- Achronos
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- Bungie.net Overlord
Tom Achronos
Bungie.net Overlord
twitter: http://twitter.com/Achronos
"I have no words that would do justice to the atrocities you commit to the English language, as well as your continued assaults on the concepts of basic literacy and logical reasoning."
Hmm... Let's take this one step at time, shall we?
Posted by: SHADY K1LLAZ
In reply to your first question, the part of that statement that is unprofessional is the "ish but we’re going to wait and see how things are going online before locking that down. We’ll keep you posted." part. I think the other part that is really erking us all is Frankie's "This playlist update and rank reset will probably occur next week, pending the outcome of our ongoing work with the Xbox Live team." A truly accountable company... (etc)
Dates are a funny thing. Normally with matchmaking updates, we just put them up. We'll tell you about when they'll go up, but the packages are prepared in advance and everything is ready. This one was different in that there was a rank reset attached to it. But still, we've done that before. The only problem is that it is dependent on the maps being trouble free first. They're not. And even then, of course, you could easily argue that we should press forward anyway. I'd argue that is the "unprofessional" course of action. When something unexpected happens, you don't just press forward and assume that's the only problem. This is especially true when many people who can't get the maps have paid for them and yet still can't download them. Maybe our mistake here is assuming that people would understand a delay in a something that had no firm date to begin with. I'm pretty sure if we hadn't said what day, though, people would be in the forums right now complaining that we should tell them when the ranks are being reset, and it is unprofessional for us to not reveal this information.
I know that they would, because they did it when the date of the beta was unknown. I'm sure pretty soon that will shift to "when's the game coming out" as we get into late summer.
I guess my point is that calling us unprofessional over this is silly, because we can't predict the future and can only give your our planned dates. When assumptions made in those plans (like "Customers will be able to get maps") are violated, we have to adjust. This happens all the time to every person who has ever had to deal with unexpected events, so I fail to see why this is any different.
"You're full of *blam*. Quit making excuses and get it done". Which is the same I say to you.
Okay, wait just a minute here. In the previous paragraph, you demand that we stick to announced dates, yet as we inform you of unforseen issues, you want us to quit making excuses? Well, wouldn't that be unprofessional? Because if we didn't tell you what was going on, wouldn't that make you angry? It isn't like we aren't working to solve the problems - you're getting the summary here, not the play by play. I think you need to adjust your expectations to be a bit more reasonable - -blam!- happens, and we're pretty good at owning up to such unexpected stuff and keeping you in the loop for the most part.
How do you consider shunning your PAYING customers to be fair? If you ask me, you are being too prudent - again as I said previously, pick up your skirt and do it, what are you guys so scared of? - I'm guessing the real reason you haven't done the update is because of people who have paid for the map and can't download it yet. Fair enough. But you know as well as I do that a good business always has a contingency plan. It seems, in this case at least, that the contingency plan was to make vague statements so that you could withdraw any previous statements and run to the hills with your metaphorical tail between your legs when things went wrong. What about a statement regarding a "Team Preview" playlist? As others have stated, every other map pack release was immediately followed by an addition to matchmaking so that users could begin playing the new maps immediately while any download issues were resolved. Why not this time? A: Because it was too much work and it was much easier to just do one playlist update instead of two.
Map packages have to be tested over a period of time. We can't simply "whip one up" - it takes a while. As in a few weeks. As for a contingency plan - "if things fail, rollback to last known good state and figure out what went wrong". The playlist wasn't deployed, so we haven't had to rollback. Just because you don't like the contingency plan for something going wrong doesn't mean it is a bad one. I know it is fun to second guess and pretend you know every angle here, but you don't. That becomes clear when you think we're not doing what you think is a good course of action because "it is too much work." Do you honestly have an idea what or who you're talking about?
As to missing dates, wasn't halo3 originally supposed to be released hand in hand with the 360 as an initial 360 offering? Then I do also remember rumors about a push to release halo 3 this past Christmas? Granted, a lot is rumors and yes you have been very secretive and probably haven't ever said anything about these dates, so fine, according to what YOU guys say and release, you're on time, but it's easy to look like your on time when you create the schedule and news releases now isn't it?
Uh, no, it wasn't. Halo 3 was always scheduled to be in 2007. And of course it is what we say - we're the ones making the production schedule! You're trying to hold us to crap that is made up by idiots on the Internet and by retail stores trying to make pre-order targets, now? Please get some perspective!
On a side note, why does it seem like we never see any posts from you (Achronos) until somebody just says something God awful and stupid and you feel the need to lash out? Why not a kind and *professional* response with any kind of useful info like "Hey everyone, we're really really really sorry, in the meantime, we are working as hard as we can to both solve the download issues and we are currently debating about whether or not a team preview playlist would be possible." Instead, your response is simply a cold, dry, sarcastic shadow of a statement, just like Frankie's statement that started this whole debate.
I'm sorry, you must be used to normal large company sanitized PR. My goal here is not to make you feel good. My goal here is to be honest with both the events and my take on them. I do not expect you to like everything that I have to say. I fully expect people to complain about things like crappy Support experiences and the inability to get maps. You SHOULD complain about those. But if you're going to do so, you should have your facts straight. I don't like that you guys are having trouble getting the maps. Yet many people seem to think we're doing this on purpose, or that because we aren't giving you transcripts of our many conversations with the Xbox Live engineers that we're just twiddling our thumbs and being unprofessional about this. I've been making post after post about the importance of calling support and such so they don't think they've solved the problem when they haven't, and I've since been accused of doing nothing to inform you, and now you are questioning my professional integrity... apparently because I'm not being nice?
My job description doesn't include making you feel happy. My job does include being honest and direct with you. If our positions were reversed, I'd MUCH rather have someone be honest and truthful rather than get some sanitized PR sanctioned "We're working on it" message. I'm curious - why do you think a "nice" response that doesn't say anything is better than something that tries to honestly answer questions, even if said answers aren't what you want to hear?
You need to stop trying to have it both ways - you can't be honest and direct and still please everyone at the same time. I expect people to be honest with me, even if I won't like what they have to say. It can be hard sometimes, but in the end, it always better than if someone tries to sugarcoat something.