Mac, I respect you dude, but I have to disagree.

WHat cost?  How much does it cost for Daniel to post once a month, "I'm lurking here, and won't always respond, but we support you guys."  In fact, that's all we're asking.

According to my high-salary, typing this post cost about 42 cents.  If FFG can't pay their guys 42 cents more, maybe we've got a bigger problem here. I mean, literally, what kind of cheapass company do they have to be?  My guess is they're not cheapasses, they choose to ignore their forum fans and only consider us to be money on the table.

jh

 Actually, Daniel answers me 95% of the times I ask him something related to the rules through the customer services thing, so probably there is indeed a policy of not participating in the forums.

Emirikol said:

I'm sorry, but that's rubbish. That is not at all what you are asking for. That would not at all satisfy those that are calling for more interaction on the forums. If that's all they got then they would demand more.

Proper, professional communication on the forums requires hiring someone to look through the threads to pick up on issues that they think should be addressed by staff. He needs to be familiar with the product and savvy enough to know what issues can be ignored and what ones should get a response. That person then needs to find out what the answer to any questions might be - he might be able to answer it himself, but odds are he'll need to discuss it with other staff members. Then he'll need to formulate a response - and not just the first thing that pops into his head. He needs to craft his post in such a way that it doesn't irritate or offend someone (you'd be surprised how easy it is to accidentally piss someone off). He then needs to track the forum response to what he's said and provide answers to follow-up questions.

Now multiply that across multiple threads and across multiple products. Remember we aren't just talking about WFRP here, they'd need to do it for all of their RPG lines at the very least and probably the other games as well (lest other fans get annoyed at the special treatment the RPGs are getting). And you need to do that everyday.

Some RPG companies go to the trouble of setting this up. Others (as mentioned) just wing it - they tell their staff to feel free to partake of the forums on their own time. Sometimes that works out fine, other times you get problems (again, see what happened at Redbrick). FFG don't want to spend the money to deal with it properly and don't want to risk letting their unskilled staff out into the forum wilderness. Personally I'm happy they aren't paying someone to do the job, as it means ever-so-slightly cheaper product for us. And I couldn't care less about their participation on the forums - I don't really see the value in it. The only information I want from the company is already provided - product descriptions and release dates.

Well, even if posting on the forums is not something they want to do, then publishing a long-term road map like they did at the start would be greatly appreciated. This could be vague, but it would at least show their customers that they are working on *something* in the wfrp line. Currently, they are about as forthcoming about their plans as a secret service.

Imagine Apple cultists would not be out-of-the-loop about the next Apple product (they usually are, it's part of the ritual), but would in fact not know if Apple was even producing new devices at all. For all they knew. Apple might have stopped making hardware.

I see the apocalyptic scene before me… mayhem, chaos, and confused the-end-is-near prophets outside the iHeadquarters!

Johannes_Tippmeister said:

macd21 is arguing that communications are costly. For Apple it's worth the cost and it has the money to spare; for FFG that's not the case. An annual road-map would not be a  bad idea though - let's face it, the lack of information from GenCon specifically for WFRP seems to have kicked this argument into gear (even though it was grinding along before).

I should say that while I think there should be more information forthcoming from FFG, it's worth noting that regular communication does not equate to quality or reliability. Mongoose is fairly active on its forums, but it produces mediocre material and abandons lines at the drop of a hat.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

There was information provided at GenCon, although probably not the information people were hoping for. A GenCon info summary, just to be clear:

"Here's a few more details about the forthcoming TEW3e. We have other WFRP projects in the pipeline, but our new policy prevents us from discussing future projects too far in advance [flashes PoD slide]."

Maybe when TEW launches they'll announce the next product, or maybe not. They know people desperately want a product announcement, so we can probably take their silence to mean there's nothing "imminent" after TEW.

RPG product line slows to a trickle after first few years - not a new phenomenon. Any non-core freelancers waiting for a call from FFG can probably start looking elsewhere.

