Dev's still around?

[Thav12]

I think there are several things that have disturbed the community of late that require a response (at least). Is anyone seeing anything from the dev's? A note? A sign of life?

 

[Pinco]

I think there are several things that have disturbed the community of late that require a response (at least). Is anyone seeing anything from the dev's? A note? A sign of life?

you know, someone says that the devs are human being... maybe they are on vacancy after the accounts migration work?

 

[Hunters' Moon]

They are in a fallout shelter at an undisclosed location.

 

[Lady Storm]

I didnt know a H bomb went off in virginia........ The dev have asigned 1 person to spy here on the boards for them .. it was in their last video that gave clues we wont see much of them...

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I it was in their last video that gave clues we wont see much of them...

Whaa? coolness! what did they say?

 

[Hunters' Moon]

I didnt know a H bomb went off in virginia........ The dev have asigned 1 person to spy here on the boards for them .. it was in their last video that gave clues we wont see much of them...

Yeah the h-bomb known as "account migration".

 

[enderz]

I've heard this dribble w/ Vanguard and a few other titles about how devs are just so utterly busy they cannot find time in weeks/months to drop a forum post.


Questions:

How long does it take on average for someone to make a post? 5-15 min max

How long is an average workday/week? 9hr/5days

Working on an mmo, surrounded by computers with the netz since it is 2011, it's not like they are in slag pits surrounded by earth n iron w/ no access to us.

With everything from account migration to spring cleaning being excessivley late, ya think 5-10min could be found somewhere in 45hour work week.

If now the excuse is, "People can be rude on a forum", then suck it up, grow some thicker skin, mods do your job so devs can "feel safe" when they post....

If anything dev's, post what you wanna say n dont look back. Get feedback from the thread you posted from an intern who can sift through and get constructive feedback.

Not trying to be rude or knock on the dev's/mods, I'm just posting what is.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

There is a certain 14 letter adjective beginning with 'u' that would adequately describe the current state of Dev/P(l)ayer relations. However, certain overzealous mods seem to think use of the word constitutes a "personal attack," regardless of how glaringly apt its use may be.

 

[Shiznit Bo'Bourbon]

Unexistant? No that's only ten...
Uncompetent? Eleven...
Unconceivable? Thirteen...

 

[Landicine]

I have a point here, but going to take a moment to get there:

Random article that discusses reader venom toward an author

The quote that got me thinking:

Although some detractors, like Verhoeve, attribute their disgust with Martin to what they view as his poor P.R. skills and “lack of proper communication.”

I see similar behavior on this board with a great deal of venom toward the Devs:

1. When they post something you disagree with.
2. When they post something that doesn't answer the question you cared about.
3. When they don't post.

I find it amusing that in both causes (author and dev team), we get some communication. Compare this with the authors and games design teams of my childhood with which I had no communication. The Internet has created some wonderful avenues for communication, but also the expectation that those creating content for us in the form of books and games must also constantly pander to our egos. We want answers now! Or we'll insult them yesterday!

An account for UO or novel costs less than a trip to the movies, and yet I can't imagine anyone insulting Spielberg for not constantly jumping chatting with them.

People will now bring up times when UO had a devoted community person, and how now that responsibility falls to the Devs. Devs who are already likely burning the candle at both ends.More on Wikipedia if you care

Devs who also work for a large company with probably pretty strict NDA and PR policies. I work for a large multinational company, and I spent a few hours last year taking various courses on corporate ethics and privacy. Big companies don't really like it when you play fast and loose when talking to customers. So any communication with the us takes a bit more care and consideration than the average rant.

 

[soulstoner]

Grimm put out nicely the end of last week

http://vboards.stratics.com/uo-developer-feed/249508-lack-dev-stratics-during-fiasco.html

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

My guess is they asked to be placed in the Federal witness protection program after the migration snafu/fubar.

 

[Rupert Avery]

they have no reason to hide the migration thing was not their fault...

they posted when they knew more...

none of it was their call

they will be working on pub 72 info to give us give them a chance!

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Grimm put out nicely the end of last week

http://vboards.stratics.com/uo-developer-feed/249508-lack-dev-stratics-during-fiasco.html

Oh what I wouldn't give for you to re-phrase that...

