Do you want a new community manager?

[mr burns 132]

Since placebo has left the building it´s become harder for us mortals to get direct help/info from BIS. Of course you could always write an email or something like that but the "placebo way" felt alot better as you could be sure that you´re not wasting anyones time with your nagging because it was his job to listen to our nagging

Do you think there still is a need for a community manager?

[deanosbeano 0]

was there ever an official goodbye and thanks from the spanels , or did placebo get shoved . Its all been a very quiet affair for a chap who spent so long here.

Anyway i think they should ask someone at idea games to do it and save the money for game2 , theres a few of the old devs working for idea games now they have a head start on most.

[JdB 151]

BIS can fill in this position if it needs filling just fine. I never saw the real advantage of the community manager, so imo it doesn't need to return. A troubleshooter more directly connected to BIS would be nice though.

[.kju 3244]

Its all about the focus.

Is there a need for a new/different (head) moderator on this

board? No.

This is a community to community board foremost and the

current mods do a fair job.

IDEA is said to be the company representing BI on the marketing

side of things.

For the potential customer side the way information is

concentrated on http://www.armedassault.com/ is some good

progress. Still much to do and to establish the site of course.

Summarize community content for the community? No.

Even though Placebo did a decent job here, the community does

a decent job itself here.

Represent BI on most visited gaming site - non exclusive or BI

product only? No.

Of course you can do ground support and you have to try to get

the feeling of the community, still this is nowhere efficient and useful.

a lot more ... 90% people have stopped reading anyway.

---

So is there need for a community manager in a long term

product with a possible large community - especially not just a

consumer community? Is this a question ... definitely!

It must be someone from the community itself.

Someone representing as many parts of the community as

possible.

A community manager must be an interface for communication

from the community to BI and the other way round.

The task is to track serious / the most important topics and

establish channels of communications in both ways.

The task is to be a visionary.

See the real topics in the mess.

Feel and bundle developments.

Understand the importance and be able to present all topics

accordingly towards BI and the community.

Work on results on short, mid and long term basis.

Get and want to be employed by BI - it could hardly be different.

a lot more ... 90% people have stopped reading anyway.

Sounds quite though. Can it be done?

id Software's Community Liaison "SyncError"

BI does the decision and so the focus.

[sickboy 13]

Simply WOW Q, props to you!... Altough I wanna see the numbers after 1.05, I still can agree with most!

[Balschoiw 0]

I voted yes.

Right now there is no real interface between BIS and the community.

With Placebo there was at times a tight cooperation possible concerning PR, copyright issues, clearance from BIs, etc

Right now there is noone tha can be adressed for those issues other than the Spanel brothers who certainly have different things to do than that.

Apart from that Placebo obviously did a good job spreading info to magazines and gaming platforms. At least I can confirm that he was very cooperative and informing to german magazines and never hesitated to answer complete sets of questions as far as he was allowed to.

Prior Placebo BIS simply did not have such interface and from what I´ve heard the guys at IDEA do obviously have problems selling ideas, concepts and promoting a product right.

That´s for the PR stuff at BIS as a company.

Now on to the forum. Just look around.

Of course this forum needs a new head-mod.

The spam-percentage has risen sharply, not only because

of the new users but also because none of the new mods actually is active enough to take the broom to some.

Oldtimer spammers have a revival and newtime spammers feel

invited to follow their example. Naming some this would be Sniperskull, blackdog, Luciano, etc.

Can you imagine them going unpunished with Placebo active ?

Hardly.

A community is also represented by it´s community platforms and so is the product.

This is no fanboy forum. It´s the official BIS forum and for that it looks lousy atm. Numerous spamfests, flaming, etc

I do of course know that the mods ar enot really to blame for all that, but some of them are really inactive. They only browse the topics of their own interests and are no0t very much online.

Of course there are some who are more active, but overall it´s just not enough as it seems.

So yes, from that point of view there has to be someone who gets paid for administering the whole deal here like Placebo did.

