Communicating with your players, ZoS. Please take your audience into consideration.

allochthons · December 13

Please take into consideration that your communication to the player base should be much, much different than your communication to your investors and stake-holders.

Many of your players are highly sophisticated technical people. People as knowledgable and capable in the technology involved in running a AAA MMO as anyone else in the world.^

And yet some of the technical things you've posted have been flat-out incorrect. I honestly don't think you are trying to be dishonest, but that's how it comes across. A prime example is this:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS.
...
We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

(emphasis mine)

This is patently untrue as stated. I do believe changes were made to the trader and mail systems to reduce database strain, but the 14 day change wasn't one of them. This was pointed out, but ignored.
When people who understand even a bit of the technical side of this see that, they don't think that communication between the devs and the communicators slipped, they think they are being gaslit. And trust is lost.

Today's outage was explained by a power outage. But both NA and EU were affected? That's one heck of a power outage. Of course, Texas and Germany didn't both lose power, 1 server in 1 data center affects logins on all megaservers. But the outage reason as stated comes across as dishonest.
Other players filled in the information about the authentication server. Not any official communication. And only those who have read all the threads on this topic are aware. And so trust is lost.

For things like today, of course a full technical discussion can't take place during the crisis. But a breakdown after the fact would be invaluable in regaining the trust of your players.
How many times has it been stated on these forums that we will never know why X or Y happened?

An excellent exception, and where you did extremely well, was the PTS Database overwriting the Live Server database issue. More communication like that, please.
More communication like what (I dearly hope) is going to be posted tomorrow about the lag issue.

Thank you.

----
(^ I don't count myself among our technical elite players. I've been out of tech for 10+ years. But I know enough to know when many of the statements given are ... not entirely accurate.)

allochthons · December 13

To be absolutely clear, I'm not trying to point fingers at any of the extremely hard working community managers here on the forums. We understand that what you can say, and how you say it, is dictated by others. But please do take this feedback to them!

tsaescishoeshiner · December 13

I don't think it's reasonable or fair to expect full and complete explanations that prevent anyone from making a runaway theory. For example, imagining that they're lying or hiding something or incorrect because it doesn't make sense to some people how one power outage could affect multiple servers. It's not their fault that people will overanalyze everything and think that they know better. If they'd explained more, people would still find cracks if they approach it with that perspective. Just my take and what I've observed here.

moderatelyfatman · December 13

allochthons wrote: »

Please take into consideration that your communication to the player base should be much, much different than your communication to your investors and stake-holders.

Many of your players are highly sophisticated technical people. People as knowledgable and capable in the technology involved in running a AAA MMO as anyone else in the world.^

And yet some of the technical things you've posted have been flat-out incorrect. I honestly don't think you are trying to be dishonest, but that's how it comes across. A prime example is this:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hello, All. We have received a lot of feedback regarding the changes to the Mail expiration timers on the PTS.
...
We understand that this may not be the news some of you were hoping to hear, and want to provide context for this decision. Based on the data of how quickly items typically sell, the team felt that 30 days for Guild Trader listings was unnecessarily long, and reducing the Mail expiration timers and the Guild Trader listings will allow for improvements in server performance by reducing strain on the database.

(emphasis mine)

This is patently untrue as stated. I do believe changes were made to the trader and mail systems to reduce database strain, but the 14 day change wasn't one of them. This was pointed out, but ignored.
When people who understand even a bit of the technical side of this see that, they don't think that communication between the devs and the communicators slipped, they think they are being gaslit. And trust is lost.

Today's outage was explained by a power outage. But both NA and EU were affected? That's one heck of a power outage. Of course, Texas and Germany didn't both lose power, 1 server in 1 data center affects logins on all megaservers. But the outage reason as stated comes across as dishonest.
Other players filled in the information about the authentication server. Not any official communication. And only those who have read all the threads on this topic are aware. And so trust is lost.

