ZOS Not Responsive Enough?

Raltin · April 2020

If you frequent the forums, you've seen it quite often. A discussion, a poll, a question... the vast majority left unanswered. But what of the few who are lucky enough to get a response from a forums admin, or any other Zenimax employee? The following image is generally the typical example.

While there are exceptions to this, they are far and few between. That being said, I'm not ungrateful for the work the admins do to keep the servers clean, at times it is very much needed, but at the end of the day, what little involvement there is that we can see just feels rather... impersonal? There's never any positive feedback where an admin weighs in and voices support towards a discussion, or engaging and encouraging thoughts from the staff hinting at potential content or the like while interacting with player questions, so on and so forth...

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic. No personality or investment, just "We have snuffed insubordination, continue conversing, human persons", and that's it...

I'm eager to hear your thoughts; do you too long for a more responsive and personal forum team, who are interactive with their community?

Knightpanther · April 2020

They have never been any good with customer relations and their lack of response to serious issues within the game is staggering.
The amount of small bugs that now just eat away at me is what may eventually stop me playing altogether, especially the bugged weapon visuals which ZOS probably don't care about or even know how to fix, just ruins the experience for me.

Its not acceptable to blame the current situation, after-all how hard is it to work from home and post on these forums? we are all doing it.

I will give them a month to improve, after that i may take my money elsewhere as its becoming beyond a joke.

Be safe and expect more green posts but not those offering us any hope for the future.

Turelus · April 2020

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Banana · April 2020

Only the server for me

Raltin · April 2020

Banana wrote: »

Only the server for me

If that was a self-roast, I am thoroughly amused, good sir.

redgreensunset · April 2020

Raltin wrote: »

If you frequent the forums, you've seen it quite often. A discussion, a poll, a question... the vast majority left unanswered. But what of the few who are lucky enough to get a response from a forums admin, or any other Zenimax employee? The following image is generally the typical example.

While there are exceptions to this, they are far and few between. That being said, I'm not ungrateful for the work the admins do to keep the servers clean, at times it is very much needed, but at the end of the day, what little involvement there is that we can see just feels rather... impersonal? There's never any positive feedback where an admin weighs in and voices support towards a discussion, or engaging and encouraging thoughts from the staff hinting at potential content or the like while interacting with player questions, so on and so forth...

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic. No personality or investment, just "We have snuffed insubordination, continue conversing, human persons", and that's it...

I'm eager to hear your thoughts; do you too long for a more responsive and personal forum team, who are interactive with their community?

You seem to be unaware of both what the mods and adminds jobs are and what they're probably allowed to do and say. Unless ZOS works very differently than most companies thwy simply cannot voice support for a discussion even if they feel it. Their job is to remain as neutral as humanly possible and make sure the rules for behavior in this place is kept.
In short, they're supposed to be impersonal. It's their damn job.

Knightpanther · April 2020

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

Raltin · April 2020

redgreensunset wrote: »

Raltin wrote: »

If you frequent the forums, you've seen it quite often. A discussion, a poll, a question... the vast majority left unanswered. But what of the few who are lucky enough to get a response from a forums admin, or any other Zenimax employee? The following image is generally the typical example.

While there are exceptions to this, they are far and few between. That being said, I'm not ungrateful for the work the admins do to keep the servers clean, at times it is very much needed, but at the end of the day, what little involvement there is that we can see just feels rather... impersonal? There's never any positive feedback where an admin weighs in and voices support towards a discussion, or engaging and encouraging thoughts from the staff hinting at potential content or the like while interacting with player questions, so on and so forth...

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic. No personality or investment, just "We have snuffed insubordination, continue conversing, human persons", and that's it...

I'm eager to hear your thoughts; do you too long for a more responsive and personal forum team, who are interactive with their community?

