Let me know if you think something like this would be valuable for D&Di and if so, what changes you'd like to see. These status reports received mixed reviews from the Magic Online community, so it's hard to say how valuable they were.
Show
Gamer_Zer0 6/7/2007
State of the V3 Beta – June Edition
Hello and Happy June!
I've been reading a lot of feedback from the community regarding the progress being made on Magic the Gathering Version 3.0. Some have been impressed with the progress we've been making, while others have expressed concerns. Overall, I am getting the sense that most people just don't feel like they have enough information to evaluate the progress that is being made.
I spoke to the Magic Online brand manager, Worth Wollpert, and producer, Gordon Gulp, and told them of my concerns and asked them if there was anyway we could provide some form of "milestones" that the community could use to track our progress. We're confident enough of our direction, as a company and as a development team, that telling the community "Just trust us" isn't the kind of message we want to send. With this in mind, the three of us start thinking about how we could let the community have information that would allow them to see our results and decide for themselves how much confidence they have in us based on our results going forward.
What we came up with was the idea of a monthly State of the V3 beta announcement. Sometime during the first week of each month, I will post a blog letting the community know some of the major milestones the Magic Online development team is focused on that month, and the current development status of those milestones. This way, the community should be able to track our month to month progress and come to an informed opinion of how they think we're doing.
There are four categories of development status that we'll use for the state of the beta updates:
In Progress – The developers are currently working on the deliverable.
Dev Complete – The developers have completed the work and it's ready for QA to test.
QA Complete – All known bugs and issues have been resolved and the milestone has passed QA.
Final Approval – Everyone in the approval process, from brand to legal and all in between, has signed off that the deliverable is ready to ship.
As development on V3 continues, I'll list some of the milestones each month and update their status. Each month, I'll add more deliverables until V3 is launched. Post launch, I'll try to continue the updates for a couple more months, especially if we end up launching without some of the things we really want to have as soon as we can, post launch.
June V3 Status Update
There are five things that we consider absolutely essential before we could ever consider launching V3. This doesn't mean that we think it would be okay to launch with just these deliverables in place, but it means that they are of such critical importance that we can't even begin to debate what needs to be available for launch unless these milestones are in place.
They are:
ECOM – This is the commerce side of Magic Online version 3 that allows the purchasing of cards and tickets for play.
NACS – New Account Creation System. V3 can't go live unless there's a way for customers to create new accounts.
Drafts – The drafting system is of such core importance to Magic Online that the system needs to be in place.
CSR – Critical System Recovery. This is the behind-the-scenes support that allows for quick and automatic recovery in the event of catastrophic failure in one or more areas.
MR – Maintenance Recovery. This includes the tools and support that allows the system to be taken down and brought back up for maintenance.
The 5 above systems are part of the Stage I milestones for MO V3. When all of those are at Final Approval stage, we can say that Stage I is finished.
I want to caution everyone to keep in mind that this in *no way* means that these are the only things we're working on. The team is working on more tasks then there are lines in this blog. But these are the 5 most prominent delivery milestones that need to be done and should be good candidates for updates that the community can use to track our progress.
Current Status:
ECOM – Dev Complete.
NACS – Dev Complete
Drafts – Dev Complete
CSR – In Progress
MR – In Progress
The above status means that ECOM, NACS, and Drafts are currently out of development and in QA for testing (which many members of the community are helping with). CSR and MR are in progress, meaning they are still in development and haven't been passed off to QA for testing yet.
On or around the first week of July (since the 4th of July falls right in the middle), I'll post another State of the V3 update and will list the current status of the 5 deliverable milestones listed above. I also might be able to add on some more milestones depending on where we stand. Based on the updated status for the month of July, the community should be able to make their own determination on how confident they are with the progress we're making.
As always, thanks for the taking the time to read this blog!
Mike Lescault
Online Communities Manager
Wizards of the Coast
Gamer_Zer0 6/7/2007
State of the V3 Beta – June Edition
Hello and Happy June!
I've been reading a lot of feedback from the community regarding the progress being made on Magic the Gathering Version 3.0. Some have been impressed with the progress we've been making, while others have expressed concerns. Overall, I am getting the sense that most people just don't feel like they have enough information to evaluate the progress that is being made.