;-)

-Grimm

 

[Petra Fyde]

Slang evolves my friend.
Welcome, put your feet up and relax a while.

 

[Woodsman]

Whaa? coolness! what did they say?

They said that a GM, I think Akamai, was going to be monitoring the forums for them. He was there in the video with them. Actually I think he was the one who said he would be monitoring the forums.

Which was weird when you think about it, since the GMs were not under their control. When I saw the video, I wondered if they were bringing back a dedicated community relations/community coordinator position, at least part-time, with him.

That actually made sense. A lot of newer players are spoiled by devs who interacted with them or who think that the occasional post from a dev is a big deal, but much of the interaction used to be driven through official community coordinators/relations. If you go back to the UO.com forum days, you had a small team of dedicated community relations/community coordinators. Calandryll at one point (he moved on to dev/design), Melantus, etc. Those were two of my favorites They interacted a lot with us. Even when there were incredibly serious problems with a few shards that were driving players to quit and EA seemed to be trying to clamp down on information, they were still willing to talk, even if it was unofficial.

That brings me to this. We have a community relations person - Kai Schober. We have to share him with two other games. He posts on all three official Mythic sites. Mythic rented out a room in a brewery so he could meet with Warhammer players a few weeks ago, and yesterday he was giving Warhammer players specific reasons why their site wasn't updated and that they wouldn't be bringing Realm War back (which makes me think UO won't get MyUO back, but that's for another thread).

The problem is that he only interacts with Warhammer. Now before anybody jumps on me, yeah they've got more serious problems and need a lot of help since they are probably more under the gun that UO or Camelot, but so what? I also understand that he appears to be confined to only interacting directly through the official Warhammer forums on BioWare. Now why BioWare has official forums for Warhammer, and even for 15 year old DOS games and not UO or Camelot, well that's probably for another thread as well.

However, he could still spend 5 minutes giving us a brief update on UOHerald.com that we'll hear about Pub 72 this week. Hell, he could come out and say that everybody made it through Irene fine. Something. He doesn't have to come on Stratics and post anything - I doubt he even has an account on Stratics or any Camelot websites since he only seems to directly interact through the Warhammer forums.

I don't expect him or anybody else to give us specifics about the account management problems. That is typical EA - they go into information lockdown on certain topics when they have something blow up in their face. This used to happen all the time on the UO.com forums, and it's happened many times since. It's happening right now with the EULA/TOS business (Origin – Sappin’ your datas - Stratics). They like to try and control the message when there are problems and prefer everything go through PR/community relations when possible.

But it'd be nice if our community relations guy would actually communicate with us outside of the generic messages that all three websites get or notes or comments that others have passed on to him.

I have a BioWare.com social account and have been tempted to PM him and maybe I should, but I just don't see anything coming out of it. If he had the permission to talk to us more, I think he would be doing so already.

And it's especially frustrating when you see how large the community relations team for SWTOR is and how much they are interacting with Star Wars players on the official BioWare Star Wars forums. At some level that means EA has given them the green light to fully interact with their players (except when it comes to account migration problems ), while the other three Mythic games seem to have heavily restricted community relations. We'll never see that level of communications again with the three Mythic games, but we still have a community relations guy that we have to share with the two other games and we only seem to get custody of him once every now and then.

 

[Woodsman]

Sorry for the rant, but I just remember when communications were much better, and I see them trying a bit with the Warhammer community, and I see them making an incredibly large effort with the SWTOR.com forums.

I think most of us who have been around are familiar enough with EA to know that certain topics are off limits. Account management and the new EULA crap are at the top of that list right now. Yeah, there are players who want to personally attack the devs on the forums over account management problems, but those particular players (assuming they are actively subbing) would have some other axe to grind with the devs if that wasn't a problem. They are always angry over something and lash out any way they can, and even when their problems are with EA, the devs represent EA and therefore are a target in their eyes. They are always going to be around.

However, more communication about the game itself would go a long ways towards changing the mood these days. All three communities - UO, Camelot, and Warhammer, as a whole, have a pretty sour outlook on the future of their respective games.

