Please communicate with us

Silowyi

Sheogorath happens... we all know this. We also know you are aware of things like the bank/skill points/mounts bug.

How about just communicating with us? Address the issue, tell us what stage of repair it's in, and give us a time frame where we might expect resolution.

I own a customer service business and I can tell you that a lot of the anger, angst, and frustration is being caused by silence. People are VERY understanding and forgiving if you give them a reason to be and a chance to be.

Seriously, just make an official announcement and keep us updated. It might only be a game, but it's important to the people affected.

Just my 2 cents, and yes I have been affected by the bank bug and it hurts but I'm not freaking out or flaming, I'm just afraid to log in and play. So talk to us!

Harkrider

'Cheese happens' would have been better IMHO.

Vyndetta

Unfortunately, companies are terrified to tell customers they don't know what the problem is. So, we're stuck in the dark. It's a two edged sword really...

Harkrider

Vyndetta wrote: »

Unfortunately, companies are terrified to tell customers they don't know what the problem is. So, we're stuck in the dark. It's a two edged sword really...

Can you blame them? People get hostile for the most illogical things.

Even when bringing down a server to address issues, for example.

The masses are the reason for the silence, not the development team.

Silowyi

It kinda works both ways and is really a "chicken or the egg" argument. As the owner of a company, I know that people are going to be upset either way, but I can't control them I can only control myself and if people are going to be upset, let them be upset over the truth. At least that way, I maintain my credibility and trustworthiness. People are going to vent, but if you deal honestly with them you have a chance to save the business relationship.

Some companies think that if they say nothing they are in better shape since anger can't be directed at any specific person or thing; but the opposite is true. People may still be mad but if they feel they are being dealt with as valued customers and not lied to (even lies of omission) they really are very forgiving. It's the unknown that scares people most.

drakks1ub17_ESO

I can say from first-hand experience in Landmark that devs communicating with players is a *great* thing.

Bazko

I owned a customer service company once, but then I took and arrow to the knee

Randazzo

drakks1ub17_ESO wrote: »

I can say from first-hand experience in Landmark that devs communicating with players is a *great* thing.

Sony has been doing an outstanding job as far back as the Planetside 2 beta. Communication has been awesome, they tell you when there is a problem even if they don't know how to fix it yet. It still sucks when your game is broken, but it's a lot less irritating when the Dev or even CM takes 5 minutes to just address an issue.

Silowyi

Bazko wrote: »

I owned a customer service company once, but then I took and arrow to the knee

I took an arrow to my bank vault!

Angua

They used to be pretty awesome with this during beta testing.

Now? It's abysmal and upsetting. We have no idea what the state of the game currently is. We don't even have any ideas if it's close to being fixed or what they plan on doing or any kind of contingency plan. We don't know if this is going to be another thing where we're playing and servers go down after a five minute warning and don't come up for hours and hours.

It's upsetting me a lot. I was REALLY pleased with Zeni and customer support after the beta heading into this.... now? I'm alarmed and disgusted that they somehow managed to slide so far off the cliff this quickly and seem to be sipping mimosas at the bottom instead of climbing back up.

KerinKor

Silowyi wrote: »

Seriously, just make an official announcement and keep us updated. It might only be a game, but it's important to the people affected.

Won't happen.

Openness and being honest with customers is in a company's DNA, it either happens or it doesn't and the last two weeks have shown it's lacking at Zenimax.

By 'honest' I mean in the sense you mean, I'm not saying Zenimax have lied, that would be silly as lying is a form of communication and since they've not said anything they can't therefore have uttered an untruth.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO

The dev tracker is chock full of responses and dev threads. What do you expect? A personal phone call every couple hours?

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO

Also FYI played for the last about 8 hours. The servers are running great. There are 1000s of people playing. Ya couple quests arent working but I dont expect them to keep posting every 5 mins how they still havent fixed certain quests.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Cherryblossom

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

The dev tracker is chock full of responses and dev threads. What do you expect? A personal phone call every couple hours?

Then you haven't looked at the huge scale of complaints and requests for even acknowledgement of a bug.
And the Developer trackers is nonsense, you have three different languages filling it up, otherwise it would be very sparse as most of it is duplication of the same thread.
They added an IN-PROGRESS KNOWN ISSUES thread on the 9th April, that's 9 days after the first bug report! Since the 9th this has never been updated, would you consider this good practice, its certainly failing to communicate anything to the community.
I Like this game I really do, but customer service is very important. I have unsubscribed as I do not believe I can invest in an unknown....

ZOS_GinaBruno

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO‌ suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

kewl

@Silowyi Thank you for bringing a sensible perspective to the issues we are all facing. Allot of the rage begin directed st ZOS is due it's opaqueness.