For things like today, of course a full technical discussion can't take place during the crisis. But a breakdown after the fact would be invaluable in regaining the trust of your players.
How many times has it been stated on these forums that we will never know why X or Y happened?

An excellent exception, and where you did extremely well, was the PTS Database overwriting the Live Server database issue. More communication like that, please.
More communication like what (I dearly hope) is going to be posted tomorrow about the lag issue.

Thank you.

----
(^ I don't count myself among our technical elite players. I've been out of tech for 10+ years. But I know enough to know when many of the statements given are ... not entirely accurate.)

So two power stations in two different countries went down simultaneously.... sound like the Architect is about to get a visit from Keanu Reeves.

Four_Fingers · December 13

The pinned thread on the subject at the top of the forum does explain in more detail than they usually do.
The data center hosting the login and store servers had the power failure as players were still playing on EU and NA servers
after failure if they didn't log out or crash.
So, no there was not a global power failure. lol

DigiAngel · December 13

I think PC NA also houses the login server. If that single data center lost power, then nobody is playing, NA or EU.

freespirit · December 13

Why can people not understand the login servers are in the USA for ALL servers.

This is why after the initial failure many EU players continued to play quite happily, if you just stayed on the same character there was no issue.

The PC-EU server is indeed in Germany but the login procedure routes us via the USA data centre.

allochthons · December 13

Four_Fingers wrote: »

The pinned thread on the subject at the top of the forum does explain in more detail than they usually do.

Yes, it does. It gives more information than I was expecting, and hadn't read while composing the original post.
But as of Post #6, no explanation of why a power outage at a North America data center took down access to European servers. To be clear, I'm not expecting that while the problem is still being fixed. I hope it's mentioned later, though, in official communication.

Four_Fingers wrote: »

The data center hosting the login and store servers had the power failure as players were still playing on EU and NA servers
after failure if they didn't log out or crash.
So, no there was not a global power failure. lol

I do know this. I state it in the original post.

I'm also very glad Kevin shared this:

ZoS_Kevin wrote:

Regarding the scope of work, this issue we ran into today was an edge-case emergency power outage at the data center that did not trigger standard backup failsafes for multiple tenants affected by the outage. (This type of outage is designed to cut ALL power in the event of a fire/flood scenario.)

As many people, myself included, were saying/thinking "uh, UPS has been a thing for decades now?"

I am impressed this was included while the crisis is still on-going. Thank you, @ZOS_Kevin.

freespirit · December 13

@allochthons see my post above your last one

Post #7

allochthons · December 13

freespirit wrote: »

@allochthons see my post above your last one

Post #7

I did. I state it in the original post.

allochthons wrote:

Of course, Texas and Germany didn't both lose power, 1 server in 1 data center affects logins on all megaservers. But the outage reason as stated comes across as dishonest.
Other players filled in the information about the authentication server. Not any official communication. And only those who have read all the threads on this topic are aware. And so trust is lost.

(edited to re-add emphasis lost in copy/paste)

attrielub17_ESO · December 13

honestly i can see the 14-day timeouts being for db performance. more rows = more query load. indexes can help but sometimes there's just too much data without a clear breakapart. that said, that applies more to the mail changes than the traders. if we're using a standard RDBMS style system (and based on launch date its likely) then partitioning by guildid could do a lot of that lifting if the db has good partitioning and indexing support. OTOH for a realtime db in 2010 ... some of those features may not have been fully baked and the expected updates to implement them into the dblayer didn't materialize, and moving the whole system to a new db layer is ... shall we say implausible. bc what software team ever gets greenlit to just go heads down on a massive overhaul with no immediate public value when they could be tasked with new features that can be flogged out? I know *I've* never been on a team that got PERMISSION for that ...

what *I* want to know is how do i contribute to the sysops after-action fund for coffee and pizza all night

allochthons · December 13

attrielub17_ESO wrote: »

honestly i can see the 14-day timeouts being for db performance. more rows = more query load. indexes can help but sometimes there's just too much data without a clear breakapart. that said, that applies more to the mail changes than the traders.

