But I don't think you're making the point here you think you're making. You seem to frame that as "People have always complained about the communication", as if that means that the communication isn't a problem. You present it as that, but what I see is that you know that users aren't satisfied about the communication and you seem to choose to do nothing about it. You yourself complained about it four years ago, and it's still an issue now.
We're not asking for day-to-day updates. We're not asking for release dates, to address your Valve Time mention and you mentioning that you couldn't announce a cool thing because of unexpected circumstances. We're not even asking for a detailed list of what you're currently working on.
All we, or at the very least I, want is timely and clear communication. It can be as vague as "we're working on improving some classes that still have issues".
Honestly @Spideycloned pretty much hit the nail on the head: We all understand you don't want to disappoint us by not meeting dates or such that you've announced things at, but I'd much rather have 4 delays but at least know it's coming and you're actively working on it but there are delays, than getting the idea that the issues we bring up, common or uncommon, are not being heard or addressed.
My personal suggestion would be a simple "common bugs" FAQ so people that posts those bugs won't have a reason to whine about mods/devs not responding to their threads, and second to give us a general idea of what you're working on, even if it's vague. I've made a thread about this, but I think users would feel far more heard if the Feature Request portal was actually checked, and requests actively denied/planned etc. Currently, that portal seems to have not been used by DDB staff for at least 3 years, and it's not helping your case. I do understand if you might not have the manpower to realize that latter bit, but if you're not going to use/check/mark threads on the Feature Request portal, you should just shut it down.
TL;DR: I'd prefer unclarity over silence and uncertainty.
I agree with you - I didn't make my point very clear. I was less trying to impress that "communication isn't a problem since it's been an ongoing issue", but more actively stating that communication was always a pain point - even back in the days when Badeye was part of DDB. I don't presume to think or know better than him or any other DDB staff member (past or present), but I do think it's unfair to state that our communication has decreased when - (in my earnest opinion) - our communication has actively increased. Most of what you are requesting in terms of updates are provided during the Dev Update with Joe & Mellie. That being said, we could definitely make stronger efforts to properly show that we are indeed listening - even when we don't always get the opportunity to respond.
Worth noting, in relation to GPyromania's points: game development as a general industry has learned the hardest of hard ways that the best way to manage expectations is to generate as few of them as possible. It's been shown, thousands of times, that this is the least painful way of managing a community.
Announcing repeated delays, even if you have the most excellent and worthwhile of reasons for those delays, very quickly wears out your customer base's patience and understanding. Just look at Cyberpunk, and how "we need more time to make this the game we promised to deliver to you" worked out. Delays were announced, the playerbase lost patience with them, the game was released too early, and it wasn't what anyone wanted. Everybody lost, because people got impatient and demanded their cookie before it was done baking. Announcing a delay will often be met (mostly) with understanding and patience - the first time. Announcing the third or fourth delay because of equally valid reasons will be met with torches, pitchforks, and complaints of outright malfeasance.
It's also the case that a developer that repeatedly fails to hit self-imposed deadlines looks way worse than one that simply does not give any deadlines. The former looks incompetent and untrustworthy, even if they follow the exact same process as the latter. In this case especially, DDB's product is actually somebody else's product and they get no more warning on most of this crap than we do, their entire system needs to be able to pivot on a dime to working on something else because Wizards dropped a big fat deuce-ument in people's laps and DDB is contractually bound to work those up as quickly as is reasonable.
None of this is to say I find no fault with DDB's communication. I find the Dev Update streams incredibly annoying - I don't have an hour to waste every week on Joe Starr practicing his hype man routine, I want a just-the-facts written summary of the damn thing for people who hate Twitch and are annoyed by having to chase napkin quotes from the videos and vlogs to get information that should be made clear, clean, and apparent here on the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Part of good communication for a company like this is communicating in multiple ways to try and suit the tastes and tolerances of as many users as possible, and despite what media pundits have to say about Gamer Culture, not all of us are streaming junkies. I would think that's especially true of a typically more mature playerbase such as the D&D crowd. I know, I know, Critical Role, but even a lot of CR's fans watch it on YouTube at their own pace or take it in via podcast rather than dealing with the billion and three annoyances of livestreaming.
Nevertheless. I understand, at least more than many laymen, how development communication works. I once had the privilege of BadEye directly replying to some of my own concerns, at significant length, and even when I'm at my most pissed off with the company I try to keep that in mind. Individual users are a reasonable, sympathetic lot that simply wish to be in the loop. The Customer Base, as an aggregate whole, is a mindless tooth-riddled gibbering monstrosity that distorts everything, cannot ever be satiated, and has the total patience and sympathy levels of a snapping turtle with gonnorhea. The ol' gibbering mouther is a 100% completely perfectly accurate representation of the aggregate customer base for any sort of live service product, and even most pre-release one-and-done products. The only way to keep the Gibbering Mouther from being a nuisance and/or an outright menace iss to keep it locked out of your building and give it things only when those things are ready to be given.
