The "Community Manager" finally shows up, to address the real problem plaguing DE right now: People being mean to the community manager!

[Black Adder]

This here is not even really community management, this is more of customer support, which shouldn't really be all the community department does, and it shouldn't even be the main bread and butter of their work, maybe one person max, so what are exactly the rest of them doing?

Considering the size of their department, which is like somewhere 5+ or some such (including of course someone for graphics, some web things, and such, but still), it's really funny to see them complaining about lack of time looking how they're not exactly dealing with Fortnite-level player base. Probably also speaks to the unusually high level of problems and mentioned general mismanagement, also due to not understanding the games, community, and therefore priorities, and then there will be the funding as well (even though when they have such a team, maybe just wrong allocation of it - maybe an extra community coordinator would be helpful instead of someone else, or how about instead of one 50k tournament we use those funds to hire a new team member, hmm? I know it's just a year salary, but you get the gist).

In general you need to understand Microsoft is not doing community management, and never did during the era of the remasters. On purpose. Community management is something altogether different than what they're doing, what they're doing is community marketing and to some degree customer support (just like this here), which they try to outsource to unpaid community volunteers (the Community Sages on their Discord and community mods on their forums and such). True community management would mean actual deep, daily involvement and active steering of things and, mainly, resolution of not only technical problems and potential harmful tendencies in the community. They do nothing of the sort at all, and let the community be in a complete free fall and general dark about things, also allowing enterprising individuals take advantage of it as much as they can. And even the parts mentioned above they do they obviously struggle with.

Makes you really wonder what they have that big team on the community department for when the only things you see are announcement posts and uninspired events (is it really that hard to make a historical event e.g. around Joan of Arc, an iconic AoE character, that was burnt at stake 30th May? I don't know, make a speedrun challenge for a campaign scenario, commission a special scenario for the anniversary depicting something tied to her that's not in the campaign or not as detailed, make Joan-inspired graphics for Franks, make a Franks vs. Britons challenge, like really anything, instead we have "Build 20 walls" - yeah I know, you would actually need to know the game and the community for this...). Though yeah, as mentioned, making 2km long patch posts probably does take considerable time. Every month and still coming amazingly.

 

[OrnLu528]

People deserved to be treated with a certain level of basic respect. Devs, even when they screw up, are still human beings.

However, the failure of people on the internet in being respectful does not excuse the state of the game this past couple months. Constructive criticism is always going to be the most helpful in improving a situation, but more general criticism is not in itself evil (so long as it is being delivered appropriately).

Everything in these past months, from accidental addition of game-breaking bugs, the lack of timely response in fixing those bugs, and the overall lack of transparency in handling the whole situation, is not acceptable. We as a community deserve better. Tournaments should not have to be reverted to previous patches... especially when the patch in question is already several weeks old.

I sincerely believe that clearer communication from MS would make the criticism less flame-y, and hopefully people would be more cooperative in their feedback. We all want the game to be as good as possible here <3

 

[nhoobish]

Makes you really wonder what they have that big team on the community department for when the only things you see are announcement posts and uninspired events (is it really that hard to make a historical event e.g. around Joan of Arc, an iconic AoE character, that was burnt at stake 30th May?

Why was she burnt at stake?

 

[OnlyMouseShift]

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Age of Empires Support

www.ageofempires.com

As far i know this is the official page where all the "know issues" are listed and with their current status
For the game, i really believe that they are overwhelmed by the amount of issues, and they really dont know how to fix the pathfinding for example from one patch to another. Which is inexcusable. Because thats like the most basic thing that should work.
But also as Ornlu says, and the common sense of any individual, making a thread just bash every single decision of the team every five minutes, call the incompetent, and make a big deal -even a video- for even changing the 11 taunt... if i was a dev, do you really think i would bother reading those threads? Not to mention i have seen a lot of valid points being posted here, yet i dont see any of those arguments in the official forums. Maybe this isnt the place to be posting feedback, or i am wrong?
Finally, im not sure really, that some pros and streamers have access to a discord channel where they can give feedback to the devs about some things about the game. Since these people are most affected by the current state of the game -because if its broken they cant stream/play and get their money- , maybe we should make a thread where we could make a feedback list so they can communicate it to the devs, with a priority order. I mean, i suppose that the people who post here are the ones most interested and with the most knowledge of whats important to improve in the game. After all the casual players dont even bother coming here or make an account.
And with feedback, i mean issues about the game well specified, not the classic "I WANT ONLY ARABIA 1VS1 RANDOM QUEUE BECAUSE I LIKE IT". Thats not a way to establish a problem. You could instead say "There should be more map bans" or "We should be asked by the map pool" or "We should have the option to see the enemy civ before we start". And back that up with more opinions. Because many people forget that the most casual player base, which -probably, this is just a guess- makes more than half of the players of DE, and they also have to benefit from the actions taken to improve the game. Because one really fast way to kill a game is making the game to fit veterans tastes over the majority of the players.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