Harkrider

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO‌ suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

Thanks for the reply, @ZOS_GinaBruno

is the dev tracker a new feature? I sure as heck don't remember it being there a few days ago.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Harkrider wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO‌ suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

Thanks for the reply, @ZOS_GinaBruno

is the dev tracker a new feature? I sure as heck don't remember it being there a few days ago.

It's always been there, just a little hidden.

Harkrider

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Harkrider wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO‌ suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

Thanks for the reply, @ZOS_GinaBruno

is the dev tracker a new feature? I sure as heck don't remember it being there a few days ago.

It's always been there, just a little hidden.

Doh! Alright thanks!

Turelus

@ZOS_GinaBruno is it possible to have the Dev Tracker set to a list format like a thread or just the name of the topic and first 200 characters of the message a dev has posted? Right now it's kind of a mess to read with topics being hugely long or small, this thread for example the Dev Tracker is showing one massive long post for your last reply taking up the entire left side.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Turelus wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno is it possible to have the Dev Tracker set to a list format like a thread or just the name of the topic and first 200 characters of the message a dev has posted? Right now it's kind of a mess to read with topics being hugely long or small, this thread for example the Dev Tracker is showing one massive long post for your last reply taking up the entire left side.

Yep, that's one of the options we're exploring.

Altairien

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO? suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

The issue in this case is two-fold, one of which is directly in your control.

1) Rock solid data integrity is absolutely essential in any online only game. Essential! Players don't have hundreds of saved games to fall back on when things go wrong. We have exactly one saved game and it's located in your datacenter. We trust (and pay) that you maintain 100% rock solid handling of that data. This is clearly not the case here.

ESO right now isn't a game, it's a Russian Roulette simulator. *click* Nothing. *click* Nothing. *bam* Oh, I was only horribly injured (loss of bank slots, banked items, and banked gold). *BAM* I've been killed (add loss of character progression, skills points, mounts, etc.)

Like many players, I can handle "typical" launch issues such as failure to logon, broken quests, blocked content, etc. As a programmer, I understand that stuff happens. This issue isn't "typical."

I know it's not the Community Team's fault that someone or several someone's failed at basic software development. Whether it was not specifying requirements sufficiently, not performing thorough unit or integration testing, or if it was a failure at the functional or performance level, something failed. This game should have never gone live with data reliability as poor as this. But it has, so...

2) Keeping consistent, open, frequent communication is vital when problems are this serious. ZOS has already violated our trust by compromising the data(see #1 above) yet you compound the error by keeping secrets from us now. This is directly under the control of the Community Team.

You should be giving us frequent updates, daily at minimum. Here are just a few examples of what we should've been hearing throughout this process (which, for the record, has now lasted over 2 weeks):

• "A special dev team (consisting of...) has been formed to fix this problem. This team will be focused exclusively on this issue until it is fixed."
• "The dev team has gathered all the data thus far and they are currently evaluating possible scenarios and causes."
• "The dev team has narrowed down possible causes and are now performing extensive testing to eliminate possibilities and isolate the cause(s) of this bug."
• "The dev team has identified the cause(s) and continues working through the weekend to craft a fix. At this point, the fix is expected to fix the following: <list>"
• "The dev team and quality assurance is aggressively regression testing potential fix(es) to ensure this issue will be fixed for good."
• A fix has been verified and will be implemented <data>. It will fix <stuff here>. Items/slots/gold/stats will/will not be restored (and what can players do for what is not restored)."

Having cute, in-character yet generic (and often flat out wrong) messages from CS is not the answer. Those tend to heap inflammables on hot coals. Yes it's just a game. No, this type of bug isn't funny (again, see #1 above).

I realize that marketing (and others) don't want it widely known that ESO is an unstable data nightmare right now (too late!), but only giving occasional generic reassurances that do nothing to address customer concerns is how you burn through the customer goodwill that you started out with. You know the console gamers are watching this with especially keen interest. Have marketing crunch those numbers.

Turelus

That's fantastic news, thanks for the information! +1 Awesome for you.

felixgamingx1

Greetings adventurer,





.....

Kingslayer

Separating the languages would be nice to I just don't understand 3/4 of the developer tracker. There should be three separate developer trackers within each language sub forum. It ain't rocket science. Its a case of code one then copy and paste the other two as they are identical except for the language.

Turelus

In regards to developers interacting with communities you really can't get better than CCP Games the creators of EVE Online.
While they're a smaller company and have a lot less subscribers their developers are very active on forums and twitter (every dev has a CCP_Name account) where they'll chat about ideas repost great community creations and such.

They're also pretty on the ball with the layout of their forums, each large point release has a thread dedicated to it for people to post feedback and other dedicated for people to post bugs. The community team spend a lot of time posting in threads just to keep people updated or locking duplicate threads with a "we're aware of the issue but please post in this thread which everyone is using" while locking threads might annoy some it's nice to have all the feedback and rants in one central place.

