A Letter to ZoS: Please Improve Your Communication

Tornaad

agelonestar wrote: »

Communication to us is great - when it happens. The problems, to my mind, are as follows:-

1. This forum is drastically under-utilised by ZoS - they seem to prefer comms via other channels to their own official forum, which I find weird.
2. This forum is incredibly over-managed to the point where it feels like any criticism of ZoS is either edited out, removed, the player warned or even worse, banned (banned for communicating - seriously - wtf??). Posts are routinely closed. That’s not moderation, it’s censorship, plain and simple. The “bashing” excuse is overused x1,000.
3. ZoS gives the impression that they don’t listen. The PTS feels like a constant round of players saying “please don’t do that” en masse, followed swiftly by ZoS doing that anyway! This is inevitably followed by an outcry from players: you did that thing and now the game is broken….. hello….. hello….. is there anyone out there….?
4. The same is true about feedback here. Communication runs both ways. If ZoS wanted to they could take the comments made here and make a better and more profitable game - just implement things that customers / players actually want. There are literally lists of those things on this forum. People actually saying “you can charge me for that”. Not two players. Lots of them. The same stuff over and over and over. I reckon they’d make next year’s profit target just by adding a furnishing limit increase to the Crown Store.
5. Some topics have been running for so long without any appreciable progress that any communication about them is just embarrassing. Take Cyrodiil as the example. But it’s ok…..they’re gonna fix it. One day. Honest…… In reality Cyrodiil is dead as a dodo (relative to where it was).

So ZoS, if you’re listening - and I appreciate you probably aren’t - please use your own forum more, please demonstrate that you’re listening more, please cease and desist the censorship in the forum….. and PLEASE…. If we’re wrong, tell us. Tell me that my voice asking for that thing is in the minority. Prove it. Serve the customer.

You’d improve our game no end.

I completely agree. @agelonestar

DoggedBark24

hafgood wrote: »

For what it's worth, we're planning to publish the website article with all the details on Whitestrake's Mayhem (our next event) this week.

Whilst I thank you for the update its really coming too late. We should be getting told the dates of any events at least at the start of the month if not the start of the quarter.[/quote]

I agree with you completely, they used to announce dates at the start of the month with the crown store showcases up until October 2019. maybe they snuck in a few after but that was the last consistent month-to-month basis. it was nice to know what days i should request off work to grind out events whether it's pvp or pve.

hafgood wrote: »

I don't believe the dates may change baloney. You are a big organisation and can make dates work.

Many players work, they need as much notice of events as possible so they can plan accordingly. You would find a lot of players would be a lot happier if we knew when events were going to happen well in advance.[/quote]

I'm mixed on this. The Q1 dlc drop for console is going to be on the 29th of March. We all know that the end of March is the jester's festival event. I'm definitely curious what the calendar for ESO looks like on their end for in-game events, DLC releases, and PTS testing

Riptide

Re the crown store, it really was a turning point when at the exact same time relief checks during covid hit they started offering reskinned crown gem mounts that were at an inflated price designed to take advantage of people’s hunger for some kind of gratification during a lonely time.

And please, that isn’t intended as a bait or a troll but is an explanation of why many of us rather had a turning point with our attitudes toward the company. Anyone can go back and look at precisely when those very expensive ones were added exactly and tick backwards the finance thought process of it, particularly if they have been watching for years.

And that deserves some real world, adult sort of shift, because it certainly was an adult decision to make, if you will.

Re purely the communication - here is the deal Gina. I’ve always thought highly of you. But at least to us, it seems you simply relay what a small number of devs say, and rarely. I mean aggregating bugfixes, I don’t know, anyone who has worked in knowledge management or heck any technical writing team let alone managed it know its just a copy and paste email exchange going on there at best. There just isn’t much there there to it.

The actual developers posting, particularly in the test forum, without a non technical PR person whose primary job is to keep peace in the valley here and on social media as a filter. That is real, organic communication.

But actual developers. Team leads particularly, who have some kind of latitude.

And if that that sounds radical, much less rude, then you have to ask yourselves why that is.

Imagine if you took your car to the mechanic and rather than being permitted to speak to the mechanic at any point you had to work through a customer representative. One not in the management chain and so with no authority. That puts the consumer in a circular, low information situation where the person they are dealing with can neither get to the engineering/programatic granulars nor has a mandate to make any exception to any policy whatever, or to even have much hope of changing that policy for future victims of bad policy, when it manifests as such. And that last bit particularly is where consumers throw their hands up, every time.

