So about that communication, ZOS...

Suddwrath

lordrichter wrote: »

It's not a cozy fireside chat, but even I can see that they are sneaking out more frequently.

The trick is to not scare them. Stand very still, and make no sudden movements.

Yeah I will admit that I've noticed Finn, Sarah, Rob, and Gina popping into random threads (even Rich dropped into one about the undaunted keys recently), and at one point the Dev Tracker page was full of Gina one day. So it definitely seems like the plan Gina mentioned back in November has been implemented. I think there was just some confusion on whether or not Gina would make that plan on how they will improve communication public (sort of like how Rob made a codified vision for the future of combat and Brian codified the vision coming with Update 22).

So rather than her posting a thread about how they plan on improving communication it seems that the plan was more of an internal memo sort of thing for the devs' eyes only and then the community would see the changes which came along with the plan being implemented.

And I would just like to say that I do appreciate seeing them being more active lately than they were at the end of 2018

Moloch1514

Edaphon wrote: »

Nogawd wrote: »

Again, the entitlement from these brats is embarrassing.

Go to your job. Go wash your car. Take your partner out for a date.

You talk this way on the forums but would not say these things to the face of anyone else. I know it, you know it.

Let them do their job.

What's the job of a community manager again?

This. We are asking for community management from community managers.

MornaBaine

I think some of the frustration comes from the fact that it seems like these forums, the game's actual official forums, are largely ignored in terms of engagement. Yet Reddit and Twitch get LOTS of attention and communication. And that just seems wrong.

Elsonso

Moloch1514 wrote: »

Edaphon wrote: »

Nogawd wrote: »

Again, the entitlement from these brats is embarrassing.

Go to your job. Go wash your car. Take your partner out for a date.

You talk this way on the forums but would not say these things to the face of anyone else. I know it, you know it.

Let them do their job.

What's the job of a community manager again?

This. We are asking for community management from community managers.

I can manage myself, thank you.

Now, where did I put that...

twev

SaltySudd wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

What ever happened to those new community reps that were supposed to play the game just like us?
It has been so long since one of them posted I can only remember @ZOS_Edward.
I though they were supposed to fill the gap in communications as well.

I remember that as well.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/391225/welcome-to-our-new-community-reps/p1

The best part is looking to see when the last time they each logged in or even commented.
One logged in last October for the final time.
A second commented last in October, and logged in last November for the final time.
The third commented in October, and last logged in 5 days ago (April 4th).

No names mentioned in my post, it's not a call-out thread.

Moloch1514

So I guess this never happened

Sandman929

Since this topic currently exists and isn't locked, I'll just comment here rather than make another thread because this really isn't another performance complaint, this is about the communication issue.
@ZOS_GinaBruno are there any plans to address the flood of frustrated community members in the near future? We're all in the dark, yet again, and creating multiple posts mostly concerning the same few issues (mostly performance, some new bugs, some long standing bugs). When the conversation on the forums only goes one-way it never shines a positive light on ZOS or the development team and speculation from community members about ZOS's ability or lack of interest in addressing problems start to look like all of the negative bashing is pretty close to the truth.
Bug reports are created and never even given a response that they've been seen or that developers have been made aware of the issue. Issues are brought up and the only response is eventual moderation/locking when someone "derails" or "baits" in the thread out of frustration. We're asking for the communication that you apologized for not providing because we still aren't seeing that promise even attempted, let alone happen. What are the community managers thinking letting it get this far again?

grannas211

this about to get locked

ilcavallo

Sergykid wrote: »

this is risky, i don't want them to make changes based on what forum people complain about.

That's exactly what happened to PVP with the class rep system. Total failure

Turelus

I think they need more staff on the community team or at least a restructure.

Unless I am mistaken the team is still just Gina, Jess and Kai? I'm not sure if Sarah is full time community team or just helps out.

Gina already seems insanely overloaded with work. She runs the community initiatives (Stream Team, Class Reps, Shares with Jess on Ambassadors), writes the patch notes and seems to be the main presence on the forum.