If I had to rank them, I'd say that Warhammer players have the worst outlook, followed by Camelot, and UO. I can still find plenty of UO players who are positive. Not so much with the other two games, and Warhammer players have the new arenas game and the dev comment that Warhammer might go f2p as a sign of their problems, and it's staring them in the face. The lack of communication really hurts all three games though and does contribute to that mood, and in some ways it hurts all three games more than if a game mechanic was bugged or something else along those lines.

It seems so simple on the surface, and it's almost painful when you look at other games or even the past. Even just an hour a week of somebody officially talking to players or responding to issues or questions that are brought up. Five-on-Friday, something.

 

[Kayne]

Sorry for the rant, but I just remember when communications were much better, and I see them trying a bit with the Warhammer community, and I see them making an incredibly large effort with the SWTOR.com forums.

I think most of us who have been around are familiar enough with EA to know that certain topics are off limits. Account management and the new EULA crap are at the top of that list right now. Yeah, there are players who want to personally attack the devs on the forums over account management problems, but those particular players (assuming they are actively subbing) would have some other axe to grind with the devs if that wasn't a problem. They are always angry over something and lash out any way they can, and even when their problems are with EA, the devs represent EA and therefore are a target in their eyes. They are always going to be around.

However, more communication about the game itself would go a long ways towards changing the mood these days. All three communities - UO, Camelot, and Warhammer, as a whole, have a pretty sour outlook on the future of their respective games.

If I had to rank them, I'd say that Warhammer players have the worst outlook, followed by Camelot, and UO. I can still find plenty of UO players who are positive. Not so much with the other two games, and Warhammer players have the new arenas game and the dev comment that Warhammer might go f2p as a sign of their problems, and it's staring them in the face. The lack of communication really hurts all three games though and does contribute to that mood, and in some ways it hurts all three games more than if a game mechanic was bugged or something else along those lines.

It seems so simple on the surface, and it's almost painful when you look at other games or even the past. Even just an hour a week of somebody officially talking to players or responding to issues or questions that are brought up. Five-on-Friday, something.

^^ What he said in both his posts. Anyone remember how great Jeremy was doing the whole community relations stuff. Its sad that the so called community guy doesnt bother with anything but warhammer - I always thought they were meant to be game neutral.

 

[Willard]

"Grimm put out nicely the end of last week "

LOL too funny.....I did not catch that until you pointed it out!

Now if we could just get the rest of the Divs to Put Out on a weekly basis--we would all have smiles on our faces!

 

[MalagAste]

"Grimm put out nicely the end of last week "

LOL too funny.....I did not catch that until you pointed it out!

Now if we could just get the rest of the Divs to Put Out on a weekly basis--we would all have smiles on our faces!

OK..... that brings up images I'd rather not create!

Put out?????? What is this a brothel?

No no!

Wow oi vey......


OK...... yes thank you Grimm for "putting out"....... I think the only thing he put out was rumors of the DEV's disappearance....

I for one think they need to try interacting and socializing more with the players... I'd like to see them actually SEE what we SEE in the game....

Experience some of the frustrations that we do...

I've said it before and I'll say it again... my wish is to have a DEV for a day... give me one of your Fridays Cal... and I'll show you the game like you've never seen it.

I'll show you all the things we really enjoy and all the things that while are a good start need to be ....... adjusted. I'll even show you things that players find EXTREMELY irritating..... and want fixed ...... and you can experience the game as we do.

I wish I had control of the lands for a day so I could go in and fix all the art defects..... missing floor tiles, missing posts, missing doors... spots that cause one to get "stuck"..... that need repaired... area's that are very user unfriendly...

But I guess that's just a fantasy I have...

Good luck getting much out of a DEV though.

Most the time I feel that they honestly don't really know the game that they Design...

I'm aware that they sometimes "play" the game... but I still don't think they KNOW the game... leastwise not like many of us "old timers" ... those of us who are very devoted to UO.

Though the biggest problem they face is one we the players create and the whole reason UO is what it is and why we the players love it so much..... UO being such a sandbox of a game the problem is you can't develop something for everyone... Kinda like the old saying you can please some of the people some of the time but you can never please all of the people all the time... Just isn't ever going to happen.

 

[Slayvite]

You have to like that even when you ring EA customer support you get options to select DAoC and Warhammer......no mention atall of UO.
Sort of tells ya what they think of UO.

 

[Thav12]

I appreciate frustration when I see it, but that message you posted, grimmomen, is absurd.

