[Videos] Billy Buskell denying issues about off-host headshots

Plenty of smart af people post here, I'm just one person, you not liking my posts doesn't imply the entire forums can't be taken seriously. I didn't even contribute  much to this thread (except starting it) because I tend to be perceived as a dramaqueen of some sort

also on Billy, he's not an evil villain (tautology?), i think he's ultimately a good guy, but he has a job to do, and in my book has quite a poor track record so far. hopefully he can take that feedback, as harsh as it may be, not take it too personally and improve

actually I just copy/pasted some self-help crap I found on a google search about dealing with arrogant and dismissive people

nobody should take anything I say seriously, in this forum or otherwise

i'm just trying to amuse myself here

It was a confession that I was paranoid of the situation escalating into a social media melodrama that ends up with a "BSN vs BioWare" narrative.



I don't have the quote handy, which makes me a bit uncomfortable recounting the story in detail, but it's still on reddit, which would contain the link to the actual BSN (a couple of incarnations back.) That one went read-only, but I don't think they'd have left it up after taking TBN down.

A Community Manager began a thread on BSN asking for input about changes to the site, and announced some ideas about what they were going to do. Over the course of several weeks, they were asked specifics about a lot of the changes, and made a lot of statements in response explaining their plans for the future of the site.

One of her quotes was a fairly lengthy explanation about groups, and how they were going to be making changes to address security concerns, but would not make any fundamental changes to the way groups work. When pressed about that, she reiterated that groups wouldn't be fundamentally changed. A few months later, she announced that groups would be deleted. That policy went through a few iterations as I think they were surprised by the level of pushback, and they scaled it back ultimately to the point where a few survived... at least until a year or two later.

In any case, the AMA happened shortly after the announcement about groups being deleted, and I was compelled to go to the AMA to ask her why she told us that groups weren't going to be changed, if they intended to delete them.

In retrospect, her hands were tied. She is unlikely to have made the decision, but was likely to have been saddled with announcing it. I doubt, at the time of her original assurance, that she knew that groups were going to be deleted.

And... she could have said that. I wouldn't have liked it (I was upset at the time) but I would have accepted it (assuming it was the truth.) It's not hard to see how she could have been hung out to dry, which she wouldn't have been able to elaborate on, but saying she didn't know that a decision would happen a certain way is a reasonable alternative.

Instead, she blamed me for creating misunderstanding around what she said. It was hardly the worst thing someone could say, but it was, nonetheless, completely untrue. And it left me with no answer, and little reason not to stay pissed off.

That's where my criticism of BW's role in perpetuating the cycle comes from. When a situation arises where you've upset your customers, it's bad form to use those consequences to justify criticizing the community for being upset. If I had responded to her by saying "That's total BS," it would have been a valid statement. But based on how the narrative about groups had already gone, I also knew it would only be used against me to justify deleting groups. They'd use it as an example of the kind of bad behaviour people who used groups engage in. I'd already seen the tactic used throughout their defense of the decision, citing virtually every complaint as further proof that deleting groups was the right thing to do.

Instead, I tried to keep my cool (not easy) and continue to rationally argue in favour of not deleting them while avoiding the missteps that would give them more excuses to justify the decision. They did eventually relent and allow groups to remain, albeit only until the site itself announced its closure.

I wouldn't draw much direct parallel between the two situations, but I can see BioWare using some of the responses BB received to further justify, for example, the forum closure, while abdicating any responsibility in how things have played out. I'm hoping it doesn't go that way, but it would fit the cycle as most often repeated in the last four years or so. I guess it wouldn't really change much if they do that, but it would seem a lot like another nail in the coffin of their relationship with the community.

no, that's where you got it wrong, again you can't be the multiplayer producer, say bullshit and expect the community to just soak it up like it's nothing. but im not gonna repeat myself

also pretty damn sure there's only 2 or 3 people working on MEAMP, a handful at most. this kind of support is similar to what we got from the late stages of DAIMP, where one guy (Luke Barrett) provided the community months on end of content on his own

i wont ever defend Billy, I just hope he owns up, doesnt take stuff personally and improves. thats all ive got to say

I reject your explanation and conclude that the entire thing was directed at me.

Billy's response on reddit.


Just to be clear, calling out that his comments were arrogant may have ticked him off.

@jeremiah12lgeek what a good read, though

If I had to provide my own analysis of this new debacle

1) I think Billy and the team still believe that off-host headshot problems are still an issue. Looking at that comment he made, it just seemed like the team can't find a way to fix the problem. They know there's something to it, given the number of complaints, but it's not easy for them to reproduce. Billy mentioning that he wonders if it's networking issues is probably what most people who reported this issue initially thought as well; and could still be an issue to some extent.

2) Billy's statement regarding dismissing comments that use the term "netcode" is pretty harsh. At the same time, I'm also not surprised, since most developers who are taken out of their element say pretty ridiculous things. This is really why Bioware needs a community manager. Billy's account deletion is pretty indicative of that. I think that Conal guy is supposed to be their CM, but he primarily handles Twitter; and Reddit on rare occasions. I think Billy should probably just avoid forums for the time being and see if the team can find someone else who's able to handle the barrage of questions we have.

3) Let's keep it real, the MP community can be pretty fucking toxic at times; especially around when new patches drop. Not saying there aren't legitimate issues worth being addressed and fixed, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a developer having to deal with some of you evil bastards lol

4) As much as their actions should be criticized, especially with the handling of the weapon variants, I still enjoy playing the game. I imagine some of you still do as well. Patch 1.09 may have been a misstep, but the games improved significantly since launch, and there's still potential for the future. More important to me will be how patch 1.10 turns out, much in the same way Patch 1.06 was the benchmark for where MP was going after MEA launched initially.

5) I don't think we should be conflating his comments related to off-host headshot problems with that of the "netcode" statement. He said that he doesn't take comments using the term "netcode" seriously (again, he still shouldn't). He didn't say he doesn't take off-host headshot problems seriously.