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One of the first lessons on successfully communicating with the public in any service industry is to “appropriately set customer expectations”, meaning you, as a medium between the customer and the service, should choose your words such that customer expectations will be met or exceeded by the projected quality of service to be provided. A simple example is that if a job should take two hours you’d inform the customer it will take two to four hours. This simple technique is not only honest, as things are generally more complex, unpredictable and time-consuming than one might initially anticipate, but also affords a reasonable margin of error for the service provider should they intentionally choose to delay delivery in order to maximize quality. Unfortunately in the games industry this concept is either poorly-understood or intentionally ignored. Poor planning, egocentrism and lack of communication between the studio and marketing department often result in a marked disconnect between gamers’ expectations and the studio’s final product.

Of course, I’m reminded here of a G.K Chesterton quote:

The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.

And I think it’s something to keep in mind as we tread into this territory. Like as not, a lot of the problems here are *systemic and far-reaching*, which some of the best minds in the industry have fallen prey to and have not found a way to surmount. So we should be careful in thinking we can propose a solution.

But, of course, we kind of attempt that anyway.

Always remember: if you’d like to recommend anyone for a shout-out, send us an email…which you can also use to suggest podcast topics, offer commentary or criticism about podcast episodes, and/or to volunteer your time as either an occasional or regular contributor to podcast sessions.

As well, if you haven’t already, you should totally sign on with the Ultima Dragons group on Facebook, or with the Ultima Dragons community on Google+ . The Facebook group is easily the larger and more lively, but that just means that the Google+ one needs a few more members posting content there on a more regular basis. Also, don’t forget to contribute to the #udic hashtag if you’re on Twitter.

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Finally, there’s the Ultima Codex Patreon. A $1 pledge will get you access to Spam Spam Spam Humbug episodes the day before they go live here on the site, and you’ll be helping me both maintain and — with sufficient funding — expand the server infrastructure of the Codex to better deliver all the things you come looking for thereat.