The more you saw "Sorry, the development process demands we move on and temporarily shift priorities", the louder and more horrible the Mouther gets.
Communication: This is an interesting one since it's one that's actively discussed - though its 100% something that has always been complained about since the site's inception. Don't believe me? Here's a post from before I even became a moderator (or staff member) of me complaining about the lack of communication and Badeye responding in kind. :D
Can you imagine how infuriating it is reading this in 2022? Four years from that post?
"I know there have been communication problems. It's been happening since before I was staff, here is an issue I had and then the developer ACTUALLY responded! WINKY FACE"
While this was largely a tongue-in-cheek comment - I definitely missed the mark on conveying my point. The reason why I used that post specifically was to show that the perception of communication hasn't changed - even when Badeye was still part of DDB. While Badeye did respond to my post, there are many more that weren't responded to - or that was otherwise asked and addressed on the Dev Update (Joe and Mellie still use the same format - even now).
I don't think most people are conlfating meaningful vs actual communication when the reality is more often than not theres zero communication. We can move the goal posts and talk about Valve time and make witty retorts, but the crux of this thread boils down to that.
Why do you need to go radio silent when things break? Why not just give the actual reasons why?
I don't believe I'm moving the goalposts in the slightest - one of the complaints in your initial post was the lack of updates on content that's missing. We have been extremely transparent of what features are missing and that they're being worked on. For example - with the Strixhaven support thread, we do actively state that systems such as the Relationships rules presented in that book are still being worked on - likely being folded into the forthcoming GFS system. As we have said multiple times, software development is a tumultuous beast - while the team was working on GFS last year, it was deprioritized to work on other things, with the team now actively working on it again. I acknowledge that we can do better about making that information more readily known, but to say there's zero communication is quite unfair (at least in my opinion).
"Hey, we were working on that project we announced last week and then Wizards dropped a huge bomb on us. Since our license with Wizards dictates we present the current content and its errata, we had to shift focus. This could possibly push things back weeks considering we are close to end of year, and we give our staff time at the end of every year time to rest up and hit the ground running next year. Apologies its happened, but rest assured we're committed to doing things for you guys and improving the toolset as best as possible and as often as possible."
To clarify here - the project was not yet announced (and still has yet to be as it's not quite ready). What I was stating was that when we were ready to announce it, other things immediately took priority, which then sidelined it. Then coming into the new year, we found more issues which further delayed the release. This was to show the tumultuous nature of what we do - something that's almost ready to release needing to get sidelined for other priorities and/or because issues are found at the umpteenth hour. As I said originally - announcing things too early have a more negative effect when you miss the mark (hence why DDB, from day 1, have never committed to ETAs).
Hell, we're not asking for INSTANT communication, just timely communication. I can't imagine this is a money issue, since online gaming exploded since COVID and before Adam bounced he communicated that active users/campaigns created DOUBLED. Fandom on its website touts how many D&D characters has been created as a main operating point on its careers page.
Ironically, this is exactly what I was stated with my initial post - you (and many other users) feel that we are not providing meaningful communication. We directly address the shortcomings with each release and indicate that we are actively working on resolving those shortcomings. Further - Joe and Mellie always address these question and give a general update on what the team is working on. Frequently, they're joined by a developer that has in-depth knowledge of what's being worked on (since, well, they're working on it, lol), who also take and answer questions. I do think we can do more to surface the information provided during those dev updates.
Lastly - I sincerely apologize if I come across as being overly critical or harsh toward you. I truly do appreciate the candid feedback you and (others in the thread). I can absolutely appreciate the frustration and agree that our communication can, and should be better.
I think something that would help is what Yurei suggested about the dev updates. Those updates are in the middle of the day when many of us are at work, and to be frank, they’re just kinda tedious to sit through for some of us. If we could get bulletpoints of the important topics posted to the site, that would make those of us who just want the meat and potatoes of it all feel like we’re getting better communication. At least in my opinion. I saw on a different thread (I think, or maybe this one early on) that doing transcripts of the dev updates is time consuming and got deprioritized. That’s understandable. But taking 5 minutes to give us the important tidbits in a post would go a long way I think.
None of this is to say I find no fault with DDB's communication. I find the Dev Update streams incredibly annoying - I don't have an hour to waste every week on Joe Starr practicing his hype man routine, I want a just-the-facts written summary of the damn thing for people who hate Twitch and are annoyed by having to chase napkin quotes from the videos and vlogs to get information that should be made clear, clean, and apparent here on the OFFICIAL WEBSITE.
