When you bring the servers down, please employ someone to maintain an active presence on the forums.

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

Things go wrong. We're not stupid, we accept that. Lots of stuff is unavoidable when you implement changes to such a huge interlinked system. We'll be frustrated we can't play, but anyone with an ounce of sense knows you aren't doing it deliberately.

However, if we expect it as a distinct possibility, so should you. There should be an active presence on the forums whenever servers are down to pass on information and updates. Even when there isn't anything concrete to post, simply seeing a 'we're aware of the problem and looking into it' goes a long way to giving people confidence in your customer service.

With the size of the playerbase all straining at the bit to play, it has to be a justifiable financial expense to pay someone to sit on the forums during downtimes and immediately following them, just in case something like this happens. Someone to pat us on the head and tell us it'll be all right. Just a little bit of customer care, instead of silence and the feeling of being treated like mushrooms

De4dly · April 2014

+1

Kybotica · April 2014

While I personally think that the message on the launcher is adequate, I can see why somebody might want a bit more......should I say......coddling?

I mean "the north american megaserver is currently offline for maintenance. We expect this maintenance to last for several hours." is pretty sufficient in letting me know that I shouldn't plan on playing any more before my shift tonight.

Negative39 · April 2014

Or....they could devote that resource to bringing the servers back up quicker - see their quandary?

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

Fine for the US server's population. Not so fine for the EU server population who can't get online despite their message saying "The European megaserver is now back online with patch 1.02, and the "login timed out" error has been fixed. Please be aware that you will be asked to validate your account using the one-time password authenticator. "

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

@negative39 Different people employed for different tasks. I doubt the server being down/inaccessible is due to lack of staffing...

De4dly · April 2014

Or ... You could be a bit smart and realise that their Team is not around 2 members, for sure there will be someone they could switch around to inform their Customers of wth is happening?

Negative39, please read your posts before clicking "Post Comment".

Negative39 · April 2014

@De4dly , what do you mean 'read my post' is that a poor attempt at sarcasm or just dull wit? Or do you actually think my comment is so terrible that I typed it in the dark? Honestly?

You could do with realising that resource is not infinite, The op is clearly proposing a new resource 'to sit on the foum etc', if they are to have a new resource it has to be paid for and there is a balance to be struck between where that resource is spent. All companies have to make these decisions, Zenimax are no different.

De4dly · April 2014

Negative39 wrote: »

Or....they could devote that resource to bringing the servers back up quicker - see their quandary?

Yes read your post, what you said made no sense relating to what bwilson.homeb16_ESO kinda asked.

Or do you think everyone in Zenimax is an IT that could help fix the said issues they're facing?

This was a more soft answer for you I guess.

bwilson.homeb16_ESO wrote: »

@negative39 Different people employed for different tasks. I doubt the server being down/inaccessible is due to lack of staffing...

Cheers

Negative39 · April 2014

@De4dly , that was a politer response, yes. Which is why I didn't argue with him.

What I said makes perfect sense in relation to what the op said, which is why he responded in the way he did.

Stienbjorn · April 2014

De4dly is correct. They have a server team and they should have a community team. I have never understood why gamers seem to think that everyone at a game company can do everyone else's job. A server programmer is not going to hop over and do the animation for an NPC boss that is being developed just to try and get it created faster. Just like a world developer is not going to be the head of the Community Team, he is you know, developing world encounters.

Those people will continue to work on the assets that they have been allocated to, and pulling them off and stuffing them onto something else will in most cases actually cause a bottleneck.

Lord_Wrath · April 2014

I think this is excessively unnecessary. Its not very hard to keep us updated to begin with, but if you get someone sitting here constantly coddling everyone, things are going to get petty and annoying fast.

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

@lord_wrath: "Its not very hard to keep us updated to begin with"

and yet they don't?

Negative39 · April 2014

@Stienbjorn , no he is not correct. You are correct in what you say here but:

The OP was talking about additional resource, i.e. new resource and therefore new expense. I was just making the point that if they can fund new resource (this guy that's just going to sit here and communicate with us) they have a hard decision to make as to where to spend that resource and what they devote it to when they are so early in the release and will be working flat out on Dev activity.

siuolly · April 2014

First things first, please get a new forum that support the load.

