[Serious] Improving this online community

Michael308 · August 2014

@Jroc - I appreciate the back-up bud! I'm sure Soloeus meant well and it seems that in large part the replies are tracking towards a shared positive view. Hopefully we can fan that spark into a trend that goes beyind this one thread.

soulclaw · August 2014

Here is one reason why people rage: game designers get treated like gods by fanbois and eventually begin to believe the ***. I will give two examples:

Back in DAOC the Thane class had a broken ability. People complained about it but the fabois scrambled to attack the complaints and the developers ignored the complaints for YEARS, saying that everything was working as intended. Eventually, however, after years of complaints, someone from Mythic went in and checked the deeply buried math and found out that the complainers had been correct all along, the skill was broken. It was finally fixed.

In UO in the first year of the game we had major lag, mind numbing server lag. The UO developers blamed it all on the the players, under the assumption that every single computer being used to play the game was sub-standard. We complained endlessly and raged and flamed. The UO team stood firm, there was no server lag. Then one day the oddest announcement went out: they had discovered that there was, in fact, server lag, and it was fixed in one update. The game went from almost unplayable to smooth as silk literally overnight.

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

Paralyse · August 2014

Compared to certain other games I play online, the ESO community as a whole is much better.

Maverick827 · August 2014

Most of the worst hostility comes from the "fanboys" in defending Zenimax from even the most constructive of criticism.

Michael308 · August 2014

Well I don't know how constructive it is to throw blame on either side of an argument. Rage and incivility (as opposed to heartfelt, even passionate disagreement) are not justified by either extreme, fanboyism or whatever term denotes the opposite. My point is merely that whatever the source, as a group we are better off without it. I would hope that is a point upon which we can all agree.

Michael308 · August 2014

soulclaw wrote: »

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

I did not play those games so I cannot comment from any point of experience, but I can offer this in sincere disagreement. I have never seen an environment where a problem was solved because people screamed and threw tantrums "long enough." That may bring some problems to some end to be sure, usually the fastest, half-baked end that could be tossed up to make the screamers shut up and go away.

More often, I've seen plenty of cases where rude behavior got the offender's file cycled to the bottom of the stack, and they wonder why their problems don't get fixed. I can only tell you that I know if somebody comes to me with a problem, I will go a lot farther, work a lot harder, to help somebody who treats me with simple kindness. I get that somebody may be having a bad day but the customer service rep did not write the code thats bugged, nor did they likely have any sort of hand in your problem's origin. You can choose to be angry, really mean nasty angry with people if you like, but they will most likely respond to you the way you'd respond to them if the roles were reversed. That seems like a poor way to go about solving a problem.

Michael308 · August 2014

At the risk of running on, let me offer one more small bit of math. Let's say for round numbers that an MMO like ESO has a million players. Now let's say that every single player has one want; and c'mon we all have wants - things we don't like, things we feel dont work, things we'd like to see change. Design decisions we disagree with. Color changes we abhor. Some are just opinion or personal preference but they exist. Now I don't know how many people Zeni has employed but lets toss a guess of 200. That includes managers, artists, programmers, designers, secretarial staff, the whole shebang. If you split the load of wants/gripes over every single person in the company (1 million divided by 200) then every man and woman in that company walks in the door with a To Do list 5,000 items long, and that is before they look at the first item that is part of their job. Some fixes might be doable by one person but others, most in fact, likely involve teams. I don't know about you but I start to tax out when my list gets much over 20 items.

Admittedly not all million people write in with a beef, chalk that up to the hyperbole suggested by my colleagues earlier. But what if only 1 in 10 were to write, 1 in 50. With a customer base this size the amount of gripes, wish lists and stuff has got to be incredible, and certainly daunting.

Might ESO hire a few folks to be a dedicated customer response team, even if just on this forum? Might be a good idea, might buy a lot of customer awareness and understanding. Then again, would YOU volunteer to spend every day reading posts like the ones you can see scrolling the list here. Three days of that and I'd be in a clock tower with a high powered rifle and a crazy glint in my eye.

I think there is a lot ESO, and every other company on the planet, can do to inprove its relationship with its customer base. I think there is a lot we can do as customers to make that idea more palatable.

soulclaw · August 2014

Here is what calm and reasoned discourse got us one time:

Back in LotRO we asked for a clock that showed the in game time as there were quests that could only be done at night or some such and we wanted to be able to plan our movements around the map to get to the night quests at night. We posted for months about this, calmly explaining what we needed and why.