I spoke to the Magic Online brand manager, Worth Wollpert, and producer, Gordon Gulp, and told them of my concerns and asked them if there was anyway we could provide some form of "milestones" that the community could use to track our progress. We're confident enough of our direction, as a company and as a development team, that telling the community "Just trust us" isn't the kind of message we want to send. With this in mind, the three of us start thinking about how we could let the community have information that would allow them to see our results and decide for themselves how much confidence they have in us based on our results going forward.
What we came up with was the idea of a monthly State of the V3 beta announcement. Sometime during the first week of each month, I will post a blog letting the community know some of the major milestones the Magic Online development team is focused on that month, and the current development status of those milestones. This way, the community should be able to track our month to month progress and come to an informed opinion of how they think we're doing.
There are four categories of development status that we'll use for the state of the beta updates:
In Progress – The developers are currently working on the deliverable.
Dev Complete – The developers have completed the work and it's ready for QA to test.
QA Complete – All known bugs and issues have been resolved and the milestone has passed QA.
Final Approval – Everyone in the approval process, from brand to legal and all in between, has signed off that the deliverable is ready to ship.
As development on V3 continues, I'll list some of the milestones each month and update their status. Each month, I'll add more deliverables until V3 is launched. Post launch, I'll try to continue the updates for a couple more months, especially if we end up launching without some of the things we really want to have as soon as we can, post launch.
June V3 Status Update
There are five things that we consider absolutely essential before we could ever consider launching V3. This doesn't mean that we think it would be okay to launch with just these deliverables in place, but it means that they are of such critical importance that we can't even begin to debate what needs to be available for launch unless these milestones are in place.
They are:
ECOM – This is the commerce side of Magic Online version 3 that allows the purchasing of cards and tickets for play.
NACS – New Account Creation System. V3 can't go live unless there's a way for customers to create new accounts.
Drafts – The drafting system is of such core importance to Magic Online that the system needs to be in place.
CSR – Critical System Recovery. This is the behind-the-scenes support that allows for quick and automatic recovery in the event of catastrophic failure in one or more areas.
MR – Maintenance Recovery. This includes the tools and support that allows the system to be taken down and brought back up for maintenance.
The 5 above systems are part of the Stage I milestones for MO V3. When all of those are at Final Approval stage, we can say that Stage I is finished.
I want to caution everyone to keep in mind that this in *no way* means that these are the only things we're working on. The team is working on more tasks then there are lines in this blog. But these are the 5 most prominent delivery milestones that need to be done and should be good candidates for updates that the community can use to track our progress.
Current Status:
ECOM – Dev Complete.
NACS – Dev Complete
Drafts – Dev Complete
CSR – In Progress
MR – In Progress
The above status means that ECOM, NACS, and Drafts are currently out of development and in QA for testing (which many members of the community are helping with). CSR and MR are in progress, meaning they are still in development and haven't been passed off to QA for testing yet.
On or around the first week of July (since the 4th of July falls right in the middle), I'll post another State of the V3 update and will list the current status of the 5 deliverable milestones listed above. I also might be able to add on some more milestones depending on where we stand. Based on the updated status for the month of July, the community should be able to make their own determination on how confident they are with the progress we're making.
As always, thanks for the taking the time to read this blog!
Mike Lescault
Online Communities Manager
Wizards of the Coast
Show
Gamer_Zer0 7/10/2007
State of the V3 Beta – July Edition
Hello and Happy July!
The last several weeks have been a crazy time here at Wizards of the Coast. We've been extremely busy on a lot of fronts, the least of which being the Gleemax announcement and the launch of the Gleemax promotional site. Additionally, I also started my weekly audio podcast, Gamer Radio Zer0, which you can check out here. All of this was going on while the V3 beta has been down for some heavy internal work. But after taking a short break last week to enjoy some BBQ cooking and plenty of fireworks, we're all back at grindstone.
This brings me to the July edition of the State of the V3 Beta. For those of you who missed last month's blog, I'll do a quick recap over the idea behind the State of the V3 Beta updates. With the beta coming down to allow for some major changes and improvements, I was concerned that many in the community might lose some faith in the future of V3 without having any method to measure any development progress. The idea was to post a monthly status update to show people what, if anything, has changed since the previous month, so the community can decide for themselves how they feel about our level of progress.
Here's a quick recap of the categories of development progress:
In Progress – The developers are currently working on the deliverable.
Dev Complete – The developers have completed the work and it's ready for QA to test.
QA Complete – All known bugs and issues have been resolved and the milestone has passed QA.
