Community Relations on the forum
jrodrf2
Member Posts: 219
I posted this elsewhere as an error in judgment. It needed its own thread, so here it is.
> @Bod said:
> @Vane I think you need to engage with us more often in forum not just in guild leaders chat on slack
I typed out the following message on April 13, 2019, then saved it because I wasn't sure I wanted to pull the trigger on it. But since you bring this up, I'm going for it. (Bear in mind: in the 2 weeks since I wrote this message, I believe Vane has posted 3-4 more times and at least 2 of those were announcements, not responses):
***I debated a LOT about whether to post this or not because I really try to always see the positive side of things. And maybe it's not fair, because @Vane might be a super swell guy (I've never actually met him, so I can't say 100% for sure). But I truly believe that there has been a deficit in communication with the forums since Vane took over.
The math is there to show this as well. Using info from their profiles, start dates of the "Community Relations" title, and adjusting based on acquisition of their "10 Comments" & "100 Comments" badges, in the approximately 1 year that @Kaz served this community, he posted approximately 3.5 times per day. And that was averaged over times that we're both good and bad. Since starting as Community Relations representative 50 days ago, Vane has posted only 2.2 times per day. And the majority of that time has been tumultuous to say the least.
There are many questions currently on the forum that are going unanswered, and many of these only require a simple "yes" or "no." Some of them could even be over-the-top or ridiculous, but they still deserve a response from NG. There have been many players that have left or are teetering on the brink because of issues or complaints and the worst thing you could possibly do is ignore them and hope they go away, because they WILL GO AWAY. And that's bad for NG's bottom line and for the community as a whole.
I'm not asking for heads to roll or for anyone to grab their torches and pitchforks. All I'm asking is for NG to show a greater presence on the forum. Answer questions. Interact with the community. Do something fun, like a competition here on the boards (could just be for fun, doesn't have to be for prizes). Make the boards worth coming to and make the player feel like they have a voice instead of feeling like we're talking to that 55 million year old Black Hole they just got pictures of in space. If not, you run the risk of seeing more players go the way of the dinosaurs. Extinct.***
> @Bod said:
> @Vane I think you need to engage with us more often in forum not just in guild leaders chat on slack
I typed out the following message on April 13, 2019, then saved it because I wasn't sure I wanted to pull the trigger on it. But since you bring this up, I'm going for it. (Bear in mind: in the 2 weeks since I wrote this message, I believe Vane has posted 3-4 more times and at least 2 of those were announcements, not responses):
***I debated a LOT about whether to post this or not because I really try to always see the positive side of things. And maybe it's not fair, because @Vane might be a super swell guy (I've never actually met him, so I can't say 100% for sure). But I truly believe that there has been a deficit in communication with the forums since Vane took over.
The math is there to show this as well. Using info from their profiles, start dates of the "Community Relations" title, and adjusting based on acquisition of their "10 Comments" & "100 Comments" badges, in the approximately 1 year that @Kaz served this community, he posted approximately 3.5 times per day. And that was averaged over times that we're both good and bad. Since starting as Community Relations representative 50 days ago, Vane has posted only 2.2 times per day. And the majority of that time has been tumultuous to say the least.
There are many questions currently on the forum that are going unanswered, and many of these only require a simple "yes" or "no." Some of them could even be over-the-top or ridiculous, but they still deserve a response from NG. There have been many players that have left or are teetering on the brink because of issues or complaints and the worst thing you could possibly do is ignore them and hope they go away, because they WILL GO AWAY. And that's bad for NG's bottom line and for the community as a whole.
I'm not asking for heads to roll or for anyone to grab their torches and pitchforks. All I'm asking is for NG to show a greater presence on the forum. Answer questions. Interact with the community. Do something fun, like a competition here on the boards (could just be for fun, doesn't have to be for prizes). Make the boards worth coming to and make the player feel like they have a voice instead of feeling like we're talking to that 55 million year old Black Hole they just got pictures of in space. If not, you run the risk of seeing more players go the way of the dinosaurs. Extinct.***
14
Comments
They have semi-officially shifted away from NML. That means minimal development. The game lost around 25% of its player base last year.
The game is on full milking mode now.
It's abandoned. They don't even bother checking stuff before they launch. They took GWs away 'cause they can't fix it. And it goes on and on.
@Troublemaker You can't really say that about half of milion people playing at least once a day and more than million playing every 3 days means that the game is dead. It's far from dead.
It's not abandoned because there's future updates and weapons coming.
You can't possibly know and say for sure that they can't fix GW. They most likely can and they will and they are working on it.
They did bother and did check stuff before releasing. Not always but they did.
Sorry, but...
“ Troublemaker “ is correct...
NextGames has spent “ tremendous effort “ in balancing the game, for a long time...
and, “ insufficient effective effort “ in evolving the game...
Long ago, NextGames squandered away their “ NML revenue channel “ through these, balancing blunders...
Most expensive products, have a “ lifecycle “... so does NML...
