Ashes Cricket 2013 General Discussion

[las_faiz]

I'm surprised no one else has picked this up.

If you cannot edit or add players, what can you actually do?

I posted regarding that point right after MikeF's post but I guess he ignored

We'll have to wait till Sept I guess to get any clue what the amazing features (or lack of) are as apart from the 2 months ongoing delay we still haven't been patient enough

The thing that lacks here is that no one takes authority. Oh the AC2013 official forum mess up, we are not responsible for it. The play session and previews, that's 505 responsibility. Even after the delay it took them more then a month to say who tweaked up. There is lack of unity for a game that is suppose to work as a team

Sorry for the frustration as being a fan of cricket games have been quite frustrating so far

 

[SpitfiresKent]

I am not sure if we could do that on IC 2010 either.

I am 100% certain that you could. If I remember correctly you pressed the right analogue stick in (R3) and swapped players via that.

 

[Chief]

The thing that lacks here is that no one takes authority. Oh the AC2013 official forum mess up, we are not responsible for it. The play session and previews, that's 505 responsibility. Even after the delay it took them more then a month to say who officialed up.

To be fair, they are not obliged in any way (in any area) to explain themselves to you.

That they are *choosing* to in many areas is indicative of their respect for the community...

People should really bear this in mind when *demanding* answers.

 

[Dutch]

To be fair, they are not obliged in any way (in any area) to explain themselves to you.

That they are *choosing* to in many areas is indicative of their respect for the community...

People should really bear this in mind when *demanding* answers.

Generally I think people have been quite civil about it especially compared to the facebook and official forum. I think it is natural that there are some forthright questions put, as Mike has said that he also wants to communicate with the community which I suppose he would say he is doing to his best ability.

Of course personal abuse or superficial screaming tot discussions are another matter.

As he himself has said hopefully we will be talking about this game for all the right reasons fairly shortly.

 

[MattW]

To be fair, they are not obliged in any way (in any area) to explain themselves to you.

On here yes - any and every post on a third party website in their own time is clearly above and beyond, but I disagree when it comes to official forums and social media platforms. If a company wishes to leverage the positives of social media as free advertising, I think they are obligated to engage the community they create.

If someone goes to learn about the game from the official channels - the press advertisements that slipped through point you there - what they end up at is likely the totally unprofessional official forums.

To me it looks like that along with the extension on development time, 505 have basically cut Trickstar loose - let them deal with the PR side of things that is best left to people who are trained in dealing with that, which would limit the likelihood of the short reply to a facebook comment blowing up into a 10 page discussion here on 'everything except career mode'.

 

[Haynes123]

I totally agree with Matt, it seems 505 games have this knack of not managing their forums or pages well, just go back to the Rugby world cup 2011 game, they managed that forums and facebook page very poorly, and the abuse was very high on that page, and it might put more pressure on Mike as he has to answer here and there and then also ensure this game is developed into hopefully a quality game

 

[Biggs]

Problem is, Chief was doing such a good job for so long until the rug got pulled and it's very hard to come back from that kinda interaction and daily posting, to 'weekly' updates and so on...

Then you add on "official" unmoderated forums and a social media site/s (Twitter/Facebook) not constantly being maintained by someone that knows what they're doing and it all kinda looks to the average person as a bit mis-managed.

 

[cricket_online]

Problem is, Chief was doing such a good job for so long until the rug got pulled and it's very hard to come back from that kinda interaction and daily posting, to 'weekly' updates and so on...

Then you add on "official" unmoderated forums and a social media site/s (Twitter/Facebook) not constantly being maintained by someone that knows what they're doing and it all kinda looks to the average person as a bit mis-managed.

I disagree with your definition of "doing such a good job". IIRC Chief stated and confirmed the game will release on time (21st June) when there were rumors about delays, and post delay he vanished - most probably pulled off from the project. At best Chief misled us and at worst he lied to us here, and either way it's not doing a good job.

 

[dadarocks]

To be fair, they are not obliged in any way (in any area) to explain themselves to you.

That they are *choosing* to in many areas is indicative of their respect for the community...

People should really bear this in mind when *demanding* answers.

I agree to that Chief, but as far as I'm concerned, I think it's the responsibility of the official PR department to clear any kind of (reasonable) misunderstanding/misinterpretation of what they said, given that they notice it. I guess Mike Fegan and you constantly see the guys posting about the "all these and more", and the latest "you can't edit the player's themselves or add your own players" phrases. But neither of you answer to these because it is your choice to answer them, and at the same time answer many feature related questions posted by newbies. BTW I get things wrong every now and then inside and outside the forum, but this is *just* my opinion on this.

 

[isrararrafi]

To be fair, they are not obliged in any way (in any area) to explain themselves to you.

That they are *choosing* to in many areas is indicative of their respect for the community...

People should really bear this in mind when *demanding* answers.

A lot of people might not agree with me about this...but i will say this anyway.

A game developer may or may not ne obligated to come here (which incidentally is the largest forum for cricket gaming..but that doesn't matter apparently) and interact with us, but since he has made the decision to come here to communicate, it is EXPECTED of him to clarify and back up every claim he mentions here. It is not a face to face interview where he can claim to be misquoted later. Anything and everything he writes here becomes permanent and surely will be brought back by us later when his claim seems to be false or misleading. And if you think of social media as a way to promote your games, better do it professionally and not pretend like you are not obligated to explain yourself.

