Troodon80 wrote: »

I remember when, for example, Gilliam used to do various YouTube videos; possibly one of the most known -- for people who remember -- is the bucket and broom vMA. Sadly, the videos section of his YouTube channel is now empty and all you can see are the featured videos from four years ago.

ZOS social media policy most likely forbids developers from talking about ESO in most situations.

And even if it didn't, Gilliam posting something as simple as an ESO screenshot will lead to dozens of replies and messages, asking him about X balance decision or straight up harassing him. All of that in his free time.

It's very normal for developers to not talk about the game they develop in public spaces. It doesn't mean they hate the game, or don't care about it, or don't play it. It just means they don't have the patience to talk to non-gamedevs about it at 9pm on a saturday.

blktauna wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Rich actually used to stream himself playing and answered questions. He got inundated with pvp questions but he'd keep answering them. Sometimes his wife would stream on his channel or come talk to him and people asking questions. One day she was streaming a discussion about accessibility options, and it was clearly marked as her stream and thing not his. Someone framed pvp performance as an accessibility issue and she snapped and basically gestured crybaby at them like "oh boohoo wah wah wah" type thing. Someone clipped the moment and pulled it out of context, making it seem like she attacked PvPers out of nowhere and that Rich dislikes PvPers and behaved horribly because of his wife's sudden comment.

<snip>

Partially true, but there had been a lot of hostility to pvp questions that built up to this.

Yes, because it was a topic of discussion practically every time he streamed. I'm sure they felt hounded since he was getting them at work AND on their downtime. Both sides were getting frustrated, but Rich remained professional (if a little irritated). It was his wife that actually snapped.

There was actually upfront discussion about PVP. It was happening on his stream. But that wasn't a good place for it to happen because it didn't reach the broader community.

So people who hadn't heard about it would come and ask questions. Again and again and again. The players were frustrated because they thought there wasn't answers (there was) and Rich and his wife were being frustrated because they were getting hounded. They weren't being hounded by individuals and it was none of their intent, but being asked the same question again over and over can get frustrating, especially when that person doesn't even work there.

Ultimately, I think what happens shows what an inadequate system Twitch is for important communication, more than it says anything about the people involved. And it's a good lesson as to why so many companies prefer distance and corporate speak.

Rich Lambert tried to do things differently. He tried to be consistently available and answer questions directly in a casual space. And what happened was it created a frustrating situation for him and his family as individual human beings, poor message penetration resulting in a community that felt neglected, and a PR disaster. I don't see it ever happening again.

Edit: Here's an example. In a later post I discussed what they were doing about PVP. I talked about the server re-architecure before it was announced and before the infamous stream, because he had talked about it on his stream. My thread focused on my own question though.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/594510/inside-scoop-why-the-basic-clothing-items-never-got-added-to-the-outfit-system-and-never-will

Marto wrote: »

Rich wasn't hostile towards the PVP community. The PVP community was hostile towards Rich.

While I do think that Rich probably did feel some frustration from some of the commentary, and his wife even more so since she didn't actually work there, I do think that this is not quite a fair assessment of the PvP players. While he certainly felt hounded because he was discussing it a lot, that was more so because of the sheer number of people asking rather than most individuals being rude or hostile towards him IMO.

I think that the PvP community FELT neglected because 1) they can't see any performance improvements or what the devs do behind the scenes and 2) they've been hearing "we've been working on it," for years. The nature of Rich's stream, which I would agree strongly DID contain a lot of information about PvP, meant that mostly only the few people who watched would get that information. Since it was not posted in official places like Twitter, the forums, etc. people felt like the community team wasn't addressing this information. When in actuality, he discussed it at length. It's actually the information I remember most, and I'm not even someone into PvP. This is what I meant by poor message penetration. The information might as well have not been out there, since it was inaccessible to a lot of players who don't watch streams, wouldn't even know where to look if they did, and wasn't necessarily trusted when other players would report back on what they had heard since the information was second-hand and posted nowhere official.

edit: So, you had a community that felt neglected because they couldn't actually hear the message. And a dev that was working so hard to inform the players that he even was giving up his free time discussing issues to directly address questions. He talked about it a lot and it was never enough (because of the nature of Twitch, not because of the players). And you had a wife that doesn't work there and likely doesn't fully grasp the situation as she mostly knows his side of things, watching her husband get called neglectful while he spends all night and day working to help the pvp community. it was aways going to end in disaster.

Brrrofski wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Rich actually used to stream himself playing and answered questions. He got inundated with pvp questions but he'd keep answering them. Sometimes his wife would stream on his channel or come talk to him and people asking questions. One day she was streaming a discussion about accessibility options, and it was clearly marked as her stream and thing not his. Someone framed pvp performance as an accessibility issue and she snapped and basically gestured crybaby at them like "oh boohoo wah wah wah" type thing. Someone clipped the moment and pulled it out of context, making it seem like she attacked PvPers out of nowhere and that Rich dislikes PvPers and behaved horribly because of his wife's sudden comment.

<snip>

Partially true, but there had been a lot of hostility to pvp questions that built up to this.

Yes, because it was a topic of discussion practically every time he streamed. I'm sure they felt hounded since he was getting them at work AND on their downtime. Both sides were getting frustrated, but Rich remained professional (if a little irritated). It was his wife that actually snapped.

There was actually upfront discussion about PVP. It was happening on his stream. But that wasn't a good place for it to happen because it didn't reach the broader community.

So people who hadn't heard about it would come and ask questions. Again and again and again. The players were frustrated because they thought there wasn't answers (there was) and Rich and his wife were being frustrated because they were getting hounded. They weren't being hounded by individuals and it was none of their intent, but being asked the same question again over and over can get frustrating, especially when that person doesn't even work there.