Final Approval – Everyone in the approval process, from brand to legal and all in between, has signed off that the deliverable is ready to ship.
As development on V3 continues, I'll list some of the milestones each month and update their status. Each month, I'll add more deliverables until V3 is launched. Post launch, I'll try to continue the updates for a couple more months, especially if we end up launching without some of the things we really want to have as soon as we can, post launch.
Below are the 5 areas listed last month:
ECOM – This is the commerce side of Magic Online version 3 that allows the purchasing of cards and tickets for play.
NACS – New Account Creation System. V3 can't go live unless there's a way for customers to create new accounts.
Drafts – The drafting system is of such core importance to Magic Online that the system needs to be in place.
CSR – Critical System Recovery. This is the behind-the-scenes support that allows for quick and automatic recovery in the event of catastrophic failure in one or more areas.
MR – Maintenance Recovery. This includes the tools and support that allows the system to be taken down and brought back up for maintenance.
Here are the additional areas I am adding this month:
Tut– Tutorial. The V3 Tutorial shows new players how to play Magic Online.
PE – Premier Events. This system supports the establishment and operation of Premier Events.
LG – Leagues. This system supports the establishment and operation of leagues.
FS – Free Server. This is the free server that allows players to try out Magic Online for free.
July V3 Status Update
ECOM – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
NACS – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
Drafts – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
CSR – In Progress (No Change from June)
MR – In Progress (No Change from June)
Tut – QA Complete (New)
PE – In Progress (New)
LG – In Progress (New)
FS - Dev Complete (New)
So from last month we've seen no status change in any of the initial five areas. It's important to keep in mind that the lack of status change doesn't mean there hasn't been any progress made. It just means that there hasn't been enough progress for it to move over to the next stage.
We've also added four additional areas for us to track. The tutorial and free server are already pretty far down the road where Premier Events and Leagues are still in development. I'll try to make the next update post sometime in the first two weeks of August and we can see where we stand on the status of the above areas.
Additional Points of Note
New Community Liaison
I'm happy to say that we've hired a new Community Liaison. She's going to be starting on Monday July 16th and we expect her to hit the ground running. She's going to be focused on the social networking side of things, which will also include community events, contests, and other initiatives. We'll give her a proper announcement when she gets into the office next week.
10th Edition Beta
We're now accepting 10th edition beta applications which you may submit here. We will continue accepting applications until Friday July 13th. We expect to open the beta sometime next week, possibly Tuesday July 17th. Everyone who has been selected for the beta will be notified by Tuesday.
That's all for now. Worth is currently working on a blog post that will go up either later this week or sometime next week. We also have a follow up blog from Tonja where she picks up where she left off in her previous one.
Thanks for reading!
Mike Lescault
Online Communities Manager
Wizards of the Coast
Gamer_Zer0 7/10/2007
State of the V3 Beta – July Edition
Hello and Happy July!
The last several weeks have been a crazy time here at Wizards of the Coast. We've been extremely busy on a lot of fronts, the least of which being the Gleemax announcement and the launch of the Gleemax promotional site. Additionally, I also started my weekly audio podcast, Gamer Radio Zer0, which you can check out here. All of this was going on while the V3 beta has been down for some heavy internal work. But after taking a short break last week to enjoy some BBQ cooking and plenty of fireworks, we're all back at grindstone.
This brings me to the July edition of the State of the V3 Beta. For those of you who missed last month's blog, I'll do a quick recap over the idea behind the State of the V3 Beta updates. With the beta coming down to allow for some major changes and improvements, I was concerned that many in the community might lose some faith in the future of V3 without having any method to measure any development progress. The idea was to post a monthly status update to show people what, if anything, has changed since the previous month, so the community can decide for themselves how they feel about our level of progress.
Here's a quick recap of the categories of development progress:
In Progress – The developers are currently working on the deliverable.
Dev Complete – The developers have completed the work and it's ready for QA to test.
QA Complete – All known bugs and issues have been resolved and the milestone has passed QA.
Final Approval – Everyone in the approval process, from brand to legal and all in between, has signed off that the deliverable is ready to ship.
As development on V3 continues, I'll list some of the milestones each month and update their status. Each month, I'll add more deliverables until V3 is launched. Post launch, I'll try to continue the updates for a couple more months, especially if we end up launching without some of the things we really want to have as soon as we can, post launch.