Then one day we got a clock, but it showed real world time. We posted to the forums and said that we had asked for an in game clock, no one had asked for a real world time clock. The dev actually posted back words to the effect of "wait, you wanted an in game clock?"

It was clear that the dev had not actually been reading what we had been posting and had only pretended to be in a dialogue.

Oh yeah, we got our in game clock via a patch soon after this.

Michael308 · August 2014

@Soulclaw perhaps I missed something but it sounds like you all handled that rather well, i.e posted a request then clarified it. Not sure how that supports the idea that rage is a solution. And I get that devs, service reps, the folks who come fix my cable TV - every company has employees that some times, or a lot of time, don't read, take their job as one big TL;DR event. But when we come back screaming "They lied to us" or other pretty nasty assertions, we're certainly no better. Who knows what sincere, hard-working dev in that building reads how "all devs suck" when they are busting their own butt and growing to hate their job for the beating they get? Not everybody is a stellar worker, not everybody sucks. Most fall in the middle where I do, trying hard, having a few great days and screwing the pooch once in a while. That doesn't mean I suck, it just means I'm human.

Phinix1 · August 2014

Michael308 wrote: »

Now I don't know how many people Zeni has employed but lets toss a guess of 200. That includes managers, artists, programmers, designers, secretarial staff, the whole shebang.

You forgot cheer bunnies...

In all seriousness, I would venture most of the things that most of those that write in about write in about are the same things everyone else is talking about, well, that many people are talking about.

Most of these things were already on the list when those employees left the previous day, because if all fixes were quick and easy, they would never have been problems in the first place.

But of all the jobs it is the cheer bunny I envy the least. Keeping up that level of flamboyant positivism and pep even in the face of certain frustration and negative reinforcement has to be a daunting task.

soulclaw · August 2014

Michael308 wrote: »

@Soulclaw perhaps I missed something but it sounds like you all handled that rather well, i.e posted a request then clarified it. Not sure how that supports the idea that rage is a solution. And I get that devs, service reps, the folks who come fix my cable TV - every company has employees that some times, or a lot of time, don't read, take their job as one big TL;DR event. But when we come back screaming "They lied to us" or other pretty nasty assertions, we're certainly no better. Who knows what sincere, hard-working dev in that building reads how "all devs suck" when they are busting their own butt and growing to hate their job for the beating they get? Not everybody is a stellar worker, not everybody sucks. Most fall in the middle where I do, trying hard, having a few great days and screwing the pooch once in a while. That doesn't mean I suck, it just means I'm human.

Screwing the pooch occasionally is not ignoring a problem and telling your customers they are wrong when they complain about it. That is what causes rage (and that is what happened in my first set of examples). I am very unsure how a reasonable person can defend the actions of the devs in those cases.

I am not saying that ignorant, pointless rage does not exist. I am just saying that history shows us that sometimes mass rage is the only way to get a problem fixed.

KleanZlate · August 2014

soulclaw wrote: »

Here is one reason why people rage: game designers get treated like gods by fanbois and eventually begin to believe the ***. I will give two examples:

Back in DAOC the Thane class had a broken ability. People complained about it but the fabois scrambled to attack the complaints and the developers ignored the complaints for YEARS, saying that everything was working as intended. Eventually, however, after years of complaints, someone from Mythic went in and checked the deeply buried math and found out that the complainers had been correct all along, the skill was broken. It was finally fixed.

In UO in the first year of the game we had major lag, mind numbing server lag. The UO developers blamed it all on the the players, under the assumption that every single computer being used to play the game was sub-standard. We complained endlessly and raged and flamed. The UO team stood firm, there was no server lag. Then one day the oddest announcement went out: they had discovered that there was, in fact, server lag, and it was fixed in one update. The game went from almost unplayable to smooth as silk literally overnight.

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

soulclaw · August 2014

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

So it is your contention that the people who started off ignoring the problem and telling the players that they were wrong after the first quite reasonable posts came in would have changed their mind eventually?

Maverick827 · August 2014

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

soulclaw wrote: »

Here is one reason why people rage: game designers get treated like gods by fanbois and eventually begin to believe the ***. I will give two examples:

Back in DAOC the Thane class had a broken ability. People complained about it but the fabois scrambled to attack the complaints and the developers ignored the complaints for YEARS, saying that everything was working as intended. Eventually, however, after years of complaints, someone from Mythic went in and checked the deeply buried math and found out that the complainers had been correct all along, the skill was broken. It was finally fixed.

