Recent Queue Times & Login Issues

RicAlmighty

Well… better late than never they say. Still, it would have taken all of 15 mins to post a red banner across the top of the forums letting people know that “we’re investigating”. It would have significantly changed the mood in here.

deejayvee

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

Seems to me that there has been quite a bit of "ball dropping" lately.

SimonThesis

I applaud that they acknowledged that they messed up, a refreshing change of pace. Still, how many times can they drop the ball before changes need to be made? This isn't a new problem, this has been ongoing for years. It is disheartening when the communication to players seems apathetic at best.

PurpleScroll

I've played ESO on PC-EU since 2016 and have been an ESO+ member since then too. While I appreciate the apology, as others have stated, you've always given us the excuse of 'improving communication' and it's never happened. So I actually feel you'll never actually improve on this, and this'll just happen again.

rpa

You really should finish one of the many, many projects to improve communication you have started and forgot about during years. How hard it is to develop procedure which allows timely posting "We are aware of the game smoking and burning for some playes and working to find a solution to the issue" when customers complain about servers catching fire again?

Hotdog_23

tincanman wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

....
We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring. ....

Seen this so many times before and nothing changes.

The forum was in meltdown over the weekend because this is the only place we can 'effectively' give/receive feedback. And we were ignored. Again.

No more future faking, please. It's beyond disrespectful to us, your loyal and 'patient' customers and, if you're honest, yourselves, too.

Console player and was not affected by this. I thought the same thing about improved communication when I read it. It has been seen so many times now that it has become a meme or just an afterthought when apologizing again for poor communication.

Stay safe

Katheriah

deejayvee wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

Seems to me that there has been quite a bit of "ball dropping" lately.

Where they really holding the ball though?

I said it before and I will say it again; things really have improved since we got Kevin and I love the way he interacts with the players when they share community things.

However, this time something went really wrong outside of office hours, and I got the idea that there was nothing in place for communication in case something went horribly wrong. I know it was the weekend, but when you're running an MMO you should also be aware that this is when most players will be online. You need to have at least someone that can drop a 'we're aware and working on it.'

We don't even need a 'this system is having this and that problem and we will try this and that to fix it'. It could just be 'we're still looking into it, but if it's not fixed in 2 hours I will give you another status update.'

Michae

I tried to log in on sunday, saw 1,5h que, turned off ESO and played something else. Nothing to rage about.

Still, it's a shame that this all happened during the event, especially the one that has more than usual new style pages (since we have both weapon and armour pages this time), especially when the drop rates are low, and the pages are hard to farm in any meaningful way when playing solo.

As for the "improving communications" thing. Don't make promises you can't keep.

LalMirchi

Thank you @ZOS_GinaBruno

Hopefully you will also look at some kind of emergency response team that could be called upon when such problems arise.

wilykcat

*for

Hurbster

Thank you for the explanation.

I do feel, just like many people here that there have been too many instances of bad communication over the years. We hear apologies and promises to improve all to often nowadays.

As someone who has worked in Customer Services for 20 years now, it's not really acceptable any more. It's simply bad customer service. Like most people my leisure time is scarce enough, waiting in queues for ages is not a thing I can afford to do. Queues are part and parcel of a successful MMO, but with ESO I tend to think, well, have the servers broken again? PC-EU tends to 'break' quite often I find.

Now, with the release of the third installment of a single-player game that I have been waiting for for years, the imminent release of a massive sci-fi RPG and the long-awaited expansion to another futuristic game which has recovered from an unacceptable start, my gaming time is all booked up for the foreseeable.

This latest problem just made it easier to put my eso plus on hold for a few months. I simply do not think the service is acceptable for what we pay at the moment. The increasingly aggressive monetization of the game is a topic for another time.

As someone who has played since launch and enjoyed myself immensely for years, this is disappointing to have to say. I will see how things stand around Xmas and how these quality of life improvements work out. Yes, I have invested a lot of time, enjoyed myself (for the most part), and sunk-cost fallacy is most certainly a factor but in the end it's all ones and zeroes. I'm extremely curious about some upcoming MMO's and have accounts for most of the major ones out there that I can dip in to (and the Secret World if I want to feel sad over how Funcom treated it) should I want to. I played ESO for years for a reason.

Jimbru

I'm not any sort of great IT expert, but this game runs almost 24/7 with double heavy traffic on weekends -- which in this case was made even worse by having two events at once, Zeal and the ESO+ trial. So maybe there should be some "on call" person designated to periodically check in on the game and forum on the weekend, and come into the office to Fonz the servers if needed. You know, like in most other industries.

roqueforty

This is the fifth time you promise to "improve communication" in the last year, as far as i remember. When are you going to actually act on it?

At least, thank you for the official explanation of why it happened. Technical issue are inevitable in online gaming. HOWEVER, the way the situation was handled by you, in terms of communication, with no acknowledgement of the issue in the present moment and no transparent communication makes it seems that you actually don't care to engage with the community, unless it is absolutely necessary and beneficial FOR YOU.