By using Emphasis and bold statements you can give weight to your meaningless words without saying much. Also, by writing **fairytales** instead of actual patch notes, you ca try to make up for the lack of actual Changes, and to delay any cristism From the community

(E.g. malay now prioritise speed over stamina - just acknowledge that tou fixed a trivial bug that was introduced by adding a cheat code that nobody asked for and that lasted way too long and made multiplayer unplayable)
(E.g. changed the way predators spawn on maps. - just say what changes were done: how many predators, distance to players reduced? What maps? Less predators in total etc ?)

this post is so good I wish I could like it more than once

 

[Tedious_Tarkan]

Why was she burnt at stake?

Burning people was really popular with clergy at the time, among other tortures.

 

[doacid]

Where did you get that this guy is the community manager? Next to his name it says "aoe dev".

I thought the community manager is Turkman. I'd ping him but I don't know his name here.

 

[TriRem]

Where did you get that this guy is the community manager? Next to his name it says "aoe dev".

I thought the community manager is Turkman. I'd ping him but I don't know his name here.

Turk is the community manager for Forgotten Empires. This guy is one of the community managers for the Age of Empires franchise for Microsoft, he is the one we should refer to.

 

[Andre_2i]

If you think their attitude towards this game is bad now, wait until you see Aoe 4 get released.

 

[fluppets]

It is clear that the problem does not lie with the developers; it is a management problem.

I totally understand most criticism, blame and (unfortunately) hate goes to the developers but the ones making the decisions are not only comfortable with devs taking all the flak, they are getting praised for a succesful business operation.

AoE 2 DE is a cash grab focused on players craving nostalgia, these players play campaigns, vs AI and are very satisfied, as is reflected in popular reviews, ratings and sales; which is what management looks at to evaluate their business strategies. Multiplayer just doesn't bring enough return on investment.

AoE 2 DE = Working as intended.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

It is clear that the problem does not lie with the developers; it is a management problem.

I totally understand most criticism, blame and (unfortunately) hate goes to the developers but the ones making the decisions are not only comfortable with devs taking all the flak, they are getting praised for a succesful business operation.

AoE 2 DE is a cash grab focused on players craving nostalgia, these players play campaigns, vs AI and are very satisfied, as is reflected in popular reviews, ratings and sales; which is what management looks at to evaluate their business strategies. Multiplayer just doesn't bring enough return on investment.

AoE 2 DE = Working as intended.

That last part is kinda sad because with things like the numerous unnecessary changes to soundtrack/graphics and addition of an excessive number of civilization (some really clearly not well thought through) it doesn't actually do a great job of achieving that nostalgic feel like it is supposed to.

 

[robo]

remember when resonance22 was our community manager?

He was never the community manager for Microsoft like Evan is, who people are discussing. Res22 was the Forgotten Empires community manager like Turkman is now

 

[RobChang]

Yet again we face the core of all problems: Nobody knows who is responisble and there are like at least four companies involved all with their all interests but in the end obligated to obey MS overarching plans for AoE4. How can we expect proper communication with the community, if internally the communication and task management doesnt seem to work at all. One team has the creative ideas for events and balancing, the other needs to programme it into the game code, the third programmes the multiplayer organisation around the ladder. And if they have deeper questions about problems and how the game actually works and if they can change that they need to call back and forth looking for someone to be responsible for that question to work further on their part-project.

