Developers In Discord: Bad Idea

Wargfoot

I'm starting to think that developers participating in Discord is a bad idea, and that perhaps, Discord is little more than the low point of the internet that collects all the runoff from much higher ground.

Thoughts to consider:

How did developers release fantastic games in the past with next to no community involvement?
How many times have you seen a few toxic players destroy a community?
How many times have you seen developers chase a few vocal community members instead of their initial vision?

I think Discord is a great tool for players to connect, but I think we get better products when we see less of "how the sausage is made".
I think too many indie developers get bamboozled by loud mouthed streamers and content creators.
I've seen too many dumb ideas take root in Discord.

At least use a freakin' iron clad Community Manager as a firewall.
A developer should NEVER be in Discord.

Fight me.

Angrakhan

Sorry I'm not going to fight you. I'm a software developer on the business side. I'm actually the team lead of the team leads for the company and I can tell you the LAST thing we want is for our customers to engage directly with the developers. There's far more that can go wrong than could go right with that kind of interaction.

Some actual things I've seen in my career when this happens in no particular order:

1. Developers are trained to write code not have good customer service skills, so the potential for inserting feet into mouth is high. 

2. Customers start working directly with their pet developer to get features they want in the software without product management knowledge throwing timelines to the wind and causing all sorts of unintentional consequences because there's no coordination with the rest of the team.

3. Developers get frustrated and warn out feeling like they have multiple bosses. The customer yelling at them on one side and their managers yelling at them on the other often with conflicting priorities. See #2 above.

4. The codebase becomes spaghetti with all these bespoke custom features introduced that only satisfy one user or a small subset of user needs. This leads to a fragile code base with easily introduced regressions when enhancements are made.

That's just the negative consequences I've personally seen. I can only imagine the train wreck an Indy game studio is with developers talking directly to the players.

MadBomber13

Interesting perspective Angrakhan. I can tell you the point of view from the user side. I work in healthcare in business/finance end of things. We purchased a state of the art, first in class EMR software fore a hefty few millions. The frustration from the customer end for us is all the limitations and lack of features our fancy new software seems to have. When we bring these up we are told no other clients have asked for these features or that the system can't support them.

The funny thing is when you go to industry conventions, you get to talk to other health systems and find out they would like to see the same features implemented, have asked the company and been told the same thing as us. Also at these conventions you get dined and boozed by vendors and it's common for the software companies to bring a developer or two to wow the customers. At my most recent convention, I found myself at one of these events sitting at the bar with a developer from our EMR company. We got to chatting about all the options we the users would like to have in the software and he admitted they are all good options which would not be difficult to program he flatly state management decides which features get implemented or not and that they are not allowed to receive input from customers or really encouraged to communicate directly with them.

Now while your point above help explain the reason for the seperation of the developers from the customers, I can't help but feel that it's a missed opportunity for developers and customers to collaborate and improve the product for the benefits of both the user and the company.  Just my 2 cents.

Oh but this does not applies for games. Game developers should stay away from Discord and the like. In fact, I recommend they don't engage their player base in direct conversations. 

Sovrath

MadBomber13 said:

Interesting perspective Angrakhan. I can tell you the point of view from the user side. I work in healthcare in business/finance end of things. We purchased a state of the art, first in class EMR software fore a hefty few millions. The frustration from the customer end for us is all the limitations and lack of features our fancy new software seems to have. When we bring these up we are told no other clients have asked for these features or that the system can't support them.

The funny thing is when you go to industry conventions, you get to talk to other health systems and find out they would like to see the same features implemented, have asked the company and been told the same thing as us. Also at these conventions you get dined and boozed by vendors and it's common for the software companies to bring a developer or two to wow the customers. At my most recent convention, I found myself at one of these events sitting at the bar with a developer from our EMR company. We got to chatting about all the options we the users would like to have in the software and he admitted they are all good options which would not be difficult to program he flatly state management decides which features get implemented or not and that they are not allowed to receive input from customers or really encouraged to communicate directly with them.

Now while your point above help explain the reason for the seperation of the developers from the customers, I can't help but feel that it's a missed opportunity for developers and customers to collaborate and improve the product for the benefits of both the user and the company.  Just my 2 cents.