Jess from my knowledge handles a lot of the social media stuff as well as doing forums posts. I don't know if she has any other internal obligations.

For a while we had the three new community reps, ZOS_Edward, ZOS_Chris and ZOS_Holden who sadly didn't amount to anything more than spending a couple of months giving generic "that's great thanks for sharing" answers on pictures people posted before vanishing entirely.

What we need is someone on the community team who doesn't get bogged down with other things and can focus on looking at the forums, getting information on issues and going to get answers and replying ASAP. This alone would put out so many of the fires that start on the forums.

Also ZOS needs to drop their secrecy and ignoring issues because it's not good for marketing. If there is an issue they know about (say EU servers being overloaded) they need to tell us they know and what it is when they know, not months later when it reaches critical mass.

Sadly the cynic in me doesn't see anything happening, and I fear the day the servers shut down we'll still be asking why ZOS can't communicate better.

Suddwrath

grannas211 wrote: »

this about to get locked

I doubt the thread will get locked unless the topic gets derailed into the ground. It wouldn't look good on ZOS' part for locking a thread concerning communication.

Suddwrath

Turelus wrote: »

What we need is someone on the community team who doesn't get bogged down with other things and can focus on looking at the forums, getting information on issues and going to get answers and replying ASAP. This alone would put out so many of the fires that start on the forums.

That would be a dream come true.

Humancentipede2

Sandman929 wrote: »

Bug reports are created and never even given a response that they've been seen or that developers have been made aware of the issue. Issues are brought up and the only response is eventual moderation/locking when someone "derails" or "baits" in the thread out of frustration. We're asking for the communication that you apologized for not providing because we still aren't seeing that promise even attempted, let alone happen. What are the community managers thinking letting it get this far again?

Community Manager, what even is the meaning of this Job AT ZOS? There are Companys like Grinding Gear Games, where you can clearly see how the CM is managing, informing and communicating with the Players. Even their Devs Answer rough questions and if they *** up they say so and explain what happened. At companys like ZOS CM´s are just Mods with more rights on the Board, sometimes they do Scripted Interviews with Newsoutlets thats it. i Think i have never seen the CMs here engaging in a real Discussion, they just Post once and thats it. And most of the time they post in Threads about Screenshots and other unimportant things. This Thread is older than 6 Months, they said they know that their communication is lacking, and now 6+ months later, its not any better. Its always the same, when the Community complains about communication, they say we know and we get better. But they never get any better, its just show the players that the CMs listen to them and that they are quiet again for the next couple months. You people have to wake up and realize you are paying and playing a game from a company that doesnt give anything about you. You are a payer for them not a consumer or player.

Turelus

Humancentipede2 wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Bug reports are created and never even given a response that they've been seen or that developers have been made aware of the issue. Issues are brought up and the only response is eventual moderation/locking when someone "derails" or "baits" in the thread out of frustration. We're asking for the communication that you apologized for not providing because we still aren't seeing that promise even attempted, let alone happen. What are the community managers thinking letting it get this far again?

Community Manager, what even is the meaning of this Job AT ZOS? There are Companys like Grinding Gear Games, where you can clearly see how the CM is managing, informing and communicating with the Players. Even their Devs Answer rough questions and if they *** up they say so and explain what happened. At companys like ZOS CM´s are just Mods with more rights on the Board, sometimes they do Scripted Interviews with Newsoutlets thats it. i Think i have never seen the CMs here engaging in a real Discussion, they just Post once and thats it. And most of the time they post in Threads about Screenshots and other unimportant things. This Thread is older than 6 Months, they said they know that their communication is lacking, and now 6+ months later, its not any better. Its always the same, when the Community complains about communication, they say we know and we get better. But they never get any better, its just show the players that the CMs listen to them and that they are quiet again for the next couple months. You people have to wake up and realize you are paying and playing a game from a company that doesnt give anything about you. You are a payer for them not a consumer or player.

You can check my post above if you want to know what the ZOS CM's do, they work very hard and often with little thanks from the community. Sadly however it seems a lot of the tasks they're given are not ones which work best in appeasing the frustrated members of the community.

