@ZOS Can we get daily news/updates/announcements?

GnGEmpire

I come from a game called path of exile. It is a completely free to play game which if judging by twitch, is quite a bit more popular than ESO.

The reason I mentioned that, is because the lead designer of the game himself (Basically the CEO) as well as the community manager, post on the forums on a daily basis with an interesting update or another; Builds of the week series, events, patches, and a lot more.

Your really need to take a look at their announcements forum: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/news

Now, I don't know if this is the standard for MMO's because I haven't played that many of them, but it certainly has a positive impact, the game feels alive, and people want to be part of that.

Now look at your own "News" forum, it has an update about once a month, usually about maintenance. This doesn't help the community feel that they're being thought of.

So, do you think you might be able to improve your engagement with your playerbase Zenimax?

Fruity_Ninja

Never heard of Path of Exile in my life...

WhY is the community engagement good? What sort of daily info do they give? And do people on the forums act like crybabies there?

GnGEmpire

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

Never heard of Path of Exile in my life...

WhY is the community engagement good? What sort of daily info do they give? And do people on the forums act like crybabies there?

Why is the community engagement good? Because it's a proven fact that engaging with your customers prolongs their customer lifespan.

What sort of daily info? I gave a few example but feel free to also check out the link in my OP.

Do people act like crybabies? You have crybabies everywhere, however the community on their forums is less toxic in my experience, and rightly so.

JoshenReborn

Also never heard of path of exile. I rather have ZOS working than chatting all day. We don't need daily news. You get plenty of breaking news when things happen. In summary, no.

Fruity_Ninja

GnGEmpire wrote: »

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

Never heard of Path of Exile in my life...

WhY is the community engagement good? What sort of daily info do they give? And do people on the forums act like crybabies there?

Why is the community engagement good? Because it's a proven fact that engaging with your customers prolongs their customer lifespan.

What sort of daily info? I gave a few example but feel free to also check out the link in my OP.

Do people act like crybabies? You have crybabies everywhere, however the community on their forums is less toxic in my experience, and rightly so.

Why is the community engagement good, should have read as "why is POE's community engagement so good vs others?"

Reason I ask, is that more doesn't necessarily mean better. It needs some intrinsic value to the playerbase otherwise it's just news for news sake.

GnGEmpire

JoshenReborn wrote: »

I rather have ZOS working than chatting all day.

One doesn't need to replace the other, also during my 3 years playing that game, the amount of work that they have put in in terms of fixing stuff, balancing stuff, and improving the game based on player feedback, has been a whole lot more than what I've seen by zenimax since I started playing ESO

GnGEmpire

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

GnGEmpire wrote: »

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

Never heard of Path of Exile in my life...

WhY is the community engagement good? What sort of daily info do they give? And do people on the forums act like crybabies there?

Why is the community engagement good? Because it's a proven fact that engaging with your customers prolongs their customer lifespan.

What sort of daily info? I gave a few example but feel free to also check out the link in my OP.

Do people act like crybabies? You have crybabies everywhere, however the community on their forums is less toxic in my experience, and rightly so.

Why is the community engagement good, should have read as "why is POE's community engagement so good vs others?"

Reason I ask, is that more doesn't necessarily mean better. It needs some intrinsic value to the playerbase otherwise it's just news for news sake.

True, quantity isn't necessarily better than quality, but they did and still do seem to provide mostly quality updates, and you can judge that by seeing so many hyped/positive feedback comments/replies to these updates. You don't see ZOS getting positive feedback every day.

Also, no news at all is still worse than some news, even if they aren't exciting.

Fruity_Ninja

GnGEmpire wrote: »

JoshenReborn wrote: »

I rather have ZOS working than chatting all day.

One doesn't need to replace the other, also during my 3 years playing that game, the amount of work that they have put in in terms of fixing stuff, balancing stuff, and improving the game based on player feedback, has been a whole lot more than what I've seen by zenimax since I started playing ESO

I played ESO from day 1. This game doesn't look even remotely close to what it looked like on day 1. It has undergone major surgery numerous times. There have been more fixes, changes, balances and additions/improvements than any other game I've played.

