A response on communications

Lysette · January 2022

magnus01 wrote: »

I would like to say just use the god dam forum.

twitter is garbage..... im sorry but that's just what it is.
twitch is garbage unless its a devoted Q&A and that Q&A is posted on the forum.

facebook or do we call it METAVERSE yea no thanks.

That's the reason for the complaints.
No use of the GAMES forum.

you already have my bank details and my money, i have no interest in joining any of the sites you push you're info through.

Im a simple man with money to burn and ive been MMO gaming for almost 28 years.
only in the last gen of console did you decide to move from the most convenient method of talking to us basement boys and girls, you made it a mess and a chore.

i dont live on my phone and i dont give a dam about social media .

I'm with you, Magnus, and I'm just about 34 - but I won't convert me into a slave to a handheld device and I have no desire to put my life out to the world either. Social media is just a new way of gold digging - on the surface it is "social", but in fact it is very selfish, to gather your data and sell it - and to take your ownership away from anything you post on social media as well. And you get nothing for it - well, an addiction to social media eventually, but that is not something desirable to acquire.

[snip]
[edited for off-topic content]

Hurbster · January 2022

I don't do twitter. How much info have I been missing out on?

FlopsyPrince · January 2022

HawkFest wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I think for starters, if you (ZOS) really want to work on communication (which you have admitted in the past is lacking, so this isn't a matter of "well we see people complain about it all the time"), you need to stop limiting important announcements and updates to Twitter or Facebook or whatever other social media. You NEED to start posting updates and announcements here on the forums first and foremost, and THEN post them to other social media.

I wholeheartedly agree with this ! Personally I don't want anything to do with Twitter ; I use Facebook only to communicate with close friends and family, or post serious matters (social/political) under my real name and media groups, and I don't want to expose that kind of and intimate leisure stuff that's irrelevant to such activity (to the point that it's not even on my phone).

Either in the Forum, or better yet under a specific Blog/section of this Web site. I don't like being obliged to run around the Web on 3rd party platform that I don't want to use (twitch being the exception in regard to loots!), just to be aware of important announcements / game events etc.

This forum should be the primary place for such communications first since it is tied closely to the game!

It is even a bit annoying to have a post in the Announcements thread, but have to go to the news site to read the details. I know PR crafts that message, but please put bullet points in the base post in cases like that at least.

I do VERY LITTLE on twitter and I agree that is not a good place to go. Other social media would be the same. Sure, repost there (or post the same thing but worded differently) but make this the primary location since it is the official location!

This would require being a bit more tolerant of strong disagreement. Keep things civil of course, but realize people want to be heard and they may not always say it how you want to hear it.

SammyKhajit · January 2022

Ideally ZOS should engage in all the communication platforms including the one that they host

This one does visit the ESO Twitter now and then but has found the content to be quite light and entertaining. As in, show off your costume for (holiday) theme! This one enjoys the fluff, but don’t see how Twitter alone can be a meaningful communication channel.

FlopsyPrince · January 2022

We should also have a place where we can go to find the place for regularly brought up issues. Not just pinned threads like the Overland Content one, but a literal list.

This should include commonly requested things (including things you will not do, like a Central AH). Briefly note each one in categories like "Investigating", "Not Likely", "Being Strongly Considered" etc. Be vague enough you have flexibility, but provide feedback. This would also include Quality of Life things, especially on the consoles. I am not there now, but I would probably have stayed if more had come quicker, or at least if I saw a plan to do so.

Do the same for significant bugs. Note their status. Note if you need more details, possibly including an explicit way to recreate it. Link that to where players can provide anything you might need.

This would require you start addressing longstanding ones to some extent. Yeah, you may not catch them fast, but make progress or note why not. I could give some examples, but will refrain and leave it there.

The overall theme is give people a voice. You may not always like it and you certainly won't respond in the way everyone wants, but let people know they can have a say. Suggestion boxes are good, but no one wants to keep making suggestions that are seemingly ignored!

Lysette · January 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

We should also have a place where we can go to find the place for regularly brought up issues. Not just pinned threads like the Overland Content one, but a literal list.

