A Sea-change in HBS Customer Interaction...

[Edmon]

That's where we talk about the development process: what went right, what went wrong, and what we've learned for next time.

AC/2 is pretty good, it's what I've learned anyway

 

[Lyrch75]

If you're generating bad blood for years, that's an AAR that's going to damage the system's components (people) as much as it's helping process!

We had a designer who had trouble with the concept of "submitted for production " he and his clique cost the company $$$ with their efforts and maneuvers to fulfill his "vision ".

Our CPA in accounting laid that out in our FY 2004 AAR, along with how we sales folks, the warehouse folks, heck everyone up to and including the owner helped and harmed the new product releases

The rest of us took in stride and worked to fix our issues and enjoy the praise for going above and beyond. Design? They ignored all the great reviews for their work and focused on the negatives and acted out against the company's interests for at least the two more years I stayed with that company.
They went bankrupt in 09 and liquidated in 12

 

[Prussian Havoc]

We had a designer who had trouble with the concept of "submitted for production " he and his clique cost the company $$$ with their efforts and maneuvers to fulfill his "vision ".

Our CPA in accounting laid that out in our FY 2004 AAR, along with how we sales folks, the warehouse folks, heck everyone up to and including the owner helped and harmed the new product releases

The rest of us took in stride and worked to fix our issues and enjoy the praise for going above and beyond. Design? They ignored all the great reviews for their work and focused on the negatives and acted out against the company's interests for at least the two more years I stayed with that company.
They went bankrupt in 09 and liquidated in 12

Organizational Dynamics... its amazing how wrong things can go sometimes.

Having all the oars pulling in the same direction should be common sense, but...

 

[Captain Slide]

“

New Office Space” I am loving the sound of that! : )

It is good that you are optimistic, but there wasn't really sufficient information to derive a conclusion from Mitch's statement.

New Office space could mean any of the following:
-more space needed because of more staff
-less space needed because of less staff
-could be the same but with better infrastructure, IT connections, power, kitchen, gym etc
-could have a dormitory, so Mitch can lock people in and really crack the whip (lol)
-Paradox could have said "you need to get out of that hovel and into more respectable premises"
-could be buying a office building rather than renting or vice versa

No harm in being positive, but also need to look at the facts and not necessarily read to much into it.

 

[Lyrch75]

It is good that you are optimistic, but there wasn't really sufficient information to derive a conclusion from Mitch's statement.

New Office space could mean any of the following:
-more space needed because of more staff
-less space needed because of less staff
-could be the same but with better infrastructure, IT connections, power, kitchen, gym etc
-could have a dormitory, so Mitch can lock people in and really crack the whip (lol)
-Paradox could have said "you need to get out of that hovel and into more respectable premises"
-could be buying a office building rather than renting or vice versa

No harm in being positive, but also need to look at the facts and not necessarily read to much into it.

There ya go, being a voice of reason again

 

[Prussian Havoc]

It is good that you are optimistic...
...No harm in being positive, but also need to look at the facts and not necessarily read to much into it.

#FullCircle

"Burnishing the White Armor..." ~ Anon

 

[Landsknecht]

New Office space could mean any of the following:
-more space needed because of more staff
-less space needed because of less staff
-could be the same but with better infrastructure, IT connections, power, kitchen, gym etc
-could have a dormitory, so Mitch can lock people in and really crack the whip (lol)
-Paradox could have said "you need to get out of that hovel and into more respectable premises"
-could be buying a office building rather than renting or vice versa

I believe you're overlooking the most likely option:

Zero-G Pool. If there's one thing we've learned from BATTLETECH...

 

[Captain Slide]

I believe you're overlooking the most likely option:

Zero-G Pool. If there's one thing we've learned from BATTLETECH...

For all those after hours nights of fun. Never would have thought of that. THX

Just remember there are some things you just can't un-see!

 

[KhazadDhum]

Told ya'll there wasn't much to worry about.

 

[i64man]

it is good to know that the devs are back in the communication fold and conitnuing their awesome work .... one question, I would ask is with so many mods and some really excellent mods as Roque Tech and CCC, are the devs looking at the features in these mods and maybe incorporating some of them in future releases??? Just food for thought.

 

[Kunari]

Great to hear from you HBS guys.

 

[Marauder3D]

Told ya'll there wasn't much to worry about.

Sometimes I'm very happy to be wrong. This is just one of those instances. Really nice to hear from Mitch and Kiva.

 

[Clannerkiller]

I believe you're overlooking the most likely option:

Zero-G Pool. If there's one thing we've learned from BATTLETECH...

You should really lose like 5 morale if you choose to address the crew over the zero G pool footage. Ive nebver been able to pick that option lol

 

[Dohle]

The truth is that we've been up to our ears in work, PH. Localization, Linux, 1.1., 1.2, 1.3 (you'll hear more about this soon), BT postmortems, integration with PDX, planning for future BT stuff, looking for new office space - all at the same time. We're just swamped.

I want to start some Dev Diaries soon and hopefully we'll get a live-streaming space in our new building so we can chat "in-person".

Cheers!
Mitch

This is the exact kind of communication I was talking about. Short and sweet, quick explanation of what's going on. Cheers Mitch!

Also Dev Diaries and live-streaming sound excellent. Now I'm hyped.

 

[Jamey]

It is good that you are optimistic, but there wasn't really sufficient information to derive a conclusion from Mitch's statement.

New Office space could mean any of the following:
-more space needed because of more staff
-less space needed because of less staff
-could be the same but with better infrastructure, IT connections, power, kitchen, gym etc
-could have a dormitory, so Mitch can lock people in and really crack the whip (lol)
-Paradox could have said "you need to get out of that hovel and into more respectable premises"
-could be buying a office building rather than renting or vice versa

No harm in being positive, but also need to look at the facts and not necessarily read to much into it.

Unless I'm completely misremembering, when they were acquired by PDI, Mitch said that they would be expanding and hiring more people.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Unless I'm completely misremembering, when they were acquired by PDI, Mitch said that they would be expanding and hiring more people.

I follow such HBS comments as closely as I can but I missed this one. This is very good and encouraging news indeed! Thank you for bringing it to our attention Good Sir. :bow:

 

[unclecid]

in my experience over the years as a player doing alphas, betas and being there during transitions to Live or acquisition by another company the communications thing s all boils down to this....
how good the community manager is at their job.

question....do we have one of those here?

 

[Prussian Havoc]

in my experience over the years as a player doing alphas, betas and being there during transitions to Live or acquisition by another company the communications thing s all boils down to this....
how good the community manager is at their job.

question....do we have one of those here?

As I recall and I may indeed be wrong, both HBS_Dagger and emmasterakia may have a claim to that particular august Role and set of Responsibilities.

EDIT: Dagger is listed as our HBS Community Manager and Emma As our Community Manager in their Username listings.

SUGGESTION: Perhaps the BATTLETECH game and Community has matured to the point where a different manner of Community Manager would be both profitable to HBS / Paradox and a resource the Community can really get behind...

 

[Nichino]

As I recall and I may indeed be wrong, both HBS_Dagger and emmasterakia may have a claim to that particular august Role and set of Responsibilities.

EDIT: Dagger is listed as our HBS Community Manager and Emma As our Community Manager in their Username listings.

SUGGESTION: Perhaps the BATTLETECH game and Community has matured to the point where a different manner of Community Manager would be both profitable to HBS / Paradox and a resource the Community can really get behind...

I'm sure Dagger, like Mitch, wears many hats. But I agree, could be beneficial to keeping excitement levels high (and selling more DLC, whether in expansion form or other) to have a dedicated "community manager". Or whatever you want to call someone who is almost daily engaged in social media / forums / other websites. Someone to keep information accurate, keep people talking about BattleTech, and ultimately itching to throw more money at their monitor.

This could be done by an intern even, or entry level position, which goes back to what Fletchtar was suggesting.

 

[Marauder3D]

The thing is: our current system works because people are free to share what they are working on. When you get an intern in charge of a community, they frequently aren't free to share anything, and have nothing to do.

Perhaps this is a false dichotomy, but I feel like we stay with the current system and get great tidbits less often than our ravenous appetites would like.....or we get an intern, and get frequent posts with far less 'content' than we would really want.