Of course even then he might just vanish and not answer about the misleading claims as no one can force him. But even though PC is a very small community compared to your whole customer base, most people here PAY for the game with money that will pay portion of your bills. It might not be much but we expect you guys to respect your paying customers by not misleading them.

Many might disagree but You guys are NOT doing us a favor by making games. It is your job (and passion i hope) to make games and you get paid for it and we pay for your product. If you don't make games, it will not be the end of the world. we are quite equipped enough to find different hobbies.

Just clarifying, this is not directed specifically at mike fegan, but at every game developer.

 

[Biggs]

At best Chief misled us and at worst he lied to us here, and either way it's not doing a good job.

Don't buy it.

So all the other accurate information, daily feedback, questions that were answered, hints and confirmations as well as the MASSIVE amount of information we DO know about the game currently is all null and void because of machinations beyond our understanding at 505 involving Chief?

I think you're at best being naive, at worst ignorant. We got a lot of great community interaction from Chief, a lot and his participation inspired Ross to get involved with us as well.

Yes, the release date stuff was total crap and nobody is saying it wasn't, but there was and is now obviously a lot more going on behind the scenes than what we release, the job now is to repair that trust that was lost and having a forum full of posts about kitchenware, a facebook full of spam and misled members and "wait until September" vague replies is a VAST step back from their previous, interactive, community development here.

All Matt needs to do is bust out a traffic graph for this forum and that'll back me up. You had a 100+ views almost every other day in this forum while Chief was here, you're down 20 now if you're lucky. There's ZERO interest from the community here in this project and that's on a forum DEDICATED to Cricket Gaming.

Again, release date information aside... Chief was bloody good. Ross is just wiping the floor with these guys now and he knows it, because there's ZERO competition. If Ross had the time to hire or pay a social media developer his Facebook would be through the roof in a week and he'd dominate Ashes because he's got a real natural knack of how to 'work' community development. He gets it, Chief got it too...

There's real power behind these seemingly small elements and people don't realize how powerful this kind of word of mouth can be. Information travels in minutes, not hours or days any more. "Teasing" is a non-existent form of promotion these days. In the past you would get one trailer for a game or movie. Now you get 3 or 5 sometimes dozens for films. "Wait until next month" isn't a form of promotion when every other choice we have as consumers is doing the complete opposite of that. Ross rules Fridays now, he's by design or happenstance indoctrinated us into expecting something new, cool and fun on fridays...

Why wouldn't you, as the competition, do something just as unique or interesting on your facebook? Or twitter? Throw away PlanetCricket and "Podcasts" or whatever... and just come up with something that gets the information, any information, small or big out about your game as regularly as possible.

That's what Chief was doing in the Q&A on a very limited scale. Again, release date aside... doing a much better job of things. In my opinion.

 

[cricket_online]

^^^^
I think you are being a little bit naive giving Chief a pass regarding the release date fiasco. Yes, Chief did interact with the community here but most of the interaction was on the lines of "I will answer if you ask the right question", or "wait till near the release date for info" or how great the game was looking, which we have to admit was a blatant lie.

If you want to give Chief a pass for misleading us, so be it but IMO he shouldn't have mentioned June 21st as the release date when he knew that was never going to happen. I wouldn't categorize it as doing a "good job".

As for social media interaction, it's a powerful tool and a double edged sword as AC13 team is finding out. It takes lot more than sending a few tweets or having a few posts on FB or a forum. That's the reason why most corporations have a position with respect to social media interaction and yeah BAC can make better use of it. Maybe he's waiting for the right time to embark on the social media blitz/campaign and time will tell.

 

[Chief]

IIRC Chief stated and confirmed the game will release on time (21st June) when there were rumors about delays

Not so. I re-stated that the official release date advertised everywhere else was 21st June. Which it was at the time. Later, when a decision to delay it was taken, an official announcement was made public through the proper channels. That's how it works.

Rumours of delays are usually either A) Not true, or B) A sign that someone somewhere is breaking an agreement and leaking confidential information. Neither are cool from my point of view and I wouldn't like to use them.

 

[angad]

Not so. I re-stated that the official release date advertised everywhere else was 21st June.

Are you saying that at that time you were not aware of the delay???

Just to remind you of the timing of your post confirming the release date is still the same, it was on 11 May 2013. This is what you had posted:

Number of rumours? I've only seen one... 21st June is still the release date, as evidenced everywhere else.

So, are you saying that you were not aware of the delay at this point of time and you truly believed that the game would release on 21st June? I think even Colin was told during his visit to lords for the game reveal that the game will release on time, so even during that visit you believed that the game would release on time and were not aware of the delay?

 

[cricket_online]

Not so. I re-stated that the official release date advertised everywhere else was 21st June. Which it was at the time. Later, when a decision to delay it was taken, an official announcement was made public through the proper channels. That's how it works.

Rumours of delays are usually either A) Not true, or B) A sign that someone somewhere is breaking an agreement and leaking confidential information. Neither are cool from my point of view and I wouldn't like to use them.

What wasn't cool was you confirming that release date was indeed June 21st despite knowing full well there was no way the game will be on time. You had to know the game wasn't submitted for platform approvals but you still decided to mislead or lie to us. This is what I take exception to.

You could have simply said "No Comments" or "I am not in a position to talk about the release date" as you said for plenty of other questions, but you did mention the game will be released as per schedule. In fact I decided to pre-order the game when you said the delay talk were all rumors and later found out that was a lie.