I would personally say this seems to be a structure/management issue. We need to buy Matt some beers at Gamescom (if he's attending this year) and talk him into getting Jess and Gina some interns to delegate work to.
That or just take one one more full time CM to cover some of the work like answering forums questions.

An example for me right now is this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/481618/zos-what-have-you-done-with-textures-on-furniture-items
This should be a pretty simple issue which someone could read, go speak with some of the teams handling it and get info, and reply within a day or two. Might not be the answer people want to hear, but at least it would be an answer.

Instead I would be willing to put gold on that thread just dying out with no official statement ever made.

Donny_Vito

You people have to wake up and realize you are paying and playing a game from a company that doesnt give anything about you. You are a payer for them not a consumer or player.

This. Exactly.

For some reason, when it comes to MMORPGs the players (myself included) feel a sense of entitlement as if we are part of the development process for the game we play. ZoS is a business and we pay for their goods, that is it. Of course we'd like a better communication stream when it comes to our input being utilized, but are we entitled to it? Definitely not. Can you complain about it? Most definitely, but please don't have the mindset that ZoS owes you anything. Too many of these message threads and comments give this sense of entitlement just because we purchased their goods. ZoS cares about your business, not you personally.

Suddwrath

Turelus wrote: »

I would personally say this seems to be a structure/management issue.

This is the same conclusion I came to a while back. Gina, Jess, and Sarah all have their separate responsibilities/projects but none of them seem to have the responsibility of being consistently active on the forums. It almost seems as though all 3 of them are spread so thin that they only come to the forums when they can get around to it rather than making communicating on the forums their priority.

I honestly think what needs to happen is that ZOS either needs to bring someone new in or promote someone else to the role where their main priority is being active on the forums and relaying information to and from the devs. That would be immensely beneficial to the community.

Before people start making the typical "But we don't want ZOS nerfing every little thing complained about on the forums!" I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to ZOS communicating openly with the community on things like game breaking bugs, serious performance issues, etc.

So many issues have been reported by the community over the years but never addressed by the Community Managers or fixed by the devs. All we're asking for is communicating on those issues rather than letting those reports die due to the silence from ZOS. Which I believe is where a lot of the community's frustration stems from. We don't expect instantaneous fixes or optimizations, we would just like to know that the devs are aware and that it is being worked on (or will be eventually worked on).

One suggestion that would be a great step in the right direction, would be having a "Known Bugs/Issues" section of the forum (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/447611/forums-needs-an-official-known-bugs-issues-section). Several other MMOs have such sections in their forums and it helps to alleviate the concern of whether or not the devs are aware of a bug. Let's take the current broken aoe telegraphs for example: If a player was wondering whether or not this issue was being worked on, they could go see if it was posted on the Known Bugs thread. They go to the thread and see "AoE Telegraphs Not Displaying Correctly - Actively being worked on". This would 1) Answer their question, 2) Reassure them that it is actively being fixed, and 3) Would hopefully prevent them from making another redundant thread on the topic.

Jaraal

SaltySudd wrote: »

Iluvrien wrote: »

If I was in the proper mood, then ZOS failing to communicate about their plans to improve their failing communication, would have me rolling in the aisles at this point...

... sadly the irony is lost on me at the moment and I am less than amused.

At this point it's almost expected.

ZOS had a great opportunity to improve their communication with the community. The day that Gina came out and apologized for the lack of communication could have been a turning point, but nothing has changed and that's the part that I don't understand.

How can you apologize for a lack of communication, but then don't improve said communication? It literally hurts my brain to try and understand how any business could make that sort of apology without following it up with any meaningful change.

It's called buying time.

valeriiya

Their silence is a real clear response.

Zathras

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

these things take time and isn't something you'll see after just a couple days.

A couple of days would have been a bit premature. Now it's been over half a year, and counting.



And you guys wonder why the forums are full of pleas for communication, and criticism that it isn't happening.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

xxthir13enxx

They are Killing It!!

Wolfpaw

As we have seen over the years communication doesn't fix the game, I want to see all hands on deck action.