Ultimately, I think what happens shows what an inadequate system Twitch is for important communication, more than it says anything about the people involved. And it's a good lesson as to why so many companies prefer distance and corporate speak.

Rich Lambert tried to do things differently. He tried to be consistently available and answer questions directly in a casual space. And what happened was it created a frustrating situation for him and his family as individual human beings, poor message penetration resulting in a community that felt neglected, and a PR disaster. I don't see it ever happening again.

Edit: Here's an example. In a later post I discussed what they were doing about PVP. I talked about the server re-architecure before it was announced and before the infamous stream, because he had talked about it on his stream. My thread focused on my own question though.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/594510/inside-scoop-why-the-basic-clothing-items-never-got-added-to-the-outfit-system-and-never-will

Well doesn't that tell you that people are craving a conversation?

Yes, which is why I stated that the issue was the method of communication being inaccessible to most players, rather than anything any individual person did wrong. Rich WAS communicating, a LOT. Moreso than any other dev I've seen. And the player base at large wasn't getting any of it. I don't think Twitch streams work to as the primary source of important information (but they keep doing them but now as only corporate controlled events with little to no direct communication) but that's what they are using. The result is a playerbase that feels neglected. And a dev team that feels they've shared a lot.

The problem is in HOW they are sharing the information. It's scattered and inaccessible.

Riptide wrote: »

Eh, the fellow in question lost his temper in an absurd way on another stream when asked about the way respec scrolls and vamp/ww cures take advantage of ignorant new players, who don’t know that they don’t need to spend out of pocket money to do that. He acted like, well, I’ll just say it was absolutely my turning point on needing new leadership. There are quite a number of instances where he has behaved condescendingly and dismissively, and used words and phrases that absolutely would get you banned here.

Yes, that super awkward to vehemently support respec scrolls sales being advertised as a great deal. You can play for 10 minutes picking up literally anything and then vendor them to make the gold required for respec shrines.

Elsonso wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

It built up to this because there was no upfront discussion of why pvp was growing exponentially unplayable and why no one was seemingly paying attention to that.

There was absolutely an upfront discussion about it on Rich's stream. It was one of the topics that was addressed the most often. Rich absolutely paid attention to it.

He many times told the history behind the performance issues, from pre-launch and how PVP was conceived; to the events that caused the most performance degradation, like the introduction of destructible bridges and gates. He spoke passionately about PVP because hey, he loves it, he worked and it, and wishes he could work on it again.

But of course, no one was satisfied with the very honest answer that is "We are working on it"

I agree with you. What was apparent in all of this is that ZOS had lost the confidence of that group of players by this time. Saying "we are working on it", after years of saying that, was pretty much the same as saying nothing.

They kept saying "We are working on it" for years, because they were working on it for years, because it's the sort of issue that takes years of work.

That was the honest answer.

This is one of those situations in which players claim they want honesty and communication from the devs. They claim they're tired of disingenuous PR speech. But in reality, they want disingenuous PR speech.

I completely understand losing the player's trust, of course. And ZOS needs to find a way to remedy that. But when the community gives such mixed messages... it's tricky. They can do everything right, and people will still be upset.

Marto wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

blktauna wrote: »

It built up to this because there was no upfront discussion of why pvp was growing exponentially unplayable and why no one was seemingly paying attention to that.

There was absolutely an upfront discussion about it on Rich's stream. It was one of the topics that was addressed the most often. Rich absolutely paid attention to it.

He many times told the history behind the performance issues, from pre-launch and how PVP was conceived; to the events that caused the most performance degradation, like the introduction of destructible bridges and gates. He spoke passionately about PVP because hey, he loves it, he worked and it, and wishes he could work on it again.

But of course, no one was satisfied with the very honest answer that is "We are working on it"

I agree with you. What was apparent in all of this is that ZOS had lost the confidence of that group of players by this time. Saying "we are working on it", after years of saying that, was pretty much the same as saying nothing.

They kept saying "We are working on it" for years, because they were working on it for years, because it's the sort of issue that takes years of work.

That was the honest answer.

There is a point at which "we're working on it" is repeated enough times over a long enough period of time that it no longer inspires confidence.

Honest answer or not, it was clear that the message wasn't the right message, anymore. They needed to communicate better, not less. Turtling up did not help them.

Marto wrote: »

I completely understand losing the player's trust, of course. And ZOS needs to find a way to remedy that. But when the community gives such mixed messages... it's tricky. They can do everything right, and people will still be upset.

This is the internet. There is no such thing as consensus and the message will always be mixed. This is why companies hire communications professionals that can guide them through this and work to avoid these sorts of things.

Marto wrote: »

They kept saying "We are working on it" for years, because they were working on it for years, because it's the sort of issue that takes years of work.

That was the honest answer.

This is one of those situations in which players claim they want honesty and communication from the devs. They claim they're tired of disingenuous PR speech. But in reality, they want disingenuous PR speech.

I completely understand losing the player's trust, of course. And ZOS needs to find a way to remedy that. But when the community gives such mixed messages... it's tricky. They can do everything right, and people will still be upset.

They have said "we are working on it" repeatedly over some years all the while the service went downhill. They've had their years of work time and here we are. How many more do they need? The only improvement was a 5 year delayed hardware replacement.

I do not want "disingenuous PR speech" I want actual answers and results. There's been amazingly little said about this current combat overhaul that's again late in its appearance. They knew they were having issues, it should have started 3 or 4 years ago, not now. How about we not embark on sweeping combat changes until this supposed new system is in place?

I don't want to do their QA, I want to play the game I'm paying for.