Below are the 5 areas listed last month:
ECOM – This is the commerce side of Magic Online version 3 that allows the purchasing of cards and tickets for play.
NACS – New Account Creation System. V3 can't go live unless there's a way for customers to create new accounts.
Drafts – The drafting system is of such core importance to Magic Online that the system needs to be in place.
CSR – Critical System Recovery. This is the behind-the-scenes support that allows for quick and automatic recovery in the event of catastrophic failure in one or more areas.
MR – Maintenance Recovery. This includes the tools and support that allows the system to be taken down and brought back up for maintenance.
Here are the additional areas I am adding this month:
Tut– Tutorial. The V3 Tutorial shows new players how to play Magic Online.
PE – Premier Events. This system supports the establishment and operation of Premier Events.
LG – Leagues. This system supports the establishment and operation of leagues.
FS – Free Server. This is the free server that allows players to try out Magic Online for free.
July V3 Status Update
ECOM – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
NACS – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
Drafts – Dev Complete (No Change from June)
CSR – In Progress (No Change from June)
MR – In Progress (No Change from June)
Tut – QA Complete (New)
PE – In Progress (New)
LG – In Progress (New)
FS - Dev Complete (New)
So from last month we've seen no status change in any of the initial five areas. It's important to keep in mind that the lack of status change doesn't mean there hasn't been any progress made. It just means that there hasn't been enough progress for it to move over to the next stage.
We've also added four additional areas for us to track. The tutorial and free server are already pretty far down the road where Premier Events and Leagues are still in development. I'll try to make the next update post sometime in the first two weeks of August and we can see where we stand on the status of the above areas.
Additional Points of Note
New Community Liaison
I'm happy to say that we've hired a new Community Liaison. She's going to be starting on Monday July 16th and we expect her to hit the ground running. She's going to be focused on the social networking side of things, which will also include community events, contests, and other initiatives. We'll give her a proper announcement when she gets into the office next week.
10th Edition Beta
We're now accepting 10th edition beta applications which you may submit here. We will continue accepting applications until Friday July 13th. We expect to open the beta sometime next week, possibly Tuesday July 17th. Everyone who has been selected for the beta will be notified by Tuesday.
That's all for now. Worth is currently working on a blog post that will go up either later this week or sometime next week. We also have a follow up blog from Tonja where she picks up where she left off in her previous one.
Thanks for reading!
Mike Lescault
Online Communities Manager
Wizards of the Coast
Dang it, GZ! I was ready to bail and you're pulling me back in with cautious optimism!
Well, that and a bunch of other things, not to exclude getting our grubby little ink smearing paws on DDi. ;-p
YES this will help... some. Please continue down this line GZ.
Show
tell them you will have it done way latter than it will actually take and then when you get it done ahead of time you will look like a man of great and mystical powers
I think these will be incredibly helpful for the community to understand what is going on, but more importantly to give us all a vague idea of when we'll see more DDi. I know giving release dates is anathema to developers and producers alike, but with this we can all make our own determination as to whether we are looking at days, weeks, or months to release of a component we are personally looking forward to getting in our hands.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
Does WoTC u nderstand they're turning people away everyday that goes by without some real proof of productivity on DDi? When Super Duper Helper Robot comes out, but half his programming isn't released for an extended amount of time; do you really think people will by him, knowing they won't get what they were told they'd have?
This is exactly the kind of progress report that would be handy to have. I used to make something similar for tracking project completion in the Navy. Mine was a little more insider jargon (obviously) but the basic concept was there - Yes, I am doing work; Yes, it is getting done; and Yes, I do have a plan in place to make sure I'm not just blowing smoke.
Please do something like this for us. It sure beats "We'll have an update next week" and then a month passes and nothing has happened. I'm sure something has happened, but what we see is zero progress. This would at least show that progress is occuring.
Let me know if you think something like this would be valuable for D&Di and if so, what changes you'd like to see. These status reports received mixed reviews from the Magic Online community, so it's hard to say how valuable they were.
I believe the reason you received mixed reviews is because of how your definitions were set up. The "five essential things" did not show any change in progress for several months! As someone who dabbles in programming, I understand that debugging takes many times longer to accomplish than writing the program in the first place. However, "Dev Complete" does not show all that hard work QA went into testing this thing. To me, "Dev Complete" implies it's sitting on the desk of the developers, gathering dust!
In conclusion, yes it would be helpful to see what you guys are working on, but you should also vividly explain what occurs in the areas that "don't appear to be progressing". And unfortunately, many people will still fume between the reports (30 days is a long time to wait).