This should include commonly requested things (including things you will not do, like a Central AH). Briefly note each one in categories like "Investigating", "Not Likely", "Being Strongly Considered" etc. Be vague enough you have flexibility, but provide feedback. This would also include Quality of Life things, especially on the consoles. I am not there now, but I would probably have stayed if more had come quicker, or at least if I saw a plan to do so.

Do the same for significant bugs. Note their status. Note if you need more details, possibly including an explicit way to recreate it. Link that to where players can provide anything you might need.

This would require you start addressing longstanding ones to some extent. Yeah, you may not catch them fast, but make progress or note why not. I could give some examples, but will refrain and leave it there.

The overall theme is give people a voice. You may not always like it and you certainly won't respond in the way everyone wants, but let people know they can have a say. Suggestion boxes are good, but no one wants to keep making suggestions that are seemingly ignored!

Yeah, that is what I like with NMS for example - I had a few minor issues, which were mostly convenience with constructing a base and enhance it - minor things, but they bothered me - I made tickets stating that it is just a convenience thing, but it might annoy a lot of people anyway - and days later I saw progress, it was not fixed immediately, but in a very short amount of time - this is how I expect a "game as service" to work - fixing stuff in a timely manner.

vesselwiththepestle · January 2022

A lot good points have brought up there. I give a little example where I wish for better communication.

This happened first:

ZOS introduced a no-proc campaign on Ravenwatch and no-cp Imperial City. The patch notes presented three different lists, which together gave a list of "working sets" in that no-proc pvp environment. A minor patch they made a little change to this list.

You won't believe, what players did next:

Players found out that some of these sets weren't actually working, while others did work. They collected data in the forums, first in the PTS forums, then in the general areas of the forums. Players were asking for more information (where the discoveries intentional, could there be made a consolidated list). There was never an answer given. Up until this point we don't know if some item sets work intentionally in no-proc environments or if we are exploiting that stuff!

What I would have wished for:

ZOS could have provided a consolidated list of working sets in the no-proc environment. When a new player gets into the game or even an experienced player starting to play pvp in the no proc environment, they would have to learn about that no proc stuff and they would have to be directed to those three lists in some patch notes. Even though I spent considerable time into learning all this stuff, I can't even remember which patch notes exactly contained that information! I usually look up a list on a third party fan website, which I know has errors because they just copied the information from the patch notes! Several other stuff like "oh, this set is working and this too" I am remembering by myself, and every now and then I learn about another set which is working!

So, 1st ZOS should have made that information which is really important to the game mechanics more accessible, like putting it in a pinned thread in the pvp forums or even in the in-game help (F1). 2nd when players asked for consolidated lists and talked about errors in the provided patch notes, there just should have been, well, communication.

I honestly don't know what I should explain here what kind of communication would have been better than no communication at all. Maybe ZOS didn't understand the importance of that kind of staff? I mean, every time I've got a new player in my raid they talk about some set they are wearing which doesn't work in Ravenwatch! So I tell them. They say oh, but that's not a proc set. So I have to tell them doesn't matter, you need to look up the list. Sure, where's the list? I don't know, hidden in some patch notes and it's actually three list, but you can get on eso-u, but that list has some errors, too. So where's a complete list without errors? Well, I could make one, but I prefer to ask ZOS over and over again for a consolidated set list, because THAT'S THEIR [CENSORED] JOB!

I mean, ZOS can't provide infinite amount of communication. That's pretty obvious. Communication needs real humans who get paid real money and who have limited amount of time. So figuring out where communication is important is probably one of the most difficult parts of the game. What is very important to me, like that damn list of working sets in no-proc-environment, might be totally unimportant to 99% of the players. Idk. It's just because I play pvp a lot and I still run into those troubles I just assume other players must be annoyed about that, too. I guess my annoyance comes also from the point as ZOS tried to do that job (by providing the patch notes), but did a very bad job at that (3 different lists instead of one, no list outside of patch notes, errors in patch notes).

Understanding issues like that might help to understand in which other areas players might wich for a diffent kind of communication. In other words and looking at the OP, in this issue I was missing empathy and responsiveness.

etchedpixels · January 2022

When I look at the communications differences between FF and here it's painfully obvious. Even New World where the developers have clearly been pretty much dragged kicking and screaming to explain themselves is now doing a better job of communication than Zenimax.

