[SUGGESTION] Community Relations | Forums

[MountainRiderAK]

Dear Ubisoft,

I was thinking it might improve community relations if you were able to bring in some members of the community to see how things work in the development cycle. Ideally, I envision some people traveling to Paris to visit the office. However, I know that would probably be prohibitively expensive. Maybe if you made a little video, it could be a good substitute. You could pick a feature that is being implemented or a bug that is being fixed and show some of the process that occurs behind the scenes.

I know that you probably would have concerns about revealing trade secrets, so I'm not sure if this is even possible. But I thought I would mention the idea. Maybe there is a better way that I haven't thought of to give the community some visibility into the development process.

Thanks again for making a great game!

--
Sincerely,
MountainRiderAK

[GiveMeTactical]

Personally, there is no need for me to spend money going or them paying for me to go... I would be thrill if they use that money to fix the damn mess.

[Ryo_Hazaki]

Perhaps Ubisoft could implement an ongoing YouTube featurette with "behind-the-scenes" footage of how content is added and announce what ideas will be added. Going even so far as to thank users for their ideas online. It could work in several ways: it's great marketing for them, exposure for forum members and potential for more consumers to see that Ubisoft listens to feedback in an interactive manner. It's a win-win-win

[AI BLUEFOX]

Dear Ubisoft,

I was thinking it might improve community relations if you were able to bring in some members of the community to see how things work in the development cycle. Ideally, I envision some people traveling to Paris to visit the office. However, I know that would probably be prohibitively expensive. Maybe if you made a little video, it could be a good substitute. You could pick a feature that is being implemented or a bug that is being fixed and show some of the process that occurs behind the scenes.

I know that you probably would have concerns about revealing trade secrets, so I'm not sure if this is even possible. But I thought I would mention the idea. Maybe there is a better way that I haven't thought of to give the community some visibility into the development process.

Thanks again for making a great game!

--
Sincerely,
MountainRiderAK

They do take members of the community to workshops with the Devs, MountainriderAK. From this forum Ulukai, Cortexian, Rocky, ITK5 and me have been to Paris on more than one occasion. Also Mattshotcha and AmperCamper went and have subsequently applied for and got jobs with Ubisoft.

We did have to sign to not reveal things we saw and discussed, but I can say that there are lots of improvements that came about because of those sessions.

[Ghost-Ami]

They do take members of the community to workshops with the Devs, MountainriderAK. From this forum Ulukai, Cortexian, Rocky, ITK5 and me have been to Paris on more than one occasion. Also Mattshotcha and AmperCamper went and have subsequently applied for and got jobs with Ubisoft.

We did have to sign to not reveal things we saw and discussed, but I can say that there are lots of improvements that came about because of those sessions.

It's not much help to the community if anyone who gets a peek at how the meat gets made has to sign an NDA. I think the OP's original suggestion was about increasing transparency rather than privileging a few lucky civilians with tightly controlled access to technical secrets.

Personally I don't think Ubi or any developer ought to be able to hoard technical secrets. Games should stand out on their artistic rather than technical content, and the same engines, code, tools, et cetera ought to be readily available to anyone anywhere with the drive to build a game.

Then again I also don't agree with denying the public access to technologies of any kind via patents and copyrights and such. Extreme Ami is extreme. \m/

[UbiInsulin]

They do take members of the community to workshops with the Devs, MountainriderAK. From this forum Ulukai, Cortexian, Rocky, ITK5 and me have been to Paris on more than one occasion. Also Mattshotcha and AmperCamper went and have subsequently applied for and got jobs with Ubisoft.

We did have to sign to not reveal things we saw and discussed, but I can say that there are lots of improvements that came about because of those sessions.

The US version of the video, for reference. I now sit across from Amper.

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[AI BLUEFOX]

It's not much help to the community if anyone who gets a peak at how the meat gets made has to sign an NDA. I think the OP's original suggestion was about increasing transparency rather than privileging a few lucky civilians with tightly controlled access to technical secrets.

Personally I don't think Ubi or any developer ought to be able to horde technical secrets. Games should stand out on their artistic rather than technical content, and the same engines, code, tools, et cetera ought to be readily available to anyone anywhere with the drive to build a game.

Then again I also don't agree with denying the public access to technologies of any kind via patents and copyrights and such. Extreme Ami is extreme. \m/

We played the game before the E3 reveal in 2015. That was a huge amount of trust to put in a few random gamers that were selected on their enthusiasm alone. Ubisoft didn't even know my real name before I got my invite to Paris and asking me to sign an NDA before discussing the game was fair. They invested a significant amount of credibility and impact on that reveal and producer Nouredine Abhoudd went out on a limb to get Ghost Recon fans the input they had.

Whilst I wish the world was made from people with the same intelligence, morals, values and ethics as you, ami, my god I do, the reality is that it isn't. The risk of the workshops was that we would blab the things we had seen, but the purpose was entirely about information flowing the other way. The communication was fan to Devs, the NDA was just insurance.

[GiveMeTactical]

The OP is asking UBI for transparency?

He has a better chance of them getting rid of the bugs and glitches

[Ghost-Ami]

We played the game before the E3 reveal in 2015. That was a huge amount of trust to put in a few random gamers that were selected on their enthusiasm alone. Ubisoft didn't even know my real name before I got my invite to Paris and asking me to sign an NDA before discussing the game was fair. They invested a significant amount of credibility and impact on that reveal and producer Nouredine Abhoudd went out on a limb to get Ghost Recon fans the input they had.

Whilst I wish the world was made from people with the same intelligence, morals, values and ethics as you, ami, my god I do, the reality is that it isn't. The risk of the workshops was that we would blab the things we had seen, but the purpose was entirely about information flowing the other way. The communication was fan to Devs, the NDA was just insurance.

Don't worry, my darling PvPalicious Fox, the better world humanity deserve is coming. It just takes one person thinking and doing things differently. And then another. And then another. And then one day it's a critical mass of people, and that's when real change happens. Just think of everything we've seen in our own lifetimes. At this rate we'll be at "Star Trek" before we know it. ))))

I understand that it's easy to feel pessimistic in a world of Brexit and Trump, but I suspect these things are just the final throes of a dying deprecated culture of tribalism, paranoia, and greed in the developed world. Once our immune systems develop antibodies the inevitable march of progress will continue.

I doubt Ubisoft are the type of company to ever open up their games to technical scrutiny the way, say, Bethesda do---and even Beth have some proprietary stuff they won't share---but Ubi do impress in other forward thinking ways with their fairly progressive corporate and artistic culture. And, yes, as much as I might complain about QA fails and sketchy business tactics I do recognise the efforts they go to to collect and act upon player feedback compared with some other studios.

In the end it's all part of the same thing. There are plenty of ways to contribute to progress. ))))

[MountainRiderAK]

The US version of the video, for reference. I now sit across from Amper.

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This was nice. I guess I am asking for more of this.