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The culture problem. (rudeness towards players, etc)
pstruth
Member Posts: 233
Plenty of times on this forum, I've claimed that there's a culture problem among the developers of PS. At the least, it's a rudeness problem. At the most, it's dissent among the ranks. The leadership (Xillix, for example) has really cleaned their act up. While I'm not happy with everything that happens, they're being much better models for those who they have supervision over. They've made a serious attempt to improve relations between the developers and the Planeshift community, as well as the player communities outside of Planeshift such as those of us on mmorpg.com.
But they're still not there yet. Not until the rest of the team falls in line. PS developers: Please, if you don't know the right thing to say in a given situation, at least exercises enough self-control to be quiet and let your bosses say what needs to be said.
Plenty of times I've claimed that there's a problem. Plenty of times, people have denied that any problem exists. At one point, I went to the official PS forum and dug up many quotes of developers being unduly rude and inappropriate. Recently, I chanced to find another whooper.
A player gave a critique of the game. This is a series of replies that followed:
Xillix: "We have heard all of this before, join the team, break the cycle."
A player's response (Mathy): "If you have heard it all before isn't your job to break the cycle Xillix? Or a better question should be if you have heard it all before why haven't you done anything about it?"
A settings dev responded, quoting in his post only the last 7 words of Mathy's post.
Settings dev: "This makes me want to go right to your house and slap you in the face. You have NO idea what Xillix has done in the last two years. None. Xillix himself has turned the rusty and empty Settings Department into a working machine. He has helped push forward features that players have been asking for for years. He is the only reason I and most others in Settings are on the team. He is the reason there are close to 300 quests in the game, the BF area exists, more rewards are given in quests and for loot, more Settings themed events go on on a large scale, more books are ingame (and MANY more on the way), and many many more things I don't know about.
You have no idea, and your statement shows what kind of person you really are. Frankly, it is not someone I would want to know."
What kind of person is this dev talking about? The average player? Because Mathy very much represents the average players in PS. The average player doesn't know what's happening behind the scenes in DEV land. So why did this dev decide to respond the way he did? Is there any good reason for it? Any justification at all? Not that I can see.
So why wasn't the post deleted, given that it's blatantly inappropriate and reflects badly on the PS staff and project? Since it wasn't deleted, does that mean the PS dev team leaders are OK with it? I doubt that. It's an unanswered question.
The thing is that this still isn't an isolated incident. I've proven before that there are a number of developers on the PS community who consistently display this kind of behavior. The amazing thing is that some developers can still behave so poorly, when the leadership has learned to respond to harsh criticism like this:
"Thank you all for the feedback. We will move on these issues as fast as we can and hope you can enjoy what we have in the mean time."
A common response to criticism I've seen is "If you don't like the way things are, send us an application to become a dev." Perhaps more people would be doing that if more devs behaved as in that last example.
Comments
Yeah, that's a very "above the bar" way to respond to someone...
Want to go to their home and slap them in the face for speaking out on something about the game.
That's rational.
(and that was sarcasm
Still, not entirely surprising. My experiences with PS have never left me with a very good impression. And I've gone back to give it another chance a few times at least. Always ends the same way.
There almost seems to be this tone where the developers are expected to be met with adulation for their efforts.
That "if you don't like it, sign up to become a developer" response seems a way of saying "If you think you can do better, then apply.. otherwise shut up". It's basically an arrogant, defensive cop-out of a response.
But... well.. they have a history of being belligerent and hyper-defensive toward those who criticize the game. I've certainly had my rounds with them already and I'm not about to get drawn into the fray yet again. I already know what it'll result in.
So.... I'll just respond with "More of the same, and I'm not at all surprised" and leave it at that.
I agree with ya OP... they definitely need to work on how they regard the people playing *their* game. There are definitely more diplomatic ways to do so than saying you want to slap someone.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Mathy has not, does not, and will never represent the 'average player'. She has been in constant contact with the Devs for the past year at least. She has been told many times very nicely what is being done. Whatever the answer, it is never enough for her. She plays the chronic victim. I and others (Devs and players alike) have had to put up with her incessant 'woe is me, if the entire world does not agree with me and pity me, it must hate me personally'. Many times the conversation (with other players, not Devs) was forced to center on her, with everyone trying to convince her that just because someone had a different opinion, it did not mean she was hated. Those conversations generally ended with "I can see I am not wanted here. I am sorry you hate me." -Log out-. It came to the point where it became so bad that other players would leave IRC as soon as she showed up if they did not have her on their ignore list already, and we received many requests to ban her from IRC, which was done.