(emphasis mine)
And this is my point, and why I said:

I do believe changes were made to the trader and mail systems to reduce database strain, but the 14 day change wasn't one of them.

Mail timing out faster definitely does help the databases. But shorter trader listings means people relisting more often, and that means more database calls, not fewer. And they add 5+ more traders (5 guilds, 30 listings possible for each of 500 possible members = 75K possible more database entries), each chapter/DLC, so the logic makes even less sense.

Be that as it may. My point is only this: Consider that information communicated to a tech-savvy player population should be much different than communication aimed at stock holders. My examples are just that, examples.
I'm not looking to re-debate the mail/trader changes, or open another thread on today's outage.

spartaxoxo · December 13

allochthons wrote: »

. But shorter trader listings means people relisting more often, and that means more database calls, not fewer.

This is a pretty massive assumption that is being presented as just true, considering you're calling them out for lying.

Tons of people have been just been giving away or destroying cheap items when the listing expires. The vast majority of items were and still are sold before that time. Personally, I tend to think the devs know their own work site better than people who have never even visited.

There's no way for either of us to know but players making assumptions is not on ZOS.

TaSheen · December 13

I .... don't know that one should assume a "tech-savvy population" just from stuff posted on a game forum online....

allochthons · December 13

@spartaxoxo
I'm not calling them out for lying. I'm saying the way they state it is untrue because it's not specific enough and it comes across as dishonest.

Lying implies intent.

I don't think they intended to be untruthful (as I stated in my original post). It's a side effect of the way the information was stated. It would work on people who aren't tech-savvy, and was probably written for them. Not for us. That's my point.

But okay, I will give you that "Tons of people have been just been giving away or destroying cheap items when the listing expires." My engagement with the guild trader system has decreased significantly.

So, if their goal was to decrease engagement with the trading system in order to decrease the load on the databases, success! But again, they add more traders every year, so I don't think that was the goal.

allochthons · December 13

TaSheen wrote: »

I .... don't know that one should assume a "tech-savvy population" just from stuff posted on a game forum online....

Not everyone. But certainly some. Some of it is posted in this thread (see #11). Which is why I said:

Many of your players are highly sophisticated technical people. People as knowledgable and capable in the technology involved in running a AAA MMO as anyone else in the world. (emphasis added)

spartaxoxo · December 13

I don't think they wanted less people engaging with the system. I think they wanted less people sitting on items unnecessarily because the old system was cheap to do that. They said that and it makes sense.

And I suspect they were successful in that goal because I am aware of entire guilds that gave up trading entirely. And I know myself that I have stopped relisting items that aren't worth the relisting fee. I still trade. I just give away stuff that expires and was cheap anyway or sell it to an NPC now. I see others in zone that I suspect are doing the same as I have noticed an uptick in people linking items for free in zone, especially during events and shortly after.

Regardless, I don't see why a massive increase in costs to list would result in more people relisting rather than less.

wolfie1.0. · December 13

allochthons wrote: »

Four_Fingers wrote: »

The pinned thread on the subject at the top of the forum does explain in more detail than they usually do.

Yes, it does. It gives more information than I was expecting, and hadn't read while composing the original post.
But as of Post #6, no explanation of why a power outage at a North America data center took down access to European servers. To be clear, I'm not expecting that while the problem is still being fixed. I hope it's mentioned later, though, in official communication.

Four_Fingers wrote: »

The data center hosting the login and store servers had the power failure as players were still playing on EU and NA servers
after failure if they didn't log out or crash.
So, no there was not a global power failure. lol

I do know this. I state it in the original post.

I'm also very glad Kevin shared this:

ZoS_Kevin wrote:

Regarding the scope of work, this issue we ran into today was an edge-case emergency power outage at the data center that did not trigger standard backup failsafes for multiple tenants affected by the outage. (This type of outage is designed to cut ALL power in the event of a fire/flood scenario.)

