so, all this communication from mythic... how is that helping me if i'm looking for technical support help? if i'm wanting to see what all guilds are recruiting for a specific faction on a specific realm? how does that help me, as a customer, if i'm looking for player created guides? if i'm having those technical problems and i'd like to know that someone isn't pulling my leg or trying to do harmful things to my box?
that's great that YOU, as a customer, appreciate random podcasts from a jolly developer during beta. how exactly does that help the rest of us customers with any of the above?
can you tell me where i can find all of the above in one convenient location, where i can rest assured that i'm not being led astray?
if not, then it's complete rubbish.
communication my hindquarters. i re-read the interview and jacobs doesn't say that a certain part of his paying customer are dinosaurs, i don't even see it implied that he's referring to just a part of the paying public.
You are kidding me ...
You know ... ingame is a good place to look for a guild ... and serious ones usually have their own sites where you check out what they do and apply ... I never ever looked for a guild through official forums and I was a member of one or two rather decent ones.
You are talking like you are browsing the net just jumping from official site to official site because you are paranoid that someone will do "harmful things to your computer" ... ever heard of firewalls and stuff? ... you expect me to believe that when you look for a piece of info on the net - lets say its an AMD processor, you only go to the official AMD site and read whats there. You never use Google for anything you look for on the intenet because there are evil people prowling about, waiting to do harmful things ... I find it extremely hard to believe that. Net is one big convenient location you can find anything you need ... especialy about an internet game.
Remarkable that he really compares us, the customers, to a Tyrannosaurus. There is no excuse for the lack of official forums. Period.
He's very clearly not describing every customer as a dangerous dinosaur. In the context of what was said, it's clear that he was talking about the specific people who express their frustrations in abusive and threatening ways.
You don't agree with the call, that's fine, but you're taking that statement way out of context.
Welcome to MMORPG.com.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
What it boils down to is that the lack of official forums are:
1. Cost cutting (no forum moderator staff)
2. Damage control, in advance. It's obvious that without official forums problems with the game voiced by current customers will have less effect on new purchasers.
Frankly I think that any game that doesn't have official forums should provide a full refund option for the game purchase if not satisfied.
In any case it's not the abuse they are worried about, saying that is just spin doctoring the real reason, which is to minimize the visibility of bad customer feedback.
I thought it was rather fitting that the guy said he was happy the auction house made it into the game before launch.
Considering that feature is broken in ways that make the simplest search and refined searches produce as many or more unrelated items as there are items that match criteria.
Also, the dude who thinks Mr. Mythic Mouthpiece is as balls and glory giving straight answers knowing not many people will like them.... fanboi much? Where did he ever say anything to the effect that Mythic can and will sell unreliable and unfinished products because it simply does not matter when their best estimate says it will show a profit.
Of course I cancelled my account already and I will sell it for more than i payed in. We all learned a long time ago that this industry is all about the hustle ( looking at you Brad ).
Honestly...no matter what is said here the only reason folks want official forums is to read about or participate in the Troll train. They find disatisfaction in fan forums cause the mod can ban you without catching flak for losing a customer.
Like it or not Offical forums are becoming a thing of the past, it's no huge secret that Blizzard is jobbing out all their forums (including WoW) to Activision, and activision forums are kinda like what Turbine use to have back in the early Days of AoC, you submit a comment or question and they decide if it's worthy to be posted.
I know why Blizzard is doing this they have found that devlopers just can't handle that kind of abuse over a period of time, look at what has happend just at blizzard in the last four years Caydeim transfered to another dept, Tseric went on a rampage and got fired, and just recently Jeff Kaplan went on a drunken (well who knows if he was drunk...but some folks over at Death and Taxes says he was) Rampage and perma banned a crap load of accounts.....he didn't get the boot, but some are saying that he is moving on to greener pastures once WoTLK ships. I can well inagine once Blizzard turns their fourms into the internets version of Dear Abby, other devlopers wil follow suit.....SOE has already said that DC universe will have fan forums only to build a sense of "community"
Mythic has done a poor job in regards to allowing feedback and player opinion to be not even just heard but broadcast. The bug submission and feedback reports available in game are shockingly limiting, to the point of only allowing you 1 full sentance to voice your concern/ problem/ opinion.
I understand the desire to not have official forums, but this whole "let the credit cards do the talking" bit is pretty lame, it's really just saying that they dont give a fuck about player feedback, and ways to improve the experience, and will only respond to the playerbase when they leave in masse, making the "Why did you cancel" box there most relied on source of feedback information. That's fucking lame.
He really has his head in the dirt. He will come around and be eating his words.
you have no idea what you're talking about. mythic certainly know what they're talking about and communication with the players is amazing..you don't see blizzard taking time out for stuff like this. Guys like mark are the type of people that deserve 10 million subs and not those cheats at blizzard.
Eh, the communication could be even more amazing if they had a forum... At least a technical one for technical issues.
And saying Blizzard don't deserve their customers is stupid. If WAR deserves it, we'll see a lot of players comming it's way too in the next year but Wow did bring in most of it's players to the MMO market. And I say if because we really havn't seen WARs full potential this early.
And no, I don't agree with Lethality but I think it's a misstake to not have a forum, whatever they think of "Mob mentality" or not. The biggest thing with a forum is to help it's players but it also gives the devs a chanse to talk directly to the community.