You seem to be unaware of both what the mods and adminds jobs are and what they're probably allowed to do and say. Unless ZOS works very differently than most companies thwy simply cannot voice support for a discussion even if they feel it. Their job is to remain as neutral as humanly possible and make sure the rules for behavior in this place is kept.
In short, they're supposed to be impersonal. It's their damn job.

I'm quite aware, and apologize if my post belayed ignorance to you unintentionally, but the overall picture is that I just wish things were more personal and interactive. I'm not saying they have to go out and hug everyone, but something from time to time to make it feel more responsive rather than robotic would be nice. I am honestly not at all envious of the faceless low or middle-tier employee who has to worry about getting sacrificed by the powers that be with an angry knife just for expressing an iota of personality, unlike the great faces such as Todd Howard at Bethesda who can sing sweet little lies day in and out and face no backlash from the rest of company. I kind of just wish for a little more green light for them to get friendlier with the forum community on a whole. To give an example, I am honestly having a hard time recalling a single post where they've said "We appreciate your feedback

" or something along those lines other than crowd control when a forum rant grows giant flames. Overall, the purpose of this thread isn't to fan flames or roast anyone, I merely just want to hear player feedback of what they would find enjoyable from the employees.

kylewwefan · April 2020

They had a new guy that tried. It took 3 seconds before people started ripping on him. You can quickly see no one from zos is gonna be able to say anything without it being taken out of context or it even being a generally good thing.

So we’re not gonna get open meaningful conversations. Most you can hope for is an insightful, agree or awesome.

Turelus · April 2020

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

All that said though, ESO is continuing to grow and make Zemimax money so... As much as we dislike this approach to how a company is run, it's not harming them business wise.

Raltin · April 2020

kylewwefan wrote: »

They had a new guy that tried. It took 3 seconds before people started ripping on him. You can quickly see no one from zos is gonna be able to say anything without it being taken out of context or it even being a generally good thing.

So we’re not gonna get open meaningful conversations. Most you can hope for is an insightful, agree or awesome.

Unfortunate. We must play a sad tune on a line of vossa-satls in this man's honor. It's hard to remember for many that the forum employee isn't responsible for the bugs that go into the game, or the lack of wanted content being released, so on and so forth... but people vent their frustrations regardless towards the nearest source. I understand this for being one of the reasons why ZOS holds back, sad and I wish it were the opposite, but true nonetheless. Ultimately, I have to agree with what @Knightpanther wrote.

Vaoh · April 2020

kylewwefan wrote: »

They had a new guy that tried. It took 3 seconds before people started ripping on him. You can quickly see no one from zos is gonna be able to say anything without it being taken out of context or it even being a generally good thing.

So we’re not gonna get open meaningful conversations. Most you can hope for is an insightful, agree or awesome.

There used to be meaningful discussion. A long time ago there was a thread where Rich Lambert frequently posted on and where the famous “You know you don’t have to be here, right?” quote came from. It was all said in jokes ofc, and was a fun thread.

I’m pretty sure it began in Morrowind when conversations became much rarer because of wildly unpopular balance changes being implemented. Plus the PvPers started to rise up and ask for updates regarding Cyrodiil performance. ZOS would reply with empty promises, get ripped on, and then go silent.

In short, the reputation of the ZOS Dev team is not the best..... as people they are fine and seem nice so it’s not about them personally. The game has just become so much worse in terms of performance, balance, and fun over the years. Players want things to be reverted and fixed, ZOS doesn’t intend to and/or can’t do it - there’s not much constructive discussion to be had.

Raltin · April 2020

Turelus wrote: »

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

All that said though, ESO is continuing to grow and make Zemimax money so... As much as we dislike this approach to how a company is run, it's not harming them business wise.

True enough. While the lack of contact is depressing, for the most part, I enjoy eso as a game, one of the better mmo's I've had the pleasure of experiencing; particularly through the mature player base (mostly...) and how, while there are cash-grabs through marketing tactics in the crown store (crown crates particularly), they aren't as bad as most others out there. The game's economy is also fairly decent, and I rarely feel that certain purchases at guild traders are beyond my capability. While, yes, eso is not perfect, it is by far from the worst that can be found... (Lookin' at you, Fallout 76).

bearbelly · April 2020

No video game company ever is as responsive and open in its communication as its player-base demands.