Bozo6561 · April 2014

Do you really need a full time employee to post a message that can be written in 10mn to inform us that they are working on the problem?

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

@negative93 The main reason for saying a separate staff member was to avoid the people saying they'd rather the intern passing on messages on the forum was instead jerryrigging the server with paperclips, McGuyver-style

xXKamiliyaXx · April 2014

In an effort to diffuse the hostility....

On the one hand, Zenimax employs a Customer Service team which handles the forums. However, this isn't the only present issue (not to mention, it's certainly not at the top of the list). Just look at the disaster that was Amazon orders. So many players (myself included) have had issues with their pre-orders, subscription charges from Zenimax started getting funky, and the Customer Service team was bombarded with emails from a variety of users who wanted nothing more than to get proper access to the game they purchased. That being said, alerting us as to the specifics of server down time when it's adequately expressed in the launcher messages is rather redundant.

My point is--this is the nature of the MMO. I can't tell you how many times WOW servers were down on my day off and I received the absolute minimal amount of notification. Server maintenance means server maintenance. It's there to make sure the game continues to run and smoothly so.

I'm sure forum presence will improve the further we move away from launch. I also haven't checked in on the Twitter account lately, but the updates there should reach players much faster than initial forum posting.

Play nicely, guys.

Djursnerb16_ESO · April 2014

I agree. Horrible communication from Zenimax and these mixed German/French/English forums are a mess. They should be separated entirely!

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

@xxkamiliyaXx"Zenimax employs a Customer Service team which handles the forums"

That's what I'm saying. If they already have a CS team tasked with the forums, downtimes and post-patch are obviously going to be their busiest times so someone should be visibly active on the forums during those periods. This isn't a new concept, most AAA MMOs have an extensive hierarchical department purely to handle the customer-facing presence on forums and social media. They should be here, and if they aren't, they need to employ someone who will be.

De4dly · April 2014

@xXKamiliyaXx, no hostility was meant on my part, but as Stienbjorn said, Not everyone that works on a Company knows how to do others job.

So getting a community guy into resolving Server/Game issues would be a complete waste of resources, even tho there's lots of stuff going on, in this specific case, there is lack of Notification, even the NA servers are said to be Online (2h after the EU went 'Online') yet there is still players that aren't playing.

Let's all learn when to accept we're wrong >.>

Mennox · April 2014

Couldn't have said this any better

xXKamiliyaXx wrote: »

In an effort to diffuse the hostility....

On the one hand, Zenimax employs a Customer Service team which handles the forums. However, this isn't the only present issue (not to mention, it's certainly not at the top of the list). Just look at the disaster that was Amazon orders. So many players (myself included) have had issues with their pre-orders, subscription charges from Zenimax started getting funky, and the Customer Service team was bombarded with emails from a variety of users who wanted nothing more than to get proper access to the game they purchased. That being said, alerting us as to the specifics of server down time when it's adequately expressed in the launcher messages is rather redundant.

My point is--this is the nature of the MMO. I can't tell you how many times WOW servers were down on my day off and I received the absolute minimal amount of notification. Server maintenance means server maintenance. It's there to make sure the game continues to run and smoothly so.

I'm sure forum presence will improve the further we move away from launch. I also haven't checked in on the Twitter account lately, but the updates there should reach players much faster than initial forum posting.

Play nicely, guys.

bwilson.homeb16_ESO · April 2014

Oh and regarding "That being said, alerting us as to the specifics of server down time when it's adequately expressed in the launcher messages is rather redundant."

That would be the launcher message saying the EU server was up and ready for play hours ago? Coz, like, I've been trying to get in for 3 hours now

RitualSmoke · April 2014

+1 communication goes a long ways

Rin9les · April 2014

+1
Only takes 10 mins to post a quick update on the forums/twitter/launcher about any issues/downtime/eta to servers back online. Its not rocket science and soothes a great deal of frustration.