Sadly he only focusses on the negative bits of having official forums. : / I for one always enjoyed the interaction in especially the realm forums; people organizing events, making art, posting rl pictures, stating their respect for certain skillful oponents, getting people to join your guild, publishing their guild's latest achievements and yes, making new friends. I hope he'll reconsider his stance on this. The negative issues he describes can be delt with by mods, simple as that. Aye, it costs them a little more money but it gives the community one central board for out of game interaction which is to me, an important thing to any mmo. Besides, they shouldn't be afraid that the posters will flame WAR to death on their hometurf like on the AoC forums since it is a kick ass game anyway and they have always been open an honest with us.
welp, according to jacobs, if you don't like that they don't have official forums -- cancel your account.
reminds me of smed, and he'll get as much of my money and ESPECIALLY my loving commentary as smed does. certain people should not be allowed to speak on behalf of their company. ever.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Mythic has done a poor job in regards to allowing feedback and player opinion to be not even just heard but broadcast. The bug submission and feedback reports available in game are shockingly limiting, to the point of only allowing you 1 full sentance to voice your concern/ problem/ opinion. I understand the desire to not have official forums, but this whole "let the credit cards do the talking" bit is pretty lame, it's really just saying that they dont give a fuck about player feedback, and ways to improve the experience, and will only respond to the playerbase when they leave in masse, making the "Why did you cancel" box there most relied on source of feedback information. That's fucking lame.
just fyi... you hit the "cancel subscription" button, and then you see "your subscription has been cancelled, playable until the end of paid time" or some such verbage.
they don't give enough of a crap about your opinion TO ask why you cancelled your subscription. unless they have changed it in the past 10 hours.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
so, all this communication from mythic... how is that helping me if i'm looking for technical support help? if i'm wanting to see what all guilds are recruiting for a specific faction on a specific realm? how does that help me, as a customer, if i'm looking for player created guides? if i'm having those technical problems and i'd like to know that someone isn't pulling my leg or trying to do harmful things to my box?
that's great that YOU, as a customer, appreciate random podcasts from a jolly developer during beta. how exactly does that help the rest of us customers with any of the above?
can you tell me where i can find all of the above in one convenient location, where i can rest assured that i'm not being led astray?
if not, then it's complete rubbish.
communication my hindquarters. i re-read the interview and jacobs doesn't say that a certain part of his paying customer are dinosaurs, i don't even see it implied that he's referring to just a part of the paying public.
You are kidding me ...
You know ... ingame is a good place to look for a guild ... and serious ones usually have their own sites where you check out what they do and apply ... I never ever looked for a guild through official forums and I was a member of one or two rather decent ones.
You are talking like you are browsing the net just jumping from official site to official site because you are paranoid that someone will do "harmful things to your computer" ... ever heard of firewalls and stuff? ... you expect me to believe that when you look for a piece of info on the net - lets say its an AMD processor, you only go to the official AMD site and read whats there. You never use Google for anything you look for on the intenet because there are evil people prowling about, waiting to do harmful things ... I find it extremely hard to believe that. Net is one big convenient location you can find anything you need ... especialy about an internet game.
technical support -- here's an example...
hey, download this thing, it'll fix that problem.
not the meandering tangent you went off on. now, how many naive gamers would go ahead and d/l that trojan off a "trusted" fansite, thinking it would fix their problem?
any mmo worth a monthly sub has active and helpful technical support forums.
yeah, ingame is a GREAT place to look for a guild. 15 guilds on half a dozen servers later, i'm still wondering if there are any war guilds that have vent, or a website, or a clue wtf they're doing. guess i'm too stupid to find a guild that actually is up-to-par with what i'm expecting from a "good" guild.
guess i'm not like you and played wow for a while and found a good guild ingame.
i've played quite a few games and, from experience, have seen that it's pretty easy to search thru a LOT of guilds in a short amount of time (on official forums, which will have guilds recruiting for all factions on all servers because it's a centralized location that you know ALL players know about) and see if they do have websites and vent--quick and easy.
but hey, different people have different standards/needs.
then again, i'm not mark jacobs and completely oblivious of the OBVIOUS benefits to the entire playerbase of having official forums.
so tell me, where is the convenient guide on the ins and outs of witch hunter, squig herder and engineer? literally, a dozen fansites and their forums later, all i've found is exactly the same information i can find from looking at my toon ingame and talking to the career leveling guy ingame.
remember games like oooooooooo wow, cox, even something like eve... how you can go to the official forums and...zomgwtfbbq find dozens of guilds/corps to join in the area you're looking...
then...gasp... on that SAME forum... you can go to the technical support help and read what problems the devs ARE working on currently, how they're aware of certain issues, and stickies with lots of quick and helpful information or... make a post and get a half a dozen+ replies in minutes...
then... at those same official forums... you can learn all about whatever "class" you're thinking about playing and before wasting hours on a gimped build, or on a "class" you won't enjoy, you can peruse a few player-created guides and get the ins&outs very quickly and find the "class" you're looking for... at that same url...
i know, it's crazy talk. and it works for 99% of the MMOs in existence.