ANY information is better then NO information. I dont know how many posters have to repeat that. We dont know if the basics are still being worked on or if its just minor bugs. For all we know the devs could have scrapped everything and are starting from scratch.
I have to agree with Arlen on his view of the magic forum and why it was not well received though I have not read that forum and am just going off your examples you ahve given.The listed stages are basically 'in developement', 'testing' ,'approved'. The example updates you showed had 3 months of no changes. Its confusing when you say that the devs have been really busy and hard at work yet nothing changes for months.
We dont need every detail or have to have daily progress reports. But some indication of what is the current developement priority will tell much about how far along the developement is, and I am begining to think that that is why we arent being told anything.
Honestly, GZ, you had us working on the "ways to improve communication" thread, nd this was mentioned several times. After that, you said you would be taking the suggestions made up and try and get the okay on those. But now, you come and ask "would you guys like something like this?" This doesn't make sense unless the several outcries for this weren't heeded before, as we were told they were.
Or he was so flabbergasted by all this hubbub that he can't think straight. (or maybe he's slow on the uptake, we'll never know! :D)
Behold, the timeline of events regarding communication. Gathering them all into one thread felt like work!
Show
7/08/08 (Ken Troop)
7/08/08 Shortly After (Communication Ideas)
7/10/08 (Communication Ideas)
*insert VCL stuff here*
7/17/08 (Ken Troop)
7/17/08 Shortly after (Community Report)
7/22/08 (Community Report)
7/23/08 (Community Report)
7/23/08 Shortly after (Example Reports)
Thanks for the replies. I am going to start a thread soliciting feedback and suggestions on ways you think we can do a better job of communicating. As I know you already know, there's a lot of things we can't answer quite yet, for a variety of reasons, but it's a priority for us to make sure people understand that we are listening to the community and taking feedback seriously.
7/08/08 Shortly After (Communication Ideas)
Some community members in another thread suggested we could take some additional steps to make community members feel that their feedback and suggestions are being heard and understood, even if we aren't necessarily able to make changes.
I've started this thread so people can let us know what method of communication they prefer best. I cannot promise that we'll be able to implement all of the suggestions, but I will definitely sit down with the team and review them all to see what we can do.
7/10/08 (Communication Ideas)
Thanks for the feedback. I've been reading all the comments and suggestions and will be working with the team to see what we can do to make some or all of them happen.
*insert VCL stuff here*
7/17/08 (Ken Troop)
I'll make a new thread about the community report trying to explain what I do and why I think (hope) it helps.
7/17/08 Shortly after (Community Report)
Some members of the community have been asking about how often people like Ken Troop and others read the forums. A specific concern was raised because Ken hasn't been logged into the forums for a couple of weeks according to his last log in date. This seemed like a good opportunity to talk about the weekly D&Di Community Report I compile to help keep everyone in the organization informed on what's happening in the community.
7/22/08 (Community Report)
Yeah, it was just a one time thing. Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to members of the community doing their *own* version of that report each week that they post here. I would be pleased as punch to pass that along with mine, which would seem to give us the best of both worlds.
7/23/08 (Community Report)
What it seems like you really want is a progress status report. I did one for Magic Online when I was handling the CM duties for that, and I am not sure how helpful the community really found it in the end. I can dig up links to it if you all want and you can tell me if something like that would be of value.
7/23/08 Shortly after (Example Reports)
Here are the reports I did for Magic Online during the development of V3. I started doing these to try and show the monthly development progress.
Honestly, GZ, you had us working on the "ways to improve communication" thread, nd this was mentioned several times. After that, you said you would be taking the suggestions made up and try and get the okay on those. But now, you come and ask "would you guys like something like this?"
Hi. It might be the lack of coffee this morning, but I am not sure I understand your point. Are you unhappy about how we came to these suggestions? Is it because I used examples of something I did in the past and asked if that would help?
7/08/08 (Ken Troop)Thanks for the replies. I am going to start a thread soliciting feedback and suggestions on ways you think we can do a better job of communicating. As I know you already know, there's a lot of things we can't answer quite yet, for a variety of reasons, but it's a priority for us to make sure people understand that we are listening to the community and taking feedback seriously.
7/08/08 Shortly After (Communication Ideas)Some community members in another thread suggested we could take some additional steps to make community members feel that their feedback and suggestions are being heard and understood, even if we aren't necessarily able to make changes.