Way of the World. Deal with it.

Dusk_Coven · April 2020

ZOS doesn't respond unless they know they can fix it. Which isn't the best choice, IMO.
But they do respond when they can -- e.g., the recent poison exploit trolling Belkarth https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6695157/#Comment_6695157

Raltin · April 2020

bearbelly wrote: »

No video game company ever is as responsive and open in its communication as its player-base demands.

Way of the World. Deal with it.

Why do you think I started a discussion about it? This isn't a campaign to break down doors and change how things are done through force and anger. One of the oldest ways people 'Deal with it' is through conversation; either venting or level-headed and serious discussion... Whatever allows them to voice their opinions, and feel as though at least someone is hearing them. If ZOS won't hear their customers, then in the very least, the customers can partake of the luxury of conversing amongst themselves. Makes for some fine late-night entertainment and discussion, at the very least.

Raltin · April 2020

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

ZOS doesn't respond unless they know they can fix it. Which isn't the best choice, IMO.
But they do respond when they can -- e.g., the recent poison exploit trolling Belkarth https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6695157/#Comment_6695157

OMG, that one's pretty good... That marks the first time I've ever seen a forum moderator reply with a gif... that was honestly pretty funny.

Knightpanther · April 2020

Turelus wrote: »

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

All that said though, ESO is continuing to grow and make Zemimax money so... As much as we dislike this approach to how a company is run, it's not harming them business wise.

I respectfully disagree mate, it is harming them, as a long term gamer would i recommend a new player to come here? Nope not a chance, they may not see a downturn in profits or a reduction in the existing player base but they seem very short sighted on potential growth.

Be Safe

Raltin · April 2020

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

All that said though, ESO is continuing to grow and make Zemimax money so... As much as we dislike this approach to how a company is run, it's not harming them business wise.

I respectfully disagree mate, it is harming them, as a long term gamer would i recommend a new player to come here? Nope not a chance, they may not see a downturn in profits or a reduction in the existing player base but they seem very short sighted on potential growth.

Be Safe

True, in the short-term profit... There's plenty of things I feel they could have done to help with the long-term profit. For starters, no more limited-time content on the crown store. By offering all the content you've ever made and keeping it up on the store, you provide a larger range of selection for your customers, and they have the luxury of saying 'okay, i can't afford that right now, but i fully intend to buy it later!'. I can't count how many people I've come across who've wanted to buy the striated pony guar pet, but they can't because it's been gone and never re-released since roughly the game began and the crown store was first launched. By not providing a full store of their content, there's so many things players look back on that have very little chance of returning that they would honestly love to purchase, but can't, and even if it does come back briefly for a limited time, there's a very high percentage chance that said consumer has already moved on to another game or will miss the timeframe and can't make the purchase they want.

CassandraGemini · April 2020

redgreensunset wrote: »

Raltin wrote: »

If you frequent the forums, you've seen it quite often. A discussion, a poll, a question... the vast majority left unanswered. But what of the few who are lucky enough to get a response from a forums admin, or any other Zenimax employee? The following image is generally the typical example.

While there are exceptions to this, they are far and few between. That being said, I'm not ungrateful for the work the admins do to keep the servers clean, at times it is very much needed, but at the end of the day, what little involvement there is that we can see just feels rather... impersonal? There's never any positive feedback where an admin weighs in and voices support towards a discussion, or engaging and encouraging thoughts from the staff hinting at potential content or the like while interacting with player questions, so on and so forth...

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic. No personality or investment, just "We have snuffed insubordination, continue conversing, human persons", and that's it...

I'm eager to hear your thoughts; do you too long for a more responsive and personal forum team, who are interactive with their community?