so, other than completely misunderstanding what i've typed (a second time), what again is your intelligent, logical objection to these actual reasons for having official forums, which far outweigh my wasted time and frustration at just being left hanging by a company making multiple MILLIONS of dollars?
those millions of dollars (1.5 million boxes shipped, was it? $50-80/box? multiple MILLIONS), they aren't worth making everyone's gaming experience better?
cancelling one account is the least of jacobs' worries.
no?
must be why no one ever badmouths soe... because that's all we games do... cancel our accounts and not anything else.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
It has always amazed me how fanboys can support any decision their favorite companies makes, no matter how terrible that decision sounds. ”No forums” is a cheap move. It is not only saves money for Mythica but this is the perfect way to avoid any responsibilities and in the same time keep "carrot on stick" on unofficial forums for customers. Developers can promise mountains of gold on those "unofficial" forums and diaries. And if anyone later asks "where are all those promises?" they can simply answer "you know, it was just a thoughts. Unofficial opinion". Perfect! Expanded version of BG from WoW (as WAR is) is a fun game, but Mark's bragging reminds me of Brad McQuaid.
Avoid responsibility? First how do they avoid responsibility when you cancel? 2nd, how does an official forum make them accept resposibility?
i guess you could read my combined posts in this thread for indepth answers to your questions. some of which were made before your post. which begs the question, why did you ask something that was already answered in this thread?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I guess here is a good a place as any... Maybe you can ask him why he felt it was necessary to cut off any customers that bought the CE, when we are still being told that the product might ship either yesterday or today. Nothing says fail, quite like telling some of your hard core customers that you don't deserve some leeway because of a problem way outside our control.
just because ea and mythic are now one company; that doesn't mean that mythic is responsible for screw-ups caused by ea. isn't that what they're saying?
just another incredibly beautiful level of the caring and thoughtfulness from the people behind WAR to their customers.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
not the meandering tangent you went off on. now, how many naive gamers would go ahead and d/l that trojan off a "trusted" fansite, thinking it would fix their problem?
any mmo worth a monthly sub has active and helpful technical support forums.
yeah, ingame is a GREAT place to look for a guild. 15 guilds on half a dozen servers later, i'm still wondering if there are any war guilds that have vent, or a website, or a clue wtf they're doing. guess i'm too stupid to find a guild that actually is up-to-par with what i'm expecting from a "good" guild.
guess i'm not like you and played wow for a while and found a good guild ingame.
i've played quite a few games and, from experience, have seen that it's pretty easy to search thru a LOT of guilds in a short amount of time (on official forums, which will have guilds recruiting for all factions on all servers because it's a centralized location that you know ALL players know about) and see if they do have websites and vent--quick and easy.
but hey, different people have different standards/needs.
then again, i'm not mark jacobs and completely oblivious of the OBVIOUS benefits to the entire playerbase of having official forums.
so tell me, where is the convenient guide on the ins and outs of witch hunter, squig herder and engineer? literally, a dozen fansites and their forums later, all i've found is exactly the same information i can find from looking at my toon ingame and talking to the career leveling guy ingame.
remember games like oooooooooo wow, cox, even something like eve... how you can go to the official forums and...zomgwtfbbq find dozens of guilds/corps to join in the area you're looking...
then...gasp... on that SAME forum... you can go to the technical support help and read what problems the devs ARE working on currently, how they're aware of certain issues, and stickies with lots of quick and helpful information or... make a post and get a half a dozen+ replies in minutes...
then... at those same official forums... you can learn all about whatever "class" you're thinking about playing and before wasting hours on a gimped build, or on a "class" you won't enjoy, you can peruse a few player-created guides and get the ins&outs very quickly and find the "class" you're looking for... at that same url...
i know, it's crazy talk. and it works for 99% of the MMOs in existence.
so, other than completely misunderstanding what i've typed (a second time), what again is your intelligent, logical objection to these actual reasons for having official forums, which far outweigh my wasted time and frustration at just being left hanging by a company making multiple MILLIONS of dollars?
those millions of dollars (1.5 million boxes shipped, was it? $50-80/box? multiple MILLIONS), they aren't worth making everyone's gaming experience better?
cancelling one account is the least of jacobs' worries.
no?
must be why no one ever badmouths soe... because that's all we games do... cancel our accounts and not anything else.
You missunderstood me ... I'm not objecting to having an official forum, what I'm saying is that it is not something that affects my gameplay one way or another ... If there are forums - fine ... if there are none - no big deal, I'll get my info elsewhere ..
Most of the reasons you list - not being able to find a decent guild, not being able to find decent info about classes etc - the game is not even a week old officialy. You don't find that stuff, because most of the other people don't have a clue. Its a 6 days old MMO and people are still discovering things. Unless the guilds transfered from another game, they are still organising, and the guilds that moved are most likely not activelz recruiting before they figure out things.
All that will come in a couple of weeks.
About the download - unless its an official patch for the game, I don't see the reason to download anything in order to "fix" things. Never in my years of gameplay have I downloaded a piece of third party code to fix anything in any game.
I'd really really like to know when EU players are going to get a herald and realm status web site? Goa have manged to get people in game but the web site is limping along.
Please ask jacobs to put some pressure on next time you talk. The EU clearly has a far inferior experience outsdie the game world itself.