I've started this thread so people can let us know what method of communication they prefer best. I cannot promise that we'll be able to implement all of the suggestions, but I will definitely sit down with the team and review them all to see what we can do.
7/10/08 (Communication Ideas)Thanks for the feedback. I've been reading all the comments and suggestions and will be working with the team to see what we can do to make some or all of them happen.
*insert VCL stuff here*
7/17/08 (Ken Troop)I'll make a new thread about the community report trying to explain what I do and why I think (hope) it helps.
7/17/08 Shortly after (Community Report)Some members of the community have been asking about how often people like Ken Troop and others read the forums. A specific concern was raised because Ken hasn't been logged into the forums for a couple of weeks according to his last log in date. This seemed like a good opportunity to talk about the weekly D&Di Community Report I compile to help keep everyone in the organization informed on what's happening in the community.
7/22/08 (Community Report)Yeah, it was just a one time thing. Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to members of the community doing their *own* version of that report each week that they post here. I would be pleased as punch to pass that along with mine, which would seem to give us the best of both worlds.
7/23/08 (Community Report)What it seems like you really want is a progress status report. I did one for Magic Online when I was handling the CM duties for that, and I am not sure how helpful the community really found it in the end. I can dig up links to it if you all want and you can tell me if something like that would be of value.
7/23/08 Shortly after (Example Reports)Here are the reports I did for Magic Online during the development of V3. I started doing these to try and show the monthly development progress.
Hi. It might be the lack of coffee this morning, but I am not sure I understand your point. Are you unhappy about how we came to these suggestions? Is it because I used examples of something I did in the past and asked if that would help?
I'll answer this one concisely.
Epoch&others: Hey GZ/Mike, will you tell us exactly how D&Di is progressing?
*one week later*
Epoch&others: Hey GZ/Mike, will you tell us exactly how D&Di is progressing?
*repeat as above until several weeks later*
Gamer_Zer0: "What it seems like you really want is a progress status report."
Epoch&others: WELL DUH!
---
The problem supposedly is that, despite several people asking for a progress status report in the threads you claimed to be reading for feedback, it took you this long to figure it out what was being asked for. (Or at least, that's what I believe the problem to be.)
GZ & Team: Okay, you guys are upset. We're sorry what can we do?
Community: We want lower prices, we want a developer blog/report, we want DDi, we want to know this isn't vaporware, etc.
GZ & Team: Okay, you guys are upset. We're sorry what can we do? You're feedback counts, and we're trying to implement it. (This continues for a few weeks)
Finally, GZ: So, would you guys like a status report?
........
There are a lot of things we can try to do to keep the community informed. I have about a thousand different ideas of little initiatives we can take. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of resources at my disposal so I have to try and do what I can with bubble gum, duck tape, and bailing wire.
For example, the GRZ video casts are something I've had to do without any real support. I'd set up the camera myself, hit record, run in front of it and sit down, do my interview, then capture, edit, and post the video all myself. In fact, one time during the weeks before the 4E launch, I interviewed Chris Perkins who showed up despite having two additional meetings scheduled for that time (meaning he was triple booked), only to have the film turn out to be unusable. Chris was nice enough to try again the following week and we managed to get it done.
The interview you see with Ken Troop was done at D&D Game Day where Adam volunteered to pitch in as a camera man to help do the filming (when he wasn't DMing of course).
The same is true with project status reports, developer blogs, interviews, product demos, FAQs, Q&As, videos, chats, etc. The entire D&D and D&Di teams are awesome in their willingness to come on camera or answer questions or anything else that helps the community, but I am the one person who has to chase it down and make it all happen.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I really need to try and pick and choose the things that will give us the most bang for our buck. When possible, I want to do the things that the community itself thinks will be of value, since I think those efforts are more likely to be successful if it's something the community has been asking for.
In the case of the time line listed above, here is how I looked at:
- People are frustrated that all the D&Di tools aren't available and asking for more information. The community ultimately wants the applications, but that's not something I'm able to give them. Short of that, I ask what communication methods they would like to see, understanding that there are a lot of things we can't answer.
- Posts are made asking where Ken Troop is and why he hadn't logged in for several days. People ask if this is an indication that no one is paying attention to their feedback. I post a copy of my weekly internal community report to show folks that their feedback is definitely being taken seriously.