If working on a game is just going to work for you, then please stop going. You have a priviliged position. You are providing entertainment, and people clearly like it since they are passionate about it. Your job is not one of coming to work, sitting at your desk and make it through the day. It is not me, the player, that should feel priviliged for communicating with a dev, it is you who should be priviliged that people like myself are willing to pay for your game so you can continue to do what you do, which is provide entertainment. You are not a police man, a doctor, a soldier or a farmer. You don't pick up trash and you don't provide clean drinking water. In these economic times i think it is an even bigger privilige that so many people are still willing to pay money for these kind of products, and are playing your game for some entertainment.

Your audience is found on on this forum. People are pissed at how things are going, and would like to hear some feedback. That is all. It takes only minutes out of a day, and I bet you can find the time on a daily basis to write a little note.. To write that it would not affect you one iota if you were to cease writing here on stratics is wrong. And even if there wasn't a billing problem, even if everything was peachy, you should still engage with us, even if you think some of us are voicing opinions you don't share.

I understand your passion, and even your frustration, but we here on stratics are not the enemy. We are not here to just discuss things so you can pick up new ideas, we are your market, your base and your biggest fans. Nurture that and feel priviliged.

And believe me, I enjoy the game you work on, a lot actually. Not shooting venom as one poster put it in this thread. Just asking for communication, so I can explain to my buddies who still can't get into their game because of this debacle, what is going on. I am asking for feedback, because that is what your fans would like in times like this. I think that is your obligation in exchange for our loyalty.

Now, I understand you have little to do with the issues at hand. Simply put, it is not your personal fault. However, that does not mean that you should not try to tell your fans what is going on, what actions are being taken and how things are progressing (and what the plans for the (near) future are). And not just you, but all the people that work on this game are, in my opinion, responsible for that. I don't care if you dedicate one spokesperson, or if all of you write a note or two, but it is something I think would go a very, very long way. Woodsman put it well in one of his posts. I am actually a very positive UO player...

 

[Lady Storm]

Thank you Petra for your pointing out "Grim"s" ........shall we say less then tactfull usage of the english language... oy vey is right! Had a good giggle.

If you look up Mythic on the web and read who runs Mythic today you will see its the Co-head of BioWare. I have no doubt that our intrepid Dev has been wrangled at times to help with the massive pushout of SW. It's the darling child of EA right now.... wait a few years kiddies you will get what we get... zipo! (directed at SW players)

I would love to have the Dev do a week in UO under some of our finest players who know this game inside and out. MalagAste you and many of us would love to have them spend a few days in our shoes. There is so much not working along with cosmetic things that need to be fixed, that irk players to no end as they have been that way for years an years. Promises to fix but never delivered...

How I would love to hand them an Axe and tell them ok find 1 frostwood tree. Hand them the sword or magic book and say "You try to kill that monster (pick one you have tried to solo and failed). Here you train Taming..... see how far you get without pulling your hair or falling asleep at the keyboard in bordom!

We of UO protest.... we want even a "hi guys we still alive" I caught their little hint we wont be seeing them in that video. Why send a GM to do a Dev job?? well for one he cant do squat... but read posts and give them the low down if they need to hear something juicy.

I for one didnt see word 1 from any about that migration good or bad days before it hit. Not 1 single word from the great gods of uo.. notice I used small letters.... when you dont care to let us have the simple dignity of a heads up of whats coming our way... a tiny hint to make things so much easer.... we didnt deserve in your books that much?? (yes I am pieved, it took player friends out of uo forever. They wont come back.)

UO is the lost child of EA, we are given mostly these days scraps of attention if we are very good angels.

I wish we were owned by B****d, then we might get some love and attention.

Yes , I am feeling used and abused by the Gods.

 

[Neutron Bomb]

Maybe they are working on giving us a Classic Shard for all this hooplah.

....Sorry had to say it.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

up i won kentuky!

 

[Kayne]

UO is the lost child of EA, we are given mostly these days scraps of attention if we are very good angels.

I wish we were owned by B****d, then we might get some love and attention.

Yes , I am feeling used and abused by the Gods.

QFT - As much as its a dirty word being owned by those that begin with B would at least guarantee us ongoing support and content - even if they would turn the game into a clone of that game that we must not mention....

