APOC Discusses CommandCom & C&C 4

[Sonic 296]

I usually steer clear of the Official C&C Forums due to it's negative atmosphere and band of trolls that ruin everything. But sometimes I'm drawn in there to find the important stuff like this. Community manager, APOC, has made his first post on the Official C&C Forums where here talks about CommandCom and Command & Conquer 4. He also address is lack of posting and interacting with the fans recently.

 

Hey everyone,

 

It's 10:40AM here in Cologne, Germany. I am finally getting on a plane back to LA in 30 minutes, it's going to be nearly a 15 hour trip getting home, but alas, i'm looking forward to it. This past week has been the most exhausting, trying, challenging, and exciting week i've ever had at EA. I can tell you, for the last 7 days i've been averaging 3 hours of sleep, mostly because i've been working late at night. I finally had a chance to relieve at the end of the event, hence the very FAIL photo of myself spilling half a beer. Hey at least I tried when the community challenged us.

 

I've been spending the last 6 months planning CommandCOM. When you talk about inviting 100 CnC Community Leaders from around the world to a country that you don't live in, and hardly know, it's certainly not an easy challenge. Planning CommandCOM pretty much took up more than 50% of my day, every day, in the last few months.

 

Since 2POC started a couple months ago, I've slowly been transitioning him into your main forum voice, so that I was able to focus on planning CommandCOM, building the CnC4 website (coming soon!), and many other things.

 

Everyone should know a few things here, regardless of your opinion about CnC4, you can believe this when it comes to being heard by our development team:

• every Monday we send an extensive communtiy report to the entire development team with the most important feedback
• every Tuesday, 2POC and I present critical feedback to our dev team leads in a morning meeting so we can talk directly about concerns
• our development team reads the forums daily, especially one of our infamous designers, Jeremy Feasel
• our game is VERY VERY VERY pre-alpha, so nothing is 100% set in stone yet
• if there is a very critical issue, 2POC and I always bring it to the dev team 24/7

2POC and I do our best play by play commentary on the forums to let you know what's getting to the dev team, but as we've been here in Germany for a week, it's not always easy being on the forums every day, especially when you are away and busy with a massive event.

 

As for myself, I have definitely been loosely active on the forums the last few months (its like being away from home for too long), but anyone that knows me well, knows it's not been by purposeful choice, it's been because of the massive amount of planning going on behind the scenes. Thankfully I've got 2POC now to slowly transition in to your primary conduit, and of course, i'm always here, and should be much more now that CommandCOM has concluded.

 

Finally, a few things about the game.

• I have NOT made any statements that should make you feel your opinions are "ridonkulous" as one person in this thread put it. But neither 2POC or I will always agree when a lot of opinions are founded out of lack of knowledge. I think your opinions are critical, and always respect them, but I also think its important that opinions are based constructively on what you know. You have no choice but to assume when you lack knowledge, I understand that. So, we'll work hard to make you feel more respected if that's lacking.
• The pop cap in our game is very very pre-alpha and the gameplay reasons for it will make much more sense when you learn more and actually play the game, ideally in our beta. The CommandCOM guests experienced our beta, but in our early internal stages, they mostly only had access to Tier 1 Offense and Support units. We have a TON of units in this game. I think the pop cap is hardly final, and the 10-unit statement is a very misunderstood statement. If you read a list of notes, I think its only fair that the context is understood. In that instance, there is a lot of missing detail for that feature not discussed there.
• The CommandCOM guests will be unleashing TONs of info in the coming days as they are all currently writing their stories and blogs. I challenge everyone on the forums to read their stories.

In conclusion, apologies for my absence or lack of presence on the forums. Yes I update my twitter a lot because that's the nature of twitter, and its very easy to do so from my iPhone and quickly. When I come on the forums I like to spend time and dissect and understand opinions. I'm looking forward to getting back and wrangling all of your feedback for our dev team with 2POC, and finally having time again to chill. Thankfully, 2POC is a rockstar and should be recognized as your official Community Manager as much as myself.