- Several people say that they want to see that report every week, but that it's missing the information they want to see most, which is the status of D&Di applications. I explain that it sounds like they are really requesting a progress report and that the internal community report was something entirely different.
- I post examples of the progress reports I made for Magic Online V3 asking people if this is the type of thing they thought would be helpful. To be fair, the Magic Online community, at least the most vocal folks, were extremely critical about the fact that I was doing the reports. Most of the discussion and debate was arguments over whether or not the reports were posted within the time frame I promised them, or if they were a day or more late.
Those project status reports took a significant amount of time to do every month. If the D&Di community is really interested in something similar, I am willing to spend time trying to do them.(which of course comes at the expense of other things I could be doing) I just want to make sure everyone is in agreement that this is what they want me to spend my time on, even if those status updates don't always give people the news they want to hear.
Hi. It might be the lack of coffee this morning, but I am not sure I understand your point. Are you unhappy about how we came to these suggestions? Is it because I used examples of something I did in the past and asked if that would help?
Not to answer for another however, I have seen many requests for progress update reports. It likely appears to those that were asking for progress reports to see you ask them if they thought it might be a good idea a little dated. That is to say this request has been made more then once in many ways of please tell us how close is WotC.
Show
G0 has asked for us to post promises we feel he has broken to this thread. Fine, here we go.
1. Withe regards to the "State of V3 beta blog" (Magic Online):
June: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline/IIIlaunchblog0607#20070607
Let me point out this quote, which is in the blog you listed above:On or around the first week of July (since the 4th of July falls right in the middle), I'll post another State of the V3 update and will list the current status of the 5 deliverable milestones listed above. I also might be able to add on some more milestones depending on where we stand. Based on the updated status for the month of July, the community should be able to make their own determination on how confident they are with the progress we're making.
I clearly said, in the original blog which you quote "on or around the first week of July."July: Post not in the first week of the month, as it was posted on the 10th (which is 3 days more than a week into July.)
Which was exactly as I predicted, due to the 4th of July holiday falling in the middle of the first week.August: G0 realized he can't keep the promise of "first week", so he changes it to "During the first or second week of each month". Posted on the 9th.
Here is the July Blog post:I'll try to make the next update post sometime in the first two weeks of August and we can see where we stand on the status of the above areas.
To recap:
June Update: I say "On or around the first week in July"
July Update: I say "Sometime in the first two weeks of August"
From the August Update:During the first or second week of each month, I'll post a status update of V3 that will provide an high level view of where the project stands.
Reiterating the first or second week, which I'd been consistently saying all along.September: On time according to the new metric, on the 13th.
The original metric, I would argue. But certainly within the first two weeks.October: One day late according to the new metric (posted on the 15th).
Technically you could ding me on this one. I had submitted it on Wednesday the 10th, but it would have been posted on Thursday the same day as Worth's blog calling people for beta. So I was asked if it was okay for it to go up on Friday. Unfortunately, due to other non-Magic Online drama going on, the web team lost the request in the shuffle on Friday, and it went up Monday.
Here's a quote from the email on the subject:Is it okay if I wait until tomorrow on this one? The current blog entry is about tonight's beta, and it seems like a good idea to leave that on the front page as long as possible.
So yes, it certainly came in on the 15th, but not because myself or anyone else lied. It seemed more important to wait a day and post it on Friday, than to bump off the call for beta load testing before the Thursday evening load test.November: Posted as a part of another WotC's post, on time (13th).December: Never posted.
December wasn't posted because we started the Magic Online III countdown timer, which replaced the monthly status update with essentially a daily countdown. The two weeks prior to the countdown timer being launched were really busy as we made sure all our ducks were in a row and we had all the information we'd need for when we started the timer.January: Never posted. We finally find out why when G0 explains, later than the 2 weeks alotted in January, "The Magic Online III countdown is a more refined (in theory anyways) version of the V3 Monthly Project Status update. So I won't be posting any more project status updates." ([post=14869565]January 19[/post])
If you read any of the status updates I made, you should be able to see that the goal of the updates was to provide people with information to let them determine their level of confidence with the progress being made towards V3 launch. I can't imagine why anyone would be expecting a monthly update when they are getting daily info on the status from a timer. But maybe that was my bad.