A simple "Hi everyone, thank you for bringing the attention to this issue, as we are trying to find the source of it. Once we figure out the reason and fix this problem, you can expect the official report on why it happened, what was done, and how are we going to possibly avoid this in the future. Thank you for your patience and understanding!" would've sufficed. But y'all decided to keep quiet, hoping we will "calm down" if you ignore us. Well, that's not how it works.

Transparency is good. Transparency is respectable. But for some reason, you decide, once again, to provide us with another corporate promise to "improve communication". Well... Improve it, then. The next time we are going to experience technical difficulties, we expect:

1. an acknowledgement of the issue in the present moment;
2. the info on your planned course of action;
3. the estimated time in which the issue is expected to be resolved;
4. the official report on the results.

Thank you for your time. We expect a better communication in the future, as you have promised to us here, once again.

Erissime

Beautiful thread! Thank you for the communication! Always encouraging to see this level of care towards players!

Lebkuchen

KappaKid83 wrote: »

There is not a single person who has played this game for any period of time that expects anything other than zero communication from the Dev team and community managers. Then you get a long post about how they need to be better and inevitably nothing ever changes but forum apologists say "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST GINA!"

Here is a better idea for all of you. Report the company to the BBB, get refunds for product that you have bought but haven't even come close to being delivered on to it's potential, uninstall and then play a different game.

@KappaKid83 In heavily moderated forums (where posts like yours are normally removed very fast) you will notice a spike in irony, sarcasm and other forms of criticism that are not so easily detected by artificial intelligence, moderators and unfortunately a lot of other forum members.

I bet if you read the "positive" posts again, you will find hidden messages in almost all of them.

The problem with your idea of just uninstalling and playing a different game (like a normal person would do), is that all of us here in this forum fell in love with ESO and see its potential. Love is blind, and we still hope for improvements that will probably never happen.

Erissime

KappaKid83 wrote: »

There is not a single person who has played this game for any period of time that expects anything other than zero communication from the Dev team and community managers. Then you get a long post about how they need to be better and inevitably nothing ever changes but forum apologists say "OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU'RE THE BEST GINA!"

Here is a better idea for all of you. Report the company to the BBB, get refunds for product that you have bought but haven't even come close to being delivered on to it's potential, uninstall and then play a different game.

The point is not about what has been, but about what is to come. The mere fact that opening is being attempted, even on small matters such as this ( which granted could have gone ignored - after all, we got good login times since yesterday, who cares yes?). Facing positive facts with negativity will never bring anything good. Better aknowledge the good to get more of it rather than underlying the bad - which invariably will lead to more of that. Set yourself in their shoes for a bit - you have a history of bad communication, you decide to work on that, and suddenly open up to your friends about some small matter - only to be met with rants and negativity. Will you go on?[snip] Really give these people some credit! They are really trying! [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Erissime

roqueforty wrote: »

This is the fifth time you promise to "improve communication" in the last year, as far as i remember. When are you going to actually act on it?

At least, thank you for the official explanation of why it happened. Technical issue are inevitable in online gaming. HOWEVER, the way the situation was handled by you, in terms of communication, with no acknowledgement of the issue in the present moment and no transparent communication makes it seems that you actually don't care to engage with the community, unless it is absolutely necessary and beneficial FOR YOU.

A simple "Hi everyone, thank you for bringing the attention to this issue, as we are trying to find the source of it. Once we figure out the reason and fix this problem, you can expect the official report on why it happened, what was done, and how are we going to possibly avoid this in the future. Thank you for your patience and understanding!" would've sufficed. But y'all decided to keep quiet, hoping we will "calm down" if you ignore us. Well, that's not how it works.

Transparency is good. Transparency is respectable. But for some reason, you decide, once again, to provide us with another corporate promise to "improve communication". Well... Improve it, then. The next time we are going to experience technical difficulties, we expect:

1. an acknowledgement of the issue in the present moment;
2. the info on your planned course of action;
3. the estimated time in which the issue is expected to be resolved;
4. the official report on the results.

Thank you for your time. We expect a better communication in the future, as you have promised to us here, once again.

[snip] Also, the problem has been acknowledged in a previous forum, as well as their working on it statement, during the weekend.

[snip]
[edited for baiting]

Soraka

Katheriah wrote: »

deejayvee wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

Seems to me that there has been quite a bit of "ball dropping" lately.

Where they really holding the ball though?

I said it before and I will say it again; things really have improved since we got Kevin and I love the way he interacts with the players when they share community things.

However, this time something went really wrong outside of office hours, and I got the idea that there was nothing in place for communication in case something went horribly wrong. I know it was the weekend, but when you're running an MMO you should also be aware that this is when most players will be online. You need to have at least someone that can drop a 'we're aware and working on it.'

We don't even need a 'this system is having this and that problem and we will try this and that to fix it'. It could just be 'we're still looking into it, but if it's not fixed in 2 hours I will give you another status update.'

I second this. Kevin has been great, need more Kevins for when he's off work and to not burn him out. I was a little surprised to see no apparent monitoring over the weekend, especially considering the event(s). I can't prove it, but I feel like weekends usually do have more responsiveness when something happens.