I'm not saying that their engagement is perfect, but they do makes changes based on feedback.

If anything forum responses have slightly lessened, due to the amount of crying that can occur over the smallest announcements. Which in some cases I don't blame them, any messaging needs to be carefully considered before release, as it can easily be misconstrued and blow up in their face.

Elsonso

ZOS forums are very likely frequented by a minority of ESO players and a lot of the most vocal use it as a podium for complaints and demands. I doubt that the forums represent the game as a whole. The purpose of the forum is for social entertainment purposes related to the game. I don't think that they really intended, deep down, for the forums to be a primary source of information about the game. Yeah, they post Patch Notes here, but aside from the occasional information from developers, they tend to use News to say things and Knowledge Base to answer questions.

It has been this way from the start, and while I would have preferred they do things differently , this just seems to be the way they want to do it.

Trying to put myself in their shoes, I would find it challenging to continue spending money on the forums. Now, maybe they get enough valuable input from the civil comments in here to make it worth their time. I have to think that they get more useful information from the "round table" discussions with various guild leaders than they do from the forum. In any case, were I tasked with looking for better ways to spend studio money, I would not be looking at investing more into the forums.

GnGEmpire

lordrichter wrote: »

ZOS forums are very likely frequented by a minority of ESO players and a lot of the most vocal use it as a podium for complaints and demands. I doubt that the forums represent the game as a whole. The purpose of the forum is for social entertainment purposes related to the game. I don't think that they really intended, deep down, for the forums to be a primary source of information about the game. Yeah, they post Patch Notes here, but aside from the occasional information from developers, they tend to use News to say things and Knowledge Base to answer questions.

It has been this way from the start, and while I would have preferred they do things differently , this just seems to be the way they want to do it.

Trying to put myself in their shoes, I would find it challenging to continue spending money on the forums. Now, maybe they get enough valuable input from the civil comments in here to make it worth their time. I have to think that they get more useful information from the "round table" discussions with various guild leaders than they do from the forum. In any case, were I tasked with looking for better ways to spend studio money, I would not be looking at investing more into the forums.

Although you have a point, providing daily updates would surely increase the amount of people engaging on the forums, and by making the forums attractive to not only people who come here to complain, they may end up lessening the percentage of "crybabies" and balancing it with more mature forums users/posters.

WalkingLegacy

I think everyone is missing the point. The lead of this company is active on their forums and communicates with the player base.

Where as ESO gets a "no ETA", worked around answers to our questions (think last ESO live), and no forum engagement from it's leader.

Elsonso

GnGEmpire wrote: »

Although you have a point, providing daily updates would surely increase the amount of people engaging on the forums, and by making the forums attractive to not only people who come here to complain, they may end up lessening the percentage of "crybabies" and balancing it with more mature forums users/posters.

I don't think that would be the result.

First, things are not changing on the development side every day for every issue that people care about. Even if there were daily updates, someone would not be getting an update. They would complain, and vocally, about their stuff being ignored by the studio. That is simply the culture around here. If there are not frequent updates to a Favorite part of the game, it does not take long before someone decides that ZOS does not care about that Favorite thing.

Second, if they did update the status of everything frequently, inevitably, they would be saying "nothing new on Favorite" and ... well, see above. If Firor gets flamed for saying ETA several times in one session, imagine the fun people would have with a daily dose of "no ETA", "Soon™", and "nothing new to report". (They say those things for a reason, not just because it sounds cool when run together in a video)

Third, I am not sure if you have noticed, but when ZOS makes statements in here, it does not always have a calming effect. Not everything that ZOS does is greeted with welcome by everyone in the forum. Those who disagree will be tend to be vocal about it, a percentage of those getting into the bannable areas. Imagine this happening daily. Weeeeee!

Between those three things, I seriously doubt that the tone of the forum would improve. The people you would not hear from anymore are the ones who only complain that ZOS is not providing information. That demographic is not a loud one, and some of them would move into one of the others.

Fourth, I do not know if you have noticed, but the Community Managers are already busy. They apparently did not replace the French Community Manager and it does not look like they replaced Leavey, either. (Leavey moved to Bethesda last year) They would have to hire staff to collect and write all the daily updates. Like I said, I don't see a reason to invest that level of money into what is not intended to be a primary medium of spreading information. I suspect that ZOS would agree.