A real sense of urgency is what's missing.

Wolfpaw

gepe87 wrote: »

the_other_Alice wrote: »

Don´t you worry - they are comunicating just fine...
For instance if the next events are broken as well - who cares?
"Note that we are also planning to add Event Tickets to the Crown Store late Q1"
Nuff said

Sounds they just want to profit till they close the game.

6months at a time.

Zathras

Turelus wrote: »

I think they need more staff on the community team or at least a restructure.

Unless I am mistaken the team is still just Gina, Jess and Kai? I'm not sure if Sarah is full time community team or just helps out.

Gina already seems insanely overloaded with work. She runs the community initiatives (Stream Team, Class Reps, Shares with Jess on Ambassadors), writes the patch notes and seems to be the main presence on the forum.

Jess from my knowledge handles a lot of the social media stuff as well as doing forums posts. I don't know if she has any other internal obligations.

For a while we had the three new community reps, ZOS_Edward, ZOS_Chris and ZOS_Holden who sadly didn't amount to anything more than spending a couple of months giving generic "that's great thanks for sharing" answers on pictures people posted before vanishing entirely.

What we need is someone on the community team who doesn't get bogged down with other things and can focus on looking at the forums, getting information on issues and going to get answers and replying ASAP. This alone would put out so many of the fires that start on the forums.

Also ZOS needs to drop their secrecy and ignoring issues because it's not good for marketing. If there is an issue they know about (say EU servers being overloaded) they need to tell us they know and what it is when they know, not months later when it reaches critical mass.

Sadly the cynic in me doesn't see anything happening, and I fear the day the servers shut down we'll still be asking why ZOS can't communicate better.

^ Yes.

I'm sure a few people here played DAoC. One thing they did extremely well was to post a weekly summation of known problems and issues, and address the community concerns. ETAs of fixes were given when available. Mostly, it was a, "Hey guys, we are aware and are working on it. This is what we are currently doing, and what is in the pipe." They also, every Friday, directly answered a handful of community questions.

That was community management.

Palidon

SaltySudd wrote: »
» show previous quotes

At this point it's almost expected.

ZOS had a great opportunity to improve their communication with the community. The day that Gina came out and apologized for the lack of communication could have been a turning point, but nothing has changed and that's the part that I don't understand.

How can you apologize for a lack of communication, but then don't improve said communication? It literally hurts my brain to try and understand how any business could make that sort of apology without following it up with any meaningful change.

---

The only thing ZOS cares about is finding ways to get more money out of the player base. Look at todays maintenance 6/26/19. It's for their store and accounts not a maintenance to address the many performance issues and bugs. Want to get their attention. Hurt them were they will have no other option than to start communicating and fix their game. Stop paying to play. Boycott the crown store and stop your subscription if you have one.

Why pay to play a game that is riddled with performance issues and bugs and a company that refuses to even communicate with its player base. You will still be able to play their broken game but at least you will not be paying any money to do it.

Jaraal

SaltySudd wrote: »

Iluvrien wrote: »

If I was in the proper mood, then ZOS failing to communicate about their plans to improve their failing communication, would have me rolling in the aisles at this point...

... sadly the irony is lost on me at the moment and I am less than amused.

At this point it's almost expected.

ZOS had a great opportunity to improve their communication with the community. The day that Gina came out and apologized for the lack of communication could have been a turning point, but nothing has changed and that's the part that I don't understand.

How can you apologize for a lack of communication, but then don't improve said communication? It literally hurts my brain to try and understand how any business could make that sort of apology without following it up with any meaningful change.

It's called buying time.

Zathras wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

I think they need more staff on the community team or at least a restructure.

Unless I am mistaken the team is still just Gina, Jess and Kai? I'm not sure if Sarah is full time community team or just helps out.

Gina already seems insanely overloaded with work. She runs the community initiatives (Stream Team, Class Reps, Shares with Jess on Ambassadors), writes the patch notes and seems to be the main presence on the forum.

Jess from my knowledge handles a lot of the social media stuff as well as doing forums posts. I don't know if she has any other internal obligations.