There are just a whole bunch of giant process fails that cause problems
- Ticket system that requires people poke mods to find out what is going on
- Ticket system that brokenly pushes tickets to the back of the queue on update
- Broken mail handling that leads to guild masters getting social bans if they mail the guild members as a whole sometimes rather than a "you've sent too many mails" message
- Broken bugged character handling so people can get stuck falling and have to wait days for staff to fix their character
- Lack of visibility of common bugs so people know they are being worked on
- Lack of a schedule and updates when the schedule slips on a bug fix. How many "set X is broken" threads do we have all on the same subjects, with the odd ancient moderator acknowledgement and people then having to ask 6 weeks later if it's ever going to be fixed ?
- No formal security contact - I mean really, everyone serious on the planet had a proper security notification process last century.

All of these things are about process and proper automation. Much of the ticket frustration and spam comes from process failure and lack of visibility into what should be trivial (plus the usual fact that large corporations under-employ and use 'all our operatives are busy' when they mean 'all our operatives are overworked and we won't employ enough to answer').

A load of it though is just automation and visibility failure. In a working environment ticket progress would be a lot more visible, many problems needing staff intervention would be auto-fixed, and Gina and others would be responding to a report like "Wrath of the imperium is still broken" with not just a one off devs told type message but a link to a tracking entry that would then give some minimal idea of what is going on. Sure it's probably going to say no more than "Confirmed, targetting pdate 33" but at least people would know.

Elsonso · January 2022

Hurbster wrote: »

I don't do twitter. How much info have I been missing out on?

Honestly, not much. Server up and down, promotional Tweets, some social media building exercises. The latter will likely expand, as it looks like they hired a replacement ZOS_SarahHecker this month.

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts. This included more than ESO players. She is an award winning Community Manager and I am sure she is followed by people in other game companies who have similar jobs.

Still, Twitter is good for sound bites. Lengthy thoughts get awkward very quickly. A reply here, tagging her, might be a good alternative for ESO players who want to respond. A DM will probably be best, as then the others on the forum won't see it.

adriant1978 · January 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts.

I think the outrage is in that people on the game's official forum weren't being asked for their thoughts.

Elsonso · January 2022

adriant1978 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts.

I think the outrage is in that people on the game's official forum weren't being asked for their thoughts.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the forum has made it quite clear, and continues to do so on a regular basis, what it thinks of ZOS communication and how they can improve on it. No asking required. The forum freely provides opinions on a wide variety of subjects, unasked. Maybe ZOS needs to hear from someone else, too?

Additionally, people are assuming that because Gina is a prominent person related to ESO that ESO is all she is. She is a Senior Community Manager at ZOS, which is more than ESO. Not only may she have things to do in other parts of the studio, but she also has to be wary of being pigeon-holed by listening only to the ESO forums, or even just ESO players.

In other words... not everything is exclusively about ESO, and not everything has to include the ESO forums.

VaranisArano · January 2022

Hurbster wrote: »

I don't do twitter. How much info have I been missing out on?

Probably not a whole lot. Or at least, there's not been too many times that I've found out secondhand that there was an official answer on Twitter that didn't get a Dev response on the forums.

So why do I bring it up if it doesn't happen that often?

Because small neglects accumulate to cause the perception of bigger neglect. Players come to the forums looking for answers. When the answer isn't given, they get frustrated. We see it all the time.

So in those cases where there IS an answer given on Twitter, it seems to me like an easy win for someone at ZOS to also put the answer on the forums. It doesn't make sense to me to rely on a forum poster to see it on the forum and post the answer in a thread that may or may not be seen by answer-seekers when there's a perfectly good Dev Tracker that would show up if someone on the Communications Team put the answer out there.

VaranisArano · January 2022

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

HawkFest wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I think for starters, if you (ZOS) really want to work on communication (which you have admitted in the past is lacking, so this isn't a matter of "well we see people complain about it all the time"), you need to stop limiting important announcements and updates to Twitter or Facebook or whatever other social media. You NEED to start posting updates and announcements here on the forums first and foremost, and THEN post them to other social media.