Its the sort of culture you get at the DMV, because you can even casually detect the deliberate nature of it there. Where shortcomings in the situation have been programatically provided a cul de sac deliberately. It is why bureaucracy is said pejoratively, because the finance department of an organization have leveraged it to create those culdesacs to the organization’s advantage, not the consumer’s.

And that is what the current communication feels like, to a majority of people, if you really get right down to it.

A final analogy - imagine at a restaurant and you have an issue. But the only folks you can speak to are either the greeter or a bus boy. I’ve done both of those jobs, that isn’t intended as a degrading insult - but neither of them can help you with anything not completely lined out in policy.

Neither can the corporate CEO help much either, because you just get general platitudes and feel goods from them.

You need he head chef or the general manager, or lead programmers and project managers. Have to be able to communicate with those folks at least rarely. When it is utterly impossible, then it is PR, not communication.

Fennwitty

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

Hey - what did they say the date of the next event was?

Oh, wait - they haven’t communicated that info yet… even though it is either 2 days, or 9 days away.

S.

Q1 Calendar for Events: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/595968/q1-in-game-events-2022-january-through-march

And they provided an explanation for why they can't give the exact dates way in advance.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai We try to give as much notice as we can, but we want to make sure the date we give is concrete and does not change. But we will communicate dates through the article for each event, and we will update the first post as dates become available.

TL;DR: We don't have a direct answer for how far in advance. But we will mention this internally for future event consideration.

Ironically, this is actually an example of reasonably good communication, IMO. They gave us the information they had on hand. More importantly, they were upfront about why they aren't giving us the additional information now that we said would be useful.

For what it's worth, we're planning to publish the website article with all the details on Whitestrake's Mayhem (our next event) this week.

I appreciate it Gina.

Please don't get bummed by occasional negativity!

It's what happens when we're frustrated and the love leaks out our ears.

agelonestar

Fennwitty wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

ShawnLaRock wrote: »

Hey - what did they say the date of the next event was?

Oh, wait - they haven’t communicated that info yet… even though it is either 2 days, or 9 days away.

S.

Q1 Calendar for Events: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/595968/q1-in-game-events-2022-january-through-march

And they provided an explanation for why they can't give the exact dates way in advance.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai We try to give as much notice as we can, but we want to make sure the date we give is concrete and does not change. But we will communicate dates through the article for each event, and we will update the first post as dates become available.

TL;DR: We don't have a direct answer for how far in advance. But we will mention this internally for future event consideration.

Ironically, this is actually an example of reasonably good communication, IMO. They gave us the information they had on hand. More importantly, they were upfront about why they aren't giving us the additional information now that we said would be useful.

For what it's worth, we're planning to publish the website article with all the details on Whitestrake's Mayhem (our next event) this week.

I appreciate it Gina.

Please don't get bummed by occasional negativity!

It's what happens when we're frustrated and the love leaks out our ears.

Actually it's what happens when people forget how the bills get paid

Lady_Lindel

Under Events it says Feb 17th https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/61615

SimonThesis

agelonestar wrote: »

The problems, to my mind, are as follows:-

1. This forum is incredibly over-managed to the point where it feels like any criticism of ZoS is either edited out, removed, the player warned or even worse, banned (banned for communicating - seriously - wtf??). Posts are routinely closed. That’s not moderation, it’s censorship, plain and simple. The “bashing” excuse is overused x1,000.
   

I could not agree with this more. The censorship has gotten so bad average players may feel afraid of posting any criticisms whatsoever. This problem has existed long before Kevin.

Also, copy and paste events should give us at least a months notice to the actual date of the event so that guild and players can better plan. Without enough notice guilds have to have emergency officer meetings. Announcing recurring events last minute like this is extremely disrespectful to your guilds.

DagenHawk

Fennwitty wrote: »

I appreciate it Gina.

Please don't get bummed by occasional negativity!

.

Occasional?

Negativity?

Lets face it my friend, there are quite a few who haven't played the game in years and constantly spew venom on these forums...they get banned and buy another Five dollar account just to resume what they have been doing since launch. You can tell it's the same people because it reads exactly the same.

And honestly it's why there is such a huge turnover in video game customer service. I have maintained for a long time that Zenimax should adopt the Rockstar approach, no forums aside from customer support and the basic here is your update, this is what it has blurb on the webpage.

Tornaad

DagenHawk wrote: »

Fennwitty wrote: »

I appreciate it Gina.

Please don't get bummed by occasional negativity!

.

Occasional?

Negativity?

Lets face it my friend, there are quite a few who haven't played the game in years and constantly spew venom on these forums...they get banned and buy another Five dollar account just to resume what they have been doing since launch. You can tell it's the same people because it reads exactly the same.

And honestly it's why there is such a huge turnover in video game customer service. I have maintained for a long time that Zenimax should adopt the Rockstar approach, no forums aside from customer support and the basic here is your update, this is what it has blurb on the webpage.

I didn't know that.
People are confusing.

Mojmir

agelonestar wrote: »

Communication to us is great - when it happens. The problems, to my mind, are as follows:-

1. This forum is drastically under-utilised by ZoS - they seem to prefer comms via other channels to their own official forum, which I find weird.
2. This forum is incredibly over-managed to the point where it feels like any criticism of ZoS is either edited out, removed, the player warned or even worse, banned (banned for communicating - seriously - wtf??). Posts are routinely closed. That’s not moderation, it’s censorship, plain and simple. The “bashing” excuse is overused x1,000.
3. ZoS gives the impression that they don’t listen. The PTS feels like a constant round of players saying “please don’t do that” en masse, followed swiftly by ZoS doing that anyway! This is inevitably followed by an outcry from players: you did that thing and now the game is broken….. hello….. hello….. is there anyone out there….?
4. The same is true about feedback here. Communication runs both ways. If ZoS wanted to they could take the comments made here and make a better and more profitable game - just implement things that customers / players actually want. There are literally lists of those things on this forum. People actually saying “you can charge me for that”. Not two players. Lots of them. The same stuff over and over and over. I reckon they’d make next year’s profit target just by adding a furnishing limit increase to the Crown Store.
5. Some topics have been running for so long without any appreciable progress that any communication about them is just embarrassing. Take Cyrodiil as the example. But it’s ok…..they’re gonna fix it. One day. Honest…… In reality Cyrodiil is dead as a dodo (relative to where it was).

So ZoS, if you’re listening - and I appreciate you probably aren’t - please use your own forum more, please demonstrate that you’re listening more, please cease and desist the censorship in the forum….. and PLEASE…. If we’re wrong, tell us. Tell me that my voice asking for that thing is in the minority. Prove it. Serve the customer.

You’d improve our game no end.

so much truth

Hurbster

These forums are incredibly tame compared to most official forums.

SimonThesis

Hurbster wrote: »

These forums are incredibly tame compared to most official forums.

I agree but unfortunately thats a result of the censorship problem and the games constant catering to new players and RPers.

DagenHawk

SimonThesis wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

These forums are incredibly tame compared to most official forums.

I agree but unfortunately thats a result of the censorship problem and the games constant catering to new players and RPers.

Not to be a Jerk, and I'm genuinely curious...

Can you provide examples of this in the different platforms and on the forums?

agelonestar

Zuboko wrote: »

DagenHawk wrote: »

Fennwitty wrote: »

I appreciate it Gina.

Please don't get bummed by occasional negativity!

.

Occasional?

Negativity?

Lets face it my friend, there are quite a few who haven't played the game in years and constantly spew venom on these forums...they get banned and buy another Five dollar account just to resume what they have been doing since launch. You can tell it's the same people because it reads exactly the same.

And honestly it's why there is such a huge turnover in video game customer service. I have maintained for a long time that Zenimax should adopt the Rockstar approach, no forums aside from customer support and the basic here is your update, this is what it has blurb on the webpage.

I didn't know that.
People are confusing.

I have to be honest, I think this is nonsense. If you believe people are buying new accounts just so they can come to this forum and complain about a game they haven't played for years, you'll probably believe the world is flat (it isn't). Mostly, people come here to complain because they're irritated with something they bought that doesn't work the way it should.

The issue - and the reason so many complaints sound the same - is that there's never a satisfactory response or conclusion. Take performance issues in Cyrodiil. They are broadly the same for everyone, so everyone's complaint is the same. Over time the issues in Cyrodiil have only gotten worse and responses from ZoS have (at best) kicked the can so far down the road no-one believes the can exists any more. That's when (and why) complaints become vitriolic.

My original post here lists what I think are the main issues, but the obvious easy answer is to communicate much, much more with comprehensive truths. It's actually dead easy.

It's easier than censorship and it garners a helluvalot more respect.