UO needs love and attention at 14 years old and still players want to see it continue for another 14 years and then some. We love this game and so should you devs

 

[Landicine]

I appreciate frustration when I see it, but that message you posted, grimmomen, is absurd.
...
Nurture that and feel priviliged.
...

I'm cutting a ton of this post, but those lines pretty much prove a point in my earlier:

We have greater access to creators of media than ever before, and rather than using that as an avenue for constructive criticism, we feel entitled to use it for abuse.

GrimmOmen's post does bring up a few key points, but since it seems people read his post to find something to be upset about, I see no point in going into them.

One observation: we are allowed to express constant anger and outrage, but those on other end are not free to express frustration. That raises the question: do we want a dialogue with those who work on this game or do we simply want them to post so we can attack what they say?

Yes, the account migration was a mess, but why on earth would we want those who are not involved in that process to comment on it?

 

[soulstoner]

Right On Landicine

I feel Grimms write up was well written and encompassed a nice balance of professionalism, relevance, emotion, care and tone. Kinda sad he got negative comments thereafter but there's no one cup cake that everyone will enjoy. -

I'm cutting a ton of this post, but those lines pretty much prove a point in my earlier:

We have greater access to creators of media than ever before, and rather than using that as an avenue for constructive criticism, we feel entitled to use it for abuse.

GrimmOmen's post does bring up a few key points, but since it seems people read his post to find something to be upset about, I see no point in going into them.

One observation: we are allowed to express constant anger and outrage, but those on other end are not free to express frustration. That raises the question: do we want a dialogue with those who work on this game or do we simply want them to post so we can attack what they say?

Yes, the account migration was a mess, but why on earth would we want those who are not involved in that process to comment on it?

 

[Magdalene]

Well said...

What we need is balance. The devs posting and the usual suspects not attacking them for everything and anything every time they do.

Why can't we all be friends?

 

[Lord X]

You have to like that even when you ring EA customer support you get options to select DAoC and Warhammer......no mention atall of UO.
Sort of tells ya what they think of UO.

Yeah, if i recall correctly they even give a slot to "My littlest pet shop online", or whatever it is. Like really...... wow.

 

[Capn Kranky]

... Now, I understand you have little to do with the issues at hand. Simply put, it is not your personal fault. However, that does not mean that you should not try to tell your fans what is going on, what actions are being taken and how things are progressing (and what the plans for the (near) future are). And not just you, but all the people that work on this game are, in my opinion, responsible for that. I don't care if you dedicate one spokesperson, or if all of you write a note or two, but it is something I think would go a very, very long way. Woodsman put it well in one of his posts. I am actually a very positive UO player...

Agree in all points ... especially the bold part. I can't tell you how many times I got my butt outta the desk chair and took it over to Planning, Finance or some other department. Why? To find out what is going on in something they are doing that affects MY customers!

All because the customer didn't hear anything from the responsible parties. A developer is also part customer service in this regard. I am a 30+-year veteran of application development and testing. I know.

In general, we DO know and realize that developers didn't do this mess. But what does Cal as Community Relations or whatever, do? Can't he get the info and be the face of EA to at least let us in on things? He did a stint in the military thus knows how to duck the incoming stuff.

 

[Kayne]

In general, we DO know and realize that developers didn't do this mess. But what does Cal as Community Relations or whatever, do? Can't he get the info and be the face of EA to at least let us in on things? He did a stint in the military thus knows how to duck the incoming stuff.

He was the producer not community relations...Kai Schober is our community guy and hes actually posting on uo.com

 

[Woodsman]

Well said...

What we need is balance. The devs posting and the usual suspects not attacking them for everything and anything every time they do.

I do agree with that. Too many people are going to bash them every chance they get, and I think that stops a lot of them from posting.

I still think there should be some communication, Kai or somebody could bring back the five-on-friday.

On the Warhammer forums, Warhammer players were told that Realm Wars wasn't being brought back (similar in functionality to MyUO - in game data being presented on a website), and somebody says it was a coverup to keep people from finding out how many players are actually player Warhammer and our community guy that we share with the other games, jumps in and defends Mythic's actions. They are just as much of a brutal bunch of posters as we are, the only difference is they are on the official BioWare forums, we aren't.