GOA dont seem to have settled the accounts stuff in my view.
I am unable to get into the game. had an hour after loading.. recieved 2 (yes two) confirmations of account set up.. but now cant get back in the website doesnt show me a subscription despite above named emails confirming.. and te website help system doesnt even acknowledge reciept of my help queries...
At this rate my 30 days will run out without my being able to play.
Obviously that will finish me in the game.. there is no point paying while being unable to play and no point having help/support email sites that are obviously so burdened with problems that they cant ebven auto reply never mind resolve.
Out of AC UO AC2 DAoC CoH WoW CoV LotR AoC this has been for me at least the worst MMO startup. and some of those others had some problems
While I like most of what Mark had to say, I would firmly disagree with his choice on having official forums. The Herald is a poor substitute for them. I don't want the forums as a place to complain but rather as a single place to go to collect information and a place to build a community. As it currently stands, I end up going to 3 or 4 different forums and find all sorts of different and conflicting information. I don't feel that there is any sort of tight community involvement (outside of what your own guild can provide) and I don't think that's a good thing for the longevity of the game itself.
I can understand the no forums rule. It takes a significant investment to police them. Problem with that is that DAoC self destructed because of that. They had a few people monitoring the outside forums and did not listen to the problems these people encountered. Mythic did about everything in it's power to dissuade the playerbase from playing DAoC through ignoring the problems discussed on the outside forums. Let us hope they listen better on the outside forums this time around. I personally still don't trust them to do so.
The no forum rule doesn't bother me either. I also agree with your second point. I tend to think they won't do alot of listening unless EA threatens to shut it down when it's no longer profitable. EA isn't SOE and is less likely to keep the product going on life support. During interviews Mythic reps be it Jacobs or whomever said something in the spirit of...this is what we are going to do, if you don't like it don't buy it. Mythic fits perfectly with the EA basic rule. Still unsure why Mythic decided to take the EA out of their name.
EA takes the same stance with their single player games. Example Spore. People didn't like DRM with limited installs, but they still have it on their upcoming games. They will do what they want regardless. Then again they now are facing a global class action suit about it so ...maybe that's why Mythic took the EA out of the name. Mark is no idiot and probably saw trouble coming. May as well TRY to distance themselves. Who knows.
Time will tell how Mythic's approach works. The big test for them will be when a majority of people are on Tier 4 trying to top out their char doing the same scenarios and RvR...every day. Over and over....and over.
"Let credit cards do the talking"? Have gaming companies sunk THAT low? A game is not a magazine, for fuck's sake. In order to improve they need to interact with their players, not their credit cards. Craploads of money doesn't make a good, successful game. Sure, if you understand 'success' in a quantifiable way, then yeah, let the credit cards do the talking. When people still get to bad-mouth your game elsewhere, not only in forums but in real life as well, then your game is certainly not a success. A game like a MMORPG is a constant dialogue between developer and gamer, in a space where THEY ARE NOT EQUALS. Developers need to understand that they're in control of their product, while they need to answer to the needs and grievances of their, and I emphasize, THEIR players. We're playing their game, we're going by their rules already, all we're doing is voicing what we think is wrong with those rules.
A bad analogy: people bad-mouth the political system, the president, and whatever all the time. Does the president, getting all emotionally hurt, cancels freedom of speech and orders that every line, every caricature abusing his persona gets erased from the planet? No. Why? Beyond the obvious reasons of it, it's because he has the higher duty of looking through those personal attacks and realize what the message behind them is. It's his/their game we're playing, we're subjected to their set of rules, and just like we have the right to voice them over, they have the obligation to hear them and make sense out of them, be them abusive or not, simply because we can't become presidents ourselves and do things our way. Look at AoC - with Gaute's resignation, we can assume (and only assume) that Funcom are listening to their customers. They had to look through all the crap, all the "AoC sucks lol" one liners and realize that something was wrong with their game, and something was wrong with the direction it was taking. They acted upon it, and gave most AoC players a glimmer of hope. Where did all of this happen? In the official forums. Thanks to a centralized hub of not only information, but expression about something that people care about enough as to drop 15 bucks worth of their income every month. People who say 15 bucks is nothing, they're right, but what counts here is the committment, the intention behind those 15 bucks, not the 15 bucks themselves. That's what Jacobs is missing: for him we're not persons, we're statistics, numbers on their Excel spreadsheet. Credit cards don't talk, it's the people behind them who do, and they have the right to voice their opinion, however abusive it may be, and it's the developer's obligation to listen to each and every one of them.
Devs: do some meditation, read some self-esteem-raising books, learn how to prioritize your life in terms of what people (worst of all, completely strange, unrelated people whose opinions shouldn't affect you in ANY way) say to you, I don't know. Just don't ignore them under the premise that you'll get hurt, because you have a duty to respond to, and that duty is to make a game that is good, fun, and appealing to each and every customer. Again, we're not numbers in a spreadsheet. And again, we're not equals to you... ever since we log in we agree to play within your set of rules and mechanics; we're subjects, but we're subjects of the twenty-first century, individualized and full of opinions and voices that will judge you harshly and cut your head off if the violence grows intensely enough - but on the other hand that judgement, if you do your job right, will be full of praise and faith and loyalty to whatever you do... in other words, we'll be fans. And I bet that just as abusive comments hurt your feelings, praising comments full of warmth (as false as it may be) fill you with accomplishment, with "feel-good". You don't need to fear us (not even in mob form) and our voices... you just need to work hard and win ALL OF US over.
