[Monika Krzyzak]

This is just something I'm curious about. I know a lot of us pour our hearts into long thought out posts, pages long sometimes.
I've seen people write articles and papers about the Elder Scrolls gameplay, lore and history. Some of it is very impressive, and most often it comes from the heart.
We're all here because we love the Elder Scrolls series - and we want it to be excellent. We're (hopefully) their most tried and faithful supporters.
Like Star Trek fans on the debut of a new movie, we are there. I also understand that we are all quite different in what we find appealing
- what some of us find a pressing issue may not matter at all for another person.

I love that Bethesda takes things into their own hands. Each game they set out to do something amazing, and NEW, and different.
I believe they do a good job never losing sight of the big picture. In order to do that, you have to change things up.
Stuff will inevitably change in every game, and we should embrace it *for better or worse*

On the polar opposite side, I've heard of developers (I won't name any names) cutting off all contact with their forums so they
don't get distracted from their work. This is not only unhealthy but unprofessional. *not that I'm accusing Beth of this at all*

I think games become their best when the creator has a vision, and takes critique to heart. But there is a fine balance there.
If you don't listen to your fans, the ones who love your games, you'll never know where you went wrong. But if you do nothing but listen to your fans, you will never move forward.
Your game will stagnate and become a sickly abomination of past games. Taking elements of past games, and finding out what made them tick is good, trying to be your past success's is not.
(as I mentioned I believe this is a strong point in Beths favor) I don't think any of us want another Morrowind. I don't really understand remakes. If you change anything, it's essentially not the same game.
Some things should die gracefully. But that's getting off on a tangent. My main point is a simple question.

Does Bethesda hire any middle-men to provide feedback to developers? There is so much great support here,
I just think it would be a shame if some of the more manageable and agreed upon problems weren't taken to heart.
I know we have "meet the dev" threads, and that is awesome. I love developers that strengthen the bond with their community.
But they are surely very busy with the game itself.

Forums I've frequented in the past had people people hired to round up the best critiques and ideas for presentation to developers, concept artists, anyone.
I wonder do we have such a person for the Skyrim forums? Or are we limited to whatever the developers happen to see while perusing in their free time?

PS: I remembered Todd mentioning how he visits the forum in the GI interview, but ideally Beth would hire someone specifically for this role.
Heck, most of us would do it for free if we lived close enough.


TL;DR:

DO ARE BETHESDA LIEK HEAR US WEN WE SAY HAY LOL WE WANT SPEARS :disguise:

[Ice Fire]

Some members of their team do come on here regularly. Todd Howard himself said he looks at the boards every so often, although he never posts. So they do watch.

[Sarah MacLeod]

Does Bethesda hire any middle-men to give feedback to developers?

Yep, we have Gstaff and Nick Breckon(both employee's of Beth) and like 20 moderators(don't know exact #).

Bethesda pays very close attention and any ideas of value(not mention the general reactions) will find their way to Beth one way or another.

[RaeAnne]

...but who watches the Watchers?

[christelle047]

probably not, or else they would know what to put in their interviews

[Carlitos Avila]

My opinion simply based on my own logic and no real knowledge:

They acquire opinions and feedback from the internet when the game comes out. This process continues until they launch the next game. However, the collection and impact of these opinions is more and more reduced as we approach the launch of the next game. We're getting close enough to the launch of Skyrim that most of the opinions expressed here are, in my opinion, ignored at this point. They've heard the complaints, they've made their decisions whether to address or ignore them and they've designed a game. They are now actively building it and not planning to return to the planning stages at this point. There may be some minor tweaks between now and launch but for the most part, I suspect they mostly peek at the forums for entertainment at this point.

[N Only WhiTe girl]

Bethesda employees view these boards quite regularly.

[Averielle Garcia]

Yep, we have Gstaff and Nick Breckon(both employee's of Beth) and like 20 moderators(don't know exact #).

We aren't hired for feedback though, only here to lay the smackdown on y'all.

It turned out the moderators aren't a really trustworthy group when it came to relaying information from the community to the developers. We couldn't agree on what was important and in the end we just twisted everyone's words to fit our own wishes. Worked for us of course, but Todd&Co felt something was off when our combined feedback resulted in a sort of Terminator Gretzky meets World of Warcraft with the protagonist looking like a huge bunny.

[keri seymour]

a sort of Terminator Gretzky meets World of Warcraft with the protagonist looking like a huge bunny.

I'd like to see that.

[Assumptah George]

If they wanted fan feedback they wouldn't have announced the game with 11 months until release.

They want to make a game which makes the company money.

[Marilú]

probably not, or else they would know what to put in their interviews

First off, Bethesda is NOT going to follow everything the forum people say, and why should they? Taking criticism and ideas from your fans is nice, but Bethesda isn't going to reveal the biggest aspects of the game quite yet. I am just going to say this, if Bethesda followed everything some of the forum people say, the game would be virtually unplayable honestly. I honestly do not know what you would ideally expect at this point. What interviews are you even referring to? The Game Informer ones? The European ones? All of them? A great deal of the info has been awesome (of course in my opinion) and a lot of the negative things we should probably wait considering there seems to be a few translation errors (such as about the whole spellmaking ordeal). Also, it is very illogical to release all of the info that fans want all at once since that is a great way to burn up hype, it is a very common strategy among developers to divulge interesting information as the release date gets closer. Anyways, back on topic.