I wholeheartedly agree with this ! Personally I don't want anything to do with Twitter ; I use Facebook only to communicate with close friends and family, or post serious matters (social/political) under my real name and media groups, and I don't want to expose that kind of and intimate leisure stuff that's irrelevant to such activity (to the point that it's not even on my phone).

Either in the Forum, or better yet under a specific Blog/section of this Web site. I don't like being obliged to run around the Web on 3rd party platform that I don't want to use (twitch being the exception in regard to loots!), just to be aware of important announcements / game events etc.

This forum should be the primary place for such communications first since it is tied closely to the game!

It is even a bit annoying to have a post in the Announcements thread, but have to go to the news site to read the details. I know PR crafts that message, but please put bullet points in the base post in cases like that at least.

I do VERY LITTLE on twitter and I agree that is not a good place to go. Other social media would be the same. Sure, repost there (or post the same thing but worded differently) but make this the primary location since it is the official location!

This would require being a bit more tolerant of strong disagreement. Keep things civil of course, but realize people want to be heard and they may not always say it how you want to hear it.

For what it's worth, they post major updates on the website for good reason, as explained back in 2019 when someone asked why something was posted on the website, not the forums.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

The_Lex wrote: »

Agreed. Interesting that they posted it on the website and not the forums. They won't engage people who will: (1) challenge their views, and (2) know how to play the game better than they do.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. We chose to post this on the website because it gets significantly more views than the forums and our goal here was to try and get this message out to a wide audience. It also allows us to put out the message in more than just English.

hakan · January 2022

Arunei wrote: »

I think for starters, if you (ZOS) really want to work on communication (which you have admitted in the past is lacking, so this isn't a matter of "well we see people complain about it all the time"), you need to stop limiting important announcements and updates to Twitter or Facebook or whatever other social media. You NEED to start posting updates and announcements here on the forums first and foremost, and THEN post them to other social media.

You guys either don't realize or simply disregard the fact that many of your players DO NOT USE social media like Twitter. I'm one of them. Thus, many people are unawares of things you've posted in regards to until they hear it secondhand from others, like the OP of this very thread. If you want feedback on communication, why would you not make this more visible by posting and pinning a thread about it here? Why only ask on Twitter, where many of your players won't see the question to answer it in the first place?

Start posting updates, answers, and announcements HERE before anywhere else, and THEN make posts in other areas. This is ESO's official forum, but we often get less information in regards to problems than other sites.

Also, a big part of communication is not leaving your community in the dark about big issues and not acknowledging them to some degree. Matt admitted that it's taken too long for you guys to make any official post about PvP problems. Don't wait literal YEARS before you give us updates on things. Most of us understand you can't give detailed information or go in-depth about a lot of things, but that's not what we're asking for. What we're wanting is what we've been getting from Kevin a lot since he came on; just acknowledgement on things, and a "Yes this is a thing but we're looking into it" or just...something to let us know you're actually hearing us. When all we get is silence for months and months, it just leads to growing resentment and the conspiracy theories you had to make a rule against.

And in that vein, you really need to start acknowledging major bugs and other issues that people post in the PTS during test cycles. I've seen it happen too many times that a problem or imbalance has been brought up numerous times in the PTS and get no acknowledgement, make it to live, and then when it's reported the response be "Oh thanks for letting us know about this we're looking into it now". No, you need to look into these things when we TELL you about them, not several weeks later and then act like you were never made aware of whatever the issue is. So many people have stopped using the PTS and testing things (including myself) because it just feels like our feedback and bug reports are completely ignored.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I wanna quote on your number 1.

They dont have to satisfy everyone. They cant. A lot of people have ridiculous claims that are either hypothetical or lie.

They need to weed out the unreasonable ones.

E.g. "the grindiest mmo ever" or "p2w" is the most [snip] ive ever heard about this game. Where as performance issues are very much reasonable, you cant really hold them equal.

[edited for profanity bypass]

BomblePants · January 2022

Good for Zos attempting to open up communication with the community. I hope it will be met by the community with reasonableness, maturity and respect.