I have interacted with her personally many times, being very helpful. She asked that I read her story and give advice on how to improve her writing style. Apparently, that did not mean make any suggestions or find any flaws. As soon as I pointed out how some things could improve, she immediately started saying "I am sorry you hate it," and proceeded to go behind my back and say how everyone -loved- her story except for me, because I was mean, did not like her, and pointed out how "bad her story was". She went as far as publicly saying she would never write again because I hated her story so much, -despite- me saying many times the story was good, but there were some improvements that could be made in the style. Incidentally, she took my advice and did improve, but still tells people how much I hated her story, and by default, her as well.
I suggest you look back at her previous posts before you take one comment out of context. I also suggest you look up the term "Playing the victim". Mathy is not the average player. She is not even a typical player. If she was, then I would find some other place to ply my skills. In the end, forums represent a minor 10% of actual game players. They do not represent the larger populous that does not even visit the forum. They are just more vocal, more self-righteous, and often do not even play the game at all.
My comment stands. With what Mathy already knew (which is far more than the 'average player'), how personally she knows and interacts with Xillix and other Devs, and how she has personally gone on crusades to try to get people NOT to join the Dev team, she deserved a far harsher response.
pstruth, get some facts.
I changed my mind. PlaneShift is not worth the time.
Talad promotes uncivil behavior.
I have not found anyone at Planeshift to be particularly rude. I did my best to provoke them and darn it if they didn't deal with me with the patience one would show to your average six-year-old Democrat.
Very frustrating.
I think people need to keep in mind tha these fledgling MMOs which are amateur efforts are a different breed of animal than are the professional offerings such as EQ and WoW. I can remember my frustration and the arguments I had with Verant over some of the "dumb" things they were doing in the early days. And as they had a paid staff, they had a reliable infrastructure to not only create new content, but deal with bugs and exploits, some of which only manifest themselves only after clever (but unscrupulous) players revealed them.
I think people would do better when dealing with the voluntary MMO efforts by keeping this in mind, and begining their comment or complaint with three assumptions; 1) they probably aren't the first to notice a given problem 2) the developers are probably even less happy about the very same problem than you are, and 3) telling them about your l33t skillz while making the complaint (but not volunteering to help) is not going to make them the most receptive audience.
And that goes for all MMOs, not just PS.
I'm sad to hear you were trying to provoke them. (Before the ps officials say anything, posting things that are provocative is different from actively trying to provoke people.)
I am happy to hear that your experiences with the ps team have been positive.
I do not wish to paint them all with the same brush. Wherever it seems like I'm doing that, I give you my sincere apologies.
Coming and attacking a player with a flood of verbage in an associated forum is not the best response to this either. As a matter of fact it is highly unprofessional. To really understand the issue, it has to be asked why more people do not join the Planeshift development team. There has always been a high level of interest in the Planeshift engine. There have been a number of reasons that I have heard, all of them devolve back onto existing or past team members, as well as differences in opinion on licensing and leadership. The propensity of some team members to troll anyone who dares to criticize the project has been disproportionate in the past, and is clearly demonstrated in this thread. Don't attack players personally. Period. Ever. Write around that. It doesn't matter if they attack you first.
Please explain to me these things: how provocation isn't provocation except when it is; what the definition of "is" is, and how you can demonstrate suppport for an effort by relentlessly criticizing it.
I didn't say *how* I tried to provoke them, now did I? Perhaps I merely quoted your messages at them.
Or perhaps... *gasp* I was employing sarcasm as a way of making a point? We'll never know, I guess, because I ain't saying and you don't have enough of a sense of humor to figure it out.
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize." - dunno who
Oh dear. I have acted unprofessional, and someone yelled at me for it. Of course, this would offend me if I actually was a professional. I am not going to walk on eggshells just because "Oh, convention says it is bad!" I have always been vocal about my opinions, and that is not going to change. I am also not going to stand by while my character is placed in question with one-sided 'evidence'. You want to pretend players deserve, NO! are entitled to better treatment than volunteer Devs in a free game, you are welcome to your delusion.
Your further comments about this forum almost makes me give a chortle of great amusement. Most people who visit this forum are end-user players. Vocal, loud, and self-righteous players (yes, I am was one of those). They are not future Devs. Guess what, most Devs do not listen to forums at all, this and similar ones especially. Why? Because despite what you think, you represent a tiny fraction of the actual player base. The main money for big games comes from people who do not visit forums at all. They quietly pay out their money and do the things they like, which does not include grandstanding on forums.
pstruth is one of these, and is trying so desperately to make his voice heard that he is drowning out his actual cause. Is he making the Dev-player relationship any better? No. A lot of the anger towards players comes specifically from pstruth and people like him. For many Devs, it comes down to "If players are going to be like that, to hell with them." That is really sad, as he does not even represent 1% of players. He is just one of the loudest. He is not 'the voice of the people'. And neither are you, klyros.
I would like to point out now that more people have joined the Setting's, Art, and Engine department in the past few years because of people like Xillix and myself, not in spite of us. All the garbage that is brought up in this forum is propaganda, pure and simple. It is a twisting of the truth and how the PS community 'really feels'. Don't believe me? Well, I would like to say it actually matters what you believe, but it does not. Like most other forum dwellers (including me), you are not a greater part of the game playing population.
The Devs should treat me nicer on a forum! *cries a river*
Go ahead and cry. While you are pouring your hearts out on a forum, players will be playing and doing what they enjoy. Devs will be Devving, and doing what they enjoy. And you will be here crying to a crowd of people who don't really matter, playing the 'Voice of the People' to a people that do not hear you, and would not agree if they did. In fact, I have begun to wonder why I have posted here at all, as I would not want 90% or more of the people who visit the MMORPG forums to become a part of the PS community. It is a nice place, and I would hate to see it ruined.
With that said, you may keep your soap box. You may continue your word twisting and so-called 'how the devs should act' speeches. You may even continue to make out of context quotes. Just remember that the "We" you speak of is a very small number of "you". And "you" are not good enough for PlaneShift.
Arrogance, you say? Call it what you will. After the thousands of hours I have volunteered , hundreds of thousands of words I have donated, money I have paid for a better internet connection so that I can contribute better, and more nights without sleep than I can recall just to improve a game for others to play (since I no longer have time myself most of the time), I am damned entitled to it. And, to be rude for a moment, anyone who says anything otherwise can piss off.
*edit- Why do I post here? Maybe I just like to argue with self-righteous folks standing on soapboxes and pretending to be the voice of the crowd. Everyone has their faults. I can't let people be fools without pointing it out to them.
I changed my mind. PlaneShift is not worth the time.
It's about not acting on your anger reflexively. It's about not lashing out at people just because you can.
You have a mindset that there is no problem as long as no one is talking about the problem.
MMPORG.com is a great place. I know you have disagreements with the moderators here, but I don't think that's their fault.
You've spent countless hours creating lore for the game. We thank you for that. But it doesn't entitle you to abuse your position of power to hurt others in the community.
Speaking up against the way things are can put a target on your skull. I think tuxide said it was easiest just to ban people who had major complaints about things? There are those who actually like the way things are because they enjoy joining in on the fun when someone steps out of line and needs to be "dealt with". I'm sure there are even a few who enjoy the sense of power they get from it.
There are those who do what they do because it makes them feel like they're better than others. They seek positions of power. They find others like themselves and work to promote them to positions of power as well, so they can work together and protect one another. Once a monster like that gets going, it takes very strong leadership to turn things around.
*takes a seat on Dr. Pstruth's couch*
Oh doctor, please save me from myself! I... I can't stop it. If nothing is done... I might... I might be RUDE to someone who deserves it again!
*yawn*
Keep your backyard psychology to yourself, please. And seriously, quoting my entire post for a couple of wild assumptions? Really slick. I am sure folks were too stupid to read it the first time. I am glad you reminded them.
I pity your blindness in this matter. You dug up the one time I was 'rude' to an 'average player' who was 'within her rights' to make demands, and put it up on display. Well done. You should run for politics. And the ignorance you show is only compounded by "You have a mindset that there is no problem as long as no one is talking about the problem." Seriously? Don't ever become a reporter, Sherlock. You might swallow your own gumshoe. Anyone who spends a tiny amount of time around me knows I am the very first to point out problems.
You talk a lot about people you don't know personally. Your entire statement proves that not only do you not know me or the other Devs, you are completely clueless.
As for my 'rudeness', it only comes into play with someone who is doing uncalled for damage in the first place. I see you did not respond to the details I provided of your example 'average player'. Did you actually look her previous posts up this time? How about mine? Bring on the 'evidence' of this persistent rudeness. You bring out one post and parade it around shouting "Oh look at what they done!" Pathetic. Well, since I know you aren't going to show the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I will.
Bask in my rudeness glory. Behold the terror that I inflict on players: hydlaa.com/smf/index.php
Then seriously get a grip.
I knew a woman once who tried to get a man arrested for shooting a dog. She gave a sob story about how cruel the man was to his animals, and how he would starve them. Then he would just take them out and shoot them for fun. It almost worked. The police showed up at his door and were about to put him in cuffs when one of his other dogs walked around the building, healthy and happy as could be. This gave the police pause, and they found out the truth in further questioning. All the animals the man owned were just as happy and healthy as the first. The man's best dog had gotten into a fight with a rabid raccoon, and there was nothing to be done about it but put the animal down. The woman had had interests in the man, but he turned her down. This was to be her revenge against him. In the end, she spent some time in jail herself after a hefty fine.
Moral? Be sure what you are accusing people of is actually true. Otherwise, it is bstruth.
I changed my mind. PlaneShift is not worth the time.
This wasn't an incident taken out of context. I've seen stuff like this happen countless times. We even had a thread where I was asked to go through the forum and find examples, and I found a whole bunch of gems (not all from the same person).
And I didn't "dig it up". The thing with Mathy was only 2 days old when I read it.
I talk about people I don't know personally. That's the internet. But what I think of you doesn't matter because it's your actions that count in the end.
Your definition of "uncalled for damage" is probably very different from how I define it.
I want to see things improve. It's just that I don't see things improving in the big ways. They're more aware of how others view them, but they're still the same when they think they'll get away with it. That's not real change.
If you truly want to improve things with PS, try more "attaboys" and fewer "awsh*ts"
They can 'get away with it' 100% of the time. It's a volunteer effort. Perhaps if you start looking it as something they created for their own entertainment, and are generous enough to share with others, rather than looking at it as some kind of product for sale over the counter, you might finally "get it".
You're exactly right, Hiraghm. They can't get away with it all the time.
Never has ps been advertised as something merely for the entertainment of devs. You must be new?
Math isn't exactly your strongest subject, is it?
100% means they CAN "get away with it" 100% of the time. They don't owe you, or any other player, a darned thing. Note the word "OWE".
Perhaps within their proclamation that it's a free, open-source effort, most people would be intelligent enough to figure out what the developers would be getting out of their efforts. If someone bakes a cake and offers to share it with you, do you automatically assume they baked it for you and not themselves?
How long you want to keep this up, datruth? Unless you have a connection with the operators of this website and can get me booted, I can keep this nonsense up as long as you can.
You want to keep arguing here incessantly? I mean, I'll be happy to keep you occupied, because every minute you spend here trying to out-argue me, you're not spending in game annoying people or on the PS fora annoying people.
I have better things to do with my time, but what the heck. I'll consider it community service.
Fascinating.
Sorry, I misread your post and thought you said "can't" when really you said "can".
They can't get away with it. Bad behaviors hurt the project.
Fascinating.
Sorry, I misread your post and thought you said "can't" when really you said "can".
They can't get away with it. Bad behaviors hurt the project.
That would depend entirely upon what one thought "bad behavior" was.
Being late with parts of the project would hurt the project.
Doing poor quality work on the project would hurt the project.
No fixing bugs when they're found would hurt the project.
Not jumping through their backsides to be polite to whiney know-nothings who are merely entertaining themselves by criticizing the project? Not so much.
There's nothing to "get away with".
Sorry, just had to say something here.
Errr Wow!
I assume this muppet is involved with PS. If he is then maybe along with Queeny from the other threads should realize sh*t sticks. Regardless of PStruths opinions, all I have seen from posters directly involved in development is an attitude which more than likely prevents other players from commenting out of fear of the response.
People like myself "don't matter" ? What kind of retarded attitude is this. If this is representative of the kind of attitude devs display then I will not download this game. I will tell my friends not to download and play this game. In turn each of them will tell people they know not to play etc etc. As I said before sh*t sticks. A tiny fraction of the player base still know a lot of people.
What you're not getting, Myron, is the target of his comment.
"He is just one of the loudest. He is not 'the voice of the people'. And neither are you, klyros."
Quite frankly, I don't want to associate with people who think they somehow are owed a b*-kissing from the development team of a FREE game.
If you have the same attitude as pstruth, that is, feeling yourself to be God-and-judge of Planeshift and those who created it, then, yes, you don't matter.
Find me any commercial effort where the gms, tech support, or even the developers will let people be abusive and constantly run-down their game without some form of retaliation? Heck, in commercial games, you don't even get NEAR the actual developers. You deal with customer service droids whose job it is is to blow smoke up your posterior, and when that doesn't work, get you out of the way as quickly as possible.
In fact, a long time ago when I was on the rag about Everquest (when it was still new), I was told almost exactly what UtMoon just said, by their customer service rep, in an official message board. Of course, had I actually gone into the game and focussed on playing, I would have discovered that my concerns were either unfounded or already being dealt with.
Anyone who may be reading this; I STRONGLY suspect that Myron is quite probably an associate of pstruth's to one degree or another. He's certainly a kindred spirit.
You've heard (endlessly) from pstruth how terrible Planeshift's player support is. You've heard from people like me who've had no problems and who have actually enjoyed the game.
The only definitive way to determine *for yourselves* whether or not Planeshift is worth playing, whether the player support is good or bad, is to try it for yourselves. It costs nothing except a little time and some hard drive space.
If you like roleplaying, I suspect that you'll have a favorable opinion of the game before you even finish creating your first character.
(that sounds like a commercial... but it also happens to be the truth.)
Sorry? What are you on?
I dont give a monkeys backside about pstruth or his opinions. My comment only referred to him in passing. If you are capable of any form of comprehension and can get over your hard on for pstruth and whatever he stands for, you would realize I was referring to a supposed devs implied opinion that people who post on this and any other forum were of no value to PS and that, in a nutshell, werent worth a damn.
If you want people to play the game, to test it, to critique it so it will improve, the post I commented on as well as others on the subject of PS do not inspire confidence in a rational response to ANY criticism. If the wording in the posts left by the devs werent directly damming the general tone was. It would have been better if they had kept out of it completely and let pstruth hang himself with his own words.
Sometimes silence is the better option especially when you are a representative of a game you want to attract people to, not scare them off by coming across as a nasty piece of work.
As for PS itself, I have played on and off for over a year now. RL means I dont get to play much of anything and I was considering coming back to it. Everything I see in the game is something to be admired and since I wouldnt know where to begin with doing something similar I would deem it not my place to pass judgement.
Pstruth seems to have set himself as judge, jury and executioner in the style of the Spanish inquisition. If devs have confidence in their creation then it should be able to stand up for itself without their intervention.
Talad promotes uncivil behavior.
Maybe. But I think the others who attack me just think I'm wrong.
Hiraghm is accusing me of also being Myron I think.
anyone who says anything bad is actually just the same person???
"You've heard (endlessly) from pstruth how terrible Planeshift's player support is. You've heard from people like me who've had no problems and who have actually enjoyed the game."
I enjoy the game.
"Pstruth seems to have set himself as judge, jury and executioner in the style of the Spanish inquisition. If devs have confidence in their creation then it should be able to stand up for itself without their intervention."
The creation is what it is. It's the behavior of the some devs that I have the problem with.
EDIT to replace "The" with some, it's not all the devs.
Sorry? What are you on?
I dont give a monkeys backside about pstruth or his opinions. My comment only referred to him in passing. If you are capable of any form of comprehension and can get over your hard on for pstruth and whatever he stands for, you would realize I was referring to a supposed devs implied opinion that people who post on this and any other forum were of no value to PS and that, in a nutshell, werent worth a damn.
If you want people to play the game, to test it, to critique it so it will improve, the post I commented on as well as others on the subject of PS do not inspire confidence in a rational response to ANY criticism. If the wording in the posts left by the devs werent directly damming the general tone was. It would have been better if they had kept out of it completely and let pstruth hang himself with his own words.
Sometimes silence is the better option especially when you are a representative of a game you want to attract people to, not scare them off by coming across as a nasty piece of work.
As for PS itself, I have played on and off for over a year now. RL means I dont get to play much of anything and I was considering coming back to it. Everything I see in the game is something to be admired and since I wouldnt know where to begin with doing something similar I would deem it not my place to pass judgement.
Pstruth seems to have set himself as judge, jury and executioner in the style of the Spanish inquisition. If devs have confidence in their creation then it should be able to stand up for itself without their intervention.
His comment simply meant that he didn't care what PStruth, someone who is a 99th (Belief-wise) of the actual playerbase of PlaneShift thinks.
While the PS devs seem hell-bent to listen to people in regards to the project, they've discovered that PStruth and others in the same vein are not worth the devs' time when they choose to dole out the negatives in droves. The in itself reduces the player base, and reduces new players/devs that want to join up with the project.
Compare that to the fact that Devs for pretty much any other project don't really care what anyone else thinks, and that PlaneShift devs constantly ask for player opinions. It certainly sounds like all PStruth is doing here is attempting to kick the developers about and poke their every weakness, making the project more stressfull and thus slower to complete.
Within a few minutes of joining the IRC channel, I got to speak with PlaneShift devs, and discuss the game and what I thought about it. With the very people that work to create it. Where else can you do that?
Sure they'll listen.
But a lot of the devs get very defensive, very quickly.
Some even abuse their positions of power in the community.
Maybe I'm 1 in a hundred. Since ps has 100,000 players, that means there's 1,000 of me.
But I don't really believe in your math. A lot of people are discontent with the way the devs behave. Speaking up puts a target on your skull though.
Talad promotes uncivil behavior.