Oh but this does not applies for games. Game developers should stay away from Discord and the like. In fact, I recommend they don't engage their player base in direct conversations. 

Wouldn’t that be the fault of the people in charge for buying software that didn’t do what you needed?

KnightFalz

Wargfoot said:

I'm starting to think that developers participating in Discord is a bad idea, and that perhaps, Discord is little more than the low point of the internet that collects all the runoff from much higher ground.

Probably a bad idea, unless the developers themselves are iron clad.

Wargfoot

KnightFalz said:

Wargfoot said:

I'm starting to think that developers participating in Discord is a bad idea, and that perhaps, Discord is little more than the low point of the internet that collects all the runoff from much higher ground.

Probably a bad idea, unless the developers themselves are iron clad.

They think they're iron clad, but when logins take a dip they fold like a cheap card table.

KnightFalz

Wargfoot said:

KnightFalz said:

Wargfoot said:

I'm starting to think that developers participating in Discord is a bad idea, and that perhaps, Discord is little more than the low point of the internet that collects all the runoff from much higher ground.

Probably a bad idea, unless the developers themselves are iron clad.

They think they're iron clad, but when logins take a dip they fold like a cheap card table.

I wouldn't be surprised for that to happen more often than not.

Wargfoot

Sovrath said:

MadBomber13 said:

Interesting perspective Angrakhan. I can tell you the point of view from the user side. I work in healthcare in business/finance end of things. We purchased a state of the art, first in class EMR software fore a hefty few millions. The frustration from the customer end for us is all the limitations and lack of features our fancy new software seems to have. When we bring these up we are told no other clients have asked for these features or that the system can't support them.

The funny thing is when you go to industry conventions, you get to talk to other health systems and find out they would like to see the same features implemented, have asked the company and been told the same thing as us. Also at these conventions you get dined and boozed by vendors and it's common for the software companies to bring a developer or two to wow the customers. At my most recent convention, I found myself at one of these events sitting at the bar with a developer from our EMR company. We got to chatting about all the options we the users would like to have in the software and he admitted they are all good options which would not be difficult to program he flatly state management decides which features get implemented or not and that they are not allowed to receive input from customers or really encouraged to communicate directly with them.

Now while your point above help explain the reason for the seperation of the developers from the customers, I can't help but feel that it's a missed opportunity for developers and customers to collaborate and improve the product for the benefits of both the user and the company.  Just my 2 cents.

Oh but this does not applies for games. Game developers should stay away from Discord and the like. In fact, I recommend they don't engage their player base in direct conversations. 

Wouldn’t that be the fault of the people in charge for buying software that didn’t do what you needed?

I have worked in software development for the past 22 years and I can tell you the people who are responsible for the mess have already received 3 promotions and changed jobs 6 times.... leaving behind a trail of broken users, frustrated developers, and blown budgets.

I've seen that play out to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Abimor

I just hate that games are doing discord for info its beyond annoying and I will never use it. Have a forum site or wiki but I shouldn't need to be a member of 95 discord channels. 
Also everything said about devs shouldn't talk to the plebs is on the nose to many games have gone sideways from dumb suggestions that in the end have nothing to do with the core game. 
Have a suggestion thread and if its a good idea put it in but @
Johnnyloudmouth should never have the ear of some feature designer. 
 

Asm0deus

I don't like discord or twitter as platforms for game companies to communicate to people, they should stick to forums and such.

It's especially annoying with the verify by phone crap.

Discord for me at least is for my group of gamer friends and that community to communicate and use voice chat privately OUTSIDE of game company purview and such.  

Companies wanting people to join discord to get game updates and or support is frankly silly.

MadBomber13

Sovrath said:

MadBomber13 said:

Interesting perspective Angrakhan. I can tell you the point of view from the user side. I work in healthcare in business/finance end of things. We purchased a state of the art, first in class EMR software fore a hefty few millions. The frustration from the customer end for us is all the limitations and lack of features our fancy new software seems to have. When we bring these up we are told no other clients have asked for these features or that the system can't support them.