(I know the quote isn’t formatted right, I’m on mobile and also technology challenged at times)Fixed quote
Your post hit the nail on the head with the dev updates. On the rare occasion that I’m not at work or not too busy to watch the update, I turn it on and within a few minutes I’m tired of watching. I just check the forum a little later to see if anything of note comes up in a thread. DDB could definitely find a way to give us the important bits afterwards.
I think something that would help is what Yurei suggested about the dev updates. Those updates are in the middle of the day when many of us are at work, and to be frank, they’re just kinda tedious to sit through for some of us. If we could get bulletpoints of the important topics posted to the site, that would make those of us who just want the meat and potatoes of it all feel like we’re getting better communication. At least in my opinion. I saw on a different thread (I think, or maybe this one early on) that doing transcripts of the dev updates is time consuming and got deprioritized. That’s understandable. But taking 5 minutes to give us the important tidbits in a post would go a long way I think.
I mean working in Tech this should be a standard thing, when we do a major release in my company (3 times a year) there is a shiny demo video presented by the CTO to our customers of the new features. But this is then backed up with a release document that is one page listing the features with some simple bullet points for each. This has 2 versions an internal release document that lets senior management etc know exactly what the dev team have got out this release, and then an external version. If you look at most of your apps they will list what has been updated in each patch update, usually a catch all "fixed bugs" although some companies are good at detailing the major bugs that have been fixed.
I will be honest I don't bother looking for when updates occur here, the site does what me and my players need it to, but, I would expect to be able to go to somewhere on the site and see a simple list of what came out with the latest release. This shouldn't be hard to do, I imagine when these twitch streams happen announcing updates there is a bullet points that he works from, that would be a good starting point. We generate release notes purely from Jira, you can extract out all the tickets in a release into a simple document and then tidy that up and sanitise it to remove noise (mainly tech debt). But really whoever is the Product Owner should be able to knock up a simple release note in 10-15 mins in a format that can be presented here somewhere.
100% on the flagging bugs that have been passed along. I can assure you these bugs are being passed along, just there's not always mention as such in the threads. I will raise this as an area for improvement because it is a small thing that has a big impact on how the community feels.
Well that's good I personally stopped posting bugs I've found because they fell to the abyss in the bug forums with no response of being passed along. I felt/still feel it wasn't worth my time to identify them let alone propose fixes. Unfortunately some of them are 30 second fixes that just never got fixed so I assumed they never got passed on. These are very minor bugs though so 🤷♂️.
Dayvd I'll also admit I'm much more critical of mods but I find most if not all your posts live up that expectation. I also deal with customers and they certainly expect more of me then other customers so I understand what you're saying.
What I personally dislike are rhetorical questions as a form of answer especially when the original question/statement was misconstrued. Making someone feel lesser/dumb to answer their question isn't ok for anyone but especially not those with more power (not talking about you here). I also have tried PM'ing a question to a mod/staff which never got answered which substantially decreased my desire to be involved in certain areas of the community in general. Which is unfortunate but is what it is.
As far as the dev updates are concerned I feel that when they get cancelled at the last minute it really hurts the perception of DDB being well organized. If they are going to be cancelled so often it feels off for them to all be emergency cancellations. I also feel that information we do get from the dev updates (the first portion before questions) is substantially less meaningful or often much too repetitive between dev updates. This makes sitting through 30 min videos so much worse because most of it you've seen prior weeks, you can view in the last 15 vods or is just repeat advertising for new books/perks. I'd much prefer the first portion to showcase actual progress on unreleased features or newly released features and if there isn't any to showcase move on to questions much quicker. I understand no ETA's but I was very pleasantly surprised a few times on the dev updates when they actually showed us some progress of various features prior to release.
If the videos were condensed to just the new or meaningful information (cancelled ahead of time if no new information or just turned into a Q&A stream) it would be much easier to sit through them all. I used to get excited about dev update days - I no longer do which is unfortunate.
Also if the dev updates are the place to get most of our answers it's at a pretty poor time for those of us who work during the day. I get it you're also doing your jobs and working during the day but it shouldn't be the primary place we're pointed to to get answers then. I've been able to have it on on the side but rarely able to participate in chat/ask questions and I consider myself lucky for even that. Note that this is coming from a perspective viewing the stream live. It might be easier to click around on the youtube vods to get to what you want to see but would probably still be an annoyance.
The other perception, at least I have, is of things being cut and development speed not increasing due to it certainly doesn't help (even if this is just a perception due to minimal showcasing/information). I agree about the perks for this month as well - couldn't have been that hard to put together something different even if just backgrounds/frames from old pre-orders. There's so much going on in the background (I hope) but so little that we see so it feels dead in the water a lot of the time.
Luckily we do have very helpful community members on these forums even if we get heated sometimes.
