Wondering what the future holds for Defiance?

[Sanguinesun]

I spent over 20 years in Marketing, so I probably read these words with a different take than you do. Of course he wants to exploit us in the same sense that a farmer want to get more crops off his land or a mining company wants to get more value from the minerals in their mines. BUT, if the only way for them to get more from us is to provide us with a better game experience, how is that bad? IMO, Trion hasn't got enough money out of us because they haven't made our game experience fun enough. Kick up the fun and many of us will kick up the spending.

The mining analogy was what I saw him thinking of us as. The problem as you said lies in their inability to deliver a product we enjoy. But I would also add that part of that product is the manner by which it is marketed. What I take from what Maffit states is that he lacks the understanding of how their "testing" and poor marketing/advertising has been a contributing factor to the state the project and the perception by players as well. There is a distinct disjunction.

[PseudoCool]

The mining analogy was what I saw him thinking of us as. The problem as you said lies in their inability to deliver a product we enjoy. But I would also add that part of that product is the manner by which it is marketed. What I take from what Maffit states is that he lacks the understanding of how their "testing" and poor marketing/advertising has been a contributing factor to the state the project and the perception by players as well. There is a distinct disjunction.

I have to agree with Sanguine here. There is a total disconnect between the player base and the developers in Defiance. There has been since the early stages of Alpha testing. The developers literally DO NOT listen to the player base at all. We tell them there's a problem, they say thanks, and it goes into this giant drawer of issues that sometimes resembles a black hole.

In the end, what we got was a substandard product, and we're continuing to be nothing more than beta testers 5 months down the road. Frankly, it's like the gaming industry as turned into little junior microsofts.. ie producting half finished products and expecting consumers to just "weather the storm" until they can patch it to completion.

And.. I sent that article to my girlfriend, who does marketing for a living. She was appalled that someone with a VP title would basically say that end consumers are nothing more than an exploit wallet waiting to be plundered. Most people in marketing wouldn't have a job after an open comment such as that.. we'll see how long Mr. Maffit hangs around.

[MacDeath]

The mining analogy was what I saw him thinking of us as. The problem as you said lies in their inability to deliver a product we enjoy. But I would also add that part of that product is the manner by which it is marketed. What I take from what Maffit states is that he lacks the understanding of how their "testing" and poor marketing/advertising has been a contributing factor to the state the project and the perception by players as well. There is a distinct disjunction.

Well, SOMEONE at Trion was unhappy with the results of their marketing. That's why they have a new Sr VP of Marketing.

[Sanguinesun]

I have to agree with Sanguine here. There is a total disconnect between the player base and the developers in Defiance. There has been since the early stages of Alpha testing. The developers literally DO NOT listen to the player base at all. We tell them there's a problem, they say thanks, and it goes into this giant drawer of issues that sometimes resembles a black hole.

In the end, what we got was a substandard product, and we're continuing to be nothing more than beta testers 5 months down the road. Frankly, it's like the gaming industry as turned into little junior microsofts.. ie producting half finished products and expecting consumers to just "weather the storm" until they can patch it to completion.

And.. I sent that article to my girlfriend, who does marketing for a living. She was appalled that someone with a VP title would basically say that end consumers are nothing more than an exploit wallet waiting to be plundered. Most people in marketing wouldn't have a job after an open comment such as that.. we'll see how long Mr. Maffit hangs around.

To be more clear here. The developers, the ground/grunt design and creators of the game did hear us for the most part, listened and most of them felt as we do. Their hands were tied to not a small extent.

The disjunction in this regard came from their middle managers and higher up the food chain. You can read some of the glass door reviews by former San Diego folks and others and see how the environment is/was.

Maffit and other department heads epitomize this as well per these decisions that continue to be made.

[Sanguinesun]

Well, SOMEONE at Trion was unhappy with the results of their marketing. That's why they have a new Sr VP of Marketing.

If you check his linkedin, you'll notice he's been the Senior VP of Marketing since January :P

Worse if you take a look backwards with his resume.... he looks worse at each hop moving foward :P

[Gb Haseo]

Well, I was going to cut out of Defiance, when GTA 5 came out as well, but then I found out, even though there's 3 main characters, it won't have co-op campaign again.... and on top of that, online won't be available at launch, but will come out as a free download in October.

All I ever want from a GTA game is a co-op campaign! The gameplay mechanics of GTA games are fine for single player, but I hate them for competitive gameplay. That's the main reason I got Defiance, but there's nothing to do in this game's campaign but grind the same things over and over again. Oh well, SR4 came out yesterday and has a co-op campaign so I think I'll go pick that up today and Lost Planet 3 comes out next week, so I'll get my co-op fix that way.