Edit: messed up phrasing..

ZOS_GinaBruno

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We do appreciate it and take it to heart, and do the best we can.

Our News section appears to be a bit light due to how our forums are structured (for example, a lot of the big news discussions are actually found under Website Article Discussions rather than News since they're linking to an article). We also encourage everyone to keep an eye on the Dev Tracker as a lot of news and tidbits are posted throughout the forums, and this is a great way to track official statements.

GnGEmpire

lordrichter wrote: »

GnGEmpire wrote: »

Although you have a point, providing daily updates would surely increase the amount of people engaging on the forums, and by making the forums attractive to not only people who come here to complain, they may end up lessening the percentage of "crybabies" and balancing it with more mature forums users/posters.

I don't think that would be the result.

First, things are not changing on the development side every day for every issue that people care about. Even if there were daily updates, someone would not be getting an update. They would complain, and vocally, about their stuff being ignored by the studio. That is simply the culture around here. If there are not frequent updates to a Favorite part of the game, it does not take long before someone decides that ZOS does not care about that Favorite thing.

Second, if they did update the status of everything frequently, inevitably, they would be saying "nothing new on Favorite" and ... well, see above. If Firor gets flamed for saying ETA several times in one session, imagine the fun people would have with a daily dose of "no ETA", "Soon™", and "nothing new to report". (They say those things for a reason, not just because it sounds cool when run together in a video)

Third, I am not sure if you have noticed, but when ZOS makes statements in here, it does not always have a calming effect. Not everything that ZOS does is greeted with welcome by everyone in the forum. Those who disagree will be tend to be vocal about it, a percentage of those getting into the bannable areas. Imagine this happening daily. Weeeeee!

Between those three things, I seriously doubt that the tone of the forum would improve. The people you would not hear from anymore are the ones who only complain that ZOS is not providing information. That demographic is not a loud one, and some of them would move into one of the others.

Fourth, I do not know if you have noticed, but the Community Managers are already busy. They apparently did not replace the French Community Manager and it does not look like they replaced Leavey, either. (Leavey moved to Bethesda last year) They would have to hire staff to collect and write all the daily updates. Like I said, I don't see a reason to invest that level of money into what is not intended to be a primary medium of spreading information. I suspect that ZOS would agree.

Edit: messed up phrasing..

Maybe, but I think you're wrong and a bit too skeptical.

Frequent engagement from what I've seen has only seemed to be beneficial in the game I mentioned in the OP.

Also, thanks for commenting on this @ZOS_GinaBruno

reften

entitled generation! judging judging!

Kidding, I think ESO does a pretty good job of updates and being active on the forums already...and yeah, the dev tracker is a great tool.

Just wish you could filter by English, and by posts of content vs. posts where devs are scolding posters.

Taonnor

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We do appreciate it and take it to heart, and do the best we can.

Our News section appears to be a bit light due to how our forums are structured (for example, a lot of the big news discussions are actually found under Website Article Discussions rather than News since they're linking to an article). We also encourage everyone to keep an eye on the Dev Tracker as a lot of news and tidbits are posted throughout the forums, and this is a great way to track official statements.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Hey, what is if you start a little "fun" campaign to see some developers on work. Take a little hand camera, run into the studio and take some scenes.

For example I'm very interested into the workplace of @ZOS_BrianWheeler . Did he have some cola on his table? Is it very clean?

Or will be @ZOS_MattFiror raging if he killed in Cyrodiil? Did he playing on worklpace or only at home?

Did you do some office games like office chair race?

Bring us "closer" to the devs. Make them to peoples like me or other. Often we see the devs only in ESO live or dedicated posts in forums. The devs feels so far away from the community.

In my company our customers often get a tour through our offices. We take the monitors off or show them screens they are not in NDA. So why not here too? We are your customers. We are interested in you.

Could this be an idea for your next cool project?

ZOS_GinaBruno

Not a bad idea, @Taonnor. We could do something like an office/desk tour just as a fun little video once in a while?