You seem to be unaware of both what the mods and adminds jobs are and what they're probably allowed to do and say. Unless ZOS works very differently than most companies thwy simply cannot voice support for a discussion even if they feel it. Their job is to remain as neutral as humanly possible and make sure the rules for behavior in this place is kept.
In short, they're supposed to be impersonal. It's their damn job.

I can't speak for the french forum, but when I was looking through the german forum a bit a while ago, I saw that they handle this very differently. Granted, the german forum has much less traffic than the english one, and as far as I could see they have only one or two main admins for interactions with the playerbase, but those at least behave like actual people writing actual, personal sentences, instead of just using pre-formed text-blocks. Heck, most players seem to be on a first-name-basis with one of the guys and he pops up in threads just to give his opinion - even on things that have absolutely nothing to do with ESO, like Covid-19 right now.

So, yeah, I know it's not a perfect comparison because the german sub-forum is much smaller than the main english one, but still, it makes the atmosphere so much nicer. Would be great if the english admins decided to take a page out of that book.

Turelus · April 2020

kylewwefan wrote: »

They had a new guy that tried. It took 3 seconds before people started ripping on him. You can quickly see no one from zos is gonna be able to say anything without it being taken out of context or it even being a generally good thing.

So we’re not gonna get open meaningful conversations. Most you can hope for is an insightful, agree or awesome.

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Knightpanther wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

This has been a conversation since release.

The moderators/admins who clean up the forums generally do this as it's part of their job. Communication from the company has to come from the community team or developers and they normally have to go through some level of confirmation before just posting.

ZOS staff do sometimes go and engage or have a laugh with the community, however often you get those people who then come in and attack them for something, as it's not what they wanted. End of the day don't expect changes to happen, ZOS is better than they used to be but won't ever be the involved and communicating company many desire.

Agreed, ive been here from day one and sadly we have become used to the lack of communication but i say again its financial suicide not to engage your customer base and provide regular updates, other MMO company's do this way better even if it is to provide the bad news that something will not be fixed for a while.

Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things will go away is not the right way of doing things.
I worked for one of the largest company's in the world and when things were bad the most important thing was information, damage limitation and in these days of forums and social media the importance of controlling information, even if it was not what stakeholders wanted to hear.

All i am saying is things could and should be better, there is no excuse.

Be Safe

All that said though, ESO is continuing to grow and make Zemimax money so... As much as we dislike this approach to how a company is run, it's not harming them business wise.

I respectfully disagree mate, it is harming them, as a long term gamer would i recommend a new player to come here? Nope not a chance, they may not see a downturn in profits or a reduction in the existing player base but they seem very short sighted on potential growth.

Be Safe

But everything we're seeing and hearing about the game is showing it's doing great regardless of contact.

Even contact won't change player retention, because the contact may not be what people want. Also you take a look at CCP/EVE Online which is one of the best examples of great player/dev communication and that game is slowly over time losing players.

End of the day the things which matter are content and quality, ESO is great on content (four yearly updates) and good enough on quality. It could be better, but it's not so bad they're bleeding players at an alarming rate.
Most of the people I know who left didn't go because of communication but because they simply grew bored of the game and wanted something different.

Elsonso · April 2020

CassandraGemini wrote: »

I can't speak for the french forum, but when I was looking through the german forum a bit a while ago, I saw that they handle this very differently. Granted, the german forum has much less traffic than the english one, and as far as I could see they have only one or two main admins for interactions with the playerbase, but those at least behave like actual people writing actual, personal sentences, instead of just using pre-formed text-blocks. Heck, most players seem to be on a first-name-basis with one of the guys and he pops up in threads just to give his opinion - even on things that have absolutely nothing to do with ESO, like Covid-19 right now.

Honestly, it probably has more to do with the personality of the community manager, and how much time they have for chatting, than anything else. Kai, on the German side, has always been a good source of information. He seems to have the time, and willingness, to comment. The English folk (Gina, Jess, Sarah) are quite busy, and we see a lot less from them here.

kylewwefan wrote: »

They had a new guy that tried. It took 3 seconds before people started ripping on him.