Cancellations do sometimes happen last minute and that's unavoidable. We have both Joe and Mellie doing the updates so that if one is unavailable, the other can still do the update. For example, Mellie wasn't on last weeks update because she's been unwell recently. But if Joe is also otherwise indisposed for whatever reason, that unfortunately means the update must be cancelled.
As for timing; no matter what time the update is on, it'll be inconvenient for someone. The update needs to fit into the schedules of those running it and be on at a time where the most number of people can watch it. But that means there'll never be a time when everyone can watch it. That being said, the dev update is immediately available on VOD on twitch (no sub required) and is then uploaded to YouTube.
With regards to the content of the update, it's interesting because there has been conflicting feedback (as is always the case). Some want only the roadmap updates from the beginning and some only want the Q&A from the end. That's why for a time the updates and Q&A were uploaded separately on YouTube. But the feedback on this wasn't great so it was stopped.
I will pass on the strong desire for the slides to return at the very least, but I would recommend catching the dev update on VoD/YouTube where you can at least skip through or (as I do it sometimes) play on x2 speed.
I recommend this for the reason that, after finishing a long video/podcast at 2x, IRL people sound drunk.🤪
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As for timing; no matter what time the update is on, it'll be inconvenient for someone. The update needs to fit into the schedules of those running it and be on at a time where the most number of people can watch it. But that means there'll never be a time when everyone can watch it. That being said, the dev update is immediately available on VOD on twitch (no sub required) and is then uploaded to YouTube.
I will pass on the strong desire for the slides to return at the very least, but I would recommend catching the dev update on VoD/YouTube where you can at least skip through or (as I do it sometimes) play on x2 speed.
Agreed not everyone will be able to participate which is exactly why it shouldn't be the primary place to point us to get questions answered. I do understand you said it's less than helpful for those of us who can't and understand your in agreement with that. I certainly don't blame anyone, especially mods, for when it's scheduled or expect it to be at a better time.
It's just hard to reconcile really only having that as the recommended avenue of getting answers when for the vast majority of people it's inaccessible to ask questions. You have to hope someone else asks it and then hope it's picked. I love roadmap updates - if there are actual updates like I said new information is great but when it's the same information as the last 5-10 dev updates it's redundant especially if were expected to watch all of them if we want to hope to see new info. I'm not complaining about the first portion only that what I'd like to see is never really there - mostly repeats.
if there are actual updates like I said new information is great but when it's the same information as the last 5-10 dev updates it's redundant especially if were expected to watch all of them if we want to hope to see new info. I'm not complaining about the first portion only that what I'd like to see is never really there - mostly repeats.
This is exactly what GP highlighted earlier; the desire for meaningful communication. This puts us in a bind because if there's been no changes on any fronts, what do we do:
Communicate that there haven't been any changes, post the same updates that X, Y and Z things are still in development
Only discuss the things that have actually changed and not mention the X, Y and Z things that haven't changed
It creates quite a 'rock and a hard place' scenario.
"Repeats" is what happens with a weekly update format. It took them two-plus years to get the underlying skeleton of the character sheet to a point where they could implement Tasha's Cauldron, and BadEye was talking about "the upcoming soon-to-be-released General Feature System" when he answered my own concerns in April of 2020. Software development takes a great deal of time and sweat, and an update consisting of "converted a lookup table from Titanoboa to Rice Cake" is meaningless non-news to most layfolks. Status updates of "yep, still working on it" for dozens and dozens of weeks piss people off even when they're the naked, unvarnished truth, because folks don't realize that it can take many thousands of man-hours to figure out how to muck with a system like this while the system is in full running operation and cannot be taken offline for maintenance.
It's one of the reasons they communicate those things less - people stop hearing it after a while and see "yep, still in progress" as being equivalenmt to announcing a delay. And we all know people cannot abide multiple delays.
This is exactly what GP highlighted earlier; the desire for meaningful communication. This puts us in a bind because if there's been no changes on any fronts, what do we do:
Communicate that there haven't been any changes, post the same updates that X, Y and Z things are still in development
Only discuss the things that have actually changed and not mention the X, Y and Z things that haven't changed
It creates quite a 'rock and a hard place' scenario.
I agree. I wasn't arguing with what GP or you said - I'm on the same page there. I even used the same word to highlight that lol.
Showcasing progress is new information and as stated I do like seeing progress. The other option I proposed is go to a Q&A stream if there's truly no new info and nothing to show. A quick hey guys were still working on the stuff from XYZ vod you can check it out there but I'm going to get to answering your questions today as I have no progress to share on that front. Potentially adding more question time as it's the suggested avenue for questions and cutting back on watching the same bit every week. Just my opinion though and there are millions of those and we won't all agree.