Artanisul · January 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

adriant1978 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts.

I think the outrage is in that people on the game's official forum weren't being asked for their thoughts.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the forum has made it quite clear, and continues to do so on a regular basis, what it thinks of ZOS communication and how they can improve on it. No asking required. The forum freely provides opinions on a wide variety of subjects, unasked. Maybe ZOS needs to hear from someone else, too?

Additionally, people are assuming that because Gina is a prominent person related to ESO that ESO is all she is. She is a Senior Community Manager at ZOS, which is more than ESO. Not only may she have things to do in other parts of the studio, but she also has to be wary of being pigeon-holed by listening only to the ESO forums, or even just ESO players.

In other words... not everything is exclusively about ESO, and not everything has to include the ESO forums.

The excerpts from Twitter were shown here to illustrate Gina asked about communication from the game community. We of course should respond concerning the fact that Twitter isnt where you ask "how can we communicate with you better."
That all relates to the last part of the quote I bolded. People are getting exclusive information about ESO from Twitter and other outside sources, that is not on the Forums. The very forums that are here solely for the Game and its clients does not seem to have all the info. We find that strange to say the least.

Arunei · January 2022

VaranisArano wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

HawkFest wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

I think for starters, if you (ZOS) really want to work on communication (which you have admitted in the past is lacking, so this isn't a matter of "well we see people complain about it all the time"), you need to stop limiting important announcements and updates to Twitter or Facebook or whatever other social media. You NEED to start posting updates and announcements here on the forums first and foremost, and THEN post them to other social media.

I wholeheartedly agree with this ! Personally I don't want anything to do with Twitter ; I use Facebook only to communicate with close friends and family, or post serious matters (social/political) under my real name and media groups, and I don't want to expose that kind of and intimate leisure stuff that's irrelevant to such activity (to the point that it's not even on my phone).

Either in the Forum, or better yet under a specific Blog/section of this Web site. I don't like being obliged to run around the Web on 3rd party platform that I don't want to use (twitch being the exception in regard to loots!), just to be aware of important announcements / game events etc.

This forum should be the primary place for such communications first since it is tied closely to the game!

It is even a bit annoying to have a post in the Announcements thread, but have to go to the news site to read the details. I know PR crafts that message, but please put bullet points in the base post in cases like that at least.

I do VERY LITTLE on twitter and I agree that is not a good place to go. Other social media would be the same. Sure, repost there (or post the same thing but worded differently) but make this the primary location since it is the official location!

This would require being a bit more tolerant of strong disagreement. Keep things civil of course, but realize people want to be heard and they may not always say it how you want to hear it.

For what it's worth, they post major updates on the website for good reason, as explained back in 2019 when someone asked why something was posted on the website, not the forums.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

The_Lex wrote: »

Agreed. Interesting that they posted it on the website and not the forums. They won't engage people who will: (1) challenge their views, and (2) know how to play the game better than they do.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. We chose to post this on the website because it gets significantly more views than the forums and our goal here was to try and get this message out to a wide audience. It also allows us to put out the message in more than just English.

They say that, but there have been times when there have been decently important updates to important topics on the forums here that were posted over on Twitter, rather than here on the forum where the matter was brought up. The most recent example I can think of is the thread about Trophies earned on the PS4 version of ESO not populating for the PS5 version. The thread got a lot of activity, but when there came updates on the matter, they were posted on Twitter and nothing was posted on the actual thread here. I think eventually Kevin started making updates in that thread, but several updates were posted only to Twitter.

@hakan
Er...I'm a bit confused. My number one thing was about how they need to post anything officially relating to ESO here on the forums, or somewhere on the official site, rather than only on sites like Twitter and FB. It sounds like what you're commenting on is actually my point about acknowledging bugs and issues on the PTS rather than ignoring them. When I say they need to do that I don't necessarily mean every single thing that's posted, I mean the issues that are reported by numerous people repeatedly over the weeks of testing, yet never seem to get any sort of acknowledgement of their existence until they inevitably make it to live and get reported there.

LalMirchi · January 2022

Convenience or how how to make your personal online experience smoother, [snip] IMHO Twitter is not a good tool for communications to a community such as this.

There are functional technical solutions to consolidating online resources and I would rather see these instead of policy-based half baked soleutions.

[edited for bashing]

Destai · January 2022

Lysette wrote: »

But I understand as well where Gina is coming from - take the announcement of Matt about server-redesign for ecxample - that was a quite honest announcement, stating basically "we tried hard, but we cannot do it with the current design and have to address this first, everything else would just be a band aid and leads nowhere, we have to do that now, it is a difficult task, which actually makes us quite anxious to attempt it, but we decided to go for it, because we think it is absolutely necessary".

And how do people react?- He was dead honest with this, and Matt deserves some praise for being brave enough to do it.

I don't think the reaction was unreasonable on the forums. It's pretty fair for people to be skeptical of the announcement, given what it followed and what it took to get it. There were no updates on what they were even considering, despite deafening clamoring for such. We all want to believe in them, but their track record and attitude have made that faith a challenge. And of course, once again, no ZOS representation in that thread after the initial response. They're not interested in discussion and will continue justify their absence to themselves.

Elsonso wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

I don't do twitter. How much info have I been missing out on?

Honestly, not much. Server up and down, promotional Tweets, some social media building exercises. The latter will likely expand, as it looks like they hired a replacement ZOS_SarahHecker this month.

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts. This included more than ESO players. She is an award winning Community Manager and I am sure she is followed by people in other game companies who have similar jobs.

Still, Twitter is good for sound bites. Lengthy thoughts get awkward very quickly. A reply here, tagging her, might be a good alternative for ESO players who want to respond. A DM will probably be best, as then the others on the forum won't see it.

The "outrage" (I think this is more of a discussion) is that they can't be bothered to post anything on the official forums beyond "we're working on it". Additionally, I think the Tweet is more about optics because it gives the impression they're engaged. I'm sure she's great at the marketing end, coming up with sales comms and strategies. But getting the devs to talk - she's absolutely not meeting those needs. I don't know who in ZOS is influencing the decision, but they clearly are ignoring a large amount of sentiment and are actively choosing to not meet our CM needs. Since it's a community management issue, I think it's only fair to point that concern at Gina until she clears it up.

_Zathras_ · January 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

Additionally, people are assuming that because Gina is a prominent person related to ESO that ESO is all she is. She is a Senior Community Manager at ZOS

Elsonso wrote: »

She is an award winning Community Manager and I am sure she is followed by people in other game companies who have similar jobs.

Right, but this isn't a credential thread. There are a lot of people contributing to this discussion who are also experts in their respective fields.

I see this thread as a continuation of a conversation everyone on these forums was left out of, because of the trend to have off-site communications relevant to ESO.

No one is picking on Gina. We're all fairly civil and constructive here. This is probably one of the better efforts I've seen to broach this topic, and have it laid out in a cohesive, comprehensive manner.

It's about moving forward with an effort to improve, rather than with promises to improve.

EdmondDontes · January 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

adriant1978 wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I am not getting the outrage here. Gina was just asking the people who follow her on Twitter for their thoughts.

I think the outrage is in that people on the game's official forum weren't being asked for their thoughts.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the forum has made it quite clear, and continues to do so on a regular basis, what it thinks of ZOS communication and how they can improve on it. No asking required. The forum freely provides opinions on a wide variety of subjects, unasked. Maybe ZOS needs to hear from someone else, too?

Additionally, people are assuming that because Gina is a prominent person related to ESO that ESO is all she is. She is a Senior Community Manager at ZOS, which is more than ESO. Not only may she have things to do in other parts of the studio, but she also has to be wary of being pigeon-holed by listening only to the ESO forums, or even just ESO players.

In other words... not everything is exclusively about ESO, and not everything has to include the ESO forums.

Are you talking about this forum? ....the ESO official forums? Because very little is clear on this forum and even official announcements come late or not at all, and when they do come, are generally incomplete or muddled in some way.

Case and point this latest PvP announcement. If they figured out the issue and got to work on it last fall, why did it take the foot in mouth episode from one of the devs relatives to get the announcement? There is nothing ZOS could ever do that would bother you Elsonso. You've made that clear.

The moderators on this forum don't even answer game related questions like on essentially every other forum of this kind.

Elsonso · January 2022

EdmondDontes wrote: »

Case and point this latest PvP announcement. If they figured out the issue and got to work on it last fall, why did it take the foot in mouth episode from one of the devs relatives to get the announcement?

One event following another event does not prove cause and effect. I know people would like it to be that simple, and it certainly makes for a better story here in the forum, but it may just be that they were ready to make their statement and made it and Ms Lambert had nothing to do with it.

If Ms Lambert did prompt this, and it is a likelyhood, then good for her. She obviously needs more stream time to talk and hopefully she will dislodge something else. ZOS likes their secrecy and sometimes they need prompting to talk.

Jack-0 · January 2022

I can see several people have said this already but I’d like to add my voice: the default place for all ESO communications should be on the official ESO website or forums, in the client launcher and quite possibly in the announcements interface in game - and all of these should be a priority over Twitter or Facebook or any other social frigging media. It’s utterly exasperating to only hear about things through Chinese whispers because you do not have the wherewithal to post on your own official website/launcher/in game.

I don’t care that ZOS might be concerned about bad PR from highlighting bugs and performance issues to those players who might otherwise be unaware of them, the way to fix any bad PR is to not have such widespread issues in the first place. The least you can do is put the info in readily accessible and obvious places (once again, in case this is not loud and clear: on the official ESO website).

I have recently been tempted to check out another MMO even though I’ve been playing ESO since beta, and one of the key reasons was the open and honest comms by their director when their game proved to be so popular they had to prevent new accounts being registered to try and handle the server load. Incidentally, they have been able to procure new server hardware…and free trials will be resumed soon. Be more like Square.

ZOS_Icy · January 2022

Greetings all,

After removing a few off topic posts, we would like to ask everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, as well as keeping things civil and constructive.

Thank you for your understanding.

Alinhbo_Tyaka · January 2022

VaranisArano wrote: »

- snip -
For what it's worth, they post major updates on the website for good reason, as explained back in 2019 when someone asked why something was posted on the website, not the forums.

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

The_Lex wrote: »

Agreed. Interesting that they posted it on the website and not the forums. They won't engage people who will: (1) challenge their views, and (2) know how to play the game better than they do.

Actually, it's quite the opposite. We chose to post this on the website because it gets significantly more views than the forums and our goal here was to try and get this message out to a wide audience. It also allows us to put out the message in more than just English.

This is perfectly reasonable. Where it could be improved is to place an announcement with a link and maybe a summary in a more prominent place on the forums. The News & Website Article Discussions heading is so cluttered with stuff I rarely look there. I do look at new items when they pop up as pinned on General but I don't think that would be appropriate for long term communications announcements as it would be prone to becoming cluttered as well. Personally I think a new heading for a blog, letter from the producer (Ala Final Fantasy 14), developer's corner or whatever you want to call it would be best. It could be devoted to threads with the communications from ZOS that are currently being thrown out on Twitter or the employee's private Twitch streams. It would also be a good place to put any transcripts of the formal ZOS streams you suggested earlier. ZOS wouldn't even have to make them discussion threads and could lock them upon creation leaving players to create their own threads in general to discuss the topics.

Riptide · January 2022

Was one of the folks in the alpha for ESO, and if I am being honest outside of outright glitches many things we told the team were outright ignored and have been - then and since.

My wife and I still sub to the game and I stop back on the forums every so often. The same things are being said, the same sort of threads with the very same observations.

The difference is over the last few years the moderation has become heavy handed. You have to word any constructive criticisms oh so carefully, because if there is any hint of an excuse it will be moderated - and you will cop a temp ban. That is entirely reasonable for profanity, personal attacks, etc.

It simply is not when used an excused to scrub the forums of valid, constructive criticism. I am not talking about fire breathing fist pounding but calm, rational discussions get removed.