As many people, myself included, were saying/thinking "uh, UPS has been a thing for decades now?"

I am impressed this was included while the crisis is still on-going. Thank you, @ZOS_Kevin.

And UPS fail over processes can also fail, as can the UPS's themselves. And sometimes it can be the UPS that kills the server.
They can also only communicate what is known and what is needed to be known.

We don't need to know if the issue was a lightning strike or someone hit the big red button in the center by accident and killed the power. We just need to know that the issue exists due to an emergency at the datacenter and it's going to be awhile to fix it.

Also, this isn't something likely in ZOS'S control.

allochthons · December 13

@spartaxoxo. Sure, okay, whatever. Their stated reason for decreasing the trading time limit came across to me, and others I spoke to who have some knowledge of how databases work, as inaccurate enough to appear to be untrue. I am not a database expert by any means. So it was, for me, a miscommunication. At this time, debating the actual mechanics of what the change accomplished doesn't achieve anything. So I will withdraw from this particular part of this discussion.

Sakiri · December 13

My own personal theory on the mail thing.

It forces prices downward by making people frequently relist for lower than recent prices in order to sell things.

They seem to have been making a concerted effort into getting prices down so new players can afford things.

spartaxoxo · December 13

But if it appeared untrue to players because they made a faulty assumption then how is that on ZOS, exactly? For the sake of argument, let's assume that it appeared untrue to lots of players. But, it was the absolute truth precisely stated.

What do you expect ZOS to do to prevent players from making such assumptions about the things they say?

Cellithor · December 13

I'm going to say my piece on this one. I agree wholeheartedly that effective communication with a game community is important for establishing confidence in that feedback to action pipeline and trust in the developer.

You know what else I think? I think that feedback given by a game's community should be open minded, respectful, and constructive. I am fairly new to the ESO community as I only just started playing in March this year.

The manner in which people give "feedback" around here is entitled, infantile, accusatory, and reactionary. People sit and speculate some imminent demise of the game while accusing these developers of not caring about what they're making or just flatly lying to their community. When a dev DOES jump in to say a few words on a post, they are swarmed with condescending demands for specific actions or responses as well as further accusations of dishonesty and sometimes insults to their skill or intelligence.

Warning: tangent ahead

I mean, just today, you've seen people demanding recompense for a completely unplanned outage over which the devs had no fault or control. I mean, do people think that ZOS just walked into the data center and decided that flipping a breaker would be a good idea? And what sort of compensation do people think they're entitled to here? If you are subscribed to ESO plus monthly, you pay $15.00. Divided out to days, it's roughly 50 cent a day; less if you have longer subscriptions prepaid. Even if it takes them a full 24 hours to get things back up and running, you could say you you lost 50 cent of your ESO plus subscription.

End of tangent.

My point is - yeah, it would be great if we could get some clarity about some of the actions they've taken via game development and even with regards to the future NA community event.

But if it was my job to engage with this community, I wouldn't want to make a single post. I say that if the community wants the developers to be more interactive and responsive, then people need to do a better job of making their criticisms in a constructive, reasonable, level-headed way that questions rather than accuses.

Just be better and maybe, just maybe, there would be some more interaction around here.

spartaxoxo · December 13

Sakiri wrote: »

My own personal theory on the mail thing.

It forces prices downward by making people frequently relist for lower than recent prices in order to sell things.

They seem to have been making a concerted effort into getting prices down so new players can afford things.

Personally, I do think this is an unstated part of it as well. Players had been complaining about inflation on PC for a long time. If ZOS knows there's a chance they can make that will appease the players who wanted lower prices AND help the game on the technical side of things, then that probably seemed like a no-brainer.

wolfie1.0. · December 13

Sakiri wrote: »

My own personal theory on the mail thing.

It forces prices downward by making people frequently relist for lower than recent prices in order to sell things.

They seem to have been making a concerted effort into getting prices down so new players can afford things.

In all fairness to ZOS the changes did make database management easier with the updated expiration dates as well as database efficiencies and storage.

