[[ becca ]]

Exactly what the title asks. How much do you guys think they actually review the threads made, player's opinions, etc on how content is? And not just bugs, but general discussion on what we'd like to see in the game, or what we dislike about the game, or what problems the game has.

A thought occured to me just now. I've been on and off these forums for a while now, and I've been super active this past week or so, and I've noticed: There have been a ridiculous amount of threads about how Destruction is underpowered, Mages have alot of downsides, and spells are lacking in variety. In general a bunch of noticeable posts about magic. Hell, even if you google "Skyrim Destruction Magic", after all the youtube videos show up, almost every result is about destruction being underpowered, etc. It's blatantly obvious.

Now, this thread isn't about a disucssion on magic or destruction being underpowered or spells lacking variety or the absence of spell making or anything like that, nor do I want it to go off-topic towards those subjects. I'm just interested, does Beth notice trends like this? Do they read player's opinions on this forum?

[James Baldwin]

I see devs and admin lurking around here from time to time.

[Lucky Girl]

The devs are pretty active, but many sign in invisibly or don't sign in at all. Gstaff and Nick also collection information to pass along, so if there's an opinion held by a lot of people the devs may be told by the community managers without having to check lots of threads.

[Stefanny Cardona]

They are the sneaky types, I see.

I'll visit the Bioware forums when I'm actively playing one of their rpgs and the developers will not only visit, but chat with the gamers. I guess that's why we don't notice the Beth staff as much here, since they're "invisible".

[Damien Mulvenna]

Silly devs, don't they know that the Shadow Stone is mostly useless? They should use the Lord, Steed, or Atronoch stones more.

[NO suckers In Here]

I see Gstaff quite a bit, but I NEVER see Nick signed in.

[Melanie]

They can see what people talk about when nobody knows they're there, so that's a pretty smart move on their part
plus, fewer people bugging them on their twitter accounts
to the mods: any idea about how often the devs are actually sneaking around on here?

[Invasion's]

With each game they pretty much communicated less and less on the forum. Back when Morrowind was in developed they were extremely active here, a bit less so during the development of Oblivion and noticeably so during the development of Skyrim.

Although with Skyrim it's the only development of a TES game where they had community managers, and not just one, but two.

[Mark Hepworth]

They're communicating less then they used too?

[Yama Pi]

They're communicating less then they used too?

I think Freddo means communicating with the playerbase on the forums, not with each other. As in, individual posts in threads that aren't official announcements. I'd hope they communicate with each other, haha.

[Cedric Pearson]

Yeah, that'd be nice... but I see why they don't do it. Many of the forum posters are just plain jerks now... it was probably better back in the Morrowind Days.

[Lance Vannortwick]

That's what I meant. Communicating less with the fans.

[CHANONE]

I suppose they're a lot busier nowadays than they used to be.

Still, I wouldn't mind seeing a random post by Todd Howard now and then. It seems when he does interviews he's pretty much got a script (or bullet points) that he sticks to, so seeing what he's like outside of that would be cool. In my mind I imagine him being really snarky.

[Myles]

I bet there's a bit of him being held back by the legal department or perhaps some executive pressure put on him for that. Devs aren't always allowed to tell us things, even if they want to do it.

[Nicole Elocin]

When I read discussions about destruction magic, I do not see any sort of consensus about this. Some people believe that it's underpowered, and some people believe that it is not. I will occasionally see people who claim that it is overpowered. Some people claim it's flawed, but for different reasons. And it appears that there are about 50 people in the entire world who care enough about this issue enough to write about it. I don't think magic system will be changed for Skyrim. Maybe it will be a different system in a future Elder Scrolls release. By then, all of the Oblivion old timers would have died, and Skyrim people would complain from their retirement homes about how much things were better in Skyrim.

[Danny Blight]

I just saw a dev lurking in the "perfect RPG" thread

[An Lor]

I suppose they're a lot busier nowadays than they used to be.

Somebody has to count all that money they made off us ...

[Tha King o Geekz]

They're communicating less then they used too?

My recollection is a little different than Freddo's. I can't speak about pre-release, but after Morrowind was released there was very little communication between fans and devs on these forums. I came here from the Bioware and Black Isle forums where devs wrote posts on their forums practically everyday, so I was a little shocked at the stony, unrelenting silence from Bethesda. And I'd say it got even worse around the time Oblivion was released.

But, I have to say, I've seen more Bethesda activity on these forums in the last seven or eight months than I've seen in the rest of my ten years here put together. I believe they are really making a serious attempt to try to become a little less anti-social.

[Eddie Howe]

When I read discussions about destruction magic, I do not see any sort of consensus about this. Some people believe that it's underpowered, and some people believe that it is not. I will occasionally see people who claim that it is overpowered. Some people claim it's flawed, but for different reasons. And it appears that there are about 50 people in the entire world who care enough about this issue enough to write about it. I don't think magic system will be changed for Skyrim. Maybe it will be a different system in a future Elder Scrolls release. By then, all of the Oblivion old timers would have died, and Skyrim people would complain from their retirement homes about how much things were better in Skyrim.

Again, this isn't really why I posted this in particular so let's not get off topic.

[Nicole Mark]

My recollection is a little different than Freddo's. I can't speak about pre-release, but after Morrowind was released there was very little communication between fans and devs on these forums. I came here from the Bioware and Black Isle forums where devs wrote posts on their forums practically everyday, so I was a little shocked at the stony, unrelenting silence from Bethesda.

That's true, the huge influx of new people around the Morrowind release made a mess out of the forum and devs pretty much stopped being active. But they were extremely active before Morrowind was released, easily the period with the most dev activity in the history of this forum.

But, I have to say, I've seen more Bethesda activity on these forums in the last seven or eight months than I've seen in the rest of my ten years here put together. I believe they are really making a serious attempt to try to become a little less anti-social.

Yeah

[Soraya Davy]

They are completely out of touch with their fan base. I think they only cruise the forums to see which Game Jam features they can sell us as DLC. They obviously never read threads regarding bugs or glitches.

[Tessa Mullins]

They obviously never read threads regarding bugs or glitches.

Of course they do, they released several patches since the launch.

[Vincent Joe]

If you recall the Magic Resistance bug, Beth released a statement a few hours later telling us they knew the problem exists and were working on a patch. They're really not so bad when it comes to fixing bugs, it's just that with games as huge as TES games it's hard to completely clean up every single bug there is. However, I can't speak for the PS3, as I hear that's been a huge problem and still is.

[Matthew Barrows]

Of course they do, they released several patches since the launch.

I thought the chain of beta patches was fantastic but they seem to have dried up. I fear that the previous patches mostly dealt with issues they knew about before release.

[BethanyRhain]

I hope they don't pay too much attention to these forums, I think it would be to the detriment of their games. Everyone just complains about everything. Everyone else doesn't post because they're too busy enjoying the game.