I do kind of feel like some people panicked a little much, but I understand it is upsetting to lose free time to queues and not be able to make a good choice about whether or not to stay in that queue if waiting through it still kicked you anyway.

Danikat

Thank you for letting us know you were aware of the problem and trying to fix it.

That's all we really needed. (Well that and for the problem to be fixed eventually of course.)

zaria

aetherix8 wrote: »

Thank you for this update. As much as it was frustrating to get a 1h long queue resulting in error 108 then another queue but this time 2h long, the really disturbing aspect of yesterday afternoon was the total lack of communications. I've been playing for some time now, and often when I run into login issues, I check the forums. I've witnessed some server crashes etc over the years but there was always also some official acknowledgment like a banner, and it was very reassuring. The total silence from devs made me freak out more than the 3 hours it took to log in.
I'm happy to know both queues and communication are on the dashboard.

This, just an message on top on this forum would help a lot.
"Login servers has been restarted so expect queues logging in"

Shara_Wynn

ESO is an MMORPG and ZOS should be aware that evenings and weekends are peak times. As such there should be communications cover during those times. Not providing such cover and ignoring the player base when problems arise makes people frustrated. That leads to an angry player base who feel under valued and a loss of custom for ZOS.

There is no way that the extent of the issues over the weekend where not known about within ZOS.

As such there should have been SOMEONE who was able to go onto an online message forum and update the player base.

They didn't need to be a communications expert, they just needed to put up a simple post.

It is the most basic level of customer service. The fact that there was NO ONE capable of that over the weekend is quite poor.

Lumenn

People, nowhere did @ZOS_GinaBruno say that they weren't aware of our situation, so I'm not sure where that's coming from. With the front page of general blowing up on the same topic for at least two days, and as many tags and forum mods that had to be throwing red flags up the ladder, someone had to know, it's common sense. @ZOS_GinaBruno is just saying they didn't communicate it with us.

Marcus684

OMG people you're not Gina's dad. Stop acting like a disappointed parent and accept the apology.

Everyone saying this lack of response regarding the queues over the weekend is just more of the same hasn't been paying attention lately. ZOS has been doing a much better job communicating with us in the forums, by a country mile, and this was a slip up that they should learn from. Yes, a very basic, "We're aware of the problem" post would have been nice, and they've acknowledged this and hopefully will put something in place to deal with future events. It's still just a game, and getting this worked up about not being able to get into a game indicates to me that a lot of people need to get some perspective.

Katheriah

Marcus684 wrote: »

OMG people you're not Gina's dad. Stop acting like a disappointed parent and accept the apology.

Bruh, we're customers responding to a community manager. She's basically our only way to convey a message to the devs. And as customers we may have certain expectations regarding communication. If you have been around for a while you also know this is not the first time improvement is promised.

I'm sure she doesn't take it personally, because managing the community is her job.

Brightuatha

So appreciate all of your communication. Thank you.

Kiyakotari

Thanks for opening a thread on the topic, and acknowledging the ball drop regarding communication, though I’d say it’s not an internal ball, it’s an external one. The ball was tossed to the players to figure out, as has been done more and more often of late, and seems to lead to the speculation and conspiracy theories. Hopefully any “internal communication” improvements are focused on making this issue in particular better.

That said, here’s a big opportunity to address an external communication problem:
Will the Zenithar’s Event be extended by a day or two, to give people who missed tickets due to login issues an opportunity to catch up on them again? Or if not, will there be another ticket disbursement method that will cost nothing to players?

Suddwrath

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,
We recognize that we totally dropped the ball on communicating any of this to you all, and for this, we apologize. We are already discussing ways to improve internal communications in the future to help mitigate this from recurring.

Where have we heard this before...

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone. First of all, you aren't wrong. We agree we haven't been communicating as much as we should on this matter (among others) and for that, we apologize. There really is no excuse.

With all due respect, the proverbial communication ball has been dropped for many, many years and is one of the biggest pain points of the community...is anything actually being done about it? https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/446497/so-about-that-communication-zos/p1

shadyjane62

Too little, too late.

Since you sent a me a notice, you know I already canceled.

Rhaneus

Thanks, man. All we wanted was for someone to tell us what's going on. Sometimes stuff happens and things go south, but people will wait if they know what's happening.

Knockmaker

Marcus684 wrote: »

OMG people you're not Gina's dad. Stop acting like a disappointed parent and accept the apology.

Everyone saying this lack of response regarding the queues over the weekend is just more of the same hasn't been paying attention lately. ZOS has been doing a much better job communicating with us in the forums, by a country mile, and this was a slip up that they should learn from. Yes, a very basic, "We're aware of the problem" post would have been nice, and they've acknowledged this and hopefully will put something in place to deal with future events. It's still just a game, and getting this worked up about not being able to get into a game indicates to me that a lot of people need to get some perspective.

They don't even respond to situation update/information requests asked in relevant topics, what are you talking about?