Taonnor

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Not a bad idea, @Taonnor. We could do something like an office/desk tour just as a fun little video once in a while?

Yeah! Cool!

nimander99

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We do appreciate it and take it to heart, and do the best we can.

Our News section appears to be a bit light due to how our forums are structured (for example, a lot of the big news discussions are actually found under Website Article Discussions rather than News since they're linking to an article). We also encourage everyone to keep an eye on the Dev Tracker as a lot of news and tidbits are posted throughout the forums, and this is a great way to track official statements.

Just give us ZoSWorld on Twitch and be done done with it, we know there has to be some worthy drama around the office... it could be a 24 hour live stream with camera people following everyone around and those cool little confessional booths, and at the end /lurk gives someone a flower and they get to keep their job!

Then we would have info...

Elsonso

The Office, ZOS...

tengri

Monday: No ETA yet.
Tuesday: No ETA yet.
Wednesday: No ETA yet.
Thursday: in-house birthday celebration for X
Friday: No ETA yet.

Yeah... no way that's gonna get boring anytime soon...

GnGEmpire

Taonnor wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We do appreciate it and take it to heart, and do the best we can.

Our News section appears to be a bit light due to how our forums are structured (for example, a lot of the big news discussions are actually found under Website Article Discussions rather than News since they're linking to an article). We also encourage everyone to keep an eye on the Dev Tracker as a lot of news and tidbits are posted throughout the forums, and this is a great way to track official statements.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Hey, what is if you start a little "fun" campaign to see some developers on work. Take a little hand camera, run into the studio and take some scenes.

For example I'm very interested into the workplace of @ZOS_BrianWheeler . Did he have some cola on his table? Is it very clean?

Or will be @ZOS_MattFiror raging if he killed in Cyrodiil? Did he playing on worklpace or only at home?

Did you do some office games like office chair race?

Bring us "closer" to the devs. Make them to peoples like me or other. Often we see the devs only in ESO live or dedicated posts in forums. The devs feels so far away from the community.

In my company our customers often get a tour through our offices. We take the monitors off or show them screens they are not in NDA. So why not here too? We are your customers. We are interested in you.

Could this be an idea for your next cool project?

Agreed, and nice idea!

GnGEmpire

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Not a bad idea, @Taonnor. We could do something like an office/desk tour just as a fun little video once in a while?

That could be very interesting

vyrusb23

GnGEmpire wrote: »

I come from a game called path of exile. It is a completely free to play game which if judging by twitch, is quite a bit more popular than ESO.

That is a terrible way to compare popularity.

vyrusb23

GnGEmpire wrote: »

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

Never heard of Path of Exile in my life...

WhY is the community engagement good? What sort of daily info do they give? And do people on the forums act like crybabies there?

Why is the community engagement good? Because it's a proven fact that engaging with your customers prolongs their customer lifespan.

Please show me the evidence of this "proven fact." I'm actually genuinely curious where you got this information from.

Autolycus

GnGEmpire wrote: »

I come from a game called path of exile. It is a completely free to play game which if judging by twitch, is quite a bit more popular than ESO.

The reason I mentioned that, is because the lead designer of the game himself (Basically the CEO) as well as the community manager, post on the forums on a daily basis with an interesting update or another; Builds of the week series, events, patches, and a lot more.

Your really need to take a look at their announcements forum: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/news

Now, I don't know if this is the standard for MMO's because I haven't played that many of them, but it certainly has a positive impact, the game feels alive, and people want to be part of that.

Now look at your own "News" forum, it has an update about once a month, usually about maintenance. This doesn't help the community feel that they're being thought of.

So, do you think you might be able to improve your engagement with your playerbase Zenimax?

This describes one of the main differences between an MMO and an MMORPG. I've never heard of an MMORPG having daily announcements. The other things you suggested, like "builds of the week" and events require a dedicated team to manage. I'm guessing that most of the community would prefer that the budget included adequate people to work on the DLCs/Updates over daily updates that don't actually have any relevance to future content. We already get some of that, and major updates are sent to us when we're ready to hear them, i.e. when they're almost finished. ZOS even does things like ESO Splotlight, and despite whether or not anyone finds them helpful or informative, ESO Live.