Its Completely Acceptable, And Slightly Encouraged, For You To Be Upset. But Please Take Your Frustrations Out On Taleworlds The Company

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If you work with evil you are complicit with evil, and therefore by matter of principle, you are just as deserving of scrutiny as the entire group.

This is a pretty straightforward and popular ethical concept that figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Leo Tolstoy prescribed to. I believe it is best summarized in spirit by the economic historian Robert Higgs who spoke on the subject of morality in law enforcement:

“The whole Good Cop / Bad Cop question can be disposed of much more decisively. […] We need only consider the following:

(1) A cop’s job is to enforce the laws, all of them;
(2) Many of the laws are manifestly unjust, and some are even cruel and wicked;
(3) Therefore every cop has to agree to act as an enforcer for laws that are manifestly unjust or even cruel and wicked.

There are no good cops.”


The argument that "the people" of Taleworlds should not be held to account for the actions of the company of which they are affiliated with has very frail philosophical basis.

If you work for a company you can be criticized for the decisions of the company.

You could argue there are no good cops but that doesn't mean that all cops are not good people. Many cops dream of being one since they were little children with the intent to serve and protect their community not be the enforcers of unjust laws. Just as similar is the developer for the game who doubtful became a dev to work against their community and work on a project that obviously has not gone to plan at all and who knows how haywire it is. I'm sure if you took many of the devs who have shown multiple times that they DO care and are trying their hardest to create a great sequel and plugged them in with another company there would be no issue with that company's development.

Speculate all you want on how devs may or may not be ruining the game but I don't really buy it. Sure we have reason to be upset with the game and Taleworlds the company but taking it out on the devs would be like screeching at a Mcdonalds employee because you want more fries in your order. Except they have a much harder job.

I am very disappointed by the lack of communication. In some cultures I know that face-saving is a major aspect. For example in most asian cultures people rather stay quiet than telling you bad news. Where I come from, the truth and open/direct communication is highly valued. I personally rather have TW tell me the truth, even if it is something I don't like.

This I do agree with. It's obvious things are being kept quiet but in reference to my above statement I doubt it's the people who have been trying to communicate with us that are the issue and more that they are not allowed to divulge completely what they want to. I believe it's been confirmed in a few posts by devs/CMs that they can't talk about certain things.
 
Also, just to clarify this misconception that decisions are passed down from above and are final: that simply isn't true. Everybody at the company has a voice and anyone can bring forward an idea or suggest changes to any part of the game, and they are listened to. Does that mean that those changes or suggestions are always implemented? No. But they are certainly discussed and debated.

The issue is that some things are not really up for debate. When the entire community comes together and says "Hey, we really need some set spawns on TDM. The experience right now is pretty bad, and has been like this since beta." That shouldn't be prompting a Socratic discussion about the pros v. cons of set spawns. The community is uniform about wanting something, so it should probably happen. When our most passionate issues get ignored, we certainly do not feel like we are involved in the development process. The players feel like little kids stuck in the back seat of a car while the parents up front are arguing during a long roadtrip. To make matters worse, because there is no roadmap, the kids have no idea where they are even going.
 
The issue is that some things are not really up for debate.

Don't you trust in the free marketplace of ideas? The good ideas will always triumph, as such is the nature of debate.

To make matters worse, because there is no roadmap, the kids have no idea where they are even going.

Yes! I've been thinking about this a lot. It's beyond my understanding why TW wouldn't do this.
 
The issue is that some things are not really up for debate. When the entire community comes together and says "Hey, we really need some set spawns on TDM. The experience right now is pretty bad, and has been like this since beta." That shouldn't be prompting a Socratic discussion about the pros v. cons of set spawns. The community is uniform about wanting something, so it should probably happen. When our most passionate issues get ignored, we certainly do not feel like we are involved in the development process. The players feel like little kids stuck in the back seat of a car while the parents up front are arguing during a long roadtrip. To make matters worse, because there is no roadmap, the kids have no idea where they are even going.
Reminds me of the whole autorun thing. There was 0 downside to adding autorun. Yet from what i heard it wasn't seen as a priority when Callum brought it up to meetings. Its 1 line of code quiet literal.
 