The funny thing is when you go to industry conventions, you get to talk to other health systems and find out they would like to see the same features implemented, have asked the company and been told the same thing as us. Also at these conventions you get dined and boozed by vendors and it's common for the software companies to bring a developer or two to wow the customers. At my most recent convention, I found myself at one of these events sitting at the bar with a developer from our EMR company. We got to chatting about all the options we the users would like to have in the software and he admitted they are all good options which would not be difficult to program he flatly state management decides which features get implemented or not and that they are not allowed to receive input from customers or really encouraged to communicate directly with them.

Now while your point above help explain the reason for the seperation of the developers from the customers, I can't help but feel that it's a missed opportunity for developers and customers to collaborate and improve the product for the benefits of both the user and the company.  Just my 2 cents.

Oh but this does not applies for games. Game developers should stay away from Discord and the like. In fact, I recommend they don't engage their player base in direct conversations. 

Wouldn’t that be the fault of the people in charge for buying software that didn’t do whaet you needed?

Yes and no. An EMRs and the way a large Healthcare organizations interacts with it are very complex. When you are composed of dozens of clinics and hospitals and have thousands of clinical staff interacting with it every day, it's hard to determine if it has everything you need. I think my main gripe is we asked several times if after initial installation and implementation there would be the possibility of customizing the software to meet some of our particular needs. We were told yes. Turned out that wasn't exactly true. Anyway, this is getting of topic. Just thought I'd share a perspective from a diffent field. 

Angrakhan

Yeah I haven't worked in the Healthcare industry, so I can't speak to how that industry works. I have been involved in software for legal, telecom, and real estate companies. The issue with putting developers in front of the customers is that a lot of developers simply don't have a filter as your interaction with the developer of your EMR demonstrates. So let's say after your conversation at the bar you go talk to your boss and your boss's boss about this interaction and they get pissed off about it and decide to change EMR's because you feel like the leadership at the EMR company is just stonewalling you and they're just lazy and don't want to implement easy features that would add value to the software. The developer's loose lips just cost his company a big account. Not too smart. Not only that it may not be entirely true. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard "all you gotta do is", and then whatever follows that statement ends up be a 6-12 month LOE. It may be that while the feature is simple on the surface it has a downstream impact that isn't so simple. It's difficult to say with me not knowing the software, and what specifically you're asking. A better way for that conversation to go would have been for the developer to thank you for your suggestions and say he'd bring it up with the teams and see what could be done, but not make any commitments. To basically throw his leadership under the bus like that is both unprofessional and stupid. I promise if word gets back to his management about what he said that will for sure be the last convention he attends.


 To bring this back on topic of this discussion how this can play out in game development on discord is the players ask for some feature, and a rank and file developer chimes in "oh yeah, that's easy". Then, down the road for some reason it turns out not to be so each and the feature gets dropped, deferred, or redesigned. Now you get these posts (and I've seen them) about how the developer LIED and promised things that they didn't deliver, and how they're horrible people and should all die in a lake of fire. You have to be very careful about what exactly you say to gamers as they sit there and review the tiniest detail of every word you say and invent crazy ideas in their head you never intended. I wouldn't leave that interaction up to a no-filter developer, personally. I'd have a dedicated CM/Marketing team who is trained on messaging and how to deliver it deal with that and keep my developers writing code.

Theocritus

In general it is bad to listen to the public in anything

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Neoyoshi

So which video game Discord sparked this topic?  -just so I can understand the OP's train of thought and context.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

kitarad

Unfortunately developer forums have gone the way of the dodo or are taken over by bots. 7 front pages of Corepunk forums are all about hiring a hack to get your stolen crypto back.

These days when you need money you have to engage directly especially when your team is small. If you have someone like Sandy you don't need anything else.

Scot

The only reason developers went to Discord was to drum up interest or money for their game. No one in their right mind would do so otherwise.

You can get feedback in far more manageable ways and there is the keyword 'manageable'; which is what the foundation of any sort of project is built upon.

Wargfoot

I think one of the root problems is that developers are trying to sell a game (I get that), but they're too timid when it comes to telling people who don't get what they're doing to leave.

You have to survive long enough as a game to find your audience - but you don't do that by changing direction with every complaint in Discord.

