ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey all, thanks so much for taking the time to write up so much great feedback here, and apologies it took a while to reply (something something about Global Reveal prep...). This whole thing started on my personal Twitter account as it was originally intended to be a broad discussion about communication in general within the games industry, but eventually morphed into a conversation about ESO specifically. Which is fine. But just wanted to clear up why this started on Twitter.

We've had some initial conversations amongst our team to discuss ways to improve communication across the board and some different things we could try. While it's still a bit too early to get into details here, we are doing our best to figure out how to get more information on both the forums and website rather than limiting much of it to social media and/or livestreams. While these avenues are great for some things, we recognize it's not always ideal. Information should be readily available without having to search for its source or needing to dig around for an answer. As was mentioned above, it can be pretty difficult to keep track of multiple platforms and while it's a blessing we live in a time when there are so many ways to consume information, it can also be pretty overwhelming.

As a first step, you may have noticed we posted the Q1 in-game event graphic here on the forums in addition to our social channels. Moving forward, we're going to try to err on the side of redundancy. This is going to be a process and while it's safe to assume there will still be times when some information will be posted just on social (for example, a bunch of live tweets going out in tandem with our event this Thursday) rest assured we are actively looking at ways to improve.

Thanks, as always, for the ongoing support!

Thanks for clearing things up, it's appreciated.

I don't think anyone faults you for having "industry discussion" on your personal Twitter. It certainly wasn't my intent to call that out as a negative. People were asking you to post that discussion here because we can really get into details here provided our posts aren't edited. That and it's a discussion many of us have wanted for a long time.

From an optics perspective, I think it helps to address the game community you represent first - especially when communication is a historical pain point for many of the community. Of course it's going to morph into something about ESO. Everyone knows it's a problem.

Honestly, it's just vexing that you guys are still figuring out how to communicate with us this far into the game's life. It makes supporting the game hard. It really does. Of course we welcome any improvement, but it feels like this discussion has been started and stopped so many times. I get that it's an ongoing process, but it doesn't feel like anything major has improved in years (in terms of ZOS communication).

That being said I think there's a few things you can do to clear things up and improve the relationship between ZOS and the community.
1. Tell us who does what. We all know you're the CM Gina, but it honestly feels like most of your focus is on sales comms. For many of us with jobs in IT, consulting, marketing, etc., we see more of the business drivers than "deliverables" us players can consume. It's frustrating because players want you or even folks above you to see certain feedback. So we tag you and 8/10 times it's not replied to. We all get you have job constraints, but I think those constraints need to be communicated. We need to know who to go to exchange feedback. In my experience, Kevin's a champ who does most of that communication. I don't think it's fair to put that on one person.
2. Address the hesitance. It's common knowledge how Rich feels about these forums. On one of his streams, he admitted as such and how he "doesn't blame" his employees if they don't come here. That has to change. Kevin can't handle technical communication the way a developer can. We're not going to get anywhere if someone who knows the system can't - or won't - speak to the problem. If you or Kevin have competing priorities on top of it, how can we expect developers to get feedback? I get it's challenging to deal with toxic players and conflicting requests, but it's felt like ZOS has thrown the baby out with the bath water on communications.
3. Stop avoiding the hard questions and feedback. I've seen this on your Twitter, on Rich's streams, and in historical interviews - it all too often feels like you guys want your vision confirmed and nothing else. It's just not realistic, and ultimately good for the game. Developers need to be challenged. PTS feedback needs to be engaged. People need to voice their opinions. We all want what's good for the game, we all want this to be the top dog MMO. It won't improve if you don't let us tell you how.
4. Stop making decisions in a vacuum. Just by your post above, you guys are exploring ways forward internally. I get that some things need to be internal decisions, but how to talk with your players honestly shouldn't be one of them. That's why myself and others wanted to pull this here - because we want our thoughts and needs to be considered when you talk to us. If it's not, it's just a one-sided exchange at that point. There needs to be exploratory discussions started and maintained by ZOS employees here and on Reddit to figure this out. Your tweet was a good bulkhead, and I think it shows some thought processes. But if you take a step back, you'll see how different is from the community. That's a gap you have to bridge.
5. Here first. Players are obviously thirsty for insight into what's going on - just look at how many people started flocking to Rich's streams. Twitter's great for hyping up events and releases (excited for tomorrow by the way) but announcements and explanations need to be here first. It's been said here before, but this is official forum, please treat it as such.

I respect that you're willing to err on the side of redundancy. I think that's a step in the right direction. Hopefully another year doesn't pass and we're having this conversation again because that's the precedence that's been set. A lot of games enjoy warm relationships between the developers and the players, this game deserves no less and I hope we get there.

Hurbster wrote: »

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

Same here.. And Im now wondering the same thing

I know this thread has come up with some great feedback about communication so I want to throw in something that came to my attention today with the players' ability to communicate on the forums themselves.

tldr; Getting an account on the forums to provide feedback is unintuitive and causes a barrier to including more voices.

For example: Today I had very productive discussion with many like minded individuals and we came up with what I believed was a great solution to the problem some people saw with Account Wide Achievements. I posted on the forums and encouraged others to do the same to bring attention to it. Most of them gave up just trying to sign up for an account.