In UO in the first year of the game we had major lag, mind numbing server lag. The UO developers blamed it all on the the players, under the assumption that every single computer being used to play the game was sub-standard. We complained endlessly and raged and flamed. The UO team stood firm, there was no server lag. Then one day the oddest announcement went out: they had discovered that there was, in fact, server lag, and it was fixed in one update. The game went from almost unplayable to smooth as silk literally overnight.

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

I really don't understand this belief that a community can be posting only rage posts or only constructive posts. I'd bet anything that there were a ton of constructive posts gone unanswered for the longest time, just like they are here, amid the "rage" posts, perhaps even before them.

Phinix1 · August 2014

soulclaw wrote: »

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

So it is your contention that the people who started off ignoring the problem and telling the players that they were wrong after the first quite reasonable posts came in would have changed their mind eventually?

I would suggest that possibly petitioning specific media outlets that handle games to carry the story might have been an effective alternative to rage to getting the message across in a big way.

KleanZlate · August 2014

Maverick827 wrote: »

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

soulclaw wrote: »

Here is one reason why people rage: game designers get treated like gods by fanbois and eventually begin to believe the ***. I will give two examples:

Back in DAOC the Thane class had a broken ability. People complained about it but the fabois scrambled to attack the complaints and the developers ignored the complaints for YEARS, saying that everything was working as intended. Eventually, however, after years of complaints, someone from Mythic went in and checked the deeply buried math and found out that the complainers had been correct all along, the skill was broken. It was finally fixed.

In UO in the first year of the game we had major lag, mind numbing server lag. The UO developers blamed it all on the the players, under the assumption that every single computer being used to play the game was sub-standard. We complained endlessly and raged and flamed. The UO team stood firm, there was no server lag. Then one day the oddest announcement went out: they had discovered that there was, in fact, server lag, and it was fixed in one update. The game went from almost unplayable to smooth as silk literally overnight.

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

I really don't understand this belief that a community can be posting only rage posts or only constructive posts. I'd bet anything that there were a ton of constructive posts gone unanswered for the longest time, just like they are here, amid the "rage" posts, perhaps even before them.

But why were the rage posts so significant?

soulclaw wrote: »

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

Yeah, I don't know... I think you might be overstating the importance of the rage posts in your anecdotes. In fact you've shown that the rage posts didn't work at all for YEARS. Perhaps a more mature approach would have worked better...

So it is your contention that the people who started off ignoring the problem and telling the players that they were wrong after the first quite reasonable posts came in would have changed their mind eventually?

I'm not saying anything about the other posters. You're saying the rage posts made a difference. That they were necessary to change something. I'm saying the rage posts weren't significant in any way since a problem went unheard for many years.

Michael308 · August 2014

soulclaw wrote: »

vestmanneb17_ESO wrote: »

So it is your contention that the people who started off ignoring the problem and telling the players that they were wrong after the first quite reasonable posts came in would have changed their mind eventually?

You have twice offered the assertion that staff, presumably at ZOS, have told players they were wrong for complaining. Can you point to a post where this took place?

Michael308 · August 2014

@soulclaw let me ask you this. Can I come to your place of work, or call you at work, or write to you in a public forum where everybody you work with (and work for) can see it, and be abusive enough to you to get you to give me your best effort? Can you tell me honestly that rage -- mine or a groups -- will get me anything but the greatest amount of delays before the least possible answer you can give me? Honest question.

lathbury · August 2014

Michael308 wrote: »

soulclaw wrote: »

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

I did not play those games so I cannot comment from any point of experience, but I can offer this in sincere disagreement. I have never seen an environment where a problem was solved because people screamed and threw tantrums "long enough." That may bring some problems to some end to be sure, usually the fastest, half-baked end that could be tossed up to make the screamers shut up and go away.

More often, I've seen plenty of cases where rude behavior got the offender's file cycled to the bottom of the stack, and they wonder why their problems don't get fixed. I can only tell you that I know if somebody comes to me with a problem, I will go a lot farther, work a lot harder, to help somebody who treats me with simple kindness. I get that somebody may be having a bad day but the customer service rep did not write the code thats bugged, nor did they likely have any sort of hand in your problem's origin. You can choose to be angry, really mean nasty angry with people if you like, but they will most likely respond to you the way you'd respond to them if the roles were reversed. That seems like a poor way to go about solving a problem.