I don´t know if you remember how it was when OFP was released. I had a different account at the time but from what I remember it was very uncommunicative from BIs-side and most of the time people were just guessing about things. Hard facts were very rarely presented by BIS, the com-lines were not really good.

In my opinion Placebo did an excellent job there and I certainly don´t want to go back to those times. Since placebo left the level of BIS<->community communications has decreased alot again and I´m not sure if that is the right thing to have.

The more questions go unanswered the more useless topics and threads will be posted, that in the end will leave the people unsatisfied and create a bad atmosphere. Hoz does a very good job here, he keeps us updated and seems to be a spot-on mod with good connections to BIS. Raedor seems to be busy in promoting his own projects and testing stuff for BIS but is imo not really a fully operating mod. Franze is invisible on most sections of the forum, Rhodite seems to be pretty active and that is very much appreciated, Ex-Ronin is not really that active here anymore, Sniperwolf is active but on a decent level and finally there is shadow who still does a great job and seems to have the most experiance and dedication here.

Fubar and Ralph Wiggum are only to be seen for seasons greetings and therefore should be removed from the modlist imo.

I´m all for a new community manager.

PS: This is of course my own private opinion and in no way meant to step on some toes or blame some. It´s just my impressions.

[daithi 0]

I voted yes.

Simply because at this time of great change we need someone that we can direct our questions at.

Placebo wasn't just head mod here he was the PR Manager at BIS .. and thats the role that needs to be filled.

I don't know but Im assuming (never a good thing) but are the mods here just long time fans like the rest of us or do they have some inside track on whats going on at BIS (I doubt this)

What is badly missed is someone from BIS talking to us, even if its a "it'll be done when its done" response.

[JdB 151]

Placebo wasn't just head mod here he was the PR Manager at BIS .. and thats the role that needs to be filled.

I don't know but Im assuming (never a good thing) but are the mods here just long time fans like the rest of us or do they have some inside track on whats going on at BIS (I doubt this)

What is badly missed is someone from BIS talking to us, even if its a "it'll be done when its done" response.

Well, I doubt BIS will want to go on without a PR manager (no offense to Placebo, but I'd like to see someone who is actually qualified (educated) for this), though it seems more likely that all major PR activities will be done through IDEA in the future.

"Offers to its members a wide range of services, including legal, sales, marketing and PR services, contract negotiations, business plan creation, representation at industry conventions and fairs."

After all, why should they invest time and money into it, and not use it...

As several mods have said: they have no affiliation with BIS what so ever (any true fan knows that this is a lie, to cover up for the fact that they have beta's of all the hot new stuff ).

I can give you that too, as that was 90% of the times the answer that Placebo gave to people asking nasty questions, and free of charge even

[blackdog~ 0]

Naming some this would be Sniperskull, blackdog, Luciano, etc.

Can you imagine them going unpunished with Placebo active ?

I'm honored.

I think that some of you guys are confusing the role of a community manager and an advertising firm. Placebo was an excellent public relations manager to the OFP community. I think that his role should be filled once again for official BIS staff to forum member communications as well as for communications to news sites and such about upcoming patches etc. It is up to the publisher to advertise the game.

[mr burns 132]

establish channels of communications in both ways.

With Placebo there was at times a tight cooperation possible concerning PR, copyright issues, clearance from BIs, etc

I think that his role should be filled once again for official BIS staff to forum member communications as well as for communications to news sites and such about upcoming patches etc. It is up to the publisher to advertise the game.

Exactly those are the points, as of now there´s just a big gap between community and BI it seems ..

Nice to know that i´m not the only one who misses a direct link.

I can give you that too, as that was 90% of the times the answer that Placebo gave to people asking nasty questions, and free of charge even

Placebo did more than that.

His infos were often tagged 'unconfirmed', ok. But still very helpful for certain people, especially the ones from the news pages me thinks.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Yep, we at ArmedAssault.eu have had a very nice relationsship with Paul (Placebo), but numerious tries to get just SOME informationflow/partnership/whatever with either BI or Idea has gone down the drain.