I can definitely empathize with you having less than a shoestring budget and no support. I can't necessarily sympathize, though. I've been there before, both professionally and personally. Heck, I'm there now. To reiterate what I said in another post: no matter what your job title or description is, your number one priority in any field is problem solving. So, like I said, I've been tehre and I can understand. I've also been there and gotten it done. I'm not saying you're not trying, but consider this...what, between this week and the week following DDi's failure to launch has been done? Honestly. Not what's been done with the coding and all that, we can get to that in another thread. But, what, exactly, have you and your team done to maintain good will within the community and communications? I'm not trying to be insulting, but I've said before, we really haven't seen much. And, I asked you before about being able to be your own cheerleader and say "Yay! We accomplished this!" But, you haven't taken that opportunity, which could lead one to believe that there is nothing to shout for joy over, or that you don't see a need to explain yourself to the community. While neither of them is necessarily good, at least the second makes sense as it isn't our name at the bottom of your paycheck. I'm leaning toward a third option that you're just really busy.
But, when I've got so much negative going on, and what led to most of it was believe a company when it said it had something in the works, the last thing I'd want to stand by in your position is: "Guys, I can't tell you much, but you gotta believe we've got some awesome stuff on the way!" Okay, but give us something in the mean time, misdirect, if you need to.
Another interesting thing about your community report is, while it shows your sending information up, it doesn't really show that our comments, suggestions, and concerns are being taken seriously, and I can use this progress report as a perfect example. People have been suggesting it since Ken came on and made his initial post. Ken even came back to say that it was a good idea and he would look into getting it done. That was over six weeks ago, and now you're just getting the idea. That shows a disturbing lack of communication both within and out of the company, from people who keep promising better communication no less.
I hope this makes sense and isn't taken to be offensive; this is a great line of communication, and I hope we can keep it open.
Ah, I see what you are saying and understand how you could see it that way.
There are a lot of things we can try to do to keep the community informed. I have about a thousand different ideas of little initiatives we can take. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of resources at my disposal so I have to try and do what I can with bubble gum, duck tape, and bailing wire.
For example, the GRZ video casts are something I've had to do without any real support. I'd set up the camera myself, hit record, run in front of it and sit down, do my interview, then capture, edit, and post the video all myself. In fact, one time during the weeks before the 4E launch, I interviewed Chris Perkins who showed up despite having two additional meetings scheduled for that time (meaning he was triple booked), only to have the film turn out to be unusable. Chris was nice enough to try again the following week and we managed to get it done.
The interview you see with Ken Troop was done at D&D Game Day where Adam volunteered to pitch in as a camera man to help do the filming (when he wasn't DMing of course).
The same is true with project status reports, developer blogs, interviews, product demos, FAQs, Q&As, videos, chats, etc. The entire D&D and D&Di teams are awesome in their willingness to come on camera or answer questions or anything else that helps the community, but I am the one person who has to chase it down and make it all happen.
All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I really need to try and pick and choose the things that will give us the most bang for our buck. When possible, I want to do the things that the community itself thinks will be of value, since I think those efforts are more likely to be successful if it's something the community has been asking for.
In the case of the time line listed above, here is how I looked at:
- People are frustrated that all the D&Di tools aren't available and asking for more information. The community ultimately wants the applications, but that's not something I'm able to give them. Short of that, I ask what communication methods they would like to see, understanding that there are a lot of things we can't answer.
- Posts are made asking where Ken Troop is and why he hadn't logged in for several days. People ask if this is an indication that no one is paying attention to their feedback. I post a copy of my weekly internal community report to show folks that their feedback is definitely being taken seriously.
- Several people say that they want to see that report every week, but that it's missing the information they want to see most, which is the status of D&Di applications. I explain that it sounds like they are really requesting a progress report and that the internal community report was something entirely different.
- I post examples of the progress reports I made for Magic Online V3 asking people if this is the type of thing they thought would be helpful. To be fair, the Magic Online community, at least the most vocal folks, were extremely critical about the fact that I was doing the reports. Most of the discussion and debate was arguments over whether or not the reports were posted within the time frame I promised them, or if they were a day or more late.
Those project status reports took a significant amount of time to do every month. If the D&Di community is really interested in something similar, I am willing to spend time trying to do them.(which of course comes at the expense of other things I could be doing) I just want to make sure everyone is in agreement that this is what they want me to spend my time on, even if those status updates don't always give people the news they want to hear.
May I suggest that you kidnap the people who aren't getting DDI done and make them your support staff. I think you could make better use of their time.(getting to know us, we'd love to meet them...)