Maintenance for the week of February 23:
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – February 23, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – February 23, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
· [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – February 23, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – February 23, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – February 23, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
· [COMPLETE] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – February 23, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
Suggestions to improve communication
I think they're a little lacking at the moment. Sure you guys take the moment to address hot topics and important issues, but there are only a handful of CMs to hundreds of thousands of players. Right now, these are the most important flaws in the way things are being conducted, in my humble opinion:
- I think we can all agree that ZOS has shown a fair history of listening to our demands. There are many features and fixes that have been addressed because of player feedback. Sure they're taking more time to happen than any of us would have liked, but eventually, they're implemented to the live servers. -However-, it doesn't feel like there's enough discussion between the playerbase and the game's developers. We only get "we're listening", and eventually "we're looking into it". I think discussion is a healthy way to express how strongly you feel about your design choices.
- Monthly producer letters are too few and far between. It's always nice to hear from management as indicative of good costumer support. When we're at a nice restaurant and the manager comes to our table to ask if everything is alright, we're reminded that our opinion is highly valued and that we're being looked after. Rarely do we hear from Mr. Sage and Mr. Firor, except when these letters are published, or from media outlets and the reddit AMA.
Now, don't get me wrong. I understand managers are busy people and have better things to do than visit forums all day long (that's what CM's are for). But it would be nice if they had a more open line of communication with the players.
- Design decisions and goals are too vague. We understand that giving us deadlines is a bad idea, and too many factors come into play. But for us players, being kept in the dark is frustrating in this business model. We get excited whenever new features are being announced. We know such features take time and testing in order to be fully realized. But what happens in-between? Why some things are okay to go and some are not? What do you think about the current state of a certain game mechanic? What thoughts have you given on how a certain part of the game is supposed to work? We'd like to be involved, or at least feel involved in the development process. Sometimes it feels like our input is being processed like raw data. That's not a good human approach to this.
Suggestions:
- Make a developer blog. Allow system designers to explain what intentions they have, what's being worked on, toss us a few bones in the shape of WIP screenshots. I'm sure you have a large team working on this. If many of them were participate once in a while, we'd have lots of fresh content on a very periodic basis. Don't treat ESO like something happening behind locked doors. We're way past release already. This what indie companies do, and some of the established studios have in place (check out EVE's developer blog). It works because it's a bridge between humans (as opposed to a corporation) tirelessly working behind curtains, and the community who tends to forget how the trial-and-error process takes EFFORT.
- Director letters could come more often, every 15 days. I understand there might be a lack of exciting news to announce. But it doesn't need to have them. Every so often there ARE interesting things happening in the game. And if you'll excuse my bluntness, there aren't enough mea culpas when it comes to ESO's flaws. I may be alone on this, but I think it's better PR to own up to one's mistakes than focusing only on the positive side things. For example, I'd feel more inclined to forgive the horrible lag that has plagued Wabbajack in the past month, if somebody heartily apologized for that mess in a more official statement. The same can be said about important past issues, such as the ultimate abuse, the caltrops bug, etc, etc.
- General concerns have to be addressed in a more visible way. Players keep an eye on the dev tracker, but I must say, more often than not, we'll browse through threads only to find warnings and requests for players to behave, without any insight on what you guys feel about such concerns. It's frustrating. Either remove those posts from the dev tracker, or at least give us something after said warnings. We -still- don't know your positions about how classes are balanced right now. Is there a class that is where you think it should be? How do you feel about your decision to add veteran levels? Are you happy with how Craglorn turned out to be? If not, what concerns you? We can't possibly know what the team thinks if the answers to these questions are things like: "We're aware of...", "We're looking into it..", "We respect people's rights to disagree..". Some of these issues are even worth essays on the subject, and if you never elaborate, no one else will. I'm sure you DO elaborate, behind closed doors, in a meeting table, but leaving out your whole costumer base to the element of surprise, and we all know that sometimes works against you with alarming frequency.
All in all, I think we need more human opinions and less public statements, that vaguely highlight where the game is heading. There seems to be a friendly bunch working at ZOS, and I think CM's do their job quite well, but in my opinion, there needs to be more direct interaction and less bridging.