If you have a full loot open world PvP design, that may or may not be a bad idea, but what you need to do is follow through with your vision and tell the PvE crowd to take a hike.  Same with a PvE game. (Those are just examples).

Sure, small UI changes or other solid ideas - that support the vision - should be considered - but trying to change audience mid-stream is bad.

Wargfoot

Neoyoshi said:

So which video game Discord sparked this topic?  -just so I can understand the OP's train of thought and context.

I'm upset at the Fractured Online discord right now.

We had a bunch of people in there that were calling for a server wipe because it would revive the game - they couldn't tell us how that would work, exactly - but after an initial release bump the numbers are cratering again.

A post that set me off this morning was basically saying that under no circumstances should people be allowed to transfer characters from the old server because things happened there -regrettable things - that won't happen again.  Basically, made my character out to be some kind of contagion that shouldn't be allowed on the "pure" server.

People for whom the enjoyment of the game is dependent upon deleting hundreds of hours of other people's work are the ass cancer of any community.

A developer who cannot see that is unworthy of my trust.

Wargfoot

I want to clarify something that might be mis-understood in my last post:

I'm only mildly upset that developer deleted my characters and hundreds of hours of work - even though they said that wasn't supposed to happen.  This is because these developers are pouring their lives into the game and making a substantially greater investment than I'll ever make.  I don't think they wanted to destroy my efforts, I'm guessing they feel they had to do it (and aren't happy about it) - or didn't have the ability to make it work another way.

I get that.
They've got a job - families -bills to pay.

No worries.

What I'm raging against is the retarded community member who somehow cannot enjoy a game unless other people's efforts are destroyed.  Not one of these mouth breathing morons could explain to me how a million in gold in my bank box made killing trolls less fun for them. 

i hAvE a GuILD wITH 40 memBerS THat WIlL RetuRN if THere IS a wiPE

^-- These bozos have  already come and gone.

So when you ask: How does my bank box impact your time on Tutorial Island again?

*silence*

That's what I thought.

Sovrath

Wargfoot said:

Neoyoshi said:

So which video game Discord sparked this topic?  -just so I can understand the OP's train of thought and context.

I'm upset at the Fractured Online discord right now.

We had a bunch of people in there that were calling for a server wipe because it would revive the game - they couldn't tell us how that would work, exactly - but after an initial release bump the numbers are cratering again.

A post that set me off this morning was basically saying that under no circumstances should people be allowed to transfer characters from the old server because things happened there -regrettable things - that won't happen again.  Basically, made my character out to be some kind of contagion that shouldn't be allowed on the "pure" server.

People for whom the enjoyment of the game is dependent upon deleting hundreds of hours of other people's work are the ass cancer of any community.

A developer who cannot see that is unworthy of my trust.

Again, wasn’t this early access and didn’t they say there would be a server wipe? Or that they Hong’s/experiences might change over time?

Wargfoot

Sovrath said:

Wargfoot said:

Neoyoshi said:

So which video game Discord sparked this topic?  -just so I can understand the OP's train of thought and context.

I'm upset at the Fractured Online discord right now.

We had a bunch of people in there that were calling for a server wipe because it would revive the game - they couldn't tell us how that would work, exactly - but after an initial release bump the numbers are cratering again.

A post that set me off this morning was basically saying that under no circumstances should people be allowed to transfer characters from the old server because things happened there -regrettable things - that won't happen again.  Basically, made my character out to be some kind of contagion that shouldn't be allowed on the "pure" server.

People for whom the enjoyment of the game is dependent upon deleting hundreds of hours of other people's work are the ass cancer of any community.

A developer who cannot see that is unworthy of my trust.

Again, wasn’t this early access and didn’t they say there would be a server wipe? Or that they Hong’s/experiences might change over time?

At one point in Early Access, they started to say, repeatedly, no further wipes.
Then they said they'd keep the old server up and running - it hasn't come back up after they took it down two months ago.

Again, a small indie company - so I get the limited resources and such - what I cannot forgive and will not forgive is giving in to destructive members of the community.  Most of those guys who called for wipes have already left.

I'd still be playing - even after significant rule changes, because I like the game.  But cannot, because no server and I ain't starting over.

Hopefully, the developer will learn some members of the community are idiots.