Wish it were true but look at the latest wolfhound gate issue. Ppl kicked screamed threw there toys out of the pram. Some did make good reasoned arguments but they were a minority. It wasn't cycled to the bottom of the stack and they are getting what they want. So unfortunately it seems if you don't use hyperbole mis information and incite enough forum rage your issues will go unnoticed, but if you do the opposite you get an answer from the top in 24hrs.
I'm not condoning the behaviour but to argue it doesn't get results isn't true no matter how hard we wish it was.
The reason I think that the tactic works is Zeni or any dev team for that matter can't read every post and look for the most reasoned well thought out argument. So they will look for the thread with the most comments/views. The most effective way to get those comments is to use hyperbole and emotive language even mis information because guess what if someone argues that it's misinformation it's another comment. Again look at the wolfhound thread ppl were saying things like zos doesn't want loyal customers they are doing a cash grab etc. obv rubbish but when ppl said that guess what another comment.
Now if you examine the results of that zeni addressed it within the day both in the forums and at a conference. Today they have announced loyalty rewards with guess what a cool pet.

Jankstar · August 2014

SavageHenry wrote: »

The only real and lasting solution to the type of rude, angry, offensive or rage post is to take away people's anonymity. Not that it ever will or should happen, but when you can hide behind an alter ego and accountability does not seem to apply in any real sense, Then people will continue to behave in this way.

Not that I disagree with the sentiment of the OP, but I don't see this problem going away any time soon.

The people who have authority here, the mods, can do their jobs with just the provided account information. They are the only people who even need to worry about holding other people accountable for their behavior.

Jankstar · August 2014

Michael308 wrote: »

soulclaw wrote: »

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

I did not play those games so I cannot comment from any point of experience, but I can offer this in sincere disagreement. I have never seen an environment where a problem was solved because people screamed and threw tantrums "long enough." That may bring some problems to some end to be sure, usually the fastest, half-baked end that could be tossed up to make the screamers shut up and go away.

More often, I've seen plenty of cases where rude behavior got the offender's file cycled to the bottom of the stack, and they wonder why their problems don't get fixed. I can only tell you that I know if somebody comes to me with a problem, I will go a lot farther, work a lot harder, to help somebody who treats me with simple kindness. I get that somebody may be having a bad day but the customer service rep did not write the code thats bugged, nor did they likely have any sort of hand in your problem's origin. You can choose to be angry, really mean nasty angry with people if you like, but they will most likely respond to you the way you'd respond to them if the roles were reversed. That seems like a poor way to go about solving a problem.

In a nonprofessional environment you can pick and choose who you help and how much, but if you want to retain customers and sell them on further services you can't treat them like that. I personally will not do business with some who treates any customer in that matter. If I see someone go above and beyond for a total jerk, then I know they truly care about what they are doing and I shop there. If I see somebody spit in a drink or push off service because they are not able to handle that interpersonal part of cs, I don't shop there.

AoEnwyr · August 2014

Jankstar wrote: »

SavageHenry wrote: »

The only real and lasting solution to the type of rude, angry, offensive or rage post is to take away people's anonymity. Not that it ever will or should happen, but when you can hide behind an alter ego and accountability does not seem to apply in any real sense, Then people will continue to behave in this way.

Not that I disagree with the sentiment of the OP, but I don't see this problem going away any time soon.

The people who have authority here, the mods, can do their jobs with just the provided account information. They are the only people who even need to worry about holding other people accountable for their behavior.

That seems to absolve people of resonsibility and suggest a "Police State" is the only way accountability can/should be managed.

Rologue · August 2014

Nice post, OP. This is why I stopped posting for a while. I became the troll that I never liked. I recollected myself, played the game, and reminded myself that these people are at work. I don't want my boss screaming down my throat anymore than they want customers down theirs.

UrQuan · August 2014

Jankstar wrote: »

Michael308 wrote: »

soulclaw wrote: »

The only reason these problems, and others over the years, got fixed is due to continued forum anger and rage posts and the like, because that is what it takes to get some game developers to sit up and take notice.

I did not play those games so I cannot comment from any point of experience, but I can offer this in sincere disagreement. I have never seen an environment where a problem was solved because people screamed and threw tantrums "long enough." That may bring some problems to some end to be sure, usually the fastest, half-baked end that could be tossed up to make the screamers shut up and go away.

More often, I've seen plenty of cases where rude behavior got the offender's file cycled to the bottom of the stack, and they wonder why their problems don't get fixed. I can only tell you that I know if somebody comes to me with a problem, I will go a lot farther, work a lot harder, to help somebody who treats me with simple kindness. I get that somebody may be having a bad day but the customer service rep did not write the code thats bugged, nor did they likely have any sort of hand in your problem's origin. You can choose to be angry, really mean nasty angry with people if you like, but they will most likely respond to you the way you'd respond to them if the roles were reversed. That seems like a poor way to go about solving a problem.