[Thearl]

I have to agree with Sanguine here. There is a total disconnect between the player base and the developers in Defiance.

Go a step further - There's a disconnect between the console gamers and the PC gamers. I think everyone's agreed in past threads that console sales were the majority of the sales. SO, should not TRION support that player base over all others; that's the population they need to be tracking while they are playing. Us PC forum addicts are just a vocal minority.

I think it will be interesting to see how Ubisoft handles a minority PC community amid their expected console masses with The Division...

[Rasczak]

Well, I was going to cut out of Defiance, when GTA 5 came out as well, but then I found out, even though there's 3 main characters, it won't have co-op campaign again.... and on top of that, online won't be available at launch, but will come out as a free download in October.

All I ever want from a GTA game is a co-op campaign! The gameplay mechanics of GTA games are fine for single player, but I hate them for competitive gameplay. That's the main reason I got Defiance, but there's nothing to do in this game's campaign but grind the same things over and over again. Oh well, SR4 came out yesterday and has a co-op campaign so I think I'll go pick that up today and Lost Planet 3 comes out next week, so I'll get my co-op fix that way.

See, for me it isn't a fellow console game about to do it.

Unless Trion (aka Hartsman) wants to talk about some of the Major Changes to Defiance mentioned briefly in the podcast and give a clear idea as to the direction these changes are going, come World of Warcraft patch 5.4, the wife and I will just go back to Blizzard.

I love the Defiance setting and await June 2014. I tolerate the Defiance game, though. That tolerance is quickly plummeting, unfortunately.

[N3gativeCr33p]

The future for Defiance isn't looking too bright in my household... last night's download/Shadow World debacle took a lot of wind out of my proverbial sails.

[Indra Echo]

I have to agree with Sanguine here. There is a total disconnect between the player base and the developers in Defiance. There has been since the early stages of Alpha testing. The developers literally DO NOT listen to the player base at all. We tell them there's a problem, they say thanks, and it goes into this giant drawer of issues that sometimes resembles a black hole.

In the end, what we got was a substandard product, and we're continuing to be nothing more than beta testers 5 months down the road. Frankly, it's like the gaming industry as turned into little junior microsofts.. ie producting half finished products and expecting consumers to just "weather the storm" until they can patch it to completion.

And.. I sent that article to my girlfriend, who does marketing for a living. She was appalled that someone with a VP title would basically say that end consumers are nothing more than an exploit wallet waiting to be plundered. Most people in marketing wouldn't have a job after an open comment such as that.. we'll see how long Mr. Maffit hangs around.

But this is such a lot of hyperbole. To say they never listened and never did anything regarding problems is just wrong. At best it's not even a half truth. You have to look honestly at things that have been done and stop acting like there's this big chip on your shoulder. People tend to get mad when something they wanted doesn't happen, but maybe something someone else wanted did get addressed. And there have been a lot of requests, suggestions, fixes, and so on that have been addressed. Not what you wanted and maybe not even what I wanted, but they have not ignored things totally.

I have done closed beta testing for games (not this one) and those games featured hundreds of pages of bug reports, issues, and so on. But guess what--they got released with some of the really bad bugs still in game. One was a game that was mostly for online play and a lot of that cooperative play. Fun thing when a game is released and that doesn't work. Gee, no other game but Defiance has ever had any online issues at launch--oh except for maybe 3 big name titles released recently.

And your girlfriend is right to be appalled. Funny thing is it wasn't even someone at Trion that was the first and most prominent to say this (in gaming). Execs from other companies said this first and even more obviously have geared their companies toward this model of ignore the customer's words, look at the money. The fun thing is that this is at least honest-it's really how business is done and to actually think any seller of products cares about you is folly.

My biggest problem with people here is this is a relatively small game that gets attention (some of it that is over the top, some deserved as well) that all game devs should be getting. People need to wake up and act as consumers when buying games. But be honest about it or the industry will just ignore you-oh wait it already does ignore you. Then vote with your money. Stop buying games if you want better games and better companies. But that means take a hard look at games you are interested in in the future and the game companies behind them. They are telling you they only listen to your money-it's what the other devs said specifically. They don't read the forums, don't care what is said on them-it's all about the money. Where I object is when people hold Trion to a higher standard than EA, Activision, Bethesda, and all the rest. They don't seem to care when other games from other companies are crap because they won't want to miss out when their friends are playing Destiny and so on.

So, until people stop being hypocritical about all of this and stop spending money on other broken games, nothing will change and will only get worse.

Even if Trion appears not to listen to you. I know they have listened to me when I have had specific problems-I've submitted tickets and gotten help. No other game has even done that much before. And as opposed to games that give you more maps for $15, I have been having fun in this one and not just the rage quitting "fun" others are having in other games.