One of their big efforts has been to move inactive accounts into cold storage to free up space.

I suspect, and yes this is speculation on my part. That mails and lingering guild listings were causing delays in migrating accounts to cold storage. The changes align better with a smoother transition.

Also, as a GM that's helped run guilds for years, once an account goes inactive for 14 days (without notice) the likiehood of them coming back anytime soon also decreases, and if they reach over 30 days those odds mean months or next big content release.

Oblivion_Protocol · December 13

Cellithor wrote: »

I'm going to say my piece on this one. I agree wholeheartedly that effective communication with a game community is important for establishing confidence in that feedback to action pipeline and trust in the developer.

You know what else I think? I think that feedback given by a game's community should be open minded, respectful, and constructive. I am fairly new to the ESO community as I only just started playing in March this year.

The manner in which people give "feedback" around here is entitled, infantile, accusatory, and reactionary. People sit and speculate some imminent demise of the game while accusing these developers of not caring about what they're making or just flatly lying to their community. When a dev DOES jump in to say a few words on a post, they are swarmed with condescending demands for specific actions or responses as well as further accusations of dishonesty and sometimes insults to their skill or intelligence.

Warning: tangent ahead
I mean, just today, you've seen people demanding recompense for a completely unplanned outage over which the devs had no fault or control. I mean, do people think that ZOS just walked into the data center and decided that flipping a breaker would be a good idea? And what sort of compensation do people think they're entitled to here? If you are subscribed to ESO plus monthly, you pay $15.00. Divided out to days, it's roughly 50 cent a day; less if you have longer subscriptions prepaid. Even if it takes them a full 24 hours to get things back up and running, you could say you you lost 50 cent of your ESO plus subscription.

End of tangent.

My point is - yeah, it would be great if we could get some clarity about some of the actions they've taken via game development and even with regards to the future NA community event.

But if it was my job to engage with this community, I wouldn't want to make a single post. I say that if the community wants the developers to be more interactive and responsive, then people need to do a better job of making their criticisms in a constructive, reasonable, level-headed way that questions rather than accuses.

Just be better and maybe, just maybe, there would be some more interaction around here.

Yes, there are people who take the opportunity to be more harsh when necessary. But trust me when I tell you they are the absolute minority. The rest of us give fair and balanced feedback, or firmly request answers to issues that come up. There have been mountains of constructive, reasonable, level-headed criticisms and questions that have all gone unanswered or ignored, and it seems disingenuous to blame that on a comparatively few rude people.

To give an analogy, say you walk into a restaurant. As you’re making your order, you hear another customer loudly and cruelly berating the employees because he’s not happy with his food. Eventually, he leaves. Then, you’re told that your food will take two hours and not given an explanation. Do you shrug and say, “Well, they don’t need to give me an explanation because that guy who was here earlier was a jerk”?

You said that if it was your job, you wouldn't want to make a single post. And that’s fine. But you should make those posts anyway because it’s your job. And that’s the key point. We’re not asking for the moon. We’re asking for ZoS to do their job.

wolfie1.0. · December 13

Oblivion_Protocol wrote: »

Cellithor wrote: »

I'm going to say my piece on this one. I agree wholeheartedly that effective communication with a game community is important for establishing confidence in that feedback to action pipeline and trust in the developer.

You know what else I think? I think that feedback given by a game's community should be open minded, respectful, and constructive. I am fairly new to the ESO community as I only just started playing in March this year.

The manner in which people give "feedback" around here is entitled, infantile, accusatory, and reactionary. People sit and speculate some imminent demise of the game while accusing these developers of not caring about what they're making or just flatly lying to their community. When a dev DOES jump in to say a few words on a post, they are swarmed with condescending demands for specific actions or responses as well as further accusations of dishonesty and sometimes insults to their skill or intelligence.