In a nonprofessional environment you can pick and choose who you help and how much, but if you want to retain customers and sell them on further services you can't treat them like that. I personally will not do business with some who treates any customer in that matter. If I see someone go above and beyond for a total jerk, then I know they truly care about what they are doing and I shop there. If I see somebody spit in a drink or push off service because they are not able to handle that interpersonal part of cs, I don't shop there.

In any professional environment you'll get better service if you're calm and polite. If you're being a total jerk, I don't care how professional the guy you're dealing with is, you'll still get worse service than someone else in the same situation who isn't being a jerk.

I used to work in a customer service-related environment (retail banking - back before I moved on to working in retail banking software development). I was a manager. I always made sure that everyone got dealt with in a professional manner, no matter how much of a jerk they were (except for the one guy who physically threatened one of my staff members - I removed him from the premises and informed him via notarized letter that he would be charged with trespassing if he ever set foot in any of my credit union's locations again). But here's the thing: people who were calm and polite got even better treatment.

We screwed up on something and it cost you $100 in service charges? OK, if you're a jerk about it I'll make things right and reimburse you everything you're out, and odds are I'll also give you a Starbucks gift card for your trouble. If you're rational about it instead of being a jerk, I'll do all that and I'll also give you free service charges for a year, or even a better rate on your mortgage. Heck, there was one guy who was so incredibly nice and understanding about a major screwup on his account that, in addition to fixing everything for him, I also gave him a gift card for a sightseeing helicopter ride - and that came out of my own pocket.

It doesn't matter how professionally someone is treating the screaming jerk, and how far they're bending over backwards for him: I guarantee they'd be treating someone who isn't a jerk even better. At least, out of the hundreds of customer-facing employees I've worked with, I've never known a single one who didn't treat polite, rational people better than jerks, and give them better service.

Soloeus · August 2014

Zabalah wrote: »

It's your kind of introspective and self-serving motivation that the OP is constructively admonishing. By responding in a pseudo manner of writing such as the OP has employed, you belittle your own intellect and our insight into your motives.

If you agree with the message, then don't shoot the messenger.

1. The first part of what you said, I believe describes the OP and not myself.

2. If someone uses 5 Fallacies to prove a good point, I will acknowledge the good point while attacking the Fallacies.

Messengers shouldn't be shot, but they should consider the message they are sending, which in this case the delivery of the message tainted the value of the message for many people as you can see from the responses.

I still respect OP's writing skills and believe he will make many good posts we can all agree with. I look forward to more of his posts.

felinith66 · August 2014

It's a roleplaying MMO. Of course people are going to get passionate about the characters they've created. What do you expect? People care about their characters. That's not going to change because the child next door lost her dad in a war.
I come from a third world country. I've experienced the harsh realities the op has mentioned. That doesn't stop me from breaking my keyboard, throwing my mouse across the room, or bitching to costumer support when I get frustrated about a game I'm playing. Is my anger justified? For me, it is. And that's the point.
Poeple are individuals, and react to situations differently. Something that means squat to you might mean something more to another person. We can't tell people to shove their frustrations aside, especially in a medium where we know absolutely nothing about the person we are talking to. For all we know, some of these angry posters have experienced the bad things the op has written about, maybe even worst.
ZOS created a world where we can fully immerse ourselves in. Forget about our reality for a few hours. Like real life, we are going to laugh, cry, love, ***, get frustrated, get angry and sometimes be hostile. And unless someone is actually committing a crime, I think being able to express your emotions is important. Are these emotions relevant? Are they trivial? I don't know. All I know is that it isn't my place to tell someone how passionate they can or can't be about something.
If there's no immersion in a roleplaying game, then what's the point of it? Most of the people who are angry about the game are angry because they care about the game. I understand where the op is coming from. But maybe he needs to understand that for some, this is more than just a game.

Uisi · August 2014

Well ... ugh ... mhmmm (trying to say something inteligent) ... aaa ... pfff ... not working (post abandoned).
P.S. You cant be serious guys, it is a videogame forum, for God sake!

SFBryan18 · August 2014

Doesn't matter how good a persons life is, some people have anger inside them and they will express it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAgPsmTxBfc

Zubba · August 2014

@Michael308‌

Thank you for a very insightful post. I am afraid the rage you talk about is the new mentality on internet. Sadly it spreads like a plague, and its very hard to do anything about it.

But, thank you again for some good Points.

Crumpy · August 2014

Good to see ZOS staff posting threads on da forums.