- I think we can all agree that ZOS has shown a fair history of listening to our demands. There are many features and fixes that have been addressed because of player feedback. Sure they're taking more time to happen than any of us would have liked, but eventually, they're implemented to the live servers. -However-, it doesn't feel like there's enough discussion between the playerbase and the game's developers. We only get "we're listening", and eventually "we're looking into it". I think discussion is a healthy way to express how strongly you feel about your design choices.
- Monthly producer letters are too few and far between. It's always nice to hear from management as indicative of good costumer support. When we're at a nice restaurant and the manager comes to our table to ask if everything is alright, we're reminded that our opinion is highly valued and that we're being looked after. Rarely do we hear from Mr. Sage and Mr. Firor, except when these letters are published, or from media outlets and the reddit AMA.
Now, don't get me wrong. I understand managers are busy people and have better things to do than visit forums all day long (that's what CM's are for). But it would be nice if they had a more open line of communication with the players.
- Design decisions and goals are too vague. We understand that giving us deadlines is a bad idea, and too many factors come into play. But for us players, being kept in the dark is frustrating in this business model. We get excited whenever new features are being announced. We know such features take time and testing in order to be fully realized. But what happens in-between? Why some things are okay to go and some are not? What do you think about the current state of a certain game mechanic? What thoughts have you given on how a certain part of the game is supposed to work? We'd like to be involved, or at least feel involved in the development process. Sometimes it feels like our input is being processed like raw data. That's not a good human approach to this.
Suggestions:
- Make a developer blog. Allow system designers to explain what intentions they have, what's being worked on, toss us a few bones in the shape of WIP screenshots. I'm sure you have a large team working on this. If many of them were participate once in a while, we'd have lots of fresh content on a very periodic basis. Don't treat ESO like something happening behind locked doors. We're way past release already. This what indie companies do, and some of the established studios have in place (check out EVE's developer blog). It works because it's a bridge between humans (as opposed to a corporation) tirelessly working behind curtains, and the community who tends to forget how the trial-and-error process takes EFFORT.
- Director letters could come more often, every 15 days. I understand there might be a lack of exciting news to announce. But it doesn't need to have them. Every so often there ARE interesting things happening in the game. And if you'll excuse my bluntness, there aren't enough mea culpas when it comes to ESO's flaws. I may be alone on this, but I think it's better PR to own up to one's mistakes than focusing only on the positive side things. For example, I'd feel more inclined to forgive the horrible lag that has plagued Wabbajack in the past month, if somebody heartily apologized for that mess in a more official statement. The same can be said about important past issues, such as the ultimate abuse, the caltrops bug, etc, etc.
- General concerns have to be addressed in a more visible way. Players keep an eye on the dev tracker, but I must say, more often than not, we'll browse through threads only to find warnings and requests for players to behave, without any insight on what you guys feel about such concerns. It's frustrating. Either remove those posts from the dev tracker, or at least give us something after said warnings. We -still- don't know your positions about how classes are balanced right now. Is there a class that is where you think it should be? How do you feel about your decision to add veteran levels? Are you happy with how Craglorn turned out to be? If not, what concerns you? We can't possibly know what the team thinks if the answers to these questions are things like: "We're aware of...", "We're looking into it..", "We respect people's rights to disagree..". Some of these issues are even worth essays on the subject, and if you never elaborate, no one else will. I'm sure you DO elaborate, behind closed doors, in a meeting table, but leaving out your whole costumer base to the element of surprise, and we all know that sometimes works against you with alarming frequency.
All in all, I think we need more human opinions and less public statements, that vaguely highlight where the game is heading. There seems to be a friendly bunch working at ZOS, and I think CM's do their job quite well, but in my opinion, there needs to be more direct interaction and less bridging.
2
-
Blackwidow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Great post.
Frankly, I'm sick of being in the dark as to what direction they are heading on a lot of topics.
Do they plan to change the Banks?
Is an AH in the future?
Are they going to add user friendly tools for a great number of systems?
0 -
Anath_Q✭✭✭✭An excellent post deserving a meaningful official response from ZoS.
| GM Cheesemongers of Nirn |0