Warning: tangent ahead
I mean, just today, you've seen people demanding recompense for a completely unplanned outage over which the devs had no fault or control. I mean, do people think that ZOS just walked into the data center and decided that flipping a breaker would be a good idea? And what sort of compensation do people think they're entitled to here? If you are subscribed to ESO plus monthly, you pay $15.00. Divided out to days, it's roughly 50 cent a day; less if you have longer subscriptions prepaid. Even if it takes them a full 24 hours to get things back up and running, you could say you you lost 50 cent of your ESO plus subscription.

End of tangent.

My point is - yeah, it would be great if we could get some clarity about some of the actions they've taken via game development and even with regards to the future NA community event.

But if it was my job to engage with this community, I wouldn't want to make a single post. I say that if the community wants the developers to be more interactive and responsive, then people need to do a better job of making their criticisms in a constructive, reasonable, level-headed way that questions rather than accuses.

Just be better and maybe, just maybe, there would be some more interaction around here.

Yes, there are people who take the opportunity to be more harsh when necessary. But trust me when I tell you they are the absolute minority. The rest of us give fair and balanced feedback, or firmly request answers to issues that come up. There have been mountains of constructive, reasonable, level-headed criticisms and questions that have all gone unanswered or ignored, and it seems disingenuous to blame that on a comparatively few rude people.

To give an analogy, say you walk into a restaurant. As you’re making your order, you hear another customer loudly and cruelly berating the employees because he’s not happy with his food. Eventually, he leaves. Then, you’re told that your food will take two hours and not given an explanation. Do you shrug and say, “Well, they don’t need to give me an explanation because that guy who was here earlier was a jerk”?

You said that if it was your job, you wouldn't want to make a single post. And that’s fine. But you should make those posts anyway because it’s your job. And that’s the key point. We’re not asking for the moon. We’re asking for ZoS to do their job.

This is more like you show up to a restaurant and it's closed and people being upset that it's closed.

I

Grega · December 13

Oblivion_Protocol wrote: »

Cellithor wrote: »

I'm going to say my piece on this one. I agree wholeheartedly that effective communication with a game community is important for establishing confidence in that feedback to action pipeline and trust in the developer.

You know what else I think? I think that feedback given by a game's community should be open minded, respectful, and constructive. I am fairly new to the ESO community as I only just started playing in March this year.

The manner in which people give "feedback" around here is entitled, infantile, accusatory, and reactionary. People sit and speculate some imminent demise of the game while accusing these developers of not caring about what they're making or just flatly lying to their community. When a dev DOES jump in to say a few words on a post, they are swarmed with condescending demands for specific actions or responses as well as further accusations of dishonesty and sometimes insults to their skill or intelligence.

Warning: tangent ahead
I mean, just today, you've seen people demanding recompense for a completely unplanned outage over which the devs had no fault or control. I mean, do people think that ZOS just walked into the data center and decided that flipping a breaker would be a good idea? And what sort of compensation do people think they're entitled to here? If you are subscribed to ESO plus monthly, you pay $15.00. Divided out to days, it's roughly 50 cent a day; less if you have longer subscriptions prepaid. Even if it takes them a full 24 hours to get things back up and running, you could say you you lost 50 cent of your ESO plus subscription.

End of tangent.

My point is - yeah, it would be great if we could get some clarity about some of the actions they've taken via game development and even with regards to the future NA community event.

But if it was my job to engage with this community, I wouldn't want to make a single post. I say that if the community wants the developers to be more interactive and responsive, then people need to do a better job of making their criticisms in a constructive, reasonable, level-headed way that questions rather than accuses.

Just be better and maybe, just maybe, there would be some more interaction around here.

Yes, there are people who take the opportunity to be more harsh when necessary. But trust me when I tell you they are the absolute minority. The rest of us give fair and balanced feedback, or firmly request answers to issues that come up. There have been mountains of constructive, reasonable, level-headed criticisms and questions that have all gone unanswered or ignored, and it seems disingenuous to blame that on a comparatively few rude people.