Five-on-friday wouldn't be hard for the community guy to do.

 

[Kayne]

Five-on-friday wouldn't be hard for the community guy to do.

Wouldn't that a) require him to know anything about UO and b) actually be the community guy in UO as well as warhammer

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate
You're rapin' me off my pride
Oh, for God's sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy...
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Black male, black mail
Throw your brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame
They're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it
The government don't wanna see
But if Roosevelt was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Some things in life they just don't wanna see
But if Martin Luther was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

nom nom

 

[Woodsman]

Wouldn't that a) require him to know anything about UO and b) actually be the community guy in UO as well as warhammer

The Five-on-Friday could be gathered by some Stratics volunteers every week and forwarded to Kai, who could then email the questions to those on the UO team responsible for those questions. Once they respond to Kai, Kai would then get the responses cleared through EA public relations and legal, and when he receives the answers a few weeks later, post them for us.

It would take up only about a half hour of Kai's time and requires no expertise, especially in light of the fact that the eventual answers we received would have been reviewed by EA PR and legal, both of which don't play UO either.

 

[Kayne]

Dare I say that might be a little too much effort?

 

[Thav12]

I'm cutting a ton of this post, but those lines pretty much prove a point in my earlier:

We have greater access to creators of media than ever before, and rather than using that as an avenue for constructive criticism, we feel entitled to use it for abuse.

GrimmOmen's post does bring up a few key points, but since it seems people read his post to find something to be upset about, I see no point in going into them.

One observation: we are allowed to express constant anger and outrage, but those on other end are not free to express frustration. That raises the question: do we want a dialogue with those who work on this game or do we simply want them to post so we can attack what they say?

Yes, the account migration was a mess, but why on earth would we want those who are not involved in that process to comment on it?

Interestingly enough, I did not attack anyone in my post. However, I did state that this role reversal that grimmomen described is besides reality and called it absurd. I was actually fairly balanced about this, and think that i was not displaying outrage or constant anger. The disagreement I have with you is that I do not believe that I am to feel privileged for receiving an update here and there, or for interacting with a dev. In fact I feel the exact opposite: I think it is an immense privilege that we as players care so much that we constantly want to give feedback to the devs and engage in endless -heated- debates about the game they put together.

I believe it is important to update your clients, particularly if things do not go well. Today was a good day in that respect. we did get some updates and they are quite exciting. i will even forget about the fact that aside from this good and exciting news I also received an email stating that my account was closed due to not supplying billing information, with a link in the email that did not work, only to find out that this is again an erroneous email, and that as far as I can tell there was billing info there, and my account is still active.

By the way, by leaving out the meat of a statement and only highlighting two sentences out of context, one can literally distort the actually message. Please don't use my post this way, i think that is kind of lame. and in answer to your question in the last sentence of your post: because they are quite a bit closer to the source than I am, and I am sure they can at least attempt to figure things out for us. Even a note stating that they are trying, on our behalf, to figure out what is wrong would go a long way. As I eluded to earlier, after all - we are paying customers keeping them in their jobs. Still, i remain a big fan of their work. That is why I just again verified my billing info to make sure I am good to go for another 6 months on my accounts.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

what a nice post...

but isn't that the point here ? That we're not keeping them their job *unless* they love it. But then they'd have to love us and its such a heartbreaking truth that this can't be allowed to exist.

A corporation communicating with the peasants on an equal to equal basis?!
SCANDALOUS !!!

There is such a wide wound here *pokes* theres not enough stitch thread in the whole world to bring the moiety together...

It's very ironic to me... since this is what "stole my dream" *I was 14 years old when it all began* (was a total nerd learning C++ and a friend of mine introduced me to the seer team, we had tons of plans and had enough time to build up my hopes... my dreams coming true... that were ruined because of the "gold salesmen" fiasco...)

but as you can see I am not losing hope ; *unless* they love it...

Because to any rational person, it's easier to work with the facebook game crowd than us.

Would any decent rational human chose this job ? Think about it !!!

Well there you go, some of them have the rage, others want to get your job and have 14 years of training over you and in how to cause mayhem too if you do something they don't like.

Theres those that will first lick your arse then when you turn your back, oh yes never turn you back.

Never sleep...