Herr Arnulfe said:

My mistake: when I said "lack of information" I should have said "limited information".

Cheers

Sparrow

macd21 said: "I'm sorry, but that's rubbish. That is not at all what you are asking for. That would not at all satisfy those that are calling for more interaction on the forums. If that's all they got then they would demand more."

Hey Mac!!  Would you like to explain the dice ??  Am I to assume it is your stance that informing CUSTOMERS of when a product might be available again is "too expensive"?  You are wrong!      It IS all "we" are asking for! 

"Sorry guys,… we got caught off-guard. Dice have been ordered and should be here no later than ________. We will keep ya posted when we get a date from the manufacturer."    

That would just take soooo much labor, and time, and energy, and of course,.. money. I mean, FFG would have to pay a guy to stand next to a phone and he would have to be holding a penc*……… wait a sec,….  Don't they already have a bunch of people near a phone over at corporate? I bet they have pencils too,….  

Assuming you have to make lets say 2-3 replies to hot question on each forum, lets say once a month.  For FFG that equates to about 200 forums.  Multiply that by the 2-3 replies per month that comes to about 400-500 posts that would have to be made each month by FFG to satisfy a basic requirement like that.  Add to that the information that needs to be gathered by that person from the literly hundreds of product lines which you can presume no living person is familiar with all of them.  Yeah we are talking 2-3 full time employees if you really wanted to do it right and give accurate information.  I would say that would be a pretty considerable expense.

WFRPG 3.0 is not the only forum, its only one of about 200.  Each of these forums is requesting similiar "communication" and 2-3 replies is really a pretty low ball estimate as their are at least a dozen unanswered questions on these forums alone.

So while answering a simple question like "When can we expect more dice to be released?" would not require a whole lot of work and effort, answering 500 questions like that every month would.

 If support for WHFRP 3e is going to end with the release of TEW (and I' not saying it will), I'll be interested to see if they develop a 4e, and if that game will hew to the mechanics of the 40k line, or WHFRP 2e. Or if they'll let it linger with no new edition.

BigKahuna said:

BigKahuna said:

That's a really inefficient and expensive way of setting up a communication system in this context. You don't hire 2-3 communication staff to make 400-500 posts each month and chase information from other people. You have one person already involved with each game line make 2-3 replies a month or provide a single monthly update. Every two months would probably do, and fans would probably be happy for it to be quarterly if it had a reliably fixed date.

Cheers

Sparrow

henrysamwise said:

Actually I would like that FFG goes for a 4th edition of wfrpg after SW is released. A fourth edition much more like Sw is, with the dice mechanics but without action cards soketing talents or shit like this. If they keep supporting the 3rd edition we are going to end up with more cards than Magic the Gathering!

Quick question: did anyone actually contacted FFG to ask them nicely when will dices be available?

Just curious. I didn't since I don't play at a table and don't need dices, but it would be a reasonable question of those of you that need dices.

Thanks

Ceodryn

The bottom line is that there is no excuse for FFG to be devoid of a community manager or open communication in official forums. They need not answer every thread, but a "state of the union" - particularly as stewards of a beloved franchise - would reinvest customers who have many unanswered questions regarding the future of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

GrimAndPerilous.com said:

If its any consolation, I don't disagree with you that a community manager handling WFRPG would be great, but I don't think "thats the bottom line" in terms of what should be accepted or rejected by the community.  The reality is that FFG has over 150 active franchises and game communities for their products, WFRPG is no more beloved than Twilight Imperium, REX or any of the other 150 products they produce.  That said as well, the WFRPG community is EXTREMLY tiny.  There is all of 20-30 posting on these forums and on the first page of the forum the latest post is often 8-12 hours old.  This is not an active community and its not made up of as nearly as many people as you make it sound.  If they hired a community manager for WFRPG he would make up about 3-5% of the WHOLE community for WFRPG on these forums.  Thats how small it is. '

I think a bit of perspective is in order, WFRPG is not that popular.