I know it sounds crazy but how about you give feedback about the game rather than the company?
The 'management' is responsible for one of my favourite games and so far they are better at creating this unique experience than anyone else. You have zero knowledge about their internal processes and the decisions they make but you think you could judge them based on a few forum posts and some patch notes.
Meanwhile the game seems to be a huge success in terms of reviews and sold units, which wouldn't be possible if the management is as bad as you think it is.
To be fair, it's completely possible they suck at being good teamleaders, but I don't have enough information to form a sophisticated opinion about them. After all, I don't know them personally and neither do you. Instead I'll just criticise the obvious shortcomings of the game rather than the development team.
 
I know it sounds crazy but how about you give feedback about the game rather than the company?
The 'management' is responsible for one of my favourite games and so far they are better at creating this unique experience than anyone else. You have zero knowledge about their internal processes and the decisions they make but you think you could judge them based on a few forum posts and some patch notes.
Meanwhile the game seems to be a huge success in terms of reviews and sold units, which wouldn't be possible if the management is as bad as you think it is.
To be fair, it's completely possible they suck at being good teamleaders, but I don't have enough information to form a sophisticated opinion about them. After all, I don't know them personally and neither do you. Instead I'll just criticise the obvious shortcomings of the game rather than the development team.
This is the multiplayer section not singleplayer. If you want to talk about facts tell me about the game that has 250k people at peak barely has 100 people in queue in EU at peaktime

Saying we don't know how TW internal works doesn't mean we cant criticize them. Just because we don't know what's going on on TW doesn't mean we don't have the right to complain about whatever we want. They even actively encourage constructive criticism.
 
This is the multiplayer section not singleplayer. If you want to talk about facts tell me about the game that has 250k people at peak barely has 100 people in queue in EU at peaktime
Which is why I absolutely agree with constrictive criticism.

Saying we don't know how TW internal works doesn't mean we cant criticize them. Just because we don't know what's going on on TW doesn't mean we don't have the right to complain about whatever we want. They even actively encourage constructive criticism.
You can say and complain about what you want, as long as I don't need to agree with it. There is a lot of justified criticism and I hope TW will listen to it. 'Your management sucks' is probably the lowest and most idiotic form of criticism though, considering you don't have enough information to form an opinion that would be relevant.
 
Which is why I absolutely agree with constrictive criticism.


You can say and complain about what you want, as long as I don't need to agree with it. There is a lot of justified criticism and I hope TW will listen to it. 'Your management sucks' is probably the lowest and most idiotic form of criticism though, considering you don't have enough information to form an opinion that would be relevant.
There have been clear signs that there is an issue with the upper management. From review from ex-employees from taleworlds to the devs not being able to expand more on a question because they simply "can't say more about it".

There is plenty of information to form a critic about upper management up at taleworlds.
 
'Your management sucks' is probably the lowest and most idiotic form of criticism though, considering you don't have enough information to form an opinion that would be relevant.

People generally base this on TW's very interesting glassdoor reviews. This isn't some meme conjured out of thin air.
 
. 'Your management sucks' is probably the lowest and most idiotic form of criticism though, considering you don't have enough information to form an opinion that would be relevant.

Tell that to the employees lol

Section of a glassdoor review.

*I have been working at TaleWorlds full-time (More than 5 years)

Cons
Management is quite a mess. Lack of communication even within departments. Very long project development process due to no-planning gets tiresome. Limited environment to improve your skills. You really need to be active in the workplace to be aware of what is going on around and that takes a lot of energy.*


We have every right to critique the upper management. All we want is a roadmap of features to expect. If they cant provide this to their employees or their customers, they are hardly managing anything.
 
Clearly someone was bored enough to scout reviews on Taleworlds, which is fine, but you cannot base all of your opinion from one glassdoor review directing at management. That's pretty much nitpicking at this point to give reason for outright flame against an entire company; this is something the media would do, not community members. Completely slating management because of a review that was found (which may or may not be bias, depends on if/how the person left, their position etc.) is piss-poor effort, especially when it's always looking at one side of the reviews and not the other.

I can understand the frustrations that come along with the lack of updates, lack of communication or roadmaps which may make the glassdoor review seem more concrete, but come on, let's atleast be somewhat constructive.
 
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There have been clear signs that there is an issue with the upper management. From review from ex-employees from taleworlds to the devs not being able to expand more on a question because they simply "can't say more about it".

There is plenty of information to form a critic about upper management up at taleworlds.
That's pretty much the industry standard.
 
People generally base this on TW's very interesting glassdoor reviews. This isn't some meme conjured out of thin air.
They get 4/5 stars, doesn't sound too bad. Complains about management are pretty much the norm on glassdoor, just wait until I give a review about my boss...

PS
My personal impression is that they are very chaotic and inefficient. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Most artists are chaotic and inefficient. Structured and efficient leads to Call of Duty, Battle Royal and Micro Transactions. I suggest people who want that kind of thing should look for a different game. The others are very much welcome to provide constructive criticism and help turning the game into an awesome experience. Just don't expect that Armagan quits his job just because a few angry people on the forums say so.
 
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You heard it here first. The real reason they refuse to give us a roadmap is to avoid microtransactions.

Not even going to quote or respond to fietta because everything he said was either an inaccuracy or a straw man that doesnt actually represent this thread or the complaints regarding the dev cycle.
 
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but you cannot base all of your opinion from one glassdoor review directing at management
Well actually I just looked at the Glassdoor reviews after making an account, it appears Ebdanian only saw the "surface page" review based on what I am seeing currently. There are about 16 reviews here and 9 of them complain in some way about the management.

If you guys want to see the full index of reviews where 9/16 of them complain about the management I can post them from Glassdoor so as not to base our opinions on merely one critical review!
 
I know it sounds crazy but how about you give feedback about the game rather than the company?
Your management sucks' is probably the lowest and most idiotic form of criticism though, considering you don't have enough information to form an opinion that would be relevant.
Are we reading the same forum? All that existed in the beginning was feedback and critiques of the game. But of course that never changed anything that needed to be changed. We were complete ignored. An entire year of constant feedback. If a problem exists, and that problem is thoroughly inspected, documented, and debated, and yet those who have the power to fix said problem don't do anything, then the only thing that can be done is to call out said people, in this case the developers. This lead to a level of hostility towards regular developers, until it was concluded through various means that they were as powerless as the rest of us, they were just doing what they're told. The only thing left is to have a problem with the management who make the terrible decisions and then refuse to acknowledge them.

Fact: the problems are there
Fact: they can be solved.
Fact: they're not being resolved
Fact: The community, who write detailed criticisms and debate issues at length, is consistently ignored for an entire year.
Conclusion: Out of touch and incompetent management/decision makers.

"Your management sucks" is the only thing a rational person can say at this point. It's not the regular developers fault, and it's not the community's fault that terrible design decisions are not only implemented, but then clung to like cult dogma. There is only one group of people left to blame, and with all of the constructive criticism well laid out, there can't be anything but "Your management sucks".
 
To be fair, I'm against a detailed roadmap being laid out for us. Too many times do I see big triple A titles lay out roadmaps that either mean nothing and is just to placate the crowd and shut them up, or the things the roadmap projects never come to fruition because the publisher killed the development. Or as a psychological trick for the company to save face and make it look like they're working hard to correct something that should have been in the game from the beginning. To give a few examples: Anthem, Fallout 76, Mass Effect: Andromeda, etc, the list goes on.

That does not mean that I don't think they should share anything, they should at least give us information of what they are currently trying to accomplish. So at the very least, we as players know what to expect from a Patch instead of waiting and wishing upon a star. It also wouldn't hurt to then release information after an issue is worked on as to what they plan to focus on next. Not necessarily a roadmap but essentially just information at least, would be helpful.
 
There is this game called Deep Rock Galactic, which I played for a LOT of hours during Early Access. The company was very transparent about updates and content and was actively answering questions on the discord server. Yes, they had their own discord server with the developers in it. They made a clear timeline that indicated what the community could more or less expect. In some cases it was neccesary to deviate from previously planned content, but at least the community was kept informed. Everything was very transparent and communication with developers and community was made easy and very much encouraged by the developers. Even the managers of the company were active on the discord general chat to have a look at what is going on in the community and so on.

This is an example of a great business success and has also led to a very good game.

The management of TW should have done much more to encourage this type of community. It is very pleasant and works great both ways. It is a little time consuming for developers to check discord but to be honest it is much better even than just doing these things on the forums.

TaleWorlds disappoints in many ways. This is at least from my personal perspective. They should have done much more to encourage this kind of communication.

The entire reason why people are flaming management is because we don't even know who they are, neither do we know what they have planned. It is just a big massive black hole that we invested our money in and this angers people. I try to stay cool but its easy to lose temper when you're passionate about something. It is also too late to make proper changes because this all should have done correctly from the beginning.

All we can do is accept that this is the way TaleWorlds works and move on with our lives.
 
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