Virtually long term player I know has had runins here to the point we simply do not post or contribute. There are exceptions that prove the rule, but jump into *any* trial and mention it and you will see what I mean, it is rather ubiquitous. We have learned the hard lesson that it very simply is not actual interaction that is desired from the playerbase, but artificial peace in the valley and the regular consumption of crowns, ESO+ and expansions. Any discussions here must needs be saccharine, and are not consumed in a serious way by the dev team.

[snip]

Spend more time seriously reading and interacting with your main account, particularly in the test server forum where there is a fair bit of signal and less noise. Allow for more organic and genuine discussion in general.

It is just not at all complicated.

[edited for baiting]

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo · January 2022

- Be more precise in the explanations for errors/bugs/lags
- Don't say 'no comment' to certain questions as we aren't journalists, we are paying customers.
- Limit personal streams from people working at HQ
(We just want to play a game that works correctly, not follow people nor assist in their day to day lives, you have friends and family for that)

Its 8 years into the game and only now have we received a memo about the final preparations to fix PvP in the game and there is no time scape. I mean if that's not an example of slow/no communication, I don't know what is.

NoxiousBlight · January 2022

I agree with a lot of people. ZOS needs to STOP using Twitter, etc., and post it here. At a minimum any tweet related to a bug, potential fix, update, etc, should be cross posted here to the forums. I do not use FB or Twitter - and I never will.

In addition, when there is some new type of communication, it needs to not be buried in a 20 page deep thread. I am thinking of the recent news that they are reverting BGs to the older solo/group style again. How could I possibly know that if someone hadn't sent me the direct link? I stopped reading that thread months ago. I rarely click on the "Z" in threads because 99% of the time it is a mod telling people to behave.

So a few fixes that would improve communication ten-fold:

1. If it is on twitter, it needs to be here on the forums in an obvious way. Period.
2. Whenever there is mod action on the forums the dev "Z" needs to NOT appear in that thread. That way when I see that "Z" I know for a fact Gina, Matt, or a dev has replied there. I know the dev tracker is a thing, but it isn't immediately obvious how to access it or what it is. And I am not hating on Kevin here - I am glad he is so involved here on the forums - but that isn't really what I think of when I go to the "dev" tracker. So the tool could use a once-over to make it more useful perhaps.

Just a couple of thoughts off the top of my head on what would improve communication for me.

Arunei · January 2022

Elsonso wrote: »

Additionally, people are assuming that because Gina is a prominent person related to ESO that ESO is all she is. She is a Senior Community Manager at ZOS, which is more than ESO. Not only may she have things to do in other parts of the studio, but she also has to be wary of being pigeon-holed by listening only to the ESO forums, or even just ESO players.

In other words... not everything is exclusively about ESO, and not everything has to include the ESO forums.

Um...except literally no one is asking Gina or anyone to post things that aren't related to ESO here or somewhere else on the site. We aren't clamoring for her or other devs/community people to post every thought or whatever here, so I'm not quite sure why that's something you're pointing out.

No, not everything is exclusively about ESO. But the things that are? Those absolutely need to include the forums when it comes to asking how they can better communication.

How do you hold a proper conversation with a demographic when said conversation is held on a platform a large portion of the demographic doesn't use? There is no reason or excuse for updates, announcements, and other ESO-related news or topics to be posted on 3rd-party sites but not on ESO's official site or forums.

Edit to add that no one is pigeon-holing anyone to only "listening to the forums". No one I've seen has said ESO devs and others on the team can only post stuff on the site or forums. We ARE all saying they need to include the forums or another section of the site when they make posts related to ESO, and not just limit these things to Twitter or FB. How does it make any sense not to post game-related things on the game's own official platform?

FlopsyPrince · January 2022

I agree Riptide, though I hesitate to quote your post because I have been caught in that area.

We cannot even have an open discussion of many things.

Support tickets seem largely of minimal to no value. I may be forgetting some, but I can't think of a single time they changed their views or even truly clarified things when asked in a ticket, even things we cannot discuss here. This has caused me to be close to completely quitting, walking away from quite a bit of money. I already walked from a lot of money on the PS4 version to be on the PC, so this would not be a new habit for me. I like the game, but not this aspect.

I would favor the forums over the site or at least posting here pointing to that announcement, as they do now in the Announcements thread.