"Repeats" is what happens with a weekly update format. It took them two-plus years to get the underlying skeleton of the character sheet to a point where they could implement Tasha's Cauldron, and BadEye was talking about "the upcoming soon-to-be-released General Feature System" when he answered my own concerns in April of 2020. Software development takes a great deal of time and sweat, and an update consisting of "converted a lookup table from Titanoboa to Rice Cake" is meaningless non-news to most layfolks. Status updates of "yep, still working on it" for dozens and dozens of weeks piss people off even when they're the naked, unvarnished truth, because folks don't realize that it can take many thousands of man-hours to figure out how to muck with a system like this while the system is in full running operation and cannot be taken offline for maintenance.
It's one of the reasons they communicate those things less - people stop hearing it after a while and see "yep, still in progress" as being equivalenmt to announcing a delay. And we all know people cannot abide multiple delays.
I mean yes agreed to every you said. I am fully aware of how long software development takes. What we're currently getting is yes we're still working on it but in a longer format than I'd like to see if there's no showcasing of the progress or an actual update. I don't know - like Dayvd said do they just ignore it and not say they are working on it. I don't think that's the answer either. Can't please us all 🤷♂️
It also should be noted that every Dev Update is set up to be useful for both long time and first time DDB users/watchers, hence why information is covered repeatedly in the same format
GPyromania,
Thanks for you feedback on the various issues.
My 2cents on being a mod:
I do agree that having the Mod title/boarder/pic/etc often adds things to your and others perceptions of your posts. I felt like when I was a mod I had to do a little more research on looking up issues and communicate in a extremely pleasant way as I was representing the company (I tried to do so just like if the poster was a customer in a store and I was waiting on them). And as always I can say at specific times I was more successful them others in doing the basic things that needed to be done and try and keep reoccurring issues from cropping up.
I can say again that IMHO, communication is key, both good and bad but I understand and I hope others do that everything cannot be shared always.
MDC
Can you imagine how infuriating it is reading this in 2022? Four years from that post?
"I know there have been communication problems. It's been happening since before I was staff, here is an issue I had and then the developer ACTUALLY responded! WINKY FACE"
I don't think most people are conlfating meaningful vs actual communication when the reality is more often than not theres zero communication. We can move the goal posts and talk about Valve time and make witty retorts, but the crux of this thread boils down to that.
Why do you need to go radio silent when things break? Why not just give the actual reasons why?
"Hey, we were working on that project we announced last week and then Wizards dropped a huge bomb on us. Since our license with Wizards dictates we present the current content and its errata, we had to shift focus. This could possibly push things back weeks considering we are close to end of year, and we give our staff time at the end of every year time to rest up and hit the ground running next year. Apologies its happened, but rest assured we're committed to doing things for you guys and improving the toolset as best as possible and as often as possible."
Hell, we're not asking for INSTANT communication, just timely communication. I can't imagine this is a money issue, since online gaming exploded since COVID and before Adam bounced he communicated that active users/campaigns created DOUBLED. Fandom on its website touts how many D&D characters has been created as a main operating point on its careers page.
We're what, 4.5 and going on 5 years since D&D Beyond launched? Aug of 2017? I made my plunge Jan of 2018 with my legendary bundle. $1,150 from that day to own everything on this website except the Tactical Maps. I'm obviously committed on the development on this website, as I keep giving it my money.
Reading this thread as someone who was a site moderator in a past life gives me a headache
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
When I have my mod hat on, I use a bold orange font which I'd hope conveys the fact I'm speaking explicitly with mod authority rather than just participating in the thread. However, this doesn't always work and many assume I'm always talking as a mod
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Hey Gpyromania. I have to start out by saying I very much appreciate you chiming in. I'm replying in (and lurking in more) a lot of threads about this subject and I think this is the first one to have such active mod/dev engagement.
But I don't think you're making the point here you think you're making. You seem to frame that as "People have always complained about the communication", as if that means that the communication isn't a problem. You present it as that, but what I see is that you know that users aren't satisfied about the communication and you seem to choose to do nothing about it. You yourself complained about it four years ago, and it's still an issue now.
We're not asking for day-to-day updates. We're not asking for release dates, to address your Valve Time mention and you mentioning that you couldn't announce a cool thing because of unexpected circumstances. We're not even asking for a detailed list of what you're currently working on.
All we, or at the very least I, want is timely and clear communication. It can be as vague as "we're working on improving some classes that still have issues".
Honestly @Spideycloned pretty much hit the nail on the head: We all understand you don't want to disappoint us by not meeting dates or such that you've announced things at, but I'd much rather have 4 delays but at least know it's coming and you're actively working on it but there are delays, than getting the idea that the issues we bring up, common or uncommon, are not being heard or addressed.