Three of them, actually. ZOS hired "The Three Amigos" (names I can no longer remember) and part of their job was, apparently, to be more chatty on the forum. Saw them once, maybe twice, then they vanished and were never seen again. Someone needs to check that closet in the basement at ZOS to see if they are still hiding out in there, and are OK. Now that no one goes to the studio, I worry that no one told them, and they might starve.

Raltin wrote: »

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic.

Yes. I have commented on this from almost Day One. Also, they are much better about it now than they used to be.

However, I do think that a lot of people are under a misconception about what the forums are and what they are used for. Yes, ZOS uses them for some official things, but the main purpose of the forum appears to be a place for the players to discuss the game with each other. It is clearly not intended to be a "mixer" with the development team, or a support channel for game or accounts. While I am sure that they monitor the forum for interesting comments, it is also clear that the forums are not the private "bat phone" for directing game development. We are fanatics, but we are also few in number.

The forums tend to get a little paranoid and focused on conspiracies and end of days sorts of things. A Hell of our own making. These are the times when it would really be nice to have someone from ZOS try to step in and set things straight. The whole LA/HA thing took on a surreal life of it's own, mainly because people did not read, or believe, or want to believe, when ZOS said that this was not a sure thing. In the end, all was resolved as expected, but we had to suffer through all sorts of panic, "canceled sub", and gnashing of teeth stuff. I am not certain that a CM trying to calm that down would have worked. A couple people were already carrying the banner that ZOS was lying, and probably still are, but maybe it would have helped, anyway.

barney2525 · April 2020

I also play Archeage. Try getting a response out of them.

You don't know how good you have things here.

IMHO

dennissomb16_ESO · April 2020

Think of the difficulty of using the forums as the place for ZOS to communicate more with the player base. Forums have always represented a small percentage of the overall player base for MMOs. Just reading the forums you can see the extremely wide views on every subject that gets posted. On top of the varied views of course is the out right anger, trolling, and attacking that is such an unfortunate side effect that comes with the internet.

ZOS has the PTS forums, and actual tab for "DEV Tracker" and are not bad at responding to the general forum when it comes to serious issues like server connections. Compared to a lot of other major MMOs I would give ESO a solid B+ when it comes to communication via official forums.

Elsonso · April 2020

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

ZOS has the PTS forums, and actual tab for "DEV Tracker" and are not bad at responding to the general forum when it comes to serious issues like server connections.

Yes, over the last couple years, they have been getting much better at getting in here and letting people know what is going on.

And... the "Dev Stalker" is an essential tool for keeping up with the latest in official wordiness. I keep a tab open just for that. It is much better than the "Z" marker for a thread. Those are just a good place to go to read the smackdown.

Raltin · April 2020

barney2525 wrote: »

I also play Archeage. Try getting a response out of them.

You don't know how good you have things here.

IMHO

I used to play RuneScape a long time back. I know the feels.

eso_lags · April 2020

Raltin wrote: »

If you frequent the forums, you've seen it quite often. A discussion, a poll, a question... the vast majority left unanswered. But what of the few who are lucky enough to get a response from a forums admin, or any other Zenimax employee? The following image is generally the typical example.

While there are exceptions to this, they are far and few between. That being said, I'm not ungrateful for the work the admins do to keep the servers clean, at times it is very much needed, but at the end of the day, what little involvement there is that we can see just feels rather... impersonal? There's never any positive feedback where an admin weighs in and voices support towards a discussion, or engaging and encouraging thoughts from the staff hinting at potential content or the like while interacting with player questions, so on and so forth...

Personally, I just kind of wish ZOS would get more connected with their fan-base? When it comes down to it... pretty much everything I've seen from them on these forums is clean, cold, and... well, robotic. No personality or investment, just "We have snuffed insubordination, continue conversing, human persons", and that's it...