I've been a member on the forums for a very long time so I had no memory or idea of just how to walk them through the process and as I got to watch the struggle, I suddenly understood why many people don't participate here. Most of us, myself included, had no idea you need to go hunt down an obscure location to request an invite. There is not a way to sign up easily visible on the home page of the forums, even when you click "Sign In".

Proposed Solution: When clicking "Sign In" on the home page and you're prompted with entering your credentials, add a "request an invite" link or "how to request an invite" FAQ link to the bottom of the window. This option could also be added directly next to the "Sign In" option on the home page. This does not exist in current state.

@ZOS_Gen

Onomog wrote: »

DuckFayth wrote: »

*snip*

tldr; Getting an account on the forums to provide feedback is unintuitive and causes a barrier to including more voices.

*snip*

Proposed Solution: When clicking "Sign In" on the home page and you're prompted with entering your credentials, add a "request an invite" link or "how to request an invite" FAQ link to the bottom of the window. This option could also be added directly next to the "Sign In" option on the home page. This does not exist in current state.

Could not agree more with this. I've only recently figured out how to get an account on the forums and it was not obvious. At all.

I got mine quite a while ago. I don't recall it being hard at all, but then I have been on other MMO forums before.

Onomog wrote: »

If they want player engagement on the forums they need to do a better job than that for an account creation process.

(edit for spelling)

That's the small fix

The big fix is having a "forum" button in the game startup once you've logged in. Oddly very few games do a decent job of that.

I'm bumping this thread because today it seems relevant, given:

1. The large number of unanswered complaints about event page drop rates, and
2. The massive PTS/PCNA clusterfork.

It might be a time to reflect on what you guys are doing well and what still needs to be improved, @ZOS_GinaBruno.

I mean, after the servers are fixed, of course. Please take your time. But after that, maybe please do something to make many of your players happier than they currently seem to be?

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Maybe less vacations to Amsterdam?

Having been part of multiple corporate cultures, I can assure you, occasional company trips to exotic locales are necessary for employee retention as well as putting on more weight than you were hoping to.

furiouslog wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Maybe less vacations to Amsterdam?

Having been part of multiple corporate cultures, I can assure you, occasional company trips to exotic locales are necessary for employee retention as well as putting on more weight than you were hoping to.

Are we interested in retaining whoever was responsible for this disaster?

shadyjane62 wrote: »

furiouslog wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Maybe less vacations to Amsterdam?

Having been part of multiple corporate cultures, I can assure you, occasional company trips to exotic locales are necessary for employee retention as well as putting on more weight than you were hoping to.

Are we interested in retaining whoever was responsible for this disaster?

The failure of processes like this are not the fault of a single person unless it was done with intention. It's always the process that is at fault. Humans make mistakes, so you need to have a workflow that accommodates that risk. But I'm sure they could leave whoever was in charge of this error back in the office next time the team takes a trip if you feel that would somehow make you a happier person.

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Maybe less vacations to Amsterdam?

So many thoughts here. But I'll stick with this one:

I was lucky enough to have worked in a career where I traveled to work cool events and I'm here to tell ya, as sexy as that sounds, it is WORK. It wasn't a vacation to Amsterdam, it was working a LIVE EVENT.

But even if it was a "vacation", it is absolutely none of my business what a company does to reward their employees (and I'd argue it does wonders to build loyalty & productivity). What I care about is that the product I pay for is working acceptably and I'm getting what I paid for. For the vast vast VAST majority of the past 10 years, ESO/ZOS has done a bang-up job. Your mileage may vary, but we all have the power of the wallet to vote with.

furiouslog wrote: »

So, to keep things on the communications track, what are the elements that are important to you all as consumers when something like this happens?

For me, immediacy and transparency are the two most important things, preferably with a mix of self deprecating humor and/or an earnest acknowledgement of the inconvenience caused (optional), as well as the provision of some sort of token gift that recognizes the extent of that inconvenience (also optional).

Frankly, for me, I'm so sick of corporate PR spin that I don't actually think there's much that communication ALONE can do to help me, lol. They do a great job here - it doesn't read like corporate PR spin and it does seem genuine and transparent.

But what makes communication the most effective in my mind, is action. It's the old "sorry doesn't cut it" line - don't just apologize, change your behavior.

And, as an ESO player for 10 years, I can say that while they have not been fast about changing their behavior, they have improved things that are problematic.

Some of the extremely bad issues I remember from ages past that have been fixed (mostly; obviously these bugs can crop up on a case by case basis still for all kinds of reasons, but they're not as widespread or 'mainstream' as they were):
1) Infinite Cyrodiil loadscreens
2) Exploitable multi-pet summons of combat pets (e.g. 2 Scamps as a sorc)
3) Break Free only half functioning at best
4) Proc sets being wonky (I remember the epic horror of seeing a single person with Valkyn Scoria drop about 12 meteors on someone over the course of a 45 second fight)
5) the combat changes to fit the whole stadia debacle, which I still think ESO is recovering from and I really think may have been ESO's worst decision