That's it. I'm done preaching. I hope they add official forums at least only for Tech Support. Just a little forum, no need for huge amounts of moderation. Sorry for the rant.
WARNING: RANT AHEAD "Let credit cards do the talking"? Have gaming companies sunk THAT low? A game is not a magazine, for fuck's sake. In order to improve they need to interact with their players, not their credit cards. Craploads of money doesn't make a good, successful game. Sure, if you understand 'success' in a quantifiable way, then yeah, let the credit cards do the talking. When people still get to bad-mouth your game elsewhere, not only in forums but in real life as well, then your game is certainly not a success. A game like a MMORPG is a constant dialogue between developer and gamer, in a space where THEY ARE NOT EQUALS. Developers need to understand that they're in control of their product, while they need to answer to the needs and grievances of their, and I emphasize, THEIR players. We're playing their game, we're going by their rules already, all we're doing is voicing what we think is wrong with those rules. A bad analogy: people bad-mouth the political system, the president, and whatever all the time. Does the president, getting all emotionally hurt, cancels freedom of speech and orders that every line, every caricature abusing his persona gets erased from the planet? No. Why? Beyond the obvious reasons of it, it's because he has the higher duty of looking through those personal attacks and realize what the message behind them is. It's his/their game we're playing, we're subjected to their set of rules, and just like we have the right to voice them over, they have the obligation to hear them and make sense out of them, be them abusive or not, simply because we can't become presidents ourselves and do things our way. Look at AoC - with Gaute's resignation, we can assume (and only assume) that Funcom are listening to their customers. They had to look through all the crap, all the "AoC sucks lol" one liners and realize that something was wrong with their game, and something was wrong with the direction it was taking. They acted upon it, and gave most AoC players a glimmer of hope. Where did all of this happen? In the official forums. Thanks to a centralized hub of not only information, but expression about something that people care about enough as to drop 15 bucks worth of their income every month. People who say 15 bucks is nothing, they're right, but what counts here is the committment, the intention behind those 15 bucks, not the 15 bucks themselves. That's what Jacobs is missing: for him we're not persons, we're statistics, numbers on their Excel spreadsheet. Credit cards don't talk, it's the people behind them who do, and they have the right to voice their opinion, however abusive it may be, and it's the developer's obligation to listen to each and every one of them. Devs: do some meditation, read some self-esteem-raising books, learn how to prioritize your life in terms of what people (worst of all, completely strange, unrelated people whose opinions shouldn't affect you in ANY way) say to you, I don't know. Just don't ignore them under the premise that you'll get hurt, because you have a duty to respond to, and that duty is to make a game that is good, fun, and appealing to each and every customer. Again, we're not numbers in a spreadsheet. And again, we're not equals to you... ever since we log in we agree to play within your set of rules and mechanics; we're subjects, but we're subjects of the twenty-first century, individualized and full of opinions and voices that will judge you harshly and cut your head off if the violence grows intensely enough - but on the other hand that judgement, if you do your job right, will be full of praise and faith and loyalty to whatever you do... in other words, we'll be fans. And I bet that just as abusive comments hurt your feelings, praising comments full of warmth (as false as it may be) fill you with accomplishment, with "feel-good". You don't need to fear us (not even in mob form) and our voices... you just need to work hard and win ALL OF US over. That's it. I'm done preaching. I hope they add official forums at least only for Tech Support. Just a little forum, no need for huge amounts of moderation. Sorry for the rant.
I can see your hope in official forums. You also have to realize that listening to your customer base does not mean success. For example EQ became very raid friendly after time and it drove away many of the original players. Raid friendly as a result of what a selected few wanted. They enjoyed a short amount of success, but after a bit may have realized it was nothing more than the beginning of the next best thing crowd. EQ has low population now and what is left of the raid crew.Most who played from the start have long left the game.
Don't expect EA to change for you. I don't expect them to change for me. The game is too simplistic in design to change. Even the map beyond current zone is a flowchart. I think they realized that making a world map may be tricky. I don't think they NEED a forum. AS I had said earlier they are going to do what they want anyway so a forum would only annoy them in their tower.
To Stradden. I enjoy your interviews....almost forgot this is a commentary on your interview. This was not a bad one. My only advice would be to be stronger in your approach. By that I mean don't get tough towards the weak when they are down, but get tough when the strong are up.
Eh, he "feels passionate" about everything he does.
Damn right a customer has the right to be upset; we also have the right to complain if the product doesn't work right. You accepted out money, now you have to take the heat when it doesn't work right. It's called being help accountable!
It's a complete cop out not to have a forum and give the excuse he did. Oh, people said some mean things... GTF over it! We wouldn't say "mean" things if you got your act together.
So sure, you block out the complaints but you also block out the suggestions. In your arrogance, you miss what the player base is looking for ... what is wrong with your game. After the frustration, people move on and you are left twiddling your thumbs wondering what happened.
Congratulations, you get the genius of the year award!