For a while we had the three new community reps, ZOS_Edward, ZOS_Chris and ZOS_Holden who sadly didn't amount to anything more than spending a couple of months giving generic "that's great thanks for sharing" answers on pictures people posted before vanishing entirely.

What we need is someone on the community team who doesn't get bogged down with other things and can focus on looking at the forums, getting information on issues and going to get answers and replying ASAP. This alone would put out so many of the fires that start on the forums.

Also ZOS needs to drop their secrecy and ignoring issues because it's not good for marketing. If there is an issue they know about (say EU servers being overloaded) they need to tell us they know and what it is when they know, not months later when it reaches critical mass.

Sadly the cynic in me doesn't see anything happening, and I fear the day the servers shut down we'll still be asking why ZOS can't communicate better.

^ Yes.

I'm sure a few people here played DAoC. One thing they did extremely well was to post a weekly summation of known problems and issues, and address the community concerns. ETAs of fixes were given when available. Mostly, it was a, "Hey guys, we are aware and are working on it. This is what we are currently doing, and what is in the pipe." They also, every Friday, directly answered a handful of community questions.

That was community management.

Too bad they couldn’t bring any of those caring DAoC people over to ESO.








Oh, wait......

Seraphayel

I mean where are they? Why are they hiding? Can’t remember the last proper response from Gina or any other CM that wasn’t “we deleted this due to...“.

xxthir13enxx

https://youtu.be/bHoPYLQvnQM

Turelus

@SaltySudd I remember having a conversation with Gina about the known bugs thread when I first became a CA.

We're talking two years ago so don't take what I say as 100% accurate nor her wording.

I think the reason she gave as to why they didn't was the maintenance and potential drama it could cause.
It would take a lot to maintain and it would become this horrible thing where people would complain every individual bug was not tracked and updated, also what happens when a bug is considered low priority and not fixed for months yet remains on the list, it would just give people more ammunition to be snarky about.

Again, not her words and maybe even I'm remembering wrong.

I do know that they have an internal spreadsheet where every bug reported is tracked, and the team who manage it actively read the bugs forum.
However I believe she said many on there end up being something needing more info or that they can't reproduce.

Sandman929

Turelus wrote: »

@SaltySudd I remember having a conversation with Gina about the known bugs thread when I first became a CA.

We're talking two years ago so don't take what I say as 100% accurate nor her wording.

I think the reason she gave as to why they didn't was the maintenance and potential drama it could cause.
It would take a lot to maintain and it would become this horrible thing where people would complain every individual bug was not tracked and updated, also what happens when a bug is considered low priority and not fixed for months yet remains on the list, it would just give people more ammunition to be snarky about.

Again, not her words and maybe even I'm remembering wrong.

I do know that they have an internal spreadsheet where every bug reported is tracked, and the team who manage it actively read the bugs forum.
However I believe she said many on there end up being something needing more info or that they can't reproduce.

So instead we have no idea about anything. Thank goodness that in itself isn't snarky ammunition.

React

Lol, thank's for resurrecting this thread. Really goes to show how little they actually care about this game and the community. Over a year has passed since they supposedly were "working hard on a plan" and there has been no change whatsoever. In fact, they are now just flat out deleting all the threads about performance and frame drops because they are apparently "non-constructive and will not help developers assess the issues".

They literally don't care that the game's performance has deteriorated to a point where it is near enough unplayable for anyone that doesn't want to stand around shooting siege inside of a 24+ man group. They don't care that in IC, overworld zones, and certain dungeons/trials the FPS drops are worse and more frequent than they have EVER been. The players that have been actually playing the game for years know well enough now to not defend ZOS in any regard, despite the fresh waves of "they said they were going to address it next patch" sympathizers. It's straight up sad to watch one of the best MMO combat systems of all time be disregarded to the point of non-functionality by a team of sub par developers and disinterested community representatives.

Keep up the good work, zenimax. Pretty soon we can just do away with PVP and endgame pve, and make eso a strictly role-play oriented game.