I'm eager to hear your thoughts; do you too long for a more responsive and personal forum team, who are interactive with their community?

Just post some compliments and the mods will answer you. I mean i know its not their fault, they are not devs, but I feel like they could 100% do more to ease peoples problems.

[snip]

[snip]

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I would love to see mods be more interactive, even if they cant give direct answers on certain issues they could still help with others. They have no problem popping in a thread to tell people to chill, so why not try and help as well? I would also like to see them give people some actual reasoning for shutting down threads or deleting posts, instead of "check the forum tos". And I would 1000% love to see some consistency with them when it comes to editing/removing threads and posts, and banning people.

[Edit for discussing disciplinary action.]

poe · April 2020

I have seen so many posts removed because of so called "rules" and threads closed with not apparent reason. The thing i see is that, especially if its about criticizing ZOS and the ridiculous state of the game, they use the "against the rules" card and close it. So I agree totally with OP on this.

What surprises me even more is that there is none, really NO, acknowledgement that the game's current state is totally broken during the holdiays, weekends or prime time. For me personally, if there was some kind of admission from ZOS, I would have some respect for them and be much more patient. But for now there is no transparency or even any roadmap on how to fix the server issues etc..

Tandor · April 2020

poe wrote: »

I have seen so many posts removed because of so called "rules" and threads closed with not apparent reason. The thing i see is that, especially if its about criticizing ZOS and the ridiculous state of the game, they use the "against the rules" card and close it. So I agree totally with OP on this.

What surprises me even more is that there is none, really NO, acknowledgement that the game's current state is totally broken during the holdiays, weekends or prime time. For me personally, if there was some kind of admission from ZOS, I would have some respect for them and be much more patient. But for now there is no transparency or even any roadmap on how to fix the server issues etc..

It's a shame that some players still believe this. The evidence on this forum is totally against it, as there are a lot of complaint threads and most of them stay open and unmoderated. All the evidence supports the view that it's not what you say, it's how you say it. That's what leads to moderation. If I had a pound for every complaint thread left open I'd be a wealthy man indeed, whereas if I had a tenner for every one that's closed down I'd be a lot less well off. Be constructive and polite to both developers and players alike, and avoid the temptation to create the gazillionth thread on the same topic, those are the keys to avoiding moderation. It's nothing to do with praising the Crown Store instead of criticising the game, it's to do with being constructive in your criticism. If you were running a private forum would you put up with anything less?

As for your second paragraph, how can you claim there's no roadmap on how to fix the server issues? Have you not been following the Performance Improvement Plan monthly updates (on the website with links from the forum and the launcher) along with Dev Tracker generally? You can argue with its content and delivery if you wish - constructively! - but to deny the existence of a roadmap is something else altogether.

poe · April 2020

I have seen at least 3 threads closed last week without any unreasonable or offending things being said. Most of the time ZoS moderators remove specific replies, but in these threads they just closed the whole thread. The line which they seem to draw is not clear at all.

Secondly, yes there is a roadmap. But this roadmap is from before the performance patch and it is not clear what whitin the current communication from ZOS is about the current unplayability of the game. Most of the problems were here before the performance patch, which made the patch needed in the first place. But after the patch things started to go downhill and with the current lockdown, it has become unplayable. So no, i havent read any acknowledgement that the game is in a bad state (maybe that is asking too much), except "we know it, and its our priority" which is from weeks back. Secondly the roadmap is old and is unclear on how they think to solve the current state of the game. I could be wrong as i dont read everything. But it is a bit curious how this kind of performance issue is not being communicated about.

Khatou · April 2020

In France they are entitled to a "ghost" CM present only to sell an extension, as for the moderators, the only thing they know how to do is to close the topics or delete any message that bothers them, to the point that the forum ends up being more and more deserted by the community.

Really pissed off by the policy of this studio stuck in the ass "we don't have the right to reply"...