Originally posted by osmunda I agree that being rude is unprofessional. I'm just saying that if you consider something rude, call it rude and then people can discuss whether it was rude or not instead of whether it was unprofessional.
I am really giving up.
It is the simplest deductive logic it can be.
osmunda and Henrik are individuals. Henrik is a CEO.
All individuals can be rude but only CEO can be unprofessional.
Hence, Henrik is rude and unprofessional.
Simple as that. Right word to use since you discuss his qualities of him as a CEO and the company he is supposed to represent.
Well I'd document the other, but that thread got locked for trolling. So I will just say that calling a disruptive customer pathetic is rude and not the best way to handle the situation but not uncalled for. Especially when they have such a classy name. Also, I don't really want to use the profanity the IRC poster did. I'll let people judge for themselves, but please note post #16.
Well I'd document the other, but that thread got locked for trolling. So I will just say that calling a disruptive customer pathetic is rude and not the best way to handle the situation but not uncalled for. Especially when they have such a classy name. Also, I don't really want to use the profanity the IRC poster did. I'll let people judge for themselves, but please note post #16. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/268579/page/1
Do you not think that Microsoft has customers who CALL THEM, and yell at the customer service reps trying to help them? Try calling Dell, and saying "OMG YOUR COMPUTER SUCKS" and yelling at them. Irate customers are everywhere.
It is the job of the organization that provides a product or service to continue to conduct themselves in a professional and courteous manner. This is the job and responsibility of a good organization, regardless of how others act towards THEM.
Sebastian and Henrik are prime example of not executives, or professional developers (and I've long maintained they are definitely not the latter), but rather more of a "Daddy bought me a company" type of attitudes. In the end, it won't matter because MO is doing a great enough disservice as a GAME -- just adding their rudeness to the mix just seems to point out the other fact, that they aren't any good at development either.
It's one thing to be rude, but still have an awesome product. They haven't got that either. You'd think that with a less than even mediocre product, that they would be at least polite and professional -- but that brilliance has not yet dawned on them.
There are 2 instances documented where Starvault representatives clearly have been rude, which I will summarize shortly.
Huh? What do you ocnsider documented? Just scan the forums and there are plenty of instances...
For example, here's one you missed. I'll just post the part where he apologizes for trolling his own customers, but feel free to read the whole thread. Was it good that he realized his mistake.. sure thing... but it shouldn't have gotten to that point.
Don't take it personally. Some of the "Devs" think it's a badge of "honor" to mock their "customers" with "witty" replies and sacrastic use of "quotes". /endquote
Mats Persson:
Ouch. Point taken.
Please understand though that the main reason I use quotes is because it's very important to me to mark which are my words and which are not. Meeting a statement, for instance "long-promised", becomes very confusing without them (and I don't want people to think that some of the quotes are my words, especially not when they contain profanities or rude language) - however in a post with a sarcastic/ironic undertone this often enhances the perceived sarcasm although that may not be my intention.
I'm sorry if I come across as a jerk. I felt the need to troll back against Cronnix for his on-the-fly remark, indeed in a sarcastic way, and got a couple of links thrown at me that wasn't even read-through. So I continued. My bad. Its just that I can take critique, and we do get a lot of it, but I really don't like when misinterpretations or rumors (or trolling) is allowed to flourish. I'll be nice now, thank you for waking me up.
__________________
Who really cares if a single developer talks trash on a forum or IRC though? I find more troubling instances of unprofessionalism in how they handle major announcements.
I personally find it absurd that the Community Manager has not even posted the release DATE of the product even though they confirmed a March release and it's March 22nd. I think it was absurd to announce a StressTest 12 hours before the test (and then wonder why we have insane lag issues when we move to the next phase even though the Stress Tests were "successful").
Again though.. who cares? 99.999% of players are going to buy MO (or not buy it) based on the state of the game not on whether or not their behavior fits the definition of unprofessional.
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Whatever the literal definition is, I understand what they mean by it. They mean that the company lacks the level of finese and polish that other companies with years and years of experience show.
And they aren't professional in that sense. And I like that. I think everyone deserves a chance to make it, especially if they have an idea a lot of people like. And I think a developer like starvault that isn't professional has a better chance of having that idea uncorrupted by people who want to change it. Now this of course does sacrifice initial polish, but again. I appreciate what they are doing.
Whatever the literal definition is, I understand what they mean by it. They mean that the company lacks the level of finese and polish that other companies with years and years of experience show. And they aren't professional in that sense. And I like that. I think everyone deserves a chance to make it, especially if they have an idea a lot of people like. And I think a developer like starvault that isn't professional has a better chance of having that idea uncorrupted by people who want to change it. Now this of course does sacrifice initial polish, but again. I appreciate what they are doing.
Again, being "out of the norm" and being "cool" by being unprofessional is one thing if you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.
SV has shown time and time again, they have no idea what they are doing.
1 : the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person
2 : the following of a profession (as athletics) for gain or livelihood
Defining a word with the use of the same word is a logical fallacy known as begging the question, or circular logic. These definitions therefore are ultimately meaningless, as the definition of the word professional is missing.
This is, of course, the same problem StarVault has with its customers at its core. The process is explained, to a point, but in the end fails to deliver on any implied promises.
Professionalism is a lot more than just a basic understanding of something. Professionalism is having an in depth understanding of something and the experience.
1 : the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person
2 : the following of a profession (as athletics) for gain or livelihood
Defining a word with the use of the same word is a logical fallacy known as begging the question, or circular logic.
True, but the word "professionalism" doesn't appear in the definition, only the similar terms "profession" and "professional person." Here is a Merriam-webster definition of professional:
1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
Case closed, courtesy and conscientiousness are a part of the definition of professionalism, therefore as the OP admits StarVault is rude, we have shown that they are unprofessional by definition.
Professionalism is a lot more than just a basic understanding of something. Professionalism is having an in depth understanding of something and the experience.
lol, one thing you learn when working with people from different languages all over the world is being a grammar/dictionary nazi is one of the least productive uses of time. Look at what people are saying not how they are saying it.
What most people mean when the term un-professional is thrown around is that AV is in-experienced. Which is 100% correct.
Technically the term un-professional is a completely subjective measure of how you interact with your peers and customers. I haven't followed the dev dialogs closely at all but i doubt anyone can make statements as to their un-professionalism.
Haven't read this thread cause I only wanted to mention one thing about the original post:
I considered his behavior in general to be unprofessional. His casual swearing in the IRC chat made me stop and ask "This guy is the CEO of a company that is trying to get millions of dollars in funding to publish their game?" I am not a prude by any means. I swear daily. But the CEO of a company should act professionally. Just the way he talked about things made it seem like he was just some guy fresh out of college who was pretty full of himself and the unproven product he was trying to push.
Haven't read this thread cause I only wanted to mention one thing about the original post:
I considered his behavior in general to be unprofessional. His casual swearing in the IRC chat made me stop and ask "This guy is the CEO of a company that is trying to get millions of dollars in funding to publish their game?" I am not a prude by any means. I swear daily. But the CEO of a company should act professionally. Just the way he talked about things made it seem like he was just some guy fresh out of college who was pretty full of himself and the unproven product he was trying to push.
Defining a word with the use of the same word is a logical fallacy known as begging the question, or circular logic.
True, but the word "professionalism" doesn't appear in the definition, only the similar terms "profession" and "professional person." Here is a Merriam-webster definition of professional:
1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
Case closed, courtesy and conscientiousness are a part of the definition of professionalism, therefore as the OP admits StarVault is rude, we have shown that they are unprofessional by definition.
I admitted Starvault was rude? I don't remember that. Let me see..... Mats is sarcastic at times..... St Judas was rude, then resigned.... Sebastian was slightly rude to a disruptive person in IRC... Hmm guess I didn't say Starvault was rude, since I don't think Sebastian's episode was a significant lapse.
Cronnix: This is the long promised Open Beta I bet, SV style.
Cronnix: I dont see such a big difference between for example WoW progression and MO progression. WoWs progression is levels and talents, in MO its skills.. In both games it takes a while to get to max, and you are worthless without high skill/level.
I am not saying that sandboxes are wrong. But I am saying that MO is far from a real sandbox like UO, and also that even thou sandboxes attempt to present one with illusion of freedom and with variety of choices, there are some things player will never use, such as for example hundreds of weapon combinations, and that the freedom illusion aint much different from typical grind.
Mats: No. It's a stress test that will give us a better indication on how to go about with the open Beta.
I didn't know the open Beta was "long promised", thanks for letting me know!
Others: A few posts linking to announcements about Beta, none of which said anything about "open beta"
Mats: Ah, I see, so those are the posts talking about the "long-promised, open Beta"?I was under the impression those had to do with signing up (or being a devoted poster) to have a chance to get inside the Beta, as in "chance to get selected for (unspecified) Beta", not "promised, open Beta"
He clearly overshot his mark with the sarcasm and was apologizing for that. If that and Sebastian saying "you're pathetic" are the worse than can be found by combing throught the forums and IRC logs, I'm not too concerned about their lack of courtesy. As to the lack of an announcement about the release date, you definitely have a point. Unfortunately, it may just be that they haven't pinned it down, perhaps because of a desire to pin down the desynch pronlems before release. What you noted in another thread about trying to release in time to be included in the 1st quarter financial statement, but we may be back to .... http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3443906#3443906
Never did I vision seeing conceptual fuzziness and communicative semantics being a hot topic of an MMO forum. A debate of what a word or an expression means is eventually a question of what means to mean, which is somewhat of a tricky topic and hardly something that can be solved on this particular fora. Hence, I'd suggest that instead of insisting of "faulty logics" or "lacking definition" it would be much more productive to discuss on layman's terms. After all, definition of "definition" is as hard to give as definition to any term or concept coined.
A solution relying on ostensible base concepts is ill-founded, as illustrated e.g. by Russell with his example on the nature of yellowness and explaining it to a blind person. There is nothing more fundamental on yellow or red than there is in dog or cat. The immediate constituent analysis of Bloomfieldian kin is pretty pointless as well, much like e.g. Montague grammar or maybe functional enquire of communication following Hallidayian vein. On the other hand, Wittgensteinian family resemblance provides an interesting venue to follow as shown by the so-called prototype theory of concepts and the re-emergence of the weak Sapir and Whorf hypothesis as its consequence. But then again, does saying that there are no clear cut boundaries for any concepts going to solve this debate over professinalism. Somehow I do doubt it.
To stir the issue somewhat more, one can seek solution as well from communicative studies, but as even the age-old models of Bühler and Jakobson show, even there are too many variables to actually show what in fact was ment. Maybe only in a Peircean dream of a non-psychologically teinted semiotics could we find "the meaning" of a concept. And even then, it would be incessantly modified by our interpretations of it as we would still lack the first-hand experience of the base object, in this case "being professional". All in all, I do strongly suggest that if we strive for a meaningful debate over the professional abilities of people working at Star Vault, we have to agree that dictionaries, regardless of their faultiness, are the best source of information for what we mean with a word or an expression.
From the actual topic then. I'd like to say that there indeed has been some threads that have used "unprofessional" as a stamp to belittle everything Star Vault has done thus far. On the other hand, their public relations work has been ghastly at times. When the only source of even somewhat reliable information is an IRC channel something is amiss. After all, updating forums to reflect what has been said on IRC shouldn't be an unsurmountable effort. This reluctance to provide anything "material" from the IRC discussions does suggest that they are not ready to stand behind what they are saying, which could partly be the reason why said channel is monitored with such vigilance by both fans and grunted ex-customers alike.
Cronnix: This is the long promised Open Beta I bet, SV style.
Cronnix: I dont see such a big difference between for example WoW progression and MO progression. WoWs progression is levels and talents, in MO its skills.. In both games it takes a while to get to max, and you are worthless without high skill/level.
I am not saying that sandboxes are wrong. But I am saying that MO is far from a real sandbox like UO, and also that even thou sandboxes attempt to present one with illusion of freedom and with variety of choices, there are some things player will never use, such as for example hundreds of weapon combinations, and that the freedom illusion aint much different from typical grind.
Mats: No. It's a stress test that will give us a better indication on how to go about with the open Beta.
I didn't know the open Beta was "long promised", thanks for letting me know!
Others: A few posts linking to announcements about Beta, none of which said anything about "open beta"
Mats: Ah, I see, so those are the posts talking about the "long-promised, open Beta"?I was under the impression those had to do with signing up (or being a devoted poster) to have a chance to get inside the Beta, as in "chance to get selected for (unspecified) Beta", not "promised, open Beta"
He clearly overshot his mark with the sarcasm and was apologizing for that. If that and Sebastian saying "you're pathetic" are the worse than can be found by combing throught the forums and IRC logs, I'm not too concerned about their lack of courtesy. As to the lack of an announcement about the release date, you definitely have a point. Unfortunately, it may just be that they haven't pinned it down, perhaps because of a desire to pin down the desynch pronlems before release. What you noted in another thread about trying to release in time to be included in the 1st quarter financial statement, but we may be back to .... http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3443906#3443906
I I honestly think most of their communication issues stem from the disorganized way they communicate. Their CM should be the focal point of communication to and from the team. Important issues (such as the release date 8 days from the end of March) should have their own topic created, locked and updated by Maerlyn when info is available. Instead it comes across as disorganized and scattered. Some info is found in an announcement, some is buried in a response on page 6 of a thread, some is in a newsletter, some in a front page news update, and the vast majority is simply leaked to whoever is lurking in IRC chat... WAAAY back in July before the pre-orders were even on sale I created numerous requests to have this info presented in a more consistent (and some would say professional) manner. 8 months later and it's the same...
PS: This editor sucks and I hate typing on here now
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You raise several interesting points in your analysis.
An appeal to base concepts is, as you say, ill-founded, "Professionalism" would be a condensed induction, which is in turn comprised of other condensed inductions based subjective assessments of experience (i.e. courteous, conscientious. generally businesslike)
Montague grammar, likewise, is not useful without positing a specific resolution to the sorites paradox. Fuzzy logic certainly could be applied, but I suspect that "partly professional" would be an unsatisfactory resolution for all parties involved. An appeal to group consensus is also likely to be unsatisfactory, as there is clearly no consensus on how (dis)courteous the developers behavior has been in specific examples.
A functional analysis following Halliday's principles is at least somewhat informative. Obviously, when people are referring to Starvault's professionalism, they are using the representational function of language. Of greater interest is the implications from the interpersonal metafunction. In some professions there is a body that sets the consensus definition of "professionalism" within that context (i.e. PGA, State Bar Association, State Medical Board). By appealing to the interpersonal metafunction of language, some posters are asserting their own relative social status and their ability to set standards in a manner similar to those bodies. As most of the people on this forum have little to no experience in designing MMOs this is usually a fallacious assertion.
Prototype theory and the Sapir Whorf hypothesis can easily be considered together. From the diversity of language used so far in this debate, it is clear that the consideration of "professionalism" is not particularly constrained by the language applied to it limiting the appicability of the Sapir whorf hypothesis. I would suggest that "professionalism" is similar to "grue" in some languages in that "grue" encompasses "prototype green" and "prototype blue" while "professionalism" encompasses professionalism (doctor), professionalism (stand up comedian) and professionalism (golfer). While some standards may apply to all the constituent prototypes, there is the conceptual framework to consider them as seperate entities with differing traits.
A much simpler analysis is found in much more recent linguistic analysis....
Natural languages may be less universal than music and less precise than programming languages, but they are far more versatile, and useful in our everyday lives, than either. Ambiguity, or fuzziness of meaning, is not a flaw of natural language but a feature that gives it flexibility and that, for whatever reason, suits our minds and the way we think. Likewise, the fact that languages depend on arbitrary convention or cultural habit is not a flaw but a feature that allows us to rein in the fuzziness by establishing agreed-upon meanings at different levels of precision. Language needs its "flaws" in order to do the enormous range of things we use it for. In the Land of Invented Languages Arika Okrent
Professionalism is encompasses many constituent prototypes. To maintain this versatility, it remains a fairly ambiguous term. To lessen this ambiguity, the context needs to be considered. The context against which it is properly assessed for Starvault would be in comparison to other small independent developers of open ended/ sandbox MMOs. Some of the most appropriate candidates for comparison would be Icarus (Fallen Earth), Aventurine (Darkfall) and Notorious (Xsyon).
PS Slapshot, I agree that they would benefit greatly from a more consistent way of sharing information.
PPS yeah I hate the new editor too. Won't even maintain italics in the post.
This is the easy one since there is so little to go through.
Communication: The game releases in 3 weeks, but there is no publicly availablein-game footage (screenshots with GUI elements or videos) leading many to speculate that there is no game, They plan to only release with 500 accounts. There is no indication on the web site if accounts are still available and how many,
Re:Is this a fraud? March 23
prokop15 wrote: b) While it may not likely be a flat out scam, it could be a flat out lie of a release date to get some cash flow, which would be reasonable to assume a small team working on a game of this magnitude might need.
Virtus : When has a game ever come out on schedule and said they would?
Virtus: this is nothing but the same crap being regurgitated over and over again, into the junk pile with it.
Does his response adress the concerns or answer the question in any way? Does it raise the question of whether the game is being delayed?
Virtus: Carebear alignment 1 Week, 2 Days ago
yup
(This is the entirety of a his post starting a thread to inform players that they will be able to have "neutral" towns. He started the thread and chose the term carebear.)
Their forum does't seem to allow you to go back more than 15 posts on any user, so this is about it for documenting their customer relations.
Clicking on the FAQ button doesn't lead you to answers for frequently asked questions it leads you here, (http://www.xsyon.com/faq ) where you can submit a question.
So far Star Vault is superior to them in terms of keeping potential players informed and appears to be ahead in terms of producing a finished product.
So what's the real point with this thread, did someone got butthurt or what?
This thread was officially approved by SV developers. They are highly skilled young professionals. All who do not agree with this statement are carebearing haters aiming to ruin the rebirth of a sandbox.
They are a foreign company that does not have an English speaking liazon. Their grammar and spelling is atrocious because it is not their primary language. I will agree that they need to get some English speaking co-workers and editors to help correctly and professionally write and edit their news.
Butthurt? No-one so far as I know. The point of the thread is that some posters come up with a laundry list of complaints/ concerns (of widely varying merit and relevence) and gather them under the umbrella of "lack of professionalism" If the criticism were kept in more specific terms, it would be easier to have a meaningful discussion of the issue at hand.
Context Fallen Earth: "larger at 100 employees and has a wider variety of projects in development Additionally they are located in Cary, NC in the Research Triangle, placing them squarely in the shadows of....Epic games, Lexis Nexis, 3D solve, the SAS institute and regional offices of Red Hat and IBM. All of this can push them to adopt a more "corporate culture" than at the other studios.
Mocking other games...
"Sick of Ogres, Elves and pixies? So are we. Lose the tights. Bury your crystals. Quit playing with your wand. Come get the real deal. This ain't Daddy's MMO Fallen Earth Welcome to the Apocalypse"
This is clearly within the standards for advertising, but indicates that they consider the product to be targetted towards players who appreciate "attitude", which is probably a good assumption for any game with open PVP
Communication
I have not been actively following this game, but my impression is that information is relayed in a more organized manner and timely fashion than either Mortal or Xsyon.
The communication has been much more straight forward and matter of fact, avoiding some of the pitfalls associated with Mats' sarcasm and the more err opinionated responses expressed from On the downside this leads to a less personal feel to there communications, and can occasionally lead to corporats speak.
"Icarus Studios’ technologies address next-generation needs, providing a stable and secure platform; deep, recurring play and social opportunities; machine configuration support; intuitive interfaces; and the tools and support required to make a next-generation massively multiplayer online game (MMO) or virtual world."
Final product/release
While I am sure there were some problems at release, I didn't hear about any major bugs or server stability issues.
Unfortunately (for StarVault) Icarus studios seems to set the upper limit when it comes to the attributes most people end up referring back to when talking about "professionalism"
Comments
I am really giving up.
It is the simplest deductive logic it can be.
osmunda and Henrik are individuals.
Henrik is a CEO.
All individuals can be rude but only CEO can be unprofessional.
Hence, Henrik is rude and unprofessional.
Simple as that. Right word to use since you discuss his qualities of him as a CEO and the company he is supposed to represent.
Well I'd document the other, but that thread got locked for trolling. So I will just say that calling a disruptive customer pathetic is rude and not the best way to handle the situation but not uncalled for. Especially when they have such a classy name. Also, I don't really want to use the profanity the IRC poster did. I'll let people judge for themselves, but please note post #16.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/268579/page/1
Do you not think that Microsoft has customers who CALL THEM, and yell at the customer service reps trying to help them? Try calling Dell, and saying "OMG YOUR COMPUTER SUCKS" and yelling at them. Irate customers are everywhere.
It is the job of the organization that provides a product or service to continue to conduct themselves in a professional and courteous manner. This is the job and responsibility of a good organization, regardless of how others act towards THEM.
Sebastian and Henrik are prime example of not executives, or professional developers (and I've long maintained they are definitely not the latter), but rather more of a "Daddy bought me a company" type of attitudes. In the end, it won't matter because MO is doing a great enough disservice as a GAME -- just adding their rudeness to the mix just seems to point out the other fact, that they aren't any good at development either.
It's one thing to be rude, but still have an awesome product. They haven't got that either. You'd think that with a less than even mediocre product, that they would be at least polite and professional -- but that brilliance has not yet dawned on them.
Huh? What do you ocnsider documented? Just scan the forums and there are plenty of instances...
For example, here's one you missed. I'll just post the part where he apologizes for trolling his own customers, but feel free to read the whole thread. Was it good that he realized his mistake.. sure thing... but it shouldn't have gotten to that point.
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/669711-post129.html
Quote:
Don't take it personally. Some of the "Devs" think it's a badge of "honor" to mock their "customers" with "witty" replies and sacrastic use of "quotes". /endquote
Mats Persson:
Ouch. Point taken.
Please understand though that the main reason I use quotes is because it's very important to me to mark which are my words and which are not. Meeting a statement, for instance "long-promised", becomes very confusing without them (and I don't want people to think that some of the quotes are my words, especially not when they contain profanities or rude language) - however in a post with a sarcastic/ironic undertone this often enhances the perceived sarcasm although that may not be my intention.
I'm sorry if I come across as a jerk. I felt the need to troll back against Cronnix for his on-the-fly remark, indeed in a sarcastic way, and got a couple of links thrown at me that wasn't even read-through. So I continued. My bad. Its just that I can take critique, and we do get a lot of it, but I really don't like when misinterpretations or rumors (or trolling) is allowed to flourish. I'll be nice now, thank you for waking me up.
__________________
Who really cares if a single developer talks trash on a forum or IRC though? I find more troubling instances of unprofessionalism in how they handle major announcements.
I personally find it absurd that the Community Manager has not even posted the release DATE of the product even though they confirmed a March release and it's March 22nd. I think it was absurd to announce a StressTest 12 hours before the test (and then wonder why we have insane lag issues when we move to the next phase even though the Stress Tests were "successful").
Again though.. who cares? 99.999% of players are going to buy MO (or not buy it) based on the state of the game not on whether or not their behavior fits the definition of unprofessional.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Whatever the literal definition is, I understand what they mean by it. They mean that the company lacks the level of finese and polish that other companies with years and years of experience show.
And they aren't professional in that sense. And I like that. I think everyone deserves a chance to make it, especially if they have an idea a lot of people like. And I think a developer like starvault that isn't professional has a better chance of having that idea uncorrupted by people who want to change it. Now this of course does sacrifice initial polish, but again. I appreciate what they are doing.
Again, being "out of the norm" and being "cool" by being unprofessional is one thing if you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING.
SV has shown time and time again, they have no idea what they are doing.
Defining a word with the use of the same word is a logical fallacy known as begging the question, or circular logic. These definitions therefore are ultimately meaningless, as the definition of the word professional is missing.
This is, of course, the same problem StarVault has with its customers at its core. The process is explained, to a point, but in the end fails to deliver on any implied promises.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
Professionalism is a lot more than just a basic understanding of something. Professionalism is having an in depth understanding of something and the experience.
Defining a word with the use of the same word is a logical fallacy known as begging the question, or circular logic.
True, but the word "professionalism" doesn't appear in the definition, only the similar terms "profession" and "professional person." Here is a Merriam-webster definition of professional:
1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
Case closed, courtesy and conscientiousness are a part of the definition of professionalism, therefore as the OP admits StarVault is rude, we have shown that they are unprofessional by definition.
Cryptic is trying a Customer Development approach to MMO creation.
lol, one thing you learn when working with people from different languages all over the world is being a grammar/dictionary nazi is one of the least productive uses of time. Look at what people are saying not how they are saying it.
What most people mean when the term un-professional is thrown around is that AV is in-experienced. Which is 100% correct.
Technically the term un-professional is a completely subjective measure of how you interact with your peers and customers. I haven't followed the dev dialogs closely at all but i doubt anyone can make statements as to their un-professionalism.
Professionalism != experience
Haven't read this thread cause I only wanted to mention one thing about the original post:
I considered his behavior in general to be unprofessional. His casual swearing in the IRC chat made me stop and ask "This guy is the CEO of a company that is trying to get millions of dollars in funding to publish their game?" I am not a prude by any means. I swear daily. But the CEO of a company should act professionally. Just the way he talked about things made it seem like he was just some guy fresh out of college who was pretty full of himself and the unproven product he was trying to push.
You haven't met many CEO's
I admitted Starvault was rude? I don't remember that. Let me see..... Mats is sarcastic at times..... St Judas was rude, then resigned.... Sebastian was slightly rude to a disruptive person in IRC... Hmm guess I didn't say Starvault was rude, since I don't think Sebastian's episode was a significant lapse.
@slapshot1188: the lead up to that apology.....
Cronnix: This is the long promised Open Beta I bet, SV style.
Cronnix: I dont see such a big difference between for example WoW progression and MO progression. WoWs progression is levels and talents, in MO its skills.. In both games it takes a while to get to max, and you are worthless without high skill/level.
I am not saying that sandboxes are wrong. But I am saying that MO is far from a real sandbox like UO, and also that even thou sandboxes attempt to present one with illusion of freedom and with variety of choices, there are some things player will never use, such as for example hundreds of weapon combinations, and that the freedom illusion aint much different from typical grind.
Mats: No. It's a stress test that will give us a better indication on how to go about with the open Beta.
I didn't know the open Beta was "long promised", thanks for letting me know!
Others: A few posts linking to announcements about Beta, none of which said anything about "open beta"
Mats: Ah, I see, so those are the posts talking about the "long-promised, open Beta"?I was under the impression those had to do with signing up (or being a devoted poster) to have a chance to get inside the Beta, as in "chance to get selected for (unspecified) Beta", not "promised, open Beta"
He clearly overshot his mark with the sarcasm and was apologizing for that. If that and Sebastian saying "you're pathetic" are the worse than can be found by combing throught the forums and IRC logs, I'm not too concerned about their lack of courtesy. As to the lack of an announcement about the release date, you definitely have a point. Unfortunately, it may just be that they haven't pinned it down, perhaps because of a desire to pin down the desynch pronlems before release. What you noted in another thread about trying to release in time to be included in the 1st quarter financial statement, but we may be back to .... http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3443906#3443906
Never did I vision seeing conceptual fuzziness and communicative semantics being a hot topic of an MMO forum. A debate of what a word or an expression means is eventually a question of what means to mean, which is somewhat of a tricky topic and hardly something that can be solved on this particular fora. Hence, I'd suggest that instead of insisting of "faulty logics" or "lacking definition" it would be much more productive to discuss on layman's terms. After all, definition of "definition" is as hard to give as definition to any term or concept coined.
A solution relying on ostensible base concepts is ill-founded, as illustrated e.g. by Russell with his example on the nature of yellowness and explaining it to a blind person. There is nothing more fundamental on yellow or red than there is in dog or cat. The immediate constituent analysis of Bloomfieldian kin is pretty pointless as well, much like e.g. Montague grammar or maybe functional enquire of communication following Hallidayian vein. On the other hand, Wittgensteinian family resemblance provides an interesting venue to follow as shown by the so-called prototype theory of concepts and the re-emergence of the weak Sapir and Whorf hypothesis as its consequence. But then again, does saying that there are no clear cut boundaries for any concepts going to solve this debate over professinalism. Somehow I do doubt it.
To stir the issue somewhat more, one can seek solution as well from communicative studies, but as even the age-old models of Bühler and Jakobson show, even there are too many variables to actually show what in fact was ment. Maybe only in a Peircean dream of a non-psychologically teinted semiotics could we find "the meaning" of a concept. And even then, it would be incessantly modified by our interpretations of it as we would still lack the first-hand experience of the base object, in this case "being professional". All in all, I do strongly suggest that if we strive for a meaningful debate over the professional abilities of people working at Star Vault, we have to agree that dictionaries, regardless of their faultiness, are the best source of information for what we mean with a word or an expression.
From the actual topic then. I'd like to say that there indeed has been some threads that have used "unprofessional" as a stamp to belittle everything Star Vault has done thus far. On the other hand, their public relations work has been ghastly at times. When the only source of even somewhat reliable information is an IRC channel something is amiss. After all, updating forums to reflect what has been said on IRC shouldn't be an unsurmountable effort. This reluctance to provide anything "material" from the IRC discussions does suggest that they are not ready to stand behind what they are saying, which could partly be the reason why said channel is monitored with such vigilance by both fans and grunted ex-customers alike.
I I honestly think most of their communication issues stem from the disorganized way they communicate. Their CM should be the focal point of communication to and from the team. Important issues (such as the release date 8 days from the end of March) should have their own topic created, locked and updated by Maerlyn when info is available. Instead it comes across as disorganized and scattered. Some info is found in an announcement, some is buried in a response on page 6 of a thread, some is in a newsletter, some in a front page news update, and the vast majority is simply leaked to whoever is lurking in IRC chat... WAAAY back in July before the pre-orders were even on sale I created numerous requests to have this info presented in a more consistent (and some would say professional) manner. 8 months later and it's the same...
PS: This editor sucks and I hate typing on here now
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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@ Harkkum
You raise several interesting points in your analysis.
An appeal to base concepts is, as you say, ill-founded, "Professionalism" would be a condensed induction, which is in turn comprised of other condensed inductions based subjective assessments of experience (i.e. courteous, conscientious. generally businesslike)
Montague grammar, likewise, is not useful without positing a specific resolution to the sorites paradox. Fuzzy logic certainly could be applied, but I suspect that "partly professional" would be an unsatisfactory resolution for all parties involved. An appeal to group consensus is also likely to be unsatisfactory, as there is clearly no consensus on how (dis)courteous the developers behavior has been in specific examples.
A functional analysis following Halliday's principles is at least somewhat informative. Obviously, when people are referring to Starvault's professionalism, they are using the representational function of language. Of greater interest is the implications from the interpersonal metafunction. In some professions there is a body that sets the consensus definition of "professionalism" within that context (i.e. PGA, State Bar Association, State Medical Board). By appealing to the interpersonal metafunction of language, some posters are asserting their own relative social status and their ability to set standards in a manner similar to those bodies. As most of the people on this forum have little to no experience in designing MMOs this is usually a fallacious assertion.
Prototype theory and the Sapir Whorf hypothesis can easily be considered together. From the diversity of language used so far in this debate, it is clear that the consideration of "professionalism" is not particularly constrained by the language applied to it limiting the appicability of the Sapir whorf hypothesis. I would suggest that "professionalism" is similar to "grue" in some languages in that "grue" encompasses "prototype green" and "prototype blue" while "professionalism" encompasses professionalism (doctor), professionalism (stand up comedian) and professionalism (golfer). While some standards may apply to all the constituent prototypes, there is the conceptual framework to consider them as seperate entities with differing traits.
A much simpler analysis is found in much more recent linguistic analysis....
Natural languages may be less universal than music and less precise than programming languages, but they are far more versatile, and useful in our everyday lives, than either. Ambiguity, or fuzziness of meaning, is not a flaw of natural language but a feature that gives it flexibility and that, for whatever reason, suits our minds and the way we think. Likewise, the fact that languages depend on arbitrary convention or cultural habit is not a flaw but a feature that allows us to rein in the fuzziness by establishing agreed-upon meanings at different levels of precision. Language needs its "flaws" in order to do the enormous range of things we use it for. In the Land of Invented Languages Arika Okrent
Professionalism is encompasses many constituent prototypes. To maintain this versatility, it remains a fairly ambiguous term. To lessen this ambiguity, the context needs to be considered. The context against which it is properly assessed for Starvault would be in comparison to other small independent developers of open ended/ sandbox MMOs. Some of the most appropriate candidates for comparison would be Icarus (Fallen Earth), Aventurine (Darkfall) and Notorious (Xsyon).
PS Slapshot, I agree that they would benefit greatly from a more consistent way of sharing information.
PPS yeah I hate the new editor too. Won't even maintain italics in the post.
Context Xsyon:
This is the easy one since there is so little to go through.
Communication: The game releases in 3 weeks, but there is no publicly availablein-game footage (screenshots with GUI elements or videos) leading many to speculate that there is no game, They plan to only release with 500 accounts. There is no indication on the web site if accounts are still available and how many,
Re:Is this a fraud? March 23
prokop15 wrote: b) While it may not likely be a flat out scam, it could be a flat out lie of a release date to get some cash flow, which would be reasonable to assume a small team working on a game of this magnitude might need.
Virtus : When has a game ever come out on schedule and said they would?
Virtus: this is nothing but the same crap being regurgitated over and over again, into the junk pile with it.
Does his response adress the concerns or answer the question in any way? Does it raise the question of whether the game is being delayed?
Virtus: Carebear alignment 1 Week, 2 Days ago
yup
(This is the entirety of a his post starting a thread to inform players that they will be able to have "neutral" towns. He started the thread and chose the term carebear.)
Their forum does't seem to allow you to go back more than 15 posts on any user, so this is about it for documenting their customer relations.
Clicking on the FAQ button doesn't lead you to answers for frequently asked questions it leads you here, (http://www.xsyon.com/faq ) where you can submit a question.
So far Star Vault is superior to them in terms of keeping potential players informed and appears to be ahead in terms of producing a finished product.
I'll get to the other 2 companies later.
Keeping people informed has little impact on ggetting a product out the door. It also has nothing to do witth product quality.
So what's the real point with this thread, did someone got butthurt or what?
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
This thread was officially approved by SV developers. They are highly skilled young professionals. All who do not agree with this statement are carebearing haters aiming to ruin the rebirth of a sandbox.
They are a foreign company that does not have an English speaking liazon. Their grammar and spelling is atrocious because it is not their primary language. I will agree that they need to get some English speaking co-workers and editors to help correctly and professionally write and edit their news.
Butthurt? No-one so far as I know. The point of the thread is that some posters come up with a laundry list of complaints/ concerns (of widely varying merit and relevence) and gather them under the umbrella of "lack of professionalism" If the criticism were kept in more specific terms, it would be easier to have a meaningful discussion of the issue at hand.
Context Fallen Earth: "larger at 100 employees and has a wider variety of projects in development Additionally they are located in Cary, NC in the Research Triangle, placing them squarely in the shadows of....Epic games, Lexis Nexis, 3D solve, the SAS institute and regional offices of Red Hat and IBM. All of this can push them to adopt a more "corporate culture" than at the other studios.
Mocking other games...
"Sick of Ogres, Elves and pixies? So are we. Lose the tights. Bury your crystals. Quit playing with your wand. Come get the real deal. This ain't Daddy's MMO Fallen Earth Welcome to the Apocalypse"
This is clearly within the standards for advertising, but indicates that they consider the product to be targetted towards players who appreciate "attitude", which is probably a good assumption for any game with open PVP
Communication
I have not been actively following this game, but my impression is that information is relayed in a more organized manner and timely fashion than either Mortal or Xsyon.
The communication has been much more straight forward and matter of fact, avoiding some of the pitfalls associated with Mats' sarcasm and the more err opinionated responses expressed from On the downside this leads to a less personal feel to there communications, and can occasionally lead to corporats speak.
"Icarus Studios’ technologies address next-generation needs, providing a stable and secure platform; deep, recurring play and social opportunities; machine configuration support; intuitive interfaces; and the tools and support required to make a next-generation massively multiplayer online game (MMO) or virtual world."
Final product/release
While I am sure there were some problems at release, I didn't hear about any major bugs or server stability issues.
Unfortunately (for StarVault) Icarus studios seems to set the upper limit when it comes to the attributes most people end up referring back to when talking about "professionalism"
*starts putting on flame retardant suit for the inevitable reaction to the next "context" post...Darkfall"*