 

[D4Mi4N]

He was never the community manager for Microsoft like Evan is, who people are discussing. Res22 was the Forgotten Empires community manager like Turkman is now

Ooh, that makes more sense than what i initially thought.

 

[fluppets]

That last part is kinda sad because with things like the numerous unnecessary changes to soundtrack/graphics and addition of an excessive number of civilization (some really clearly not well thought through) it doesn't actually do a great job of achieving that nostalgic feel like it is supposed to.

If the intention is to make a cash grab from players seeking nostalgia and tease AoE4, it is a great success.

I am trying to look at it from a business POV, not a developer or a (online) player's POV.

 

[lecracheursagacite]

If the intention is to make a cash grab from players seeking nostalgia and tease AoE4, it is a great success.

I am trying to look at it from a business POV, not a developer or a (online) player's POV.

Hence why it is sad that it is successful in the way that you say it is.

He was never the community manager for Microsoft like Evan is, who people are discussing. Res22 was the Forgotten Empires community manager like Turkman is now

MS and FE each have a separate community manager for the same game that they are working on together?

 

[robo]

MS and FE each have a separate community manager for the same game that they are working on together?

Turkman isn't an age of empires community manager, he is the Forgotten Empires community manager.

Imagine if FE worked on a different game alongside aoe, would you expect Microsoft/World's Edge to promote that game for them, even though they have nothing to do with it?


Or maybe in 5-10 years time aoe is no longer a thing and FE now develops their own game, it would be useful to have 10 years of community support and growth behind it on their social channels, rather than starting from scratch

 

[derpina276]

The community manager should just play 10 BF games, after that his skin should be thick enough to handle his job Kappa. In all seriousness though i kinda feel bad for the guy but he is bad at his job.

 

[Halleju]

If you compare this for example with CDPRs community manager Burza for Gwent, it's day and night difference. He posts in CDPRs forums, his own twitter, subreddit etc... Not only in patch times, but nearly every day. You can always reach him somewhere and expect an answer.
I dont understand why gaming companys behave so differently. Is it that difficult to hire a community manager who, like his title says duh..., manages the community?

 

[kw1k000000]

I like @Cysion approach to community outreach. When game is launching he acts like poster boy , does many interviews, talk shows etc, gets all the clap on the back.

After release when the **** show of bugs start, he goes in hiding waiting for another new launch to happen. This approach has been consistent in HD, AOM, AOE1 DE, AOE2 DE.

 

[klnek]

At least there is some sort of communication this time, not complete silence like it happened with the April patch. Hopefully we won't have to wait one month for a fix.

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

If I remember correctly a large part of the community responded positively on the cringy puns and GIFs that evan posted. Here he is not so popular, mostly because of ignorance in that he is (likely) not active on aoezone, which is a big slip for someone who's profession it is to communicate with the community.

About DE appealing to newer players who come back for nostalgia, I agree for a large part. But that still doesnt take away that some changes are very questionable:
- replacing the 11 taunt is directly opposite to attracting people for nostalgia
- having a bug for a whole month that caused malay to advance to the next age at 166% is also obvious to the more casual players. Those players might not care so much about civ balance, matchmaking, or pathfinding. But the 166% bug was obvious to all players who played Malay (including single player and campaigns) it therefore amazes me how there was no hot fix for this issue.

 

[doacid]

Turk is the community manager for Forgotten Empires. This guy is one of the community managers for the Age of Empires franchise for Microsoft, he is the one we should refer to.

Thank you. Why does it say aoedev next to his name though? Is he a dev too?

@Halleju you can't compare CDPR with any other company.
99% of business have no principles whatsoever and will destroy anything (environment, people) in their path for profit, as they should. You can't have a world based on competition and then complain they're competing.

 

[HongeyKong]

- replacing the 11 taunt is directly opposite to attracting people for nostalgia

Not sure about other sound tracks, but the one with a high-pitched witch-like voice was actually the 11 taunt of the old Taiwanese version.

 

[RobChang]

Not sure about other sound tracks, but the one with a high-pitched witch-like voice was actually the 11 taunt of the old Taiwanese version.

They are all originial 11 taunts from other localisations. They just changed that the sound is randomly chosen among the versions they have anyhow.