There might be a few skeletons in the closet... the washroom has never been cleaned...

oh yes...

theres the ones who are making cash selling items for real money ; they decide what UO gold is worth, if they come up with a prophecy you have to follow it...

What ? Why ?

Thats just how it is, even if you love the game you see...

never mind... maybe you don't see...

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

"We are completely dependant on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar
we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system.... It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon." — Robert H. Hamphill, Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank

 

[Landicine]

Interestingly enough, I did not attack anyone in my post. However, I did state that this role reversal that grimmomen described is besides reality and called it absurd. I was actually fairly balanced about this, and think that i was not displaying outrage or constant anger. The disagreement I have with you is that I do not believe that I am to feel privileged for receiving an update here and there, or for interacting with a dev. In fact I feel the exact opposite: I think it is an immense privilege that we as players care so much that we constantly want to give feedback to the devs and engage in endless -heated- debates about the game they put together.

I believe it is important to update your clients, particularly if things do not go well. Today was a good day in that respect. we did get some updates and they are quite exciting. i will even forget about the fact that aside from this good and exciting news I also received an email stating that my account was closed due to not supplying billing information, with a link in the email that did not work, only to find out that this is again an erroneous email, and that as far as I can tell there was billing info there, and my account is still active.

By the way, by leaving out the meat of a statement and only highlighting two sentences out of context, one can literally distort the actually message. Please don't use my post this way, i think that is kind of lame. and in answer to your question in the last sentence of your post: because they are quite a bit closer to the source than I am, and I am sure they can at least attempt to figure things out for us. Even a note stating that they are trying, on our behalf, to figure out what is wrong would go a long way. As I eluded to earlier, after all - we are paying customers keeping them in their jobs. Still, i remain a big fan of their work. That is why I just again verified my billing info to make sure I am good to go for another 6 months on my accounts.

I did leave out most of your post since I don't really like large blocks of text that appear a few posts up in a thread. If anyone feels I distorted or misrepresented Thav12's post, I welcome them to scroll up and read it. I actually chose to cut most of it rather than bold the parts that bothered me. I don't consider Thav12's post part of the problem, but more a symptom.

Since your original post used the word "privilege" many many times, I think we should go into that:

1. I believe that constructive criticism is a very useful tool to creators.

2. I believe that when criticism moves from constructive ("I feel this new system has the following problems") to destructive ("I hate the devs. They are lame"), creators have the right to ignore the trolls.

I feel that your argument that the devs should feel "priviledged" to post here completely ignores the high volume of insulting, abusive, and critically useless posts that fill this board.

There is an animal behavior experiment where animals were constantly shocked for a good bit, not matter what actions they took. When eventually the animals were given the opportunity to escape this helplessness, they mostly curled up in a ball and did nothing.

Learned helplessness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would argue that constant destructive criticism is something to be avoided since constantly being told how worthless you are and how much your work sucks doesn't lead to innovation. It is the little animal getting shocked constantly.

That isn't even the end of my argument.

Let's talk about corporate culture. I work at a reasonably large pharmaceutical company. Every time there is an article on some mistake with social media and corporate image in the news, some HR person at my company sends around the link with warnings about what we say about the company on Facebook. We do not speak for our company. Every time I need to e-mail a scientist outside of my company for information or materials, I need to take extra care about whether I reveal anything that affects NDA, patents, or information security. It takes a good deal longer to compose those official correspondence than to post on Stratics (certainly more than a few minutes).

The devs that post here very likely face the same restrictions of NDA and corporate secrets. They have to put extra care into what they post. Remember to add in the additional facts that 1) A large number of players of their game do not post on Stratics and 2) They have large amounts of work they are obligated to do that does not include being an unofficial community representative.

A brief summary of my point since I wandered a bit:

The Stratics forums are only a useful too to UO's creators as long as we remain constructive in our criticism. They are under no obligation to us when we are abusive. We very often and very quickly move into abusive with our posts.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

The Five-on-Friday
get the responses cleared through EA public relations and legal, and when he receives the answers a few weeks later, post them for us.

and requires no expertise,

Makes me think back to Jeremy, I do not know if she had any expertise, but she put forth a genuine effort and concern. she didn't take weeks either, sometimes minutes.
Just the other day I rad an ea or herald page (or somewhere officially game) which read as if 5-on-friday was still currently being done - no updates there either

 

[MalagAste]

Considering that there IS NO Customer Rep anymore at UO .... it's rather hard to get any clue as to what is going on beyond rumor and hearsay neither of which is good for the DEV's...