I do feel a lot of MMO companies could learn from CCP and how they handle their customers, they treat us like mature people that enjoy the game with them rather than cash cows who are only here to finance their company (sometimes).

taze222b14_ESO

Harkrider wrote: »

Vyndetta wrote: »

Unfortunately, companies are terrified to tell customers they don't know what the problem is. So, we're stuck in the dark. It's a two edged sword really...

Can you blame them? People get hostile for the most illogical things.

Even when bringing down a server to address issues, for example.

The masses are the reason for the silence, not the development team.

They haven't been interactive with the forums since day 1. The fact that Zenimax is inexperience like hell is the problem.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO

I dont need devs on here posting everyday. Id much rather they only post when they actually have info. Ive seen it before devs start interacting with the customers next thing you know they are being attacked and flamed. The devs decide its better to just get things out posting only makes things worse.

I think they are doing a good job of communicating. I also know for a fact its not everyone having these issues. Granted Im in a small guild but out of 40 or so people everyone was able to login and move around effectively. The only hiccup being trying to zone into or out of cyrodill.

moxsapphire_ESO

Dear ZOS,

Please extend a generous offer of employment with full benefits to this individual effective immediately. This post literally shines with intelligence. If nothing else, please hire him or her on as an outside consultant that audits your customer service process.

Altairien wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO? suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

The issue in this case is two-fold, one of which is directly in your control.

1) Rock solid data integrity is absolutely essential in any online only game. Essential! Players don't have hundreds of saved games to fall back on when things go wrong. We have exactly one saved game and it's located in your datacenter. We trust (and pay) that you maintain 100% rock solid handling of that data. This is clearly not the case here.

ESO right now isn't a game, it's a Russian Roulette simulator. *click* Nothing. *click* Nothing. *bam* Oh, I was only horribly injured (loss of bank slots, banked items, and banked gold). *BAM* I've been killed (add loss of character progression, skills points, mounts, etc.)

Like many players, I can handle "typical" launch issues such as failure to logon, broken quests, blocked content, etc. As a programmer, I understand that stuff happens. This issue isn't "typical."

I know it's not the Community Team's fault that someone or several someone's failed at basic software development. Whether it was not specifying requirements sufficiently, not performing thorough unit or integration testing, or if it was a failure at the functional or performance level, something failed. This game should have never gone live with data reliability as poor as this. But it has, so...

2) Keeping consistent, open, frequent communication is vital when problems are this serious. ZOS has already violated our trust by compromising the data(see #1 above) yet you compound the error by keeping secrets from us now. This is directly under the control of the Community Team.

You should be giving us frequent updates, daily at minimum. Here are just a few examples of what we should've been hearing throughout this process (which, for the record, has now lasted over 2 weeks):

• "A special dev team (consisting of...) has been formed to fix this problem. This team will be focused exclusively on this issue until it is fixed."
• "The dev team has gathered all the data thus far and they are currently evaluating possible scenarios and causes."
• "The dev team has narrowed down possible causes and are now performing extensive testing to eliminate possibilities and isolate the cause(s) of this bug."
• "The dev team has identified the cause(s) and continues working through the weekend to craft a fix. At this point, the fix is expected to fix the following: <list>"
• "The dev team and quality assurance is aggressively regression testing potential fix(es) to ensure this issue will be fixed for good."
• A fix has been verified and will be implemented <data>. It will fix <stuff here>. Items/slots/gold/stats will/will not be restored (and what can players do for what is not restored)."

Having cute, in-character yet generic (and often flat out wrong) messages from CS is not the answer. Those tend to heap inflammables on hot coals. Yes it's just a game. No, this type of bug isn't funny (again, see #1 above).

I realize that marketing (and others) don't want it widely known that ESO is an unstable data nightmare right now (too late!), but only giving occasional generic reassurances that do nothing to address customer concerns is how you burn through the customer goodwill that you started out with. You know the console gamers are watching this with especially keen interest. Have marketing crunch those numbers.

chipz88b14_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Harkrider wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey there, everyone! As @jamesharv2005ub17_ESO‌ suggested, a good starting point is the Dev Tracker. We understand that it may be a little overwhelming to sort through, and we're looking at ways to improve the functionality there. Also, we're planning to implement a Dev post signifier so you can easily spot when a Dev has responded in a thread, and also jump right to the next Dev reply. We hope to have this live pretty soon.

In regards to the issues that you may have run across or report, please understand that the severity of each issue varies greatly, and some are more complex than others. Every issue requires some level of investigation, though, and typically this is where you'll find the silence coming into play while we look into all the factors and try to figure things out.

We do encourage everyone to check out the patch notes that get published weekly during our scheduled maintenance, as we'll list out the issues that have been addressed and fixed.

Thanks for the reply, @ZOS_GinaBruno

is the dev tracker a new feature? I sure as heck don't remember it being there a few days ago.

It's always been there, just a little hidden.

A little? Can someone please provide a link to this dev tracker or point out where a link can be found?