It's always a yes/no/we get back to you answer or a simple "we don't know" we get.

Oh wait - we did recieve one message from them... Links to their sprocket download site so they could earn their money  

[mr burns 132]

Hm, we over at ArmA.de & ArmA.net have´nt set our goals as high as you it seems .. but at least i was satisfied.

I´m not going through the log right now but from the top of my head paul has helped us numerous times with details on unclear news, links to upcoming patches (& demo) for mirroring, trying to resolve troubles with the german publisher and generally he´s been always there for every kind of question.

Now he´s gone and all the questions go unanswered and the news job has become tougher.

All the beneficial aspects of a relationship like this have vanished now for both sides (BI & the mortals).

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Hm, we over at ArmA.de & ArmA.net have´nt set our goals as high as you it seems .. but at least i was satisfied.

I´m not going through the log right now but from the top of my head paul has helped us numerous times with details on unclear news, links to upcoming patches (& demo) for mirroring, trying to resolve troubles with the german publisher and generally he´s been always there for  every kind of question.

Now he´s gone and all the questions go unanswered and the news job has become tougher.

All the beneficial aspects of a relationship like this have vanished now for both sides (BI & the mortals).

Exactly, sorry if I didn't make myself perfectly clear. We were very happy when Paul was around - always easy to 'bug' him on skype or msn

Now, there is noone to contact (or who will reply with a deent answer)

[sickboy 13]

Exactly, sorry if I didn't make myself perfectly clear. We were very happy when Paul was around - always easy to 'bug' him on skype or msn

Now, there is noone to contact (or who will reply with a deent answer)

Isn't Shadow, Raedor and franze aka the moderators available for questioning aswell etc? I always received good care from Reador! (Never tried the rest apart from Placebo ;p)

[Balschoiw 0]

They are all users as we are and do not have insight to BIS production process nor indepth knowledge on how things exactly work as they are not part of the developing team.

[Messiah 2]

are you 100% positive that they have no insight as to how the game is being developed and bugs that are being fixed? I'd beg to differ.

[Balschoiw 0]

I guess some of them have access to beta-stuff like the 1.05 patch , but they are bound not to release info on such in public by BIS policy. So they may know, but they can´t tell. That´s why there is a need for a spokesman for BIS again.

[Messiah 2]

true, true

[jasono 0]

Voted Yes.

Reason:

The current person updating us etc is the BI developer staff. It will save them a job and let them spend more time on the game. Think of all the e-mails they receive? They will want to answer them but they will be taking good developing time.

A community Manager was the guy there for the community, and I miss what placebo did. How often do you see the devlopers come on and answer your questions on the forum? Well not when I've visited here. A community manager was inside the community talking to us and answering questions.

I want a community manager

[Ironsight 1]

Yes, an interface is needed between BIS and the community. Someone inside BIS you can contact with issues regarding their products, website etc. A community manager is also a great marketing tool (remember the "Mission Making Contest").

Having a central person to contact is handy if there are issues on the forum or in the community as a whole (addon theft etc.).

We need a new Placebo.

[shadow 6]

Like Bals said, if the moderators knew anything about Arma you didnt, we wouldnt be allowed to talk about it.

Lets leave it at that

Feel free to continue discussing your need for a community liason though.

[Journeyman 0]

Placebo would be a difficult man to replace. It needs someone who's been known here a long time and familiar with both the ArmA/OFP community and BIS as a developer.

So I vote for Shadow if he wants the job!    

[Shadow NX 1]

They are all users as we are and do not have insight to BIS production process nor indepth knowledge on how things exactly work as they are not part of the developing team.

I may be wrong but afaik Reador is on the BIS paylist since a while now so he should have enough insight.

[M4XSs 0]

Since placebo left I started to worry about this forum.

We really need a new community manager, so I support this!

[Raptor 10]

Yes, reasons are listed in the theard.

typical burns theard.