Having a Customer Rep.... IS a good thing. Keeping the customer happy and well informed about the service they pay for shouldn't be so difficult.

And it gives us the opportunity to add idea's that DEV's who don't really "Play" UO could never conceive... Also it avoids disasters with things that might seem like a good idea to the DEV's but would be disasterous to the game ... By allowing the players to know what is going on allows us to give input on what shapes our world.... I'm not saying I want to know who the next big bad guy is ..... or who is going to invade us next or anything like that.... but knowing some things ahead of time gives us things to look forward to. Letting us give suggestions for the 14th anniversary.... big win... letting us give suggestions for Vet rewards BIG win.... Giving us a chest as a part of a package that does basically the same thing as a bag of sending.... not so much. The planter was awesome but would have boosted sales numbers more if offered separately from the mini expansion.

Now something really smart would be to offer the planter separately later ... but make you need to have the rustic expansion to use it... therefore those that want many planters would need to buy the expansion too...

Really is sad that EA doesn't much care enough for it's customers to provide a representative to at least keep us informed.

And that's not the fault of the DEV's that fault lies directly with EA games...

 

[Thav12]

Landicine--

I do agree with you that on the internets the regular societal checks on what is normal and acceptable interpersonal behavior usually flies right out of the window. It almost appears as if there is a new social standard, where rude and obscene commentary has become acceptable... somewhat. That means that the sensitivity filter that one should apply when reading these messages should be set to high.

Apart from the form of the content, the actual overriding issue is the fact that there IS communication going back and forth. That is a completely separate issue..

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

In this case there were no filters... they simply avoided what felt uncomfortable.

If we did not carry such a big ethical dilemma, we'd be easier to get along with !

 

[Thav12]

In this case there were no filters... they simply avoided what felt uncomfortable.

QFT


and that goes to the heart of it. communication is key, even if it is painful or uncomfortable.

Anyhow, it appears that there is something downloading when i started up my client. Hope that the new content can provide some distraction from all this turmoil.

 

[Woodsman]

Really is sad that EA doesn't much care enough for it's customers to provide a representative to at least keep us informed.

And that's not the fault of the DEV's that fault lies directly with EA games...

I think a dedicated representative can actually pay for themselves, because player/customer relations are very important in MMOs. There are plenty of people who get fed up with little things and quit, and if they actually saw that their concerns were at least being passed upstairs in some form, or being discussed, they might stick around. At the very least, a dedicated relations person can help with player communities and keeping players actively engaged in the game.

It's frustrating to me to see our customer service rep really only interacting with Warhammer players, but at the same time I know somebody is dictating his priorities.

I bitched about this in the MyUO thread - MyUO for American/European players is down, as is the Warhammer and Camelot versions. Somebody asked why the Japanese MyUO works, and the simple answer is that they actually have a dedicated team for the Japanese UO website who can address such issues. It's not one guy split between three completely different games who is handling web duties, PR duties, and who knows what else.

The Japanese UO community is much more engaged and I think it helps them out a lot - you will not find any EM events on UOHerald.com, and you would have a hard time finding the websites for your particular shard's EM on UOHerald.com. You go to UltimaOnline.jp on the other hand, you not only see upcoming EM events mentioned prominently, you can find out about past EM events, complete with screenshots. They even have a current player-run establishment program on there.

If I understand the EM thing right, at least here in the US, they are contractors of some sorts. I don't understand why EA spends money to pay EMs, but then doesn't advertise the EM events on the main UO website. It's actually bizarre because EA tries to normally squeeze every bit of value they can get out of every dollar they spend, and you'd think they'd be advertising the hell out of EM events on the main UO website. And if they are willing to have contractors for events, why don't they spend some money on a contractor to contribute to UOHerald.com and post about EM events and player establishments and other things to actively engage the UO community? Hell, get an intern or two to do it. Just have them repost content from the individual EM websites as well as perhaps selected threads from Stratics or UO Forums or other websites highlighting events and player happenings. EA knows the value - they have a large Star Wars The Old Republic community relations team.