 

=APOC

Click here for the original post.

[Silverthorn 0]

Gameplay wise seems still look it's still in its alpha stage, as though like the baby is still in its mother's womb. So anyway, now I got other concerns and hopefully will look into it.

 

1. High demand of many numbers of CGIs

2. Special editions which are physical objects, NOT downloadables.

[Nmenth 291]

but alas, i'm looking forward to it.

Now there's a statement you don't hear often...

[Gben 20]

*me hugs apoc and gives patented star-trek-consoling-right-hand-on-left-shoulder show of emotional support and sympathy*

[Malevolence 6]

hence the very FAIL photo of myself spilling half a beer

 

May I know where I can find that pic he's talking about?

 

our development team reads the forums daily, especially one of our infamous designers, Jeremy Feasel

 

I feel sad to see the devs have to go through tons of junk threads and posts in their own official forums, unless they decide to peek at other fansites forums?

 

 

All I can say to APOC is, take a good rest!

[Silverthorn 0]

I also wonder if Jeremy will look into here as well since I'm more active than the Den these days as due to the trolls & all that many things I want to talk about, I can't flood the Den's comment section with many words from my mouth when they should be in the forums in the first place.

 

But still, I really wish Jeremy put my concerns into considerations.

[Johnnyxp64 20]

it seems people in the official forums are not polite like here, and post lots of garbages than force the cnc community team to "apologies" and explain.

 

i am looking forward for the progress of the game, all that i care is how they will manage server drop times, and have offline+online mode working ok together with some sort of synchronization.

 

also there is something i didnt understant and help me too guys if you can...

 

they said the game started development almost after KW release. "means" not only programming and graphics but story, brainstorming gameplay ideas etc.

so it was more than 2 years in development and is still in Very Very Very pre-alpha stage? weird but i can understand that lots of support for RA3 at the same time, and KW patch issues, but if its now in that heavy development how is it possiblt the guests of commancom to play an early beta game?

 

perhaps its a type mistake from few hours of sleep, he propobly meant to say they played a "demo" stage of the pre-alpha they have made so far....right?

Edited August 26, 2009 by Johnnyxp64

[G0NE2W4R 0]

The C&C community is one of the strongest and really contributes to the production of the games. I mean even the title was possible becuase of the community.

Again, feel sorry for them having to deal with all critics. They can't really finish a game without hearing what the community has to say about it.

Edited August 27, 2009 by G0NE2W4R

[Gben 20]

Honest feedback is important, but how the feedback is delivered is also vital.

"How" you say something, is just as important as "what" you say.

 

I think they have made serious mistakes in their approach to freshening the game, but there's no need to be mean about it. They believe they are helping, and I respect them for it.

Afterall, C&C4 is not a secret plot by Blizzard to sabotage a competitor!

[Silverthorn 0]

Blizzard always intend to keep many secrets and only give out "When it's done" excuses, all of these beta tryouts are most likely classified that not even the gamers can report much, not to mention none of them reported the single player gameplay, all they played is just the skirmish & online multiplayer.

[Gben 20]

Um... dude... you missed the point!

 

(You've got some issues... when certain keywords come up... you just get up and rant away... not everything requires a response... especially when it's the same one... over and over. As Mal keeps saying... just relax.)

[Silverthorn 0]

I knew I'm a little off course, but still, when you say "Afterall, C&C4 is not a secret plot by Blizzard to sabotage a competitor!" , I'm quite convinced that Blizzard & Starcraft 2 are overtaking EA & C&C4's sales.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Um... dude... you missed the point!

 

(You've got some issues... when certain keywords come up... you just get up and rant away... not everything requires a response... especially when it's the same one... over and over. As Mal keeps saying... just relax.)

 

The ignore feature is pretty nice.