Edit: Btw, its exponentially harder to gain a customer back from cancellation than it is to retain a custom prior to that. Telling customers to cancel, sure we are going to do that ... most wont look back. Then you get to pass the buck to someone else...
Personally, I have NEVER! returned to a game that I have canceled due to bugs/content. Once the time I have paid for runs out, I am gone for good.
Eh, he "feels passionate" about everything he does.
Damn right a customer has the right to be upset; we also have the right to complain if the product doesn't work right. You accepted out money, now you have to take the heat when it doesn't work right. It's called being help accountable! It's a complete cop out not to have a forum and give the excuse he did. Oh, people said some mean things... GTF over it! We wouldn't say "mean" things if you got your act together. So sure, you block out the complaints but you also block out the suggestions. In your arrogance, you miss what the player base is looking for ... what is wrong with your game. After the frustration, people move on and you are left twiddling your thumbs wondering what happened. Congratulations, you get the genius of the year award!
Edit: Btw, its exponentially harder to gain a customer back from cancellation than it is to retain a custom prior to that. Telling customers to cancel, sure we are going to do that ... most wont look back. Then you get to pass the buck to someone else...
Personally, I have NEVER! returned to a game that I have canceled due to bugs/content. Once the time I have paid for runs out, I am gone for good.
I think I find more amazement in the fact that people are surprised by this action by EA Mythic. They had no forums before it went live. They had no forums for DAoC. It is nothing new. Despite the initial rose colored love of the game it may face some nasty results because of it's simplicity.
What amazes me is the small-mindedness and general mulishness of Mark's attitude. Maybe that's why DAoC server population right this moment looks like this:
Currently defending the realms:
1,391North America
2,015 GOA Europe
3,406
That's from the Camelot Herald. Those are not numbers to be proud of and, frankly, I'm surprise EA gave this guy as much free reign as they have. Unless there's a shift in management, this is the future of Warhammer and it won't take 7 years to get there. People have a lot more choices now and, as a poster above so aptly put it, once some people leave, they never look back.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II "People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
What amazes me is the small-mindedness and general mulishness of Mark's attitude. Maybe that's why DAoC server population right this moment looks like this: Currently defending the realms:
1,391North America
2,015 GOA Europe
3,406 That's from the Camelot Herald. Those are not numbers to be proud of and, frankly, I'm surprise EA gave this guy as much free reign as they have. Unless there's a shift in management, this is the future of Warhammer and it won't take 7 years to get there. People have a lot more choices now and, as a poster above so aptly put it, once some people leave, they never look back.
You talking about the Camelot Herald ie: Dark Age of Camelot, or the WAR Herald for... Warhamer? Some scientists are now saying that they're two different games.
Comments
so, all this communication from mythic... how is that helping me if i'm looking for technical support help? if i'm wanting to see what all guilds are recruiting for a specific faction on a specific realm? how does that help me, as a customer, if i'm looking for player created guides? if i'm having those technical problems and i'd like to know that someone isn't pulling my leg or trying to do harmful things to my box?
that's great that YOU, as a customer, appreciate random podcasts from a jolly developer during beta. how exactly does that help the rest of us customers with any of the above?
can you tell me where i can find all of the above in one convenient location, where i can rest assured that i'm not being led astray?
if not, then it's complete rubbish.
communication my hindquarters. i re-read the interview and jacobs doesn't say that a certain part of his paying customer are dinosaurs, i don't even see it implied that he's referring to just a part of the paying public.
You are kidding me ...
You know ... ingame is a good place to look for a guild ... and serious ones usually have their own sites where you check out what they do and apply ... I never ever looked for a guild through official forums and I was a member of one or two rather decent ones.
You are talking like you are browsing the net just jumping from official site to official site because you are paranoid that someone will do "harmful things to your computer" ... ever heard of firewalls and stuff? ... you expect me to believe that when you look for a piece of info on the net - lets say its an AMD processor, you only go to the official AMD site and read whats there. You never use Google for anything you look for on the intenet because there are evil people prowling about, waiting to do harmful things ... I find it extremely hard to believe that. Net is one big convenient location you can find anything you need ... especialy about an internet game.
He's very clearly not describing every customer as a dangerous dinosaur. In the context of what was said, it's clear that he was talking about the specific people who express their frustrations in abusive and threatening ways.
You don't agree with the call, that's fine, but you're taking that statement way out of context.
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What it boils down to is that the lack of official forums are:
1. Cost cutting (no forum moderator staff)
2. Damage control, in advance. It's obvious that without official forums problems with the game voiced by current customers will have less effect on new purchasers.
Frankly I think that any game that doesn't have official forums should provide a full refund option for the game purchase if not satisfied.
In any case it's not the abuse they are worried about, saying that is just spin doctoring the real reason, which is to minimize the visibility of bad customer feedback.
I thought it was rather fitting that the guy said he was happy the auction house made it into the game before launch.
Considering that feature is broken in ways that make the simplest search and refined searches produce as many or more unrelated items as there are items that match criteria.
Also, the dude who thinks Mr. Mythic Mouthpiece is as balls and glory giving straight answers knowing not many people will like them.... fanboi much? Where did he ever say anything to the effect that Mythic can and will sell unreliable and unfinished products because it simply does not matter when their best estimate says it will show a profit.