Of course Bethesda reads the forums, I don't think they hire employees they specifically to look at the forums though. Bethesda employees probably just drop in here every once in a while, plus we have Gstaff (and maybe someone else that I can't think of currently) that frequents the forums quiet a lot. Also, if Bethesda didn't care at all about what the fans thought, do you think Peter Hines would bother answering all of these questions of Twitter? The next Game Informer podcast is going to have Todd Howard answering questions about Skyrim. While it doesn't all pertain to this forum specifically, Bethesda definitely listens to their fans.

[xx_Jess_xx]

We aren't hired for feedback though, only here to lay the smackdown on y'all.

It turned out the moderators aren't a really trustworthy group when it came to relaying information from the community to the developers. We couldn't agree on what was important and in the end we just twisted everyone's words to fit our own wishes. Worked for us of course, but Todd&Co felt something was off when our combined feedback resulted in a sort of Terminator Gretzky meets World of Warcraft with the protagonist looking like a huge bunny.

Your honesty does you credit, admitting to your untrustworthiness. Or are you being untrustworthy?

[Tamika Jett]

Your honesty does you credit, admitting to your untrustworthiness. Or are you being untrustworthy?

*head explodes*

[Lisa]

Is Gstaff an official forum reader? Or is it a shared account whenever an admin or staff forgot his password?

[Vicky Keeler]

I think Gstaff is like one of their 'lore masters'. He has a regular job as a developer but has extra duties of reading the forums. I think I saw him discussing living down in Californi-way in a thread a while back.

[Star Dunkels Macmillan]

I'd like to see that.

Ja we did too, but after 12 months of development Todd realised that this game would be liked by about 30 people worldwide..

Your honesty does you credit, admitting to your untrustworthiness. Or are you being untrustworthy?

That part about the smackdown was true.. :whistling:

We're not hired to do so though; we do it for fun and kicks! :twirl:

Is Gstaff an official forum reader? Or is it a shared account whenever an admin or staff forgot his password?

Gstaff is 1 person. He's one of two community managers that Bethesda hired, they're employees. Besides managing these forums they also do a lot more stuff outside the forums. Their jobs entail more than just taking care of the forums.

[Milad Hajipour]

I think Gstaff is like one of their 'lore masters'. He has a regular job as a developer but has extra duties of reading the forums. I think I saw him discussing living down in Californi-way in a thread a while back.

No, I'm pretty sure he's a PR guy full time.

[Batricia Alele]

Gstaff is 1 person. He's one of two community managers that Bethesda hired

Who's the other community manager?

[Lauren Dale]

I think they do read the suggestions themselves, for fun. Knowing Todd (from the interviews, that is) I'm sure he prefers to trust his own vision, and the only popular changes he accepts is when there are BIG almost unanimous complaints like level scaling was, or level cap. I think the most effective way to convince him that your idea is better is by mods, not by words. I'd be honored to be the guy who made the archery mod that's been implemented by default in Skyrim.

[le GraiN]

No, I'm pretty sure he's a PR guy full time.

Ok he may not be a developer but I was right about him doing other work besides just boring old forum watching lol.

[jessica robson]

...but who watches the Watchers?

and who watches the watchers that watches the watchers?

:sadvaultboy:

[sally R]

Who's the other community manager?

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/user/589080-nick-breckon/.

They do PR stuff too, as mentioned, and maintain relations with other sites and companies.

[Rude_Bitch_420]

We aren't hired for feedback though, only here to lay the smackdown on y'all.

It turned out the moderators aren't a really trustworthy group when it came to relaying information from the community to the developers. We couldn't agree on what was important and in the end we just twisted everyone's words to fit our own wishes. Worked for us of course, but Todd&Co felt something was off when our combined feedback resulted in a sort of Terminator Gretzky meets World of Warcraft with the protagonist looking like a huge bunny.

:lmao:

We're not hired to do so though; we do it for fun and kicks! :twirl:

I'm sure free games and t-shirts are a nice perk too. Well deserved if you ask me. :tops:

No, I'm pretty sure he's a PR guy full time.

He was hired mid 07 if memory serves and a Bethblog article in early 08 detailed his duties at Beth. Don't feel like digging it up but it's there.

[zoe]

I think they do read the suggestions themselves, for fun. Knowing Todd (from the interviews, that is) I'm sure he prefers to trust his own vision, and the only popular changes he accepts is when there are BIG almost unanimous complaints like level scaling was, or level cap. I think the most effective way to convince him that your idea is better is by mods, not by words. I'd be honored to be the guy who made the archery mod that's been implemented by default in Skyrim.

I firmly believe it's exactly like that.

[Jesus Sanchez]

Waching and readin the forums are one thing, actually taking the correct information and using it is something else. I think that was blatenly obvious in Oblivion with all the flaws it had.