NextGames understands this... the company’s hope, are the new games they are developing...
( ahhhh... Compass West, anyone, anyone... huh... Sigh... )
> There always will be people saying "game is dead" even though if it isn't true. I've seen it across many games that I've played. It can be true in someone's personal perspective but that doesn't change the whole picture.
>
>
> @Troublemaker You can't really say that about half of milion people playing at least once a day and more than million playing every 3 days means that the game is dead. It's far from dead.
>
> It's not abandoned because there's future updates and weapons coming.
>
> You can't possibly know and say for sure that they can't fix GW. They most likely can and they will and they are working on it.
>
> They did bother and did check stuff before releasing. Not always but they did.
>
Game is far from "dead". I said it's on full milking mode, which means NG is putting minimal effort into it and extracting the most they can.
Go read the report.
Also when I say it's abandoned: no one answer things on the forum; they "forget" to trigger TG Tuesday; they don't check Round Passes bug three times in a row... etc etc - you are a smart guy, you know what I'm saying.
Yes, Vane has been less active than Kaz and I could feel it myself even without maths, there's no denying that. Yes NG has made mistakes in the far past and current times.
BUT
I can't really blame him for that. Kaz has been here in period when gw has about started and run not that long if memory serves me right. At this stage people do anticipate bugs and most can acknowledge those bugs and get trough them as long as they will get fixed. Vane on the other hand has taken over when gw bugs where already ongoing and they weren't being entirely fixed. Meaning people's frustration has started to build up and has been going up since Vane came.
Now looking on the various comments regarding all the gw, from my personal feeling, at least 70% of them we've vile, disgusting and horribly hateful comments. There was hardly any constructive criticism in the sea of a literal hate.
What do you expect then of a community manager do to? To respond to such horrible things? No i would never expect that because it would make things even worse. It's the best thing Vane could do, meaning staying off and think of a way to get across a response that would be most sufficient to all players. That being said, there's nothing that would satisfy my previously mentioned 70%. With those people there's no point of talking. That's why he stayed off in my opinion and like I said I can't blame him for that.
I know that Guild Wars did not turn out as they were planned /supposed to. There were many bugs that shouldn't be. People did loose on things they weren't supposed to. It is bad and frustrating, the outcome.
Do you really think that this is what they wanted to? Do you think that saying things like "all they want is money" or "look at the financial report, thy are going down" is going to help in any way? No it won't.
Many people are forgetting that people at NG are a group of passionate people about the amazing game that they have brought to us and we have been playing across the years. With many ups and downs.
What is being forgotten the most that they are people. Human beings. With feelings. Like we are all. Some responses I'm seeing are really out of this world the lvl of hate.
Can we all just please calm down and hold the judgements and outrageous level of negativity.
I do understand the frustration. I do understand people disagreeing with their ways and also with what I'm saying. Let's all disagree or agree with respect.
Let's criticise but in a constructive way so they could take some points out of it.
We have strong and nice community here and I believe we can get trough it and the game will prevail and will carry on entertaining us.
It saddens me and I don't want to game to die. Do you? It's not dead yet and that's a fact.
See my post above, taht might give you an idea why they are responding less.
History has shown that NG wasn't as good in touch with us when community responses were vile and hateful as opposed to constructive when Kaz was around. That's why he was around because we were able to have a humain conversation.
It seems to chave changed now again to bad.
Round passes bug is being looked into and probably will be fixed in 3.3, that's what we were told. So you can't say that they are not checking it.
Just because things go wrong it doesn't mean no one is looking into it.
When there's TG Tuesdays bug or any similar, I can see people notifying Vane here and on Slack right away and it's being fixed immediately.
I don't really know why this keeps on happening on and on, this kind of bug but it is.
Even if it is I still can get my 3 TG Tuesdays restocks so from my perspective I don't understand high level of frustration from that.
> @Troublemaker I have seen the report.
>
> It saddens me and I don't want to game to die. Do you? It's not dead yet and that's a fact.
>
> See my post above, taht might give you an idea why they are responding less.
>
> History has shown that NG wasn't as good in touch with us when community responses were vile and hateful as opposed to constructive when Kaz was around. That's why he was around because we were able to have a humain conversation.
> It seems to chave changed now again to bad.
>
> Round passes bug is being looked into and probably will be fixed in 3.3, that's what we were told. So you can't say that they are not checking it.
> Just because things go wrong it doesn't mean no one is looking into it.
>
> When there's TG Tuesdays bug or any similar, I can see people notifying Vane here and on Slack right away and it's being fixed immediately.
>
> I don't really know why this keeps on happening on and on, this kind of bug but it is.
> Even if it is I still can get my 3 TG Tuesdays restocks so from my perspective I don't understand high level of frustration from that.
Or you have an extremely positive view, or you are lying to yourself and/or trying to cover for someone.
NML is a mess, man.
Say you send your car to revision to have the oil changed. Then it comes back and they haven't changed the oil. But it's fine 'cause you can tag them and they will fix it asap.
Say you order a Corn & Bacon pizza. But it comes raw. No worries right? You can tag them and they will promptly bake it for you.
Can you see how you are dealing with this?
Anyway I respect your attitude... It's just hard to avoid the salt on NG.
Might be time for a little self reflection and adjustment on bettering our words for a less hostile and aggressive forum environment. Maybe we’d be more attractive to communicate with if we’re less judgmental and more open to listen.
"Or you have an extremely positive view, or you are lying to yourself and/or trying to cover for someone."
I'd very much appreciate if you could withdraw from assumptions/judgements like those because I don't appreciate that. I always speak for myself.
"Say you send your car to revision to have the oil changed. Then it comes back and they haven't changed the oil. But it's fine 'cause you can tag them and they will fix it asap."
That's not a good example and not relevant to what's going on here. When I wouldn't get my oil changed I'd get a refund and go somewhere else. You can't really tag people in real life.
" Say you order a Corn & Bacon pizza. But it comes raw. No worries right? You can tag them and they will promptly bake it for you."
Again not relevant to what's going on here. If it does occur and food comes raw, it's not no worries. I return it and get a refund and order again or somewhere else. Again, can't tag people in real life.
I did get a refund on gw gas when things weren't working properly. We did get compensated few times for stuff you'd normally had to pay even if you'd think it's not good enough. It's still stuff you'd have to pay for.
I can see how am I dealing with this and honestly I'm happy with it, but can you see where the salt comes from?
How did you get a refund on GW gas? I have been round and round with support and they refuse to compensate me. It’s really pissing me off enough that I now too, have a not so positive outlook anymore.
It was when gw started, the very 1st week.
I've bought gw gas and then after playing I've realised that things didn't work properly and I've claimed it trough Google as purchase not working properly or something like that.
2 cents done.
Technically, no
> @Troublemaker
>
> Technically, no
Bummer. Expected more from you.
tsc tsc
If you're happy with the game, don't complain, if you want to see changes, bring it to the attention of the creators of the game.
I’m all for having constructive conversations but it’s going to descend to bitterness and bile if we don’t have someone coming back to us when we are constructive. It’s no surprise that things are returning to pre kaz times as it’s basically the same it was then.
Having said that, Vane is doing this on top of his current role in NG so got to give him some slack. Hopefully they can get the full time community manager ASAP to calm the masses.
> There have been some threads though which could have been dealt with quicker and easier and caused a lot less frustration and are still technically unresolved. One in particular was the whole are walkers tougher since the update. The actual thread on this was ignored completely. A different thread vane said that he didn’t think so but it was being looked at. That was weeks ago and nothing since. There was a lot of negative criticism and people getting pissed off with NG for no reason during that time and they could have been calmed during that with a quick response in the thread which was discussing it.
> I’m all for having constructive conversations but it’s going to descend to bitterness and bile if we don’t have someone coming back to us when we are constructive. It’s no surprise that things are returning to pre kaz times as it’s basically the same it was then.
> Having said that, Vane is doing this on top of his current role in NG so got to give him some slack. Hopefully they can get the full time community manager ASAP to calm the masses.
Nothing personally on Vane. His position is probably struggly.
BTW: I have a support msg where they basically assumed they tweaked the values after update.
> @SCBMA
> I've realised that things didn't work properly and I've claimed it trough Google
It was refunded by Google not NG.
NG refunds nothing. NG compensate with gas boosters.
Before, communication was pro-active. When there was an issue it was immediately communicated and we were kept apprised of progress on the issue even if there was none.
Vane is more reactive in his responses. Only if a bunch of threads appear in the forum there is a response and there is only further communication when it is (supposedly) fixed.
I have said this before; especially when there are issues you just need to give people an update with some regularity, even when you have nothing at all to report. At least it gives people the reassurance that it is being worked on as opposed to feeling completely abandoned.
And when people feel abandoned they will riot.
@Troublemaker I in no way believe that @Vane doesn't bother or care. I do believe that he might still be finding his way in his new role as we all might be.
I think the above mentioned switch in communication style would already have a positive effect on the relation with the forum - or at least the relation with the many reasonable people that are on here-.
>
> The game is on full milking mode now.
>
Yeah, in the beginning, NGs created content for the pure joy of it and the good will of man...
Now is just about making money.
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Imagine how you would perform at your job if suddenly your boss gave you the full responsibilities of another position. Probably not so well.
I agree that we saw the best of NG when we had Kaz around, but I think Vane is doing his best given the circumstances. The comparisons between Vane and Kaz are really not fair to Vane. Let's just hope that NG hires a full-time community manager soon...
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As you guys mentioned here regarding the damage/health/level of walkers, there is really no visible difference neither on the technical side, nor on the analytical side of the game - the statistics look pretty similar pre- and post-update when it comes to combat results (the only difference is the shift from character level 25 to 26 for maxed out players). So I am not really sure whether there is an issue to begin with, and where it could even be.