Of course I cancelled my account already and I will sell it for more than i payed in. We all learned a long time ago that this industry is all about the hustle ( looking at you Brad ).
Honestly...no matter what is said here the only reason folks want official forums is to read about or participate in the Troll train. They find disatisfaction in fan forums cause the mod can ban you without catching flak for losing a customer.
Like it or not Offical forums are becoming a thing of the past, it's no huge secret that Blizzard is jobbing out all their forums (including WoW) to Activision, and activision forums are kinda like what Turbine use to have back in the early Days of AoC, you submit a comment or question and they decide if it's worthy to be posted.
I know why Blizzard is doing this they have found that devlopers just can't handle that kind of abuse over a period of time, look at what has happend just at blizzard in the last four years Caydeim transfered to another dept, Tseric went on a rampage and got fired, and just recently Jeff Kaplan went on a drunken (well who knows if he was drunk...but some folks over at Death and Taxes says he was) Rampage and perma banned a crap load of accounts.....he didn't get the boot, but some are saying that he is moving on to greener pastures once WoTLK ships. I can well inagine once Blizzard turns their fourms into the internets version of Dear Abby, other devlopers wil follow suit.....SOE has already said that DC universe will have fan forums only to build a sense of "community"
Like it or not it's all going the way of Disco.
Mythic has done a poor job in regards to allowing feedback and player opinion to be not even just heard but broadcast. The bug submission and feedback reports available in game are shockingly limiting, to the point of only allowing you 1 full sentance to voice your concern/ problem/ opinion.
I understand the desire to not have official forums, but this whole "let the credit cards do the talking" bit is pretty lame, it's really just saying that they dont give a fuck about player feedback, and ways to improve the experience, and will only respond to the playerbase when they leave in masse, making the "Why did you cancel" box there most relied on source of feedback information. That's fucking lame.
you have no idea what you're talking about. mythic certainly know what they're talking about and communication with the players is amazing..you don't see blizzard taking time out for stuff like this. Guys like mark are the type of people that deserve 10 million subs and not those cheats at blizzard.
Eh, the communication could be even more amazing if they had a forum... At least a technical one for technical issues.
And saying Blizzard don't deserve their customers is stupid. If WAR deserves it, we'll see a lot of players comming it's way too in the next year but Wow did bring in most of it's players to the MMO market. And I say if because we really havn't seen WARs full potential this early.
And no, I don't agree with Lethality but I think it's a misstake to not have a forum, whatever they think of "Mob mentality" or not. The biggest thing with a forum is to help it's players but it also gives the devs a chanse to talk directly to the community.
welp, according to jacobs, if you don't like that they don't have official forums -- cancel your account.
reminds me of smed, and he'll get as much of my money and ESPECIALLY my loving commentary as smed does. certain people should not be allowed to speak on behalf of their company. ever.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
just fyi... you hit the "cancel subscription" button, and then you see "your subscription has been cancelled, playable until the end of paid time" or some such verbage.
they don't give enough of a crap about your opinion TO ask why you cancelled your subscription. unless they have changed it in the past 10 hours.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
so, all this communication from mythic... how is that helping me if i'm looking for technical support help? if i'm wanting to see what all guilds are recruiting for a specific faction on a specific realm? how does that help me, as a customer, if i'm looking for player created guides? if i'm having those technical problems and i'd like to know that someone isn't pulling my leg or trying to do harmful things to my box?
that's great that YOU, as a customer, appreciate random podcasts from a jolly developer during beta. how exactly does that help the rest of us customers with any of the above?
can you tell me where i can find all of the above in one convenient location, where i can rest assured that i'm not being led astray?
if not, then it's complete rubbish.
communication my hindquarters. i re-read the interview and jacobs doesn't say that a certain part of his paying customer are dinosaurs, i don't even see it implied that he's referring to just a part of the paying public.
You are kidding me ...
You know ... ingame is a good place to look for a guild ... and serious ones usually have their own sites where you check out what they do and apply ... I never ever looked for a guild through official forums and I was a member of one or two rather decent ones.
You are talking like you are browsing the net just jumping from official site to official site because you are paranoid that someone will do "harmful things to your computer" ... ever heard of firewalls and stuff? ... you expect me to believe that when you look for a piece of info on the net - lets say its an AMD processor, you only go to the official AMD site and read whats there. You never use Google for anything you look for on the intenet because there are evil people prowling about, waiting to do harmful things ... I find it extremely hard to believe that. Net is one big convenient location you can find anything you need ... especialy about an internet game.
technical support -- here's an example...
hey, download this thing, it'll fix that problem.
not the meandering tangent you went off on. now, how many naive gamers would go ahead and d/l that trojan off a "trusted" fansite, thinking it would fix their problem?
any mmo worth a monthly sub has active and helpful technical support forums.
yeah, ingame is a GREAT place to look for a guild. 15 guilds on half a dozen servers later, i'm still wondering if there are any war guilds that have vent, or a website, or a clue wtf they're doing. guess i'm too stupid to find a guild that actually is up-to-par with what i'm expecting from a "good" guild.
guess i'm not like you and played wow for a while and found a good guild ingame.
i've played quite a few games and, from experience, have seen that it's pretty easy to search thru a LOT of guilds in a short amount of time (on official forums, which will have guilds recruiting for all factions on all servers because it's a centralized location that you know ALL players know about) and see if they do have websites and vent--quick and easy.