To give an analogy, say you walk into a restaurant. As you’re making your order, you hear another customer loudly and cruelly berating the employees because he’s not happy with his food. Eventually, he leaves. Then, you’re told that your food will take two hours and not given an explanation. Do you shrug and say, “Well, they don’t need to give me an explanation because that guy who was here earlier was a jerk”?

You said that if it was your job, you wouldn't want to make a single post. And that’s fine. But you should make those posts anyway because it’s your job. And that’s the key point. We’re not asking for the moon. We’re asking for ZoS to do their job.

When humans mistreat other humans (in any setting or way), there is an adverse reaction.

In your restaurant example, that is actually something that happens all the time. Someone prepares your food badly - one can assume negative intent that they were just lazy. One can also assume positive intent that they were just treated badly by another customer - and were unfocused, causing badly prepared food. Happens all the time.

How humans treat other humans definitely affects everything and everyone.

TyrTrolas · December 13

They should extend the ESO+ trial as compensation

Aardappelboom · December 13

There have been good technical explanations since I've been playing (3 years by now) I remember the time when a chapter dropped (can't remember which one) and Matt did an entire post on what exactly happened. I also think that they are handling this one pretty well.

And while I agree their communication, transparency and feedbackloops could (and should) be a lot shorter on roadmap features, long-term ideas and game specific decisions. These hardware issues are generally handled very well.

I think a lot of people have their own theories, based on technical knowledge but they often don't have the entire picture. We don't know what data they are sitting on, and we have no idea what's going on, we don't have access to their codebase and we don't have knowledge on their way of work, or their server architecture. Even if they provide information that is wrong at the time, I tend to believe that they genuinely believed they were on the right track but further investigation proved them wrong, which is text-book problem solving.

In general, we can all make assumptions and that's fun, but when we don't have the complete picture, it'll always be assumptions.

Finally, to be honest and reply on your first post: you state they should communicate after the incident (which they have done in the past) and you understand they don't elaborate while the problem is ongoing, yet you already assume that what they say is dishonest. I think that's not a fair way to look at this.

I don't agree with quite a few things ZOS does, but this is honestly not one of them.

gusthermopyle · December 13

I for one couldn't be arsed with "tech-savvy" explainations, and I think the level of entitlement displayed on these forums sometimes is laughable.

I'm not tech un-savvy, but I really don't care or want to know intimate details of what went wrong any time. Just a reason & an eta for a fix.

It only "implies" some subterfuge if you are looking for it, and I doubt most folk are.

It's a "tech savvy" person thing to go looking for issues like this, and comes across as more of an opportunity to spout off about how tech savvy they are than any genuine grievance.

allochthons · December 13

Aardappelboom wrote: »

Finally, to be honest and reply on your first post: you state they should communicate after the incident (which they have done in the past) and you understand they don't elaborate while the problem is ongoing, yet you already assume that what they say is dishonest. I think that's not a fair way to look at this.

I don't agree with quite a few things ZOS does, but this is honestly not one of them.

I agree they are handling this one quite well. I do think they should have mentioned the authentication server being in NA, because the confusion about EU being inaccessible was voiced immediately.
But that's totally with 20/20 hindsight, and since this event is apparently due to an external-to-ZoS data center issue, and unprecedented, I totally understand.

I am not assuming what they're saying this time is dishonest. I don't think anything they've said is dishonest, just inaccurate, and it appears dishonest because of it. And it is contributing to players not trusting them. I have seen this within myself, in the discussions with my friends, on discord, on social media, and in zone/guild chat.

A few of the issues I brought up above (and please, I don't want to debate them again) made my knee-jerk reaction be that they were lying. And caused me to distrust their answers. It was only after I read a lot here in the forums, did research myself, talked to people more knowledgeable than I, that I realized where the issue has been: a mismatch in the level of communication.

That's why I posted. To perhaps help them avoid that in the future. My trust is coming back, but human nature is that once trust is lost, it is hard to regain, even when you see the lost of trust was unwarranted.