My personal suggestion would be a simple "common bugs" FAQ so people that posts those bugs won't have a reason to whine about mods/devs not responding to their threads, and second to give us a general idea of what you're working on, even if it's vague. I've made a thread about this, but I think users would feel far more heard if the Feature Request portal was actually checked, and requests actively denied/planned etc. Currently, that portal seems to have not been used by DDB staff for at least 3 years, and it's not helping your case. I do understand if you might not have the manpower to realize that latter bit, but if you're not going to use/check/mark threads on the Feature Request portal, you should just shut it down.
TL;DR: I'd prefer unclarity over silence and uncertainty.
Leaving OGL 1.0(a) untouched and making SRD 5.1 CC-BY-4.0 is a great first step. The next is a promise to do the same for future editions. Here's a discussion thread on that.
#OpenDnD
DDB is great, but it could be better. Here are some things I think could improve DDB
I agree with you - I didn't make my point very clear. I was less trying to impress that "communication isn't a problem since it's been an ongoing issue", but more actively stating that communication was always a pain point - even back in the days when Badeye was part of DDB. I don't presume to think or know better than him or any other DDB staff member (past or present), but I do think it's unfair to state that our communication has decreased when - (in my earnest opinion) - our communication has actively increased. Most of what you are requesting in terms of updates are provided during the Dev Update with Joe & Mellie. That being said, we could definitely make stronger efforts to properly show that we are indeed listening - even when we don't always get the opportunity to respond.
Worth noting, in relation to GPyromania's points: game development as a general industry has learned the hardest of hard ways that the best way to manage expectations is to generate as few of them as possible. It's been shown, thousands of times, that this is the least painful way of managing a community.
Announcing repeated delays, even if you have the most excellent and worthwhile of reasons for those delays, very quickly wears out your customer base's patience and understanding. Just look at Cyberpunk, and how "we need more time to make this the game we promised to deliver to you" worked out. Delays were announced, the playerbase lost patience with them, the game was released too early, and it wasn't what anyone wanted. Everybody lost, because people got impatient and demanded their cookie before it was done baking. Announcing a delay will often be met (mostly) with understanding and patience - the first time. Announcing the third or fourth delay because of equally valid reasons will be met with torches, pitchforks, and complaints of outright malfeasance.
It's also the case that a developer that repeatedly fails to hit self-imposed deadlines looks way worse than one that simply does not give any deadlines. The former looks incompetent and untrustworthy, even if they follow the exact same process as the latter. In this case especially, DDB's product is actually somebody else's product and they get no more warning on most of this crap than we do, their entire system needs to be able to pivot on a dime to working on something else because Wizards dropped a big fat deuce-ument in people's laps and DDB is contractually bound to work those up as quickly as is reasonable.
None of this is to say I find no fault with DDB's communication. I find the Dev Update streams incredibly annoying - I don't have an hour to waste every week on Joe Starr practicing his hype man routine, I want a just-the-facts written summary of the damn thing for people who hate Twitch and are annoyed by having to chase napkin quotes from the videos and vlogs to get information that should be made clear, clean, and apparent here on the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Part of good communication for a company like this is communicating in multiple ways to try and suit the tastes and tolerances of as many users as possible, and despite what media pundits have to say about Gamer Culture, not all of us are streaming junkies. I would think that's especially true of a typically more mature playerbase such as the D&D crowd. I know, I know, Critical Role, but even a lot of CR's fans watch it on YouTube at their own pace or take it in via podcast rather than dealing with the billion and three annoyances of livestreaming.
Nevertheless. I understand, at least more than many laymen, how development communication works. I once had the privilege of BadEye directly replying to some of my own concerns, at significant length, and even when I'm at my most pissed off with the company I try to keep that in mind. Individual users are a reasonable, sympathetic lot that simply wish to be in the loop. The Customer Base, as an aggregate whole, is a mindless tooth-riddled gibbering monstrosity that distorts everything, cannot ever be satiated, and has the total patience and sympathy levels of a snapping turtle with gonnorhea. The ol' gibbering mouther is a 100% completely perfectly accurate representation of the aggregate customer base for any sort of live service product, and even most pre-release one-and-done products. The only way to keep the Gibbering Mouther from being a nuisance and/or an outright menace iss to keep it locked out of your building and give it things only when those things are ready to be given.
The more you saw "Sorry, the development process demands we move on and temporarily shift priorities", the louder and more horrible the Mouther gets.
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There's a lot of meaningful feedback in your post that I want to address - especially as I missed the mark on conveying my points last night.
While this was largely a tongue-in-cheek comment - I definitely missed the mark on conveying my point. The reason why I used that post specifically was to show that the perception of communication hasn't changed - even when Badeye was still part of DDB. While Badeye did respond to my post, there are many more that weren't responded to - or that was otherwise asked and addressed on the Dev Update (Joe and Mellie still use the same format - even now).
I don't believe I'm moving the goalposts in the slightest - one of the complaints in your initial post was the lack of updates on content that's missing. We have been extremely transparent of what features are missing and that they're being worked on. For example - with the Strixhaven support thread, we do actively state that systems such as the Relationships rules presented in that book are still being worked on - likely being folded into the forthcoming GFS system. As we have said multiple times, software development is a tumultuous beast - while the team was working on GFS last year, it was deprioritized to work on other things, with the team now actively working on it again. I acknowledge that we can do better about making that information more readily known, but to say there's zero communication is quite unfair (at least in my opinion).
To clarify here - the project was not yet announced (and still has yet to be as it's not quite ready). What I was stating was that when we were ready to announce it, other things immediately took priority, which then sidelined it. Then coming into the new year, we found more issues which further delayed the release. This was to show the tumultuous nature of what we do - something that's almost ready to release needing to get sidelined for other priorities and/or because issues are found at the umpteenth hour. As I said originally - announcing things too early have a more negative effect when you miss the mark (hence why DDB, from day 1, have never committed to ETAs).
Ironically, this is exactly what I was stated with my initial post - you (and many other users) feel that we are not providing meaningful communication. We directly address the shortcomings with each release and indicate that we are actively working on resolving those shortcomings. Further - Joe and Mellie always address these question and give a general update on what the team is working on. Frequently, they're joined by a developer that has in-depth knowledge of what's being worked on (since, well, they're working on it, lol), who also take and answer questions. I do think we can do more to surface the information provided during those dev updates.
Lastly - I sincerely apologize if I come across as being overly critical or harsh toward you. I truly do appreciate the candid feedback you and (others in the thread). I can absolutely appreciate the frustration and agree that our communication can, and should be better.
Thanks!
I think something that would help is what Yurei suggested about the dev updates. Those updates are in the middle of the day when many of us are at work, and to be frank, they’re just kinda tedious to sit through for some of us. If we could get bulletpoints of the important topics posted to the site, that would make those of us who just want the meat and potatoes of it all feel like we’re getting better communication. At least in my opinion. I saw on a different thread (I think, or maybe this one early on) that doing transcripts of the dev updates is time consuming and got deprioritized. That’s understandable. But taking 5 minutes to give us the important tidbits in a post would go a long way I think.
(I know the quote isn’t formatted right, I’m on mobile and also technology challenged at times)Fixed quoteYour post hit the nail on the head with the dev updates. On the rare occasion that I’m not at work or not too busy to watch the update, I turn it on and within a few minutes I’m tired of watching. I just check the forum a little later to see if anything of note comes up in a thread. DDB could definitely find a way to give us the important bits afterwards.
I mean working in Tech this should be a standard thing, when we do a major release in my company (3 times a year) there is a shiny demo video presented by the CTO to our customers of the new features. But this is then backed up with a release document that is one page listing the features with some simple bullet points for each. This has 2 versions an internal release document that lets senior management etc know exactly what the dev team have got out this release, and then an external version. If you look at most of your apps they will list what has been updated in each patch update, usually a catch all "fixed bugs" although some companies are good at detailing the major bugs that have been fixed.
I will be honest I don't bother looking for when updates occur here, the site does what me and my players need it to, but, I would expect to be able to go to somewhere on the site and see a simple list of what came out with the latest release. This shouldn't be hard to do, I imagine when these twitch streams happen announcing updates there is a bullet points that he works from, that would be a good starting point. We generate release notes purely from Jira, you can extract out all the tickets in a release into a simple document and then tidy that up and sanitise it to remove noise (mainly tech debt). But really whoever is the Product Owner should be able to knock up a simple release note in 10-15 mins in a format that can be presented here somewhere.
Well that's good I personally stopped posting bugs I've found because they fell to the abyss in the bug forums with no response of being passed along. I felt/still feel it wasn't worth my time to identify them let alone propose fixes. Unfortunately some of them are 30 second fixes that just never got fixed so I assumed they never got passed on. These are very minor bugs though so 🤷♂️.
Dayvd I'll also admit I'm much more critical of mods but I find most if not all your posts live up that expectation. I also deal with customers and they certainly expect more of me then other customers so I understand what you're saying.
What I personally dislike are rhetorical questions as a form of answer especially when the original question/statement was misconstrued. Making someone feel lesser/dumb to answer their question isn't ok for anyone but especially not those with more power (not talking about you here). I also have tried PM'ing a question to a mod/staff which never got answered which substantially decreased my desire to be involved in certain areas of the community in general. Which is unfortunate but is what it is.
As far as the dev updates are concerned I feel that when they get cancelled at the last minute it really hurts the perception of DDB being well organized. If they are going to be cancelled so often it feels off for them to all be emergency cancellations. I also feel that information we do get from the dev updates (the first portion before questions) is substantially less meaningful or often much too repetitive between dev updates. This makes sitting through 30 min videos so much worse because most of it you've seen prior weeks, you can view in the last 15 vods or is just repeat advertising for new books/perks. I'd much prefer the first portion to showcase actual progress on unreleased features or newly released features and if there isn't any to showcase move on to questions much quicker. I understand no ETA's but I was very pleasantly surprised a few times on the dev updates when they actually showed us some progress of various features prior to release.
If the videos were condensed to just the new or meaningful information (cancelled ahead of time if no new information or just turned into a Q&A stream) it would be much easier to sit through them all. I used to get excited about dev update days - I no longer do which is unfortunate.
Also if the dev updates are the place to get most of our answers it's at a pretty poor time for those of us who work during the day. I get it you're also doing your jobs and working during the day but it shouldn't be the primary place we're pointed to to get answers then. I've been able to have it on on the side but rarely able to participate in chat/ask questions and I consider myself lucky for even that. Note that this is coming from a perspective viewing the stream live. It might be easier to click around on the youtube vods to get to what you want to see but would probably still be an annoyance.
The other perception, at least I have, is of things being cut and development speed not increasing due to it certainly doesn't help (even if this is just a perception due to minimal showcasing/information). I agree about the perks for this month as well - couldn't have been that hard to put together something different even if just backgrounds/frames from old pre-orders. There's so much going on in the background (I hope) but so little that we see so it feels dead in the water a lot of the time.
Luckily we do have very helpful community members on these forums even if we get heated sometimes.
With regards to the dev updates:
I will pass on the strong desire for the slides to return at the very least, but I would recommend catching the dev update on VoD/YouTube where you can at least skip through or (as I do it sometimes) play on x2 speed.
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I recommend this for the reason that, after finishing a long video/podcast at 2x, IRL people sound drunk.🤪
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Agreed not everyone will be able to participate which is exactly why it shouldn't be the primary place to point us to get questions answered. I do understand you said it's less than helpful for those of us who can't and understand your in agreement with that. I certainly don't blame anyone, especially mods, for when it's scheduled or expect it to be at a better time.
It's just hard to reconcile really only having that as the recommended avenue of getting answers when for the vast majority of people it's inaccessible to ask questions. You have to hope someone else asks it and then hope it's picked. I love roadmap updates - if there are actual updates like I said new information is great but when it's the same information as the last 5-10 dev updates it's redundant especially if were expected to watch all of them if we want to hope to see new info. I'm not complaining about the first portion only that what I'd like to see is never really there - mostly repeats.
This is exactly what GP highlighted earlier; the desire for meaningful communication. This puts us in a bind because if there's been no changes on any fronts, what do we do:
It creates quite a 'rock and a hard place' scenario.
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"Repeats" is what happens with a weekly update format. It took them two-plus years to get the underlying skeleton of the character sheet to a point where they could implement Tasha's Cauldron, and BadEye was talking about "the upcoming soon-to-be-released General Feature System" when he answered my own concerns in April of 2020. Software development takes a great deal of time and sweat, and an update consisting of "converted a lookup table from Titanoboa to Rice Cake" is meaningless non-news to most layfolks. Status updates of "yep, still working on it" for dozens and dozens of weeks piss people off even when they're the naked, unvarnished truth, because folks don't realize that it can take many thousands of man-hours to figure out how to muck with a system like this while the system is in full running operation and cannot be taken offline for maintenance.
It's one of the reasons they communicate those things less - people stop hearing it after a while and see "yep, still in progress" as being equivalenmt to announcing a delay. And we all know people cannot abide multiple delays.
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I agree. I wasn't arguing with what GP or you said - I'm on the same page there. I even used the same word to highlight that lol.
Showcasing progress is new information and as stated I do like seeing progress. The other option I proposed is go to a Q&A stream if there's truly no new info and nothing to show. A quick hey guys were still working on the stuff from XYZ vod you can check it out there but I'm going to get to answering your questions today as I have no progress to share on that front. Potentially adding more question time as it's the suggested avenue for questions and cutting back on watching the same bit every week. Just my opinion though and there are millions of those and we won't all agree.
I mean yes agreed to every you said. I am fully aware of how long software development takes. What we're currently getting is yes we're still working on it but in a longer format than I'd like to see if there's no showcasing of the progress or an actual update. I don't know - like Dayvd said do they just ignore it and not say they are working on it. I don't think that's the answer either. Can't please us all 🤷♂️
It also should be noted that every Dev Update is set up to be useful for both long time and first time DDB users/watchers, hence why information is covered repeatedly in the same format
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