but hey, different people have different standards/needs.
then again, i'm not mark jacobs and completely oblivious of the OBVIOUS benefits to the entire playerbase of having official forums.
so tell me, where is the convenient guide on the ins and outs of witch hunter, squig herder and engineer? literally, a dozen fansites and their forums later, all i've found is exactly the same information i can find from looking at my toon ingame and talking to the career leveling guy ingame.
remember games like oooooooooo wow, cox, even something like eve... how you can go to the official forums and...zomgwtfbbq find dozens of guilds/corps to join in the area you're looking...
then...gasp... on that SAME forum... you can go to the technical support help and read what problems the devs ARE working on currently, how they're aware of certain issues, and stickies with lots of quick and helpful information or... make a post and get a half a dozen+ replies in minutes...
then... at those same official forums... you can learn all about whatever "class" you're thinking about playing and before wasting hours on a gimped build, or on a "class" you won't enjoy, you can peruse a few player-created guides and get the ins&outs very quickly and find the "class" you're looking for... at that same url...
i know, it's crazy talk. and it works for 99% of the MMOs in existence.
so, other than completely misunderstanding what i've typed (a second time), what again is your intelligent, logical objection to these actual reasons for having official forums, which far outweigh my wasted time and frustration at just being left hanging by a company making multiple MILLIONS of dollars?
those millions of dollars (1.5 million boxes shipped, was it? $50-80/box? multiple MILLIONS), they aren't worth making everyone's gaming experience better?
cancelling one account is the least of jacobs' worries.
no?
must be why no one ever badmouths soe... because that's all we games do... cancel our accounts and not anything else.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Avoid responsibility? First how do they avoid responsibility when you cancel? 2nd, how does an official forum make them accept resposibility?
i guess you could read my combined posts in this thread for indepth answers to your questions. some of which were made before your post. which begs the question, why did you ask something that was already answered in this thread?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
just because ea and mythic are now one company; that doesn't mean that mythic is responsible for screw-ups caused by ea.
isn't that what they're saying?
just another incredibly beautiful level of the caring and thoughtfulness from the people behind WAR to their customers.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
technical support -- here's an example...
hey, download this thing, it'll fix that problem.
not the meandering tangent you went off on. now, how many naive gamers would go ahead and d/l that trojan off a "trusted" fansite, thinking it would fix their problem?
any mmo worth a monthly sub has active and helpful technical support forums.
yeah, ingame is a GREAT place to look for a guild. 15 guilds on half a dozen servers later, i'm still wondering if there are any war guilds that have vent, or a website, or a clue wtf they're doing. guess i'm too stupid to find a guild that actually is up-to-par with what i'm expecting from a "good" guild.
guess i'm not like you and played wow for a while and found a good guild ingame.
i've played quite a few games and, from experience, have seen that it's pretty easy to search thru a LOT of guilds in a short amount of time (on official forums, which will have guilds recruiting for all factions on all servers because it's a centralized location that you know ALL players know about) and see if they do have websites and vent--quick and easy.
but hey, different people have different standards/needs.
then again, i'm not mark jacobs and completely oblivious of the OBVIOUS benefits to the entire playerbase of having official forums.
so tell me, where is the convenient guide on the ins and outs of witch hunter, squig herder and engineer? literally, a dozen fansites and their forums later, all i've found is exactly the same information i can find from looking at my toon ingame and talking to the career leveling guy ingame.
remember games like oooooooooo wow, cox, even something like eve... how you can go to the official forums and...zomgwtfbbq find dozens of guilds/corps to join in the area you're looking...
then...gasp... on that SAME forum... you can go to the technical support help and read what problems the devs ARE working on currently, how they're aware of certain issues, and stickies with lots of quick and helpful information or... make a post and get a half a dozen+ replies in minutes...
then... at those same official forums... you can learn all about whatever "class" you're thinking about playing and before wasting hours on a gimped build, or on a "class" you won't enjoy, you can peruse a few player-created guides and get the ins&outs very quickly and find the "class" you're looking for... at that same url...
i know, it's crazy talk. and it works for 99% of the MMOs in existence.
so, other than completely misunderstanding what i've typed (a second time), what again is your intelligent, logical objection to these actual reasons for having official forums, which far outweigh my wasted time and frustration at just being left hanging by a company making multiple MILLIONS of dollars?
those millions of dollars (1.5 million boxes shipped, was it? $50-80/box? multiple MILLIONS), they aren't worth making everyone's gaming experience better?
cancelling one account is the least of jacobs' worries.
no?
must be why no one ever badmouths soe... because that's all we games do... cancel our accounts and not anything else.
You missunderstood me ... I'm not objecting to having an official forum, what I'm saying is that it is not something that affects my gameplay one way or another ... If there are forums - fine ... if there are none - no big deal, I'll get my info elsewhere ..
Most of the reasons you list - not being able to find a decent guild, not being able to find decent info about classes etc - the game is not even a week old officialy. You don't find that stuff, because most of the other people don't have a clue. Its a 6 days old MMO and people are still discovering things. Unless the guilds transfered from another game, they are still organising, and the guilds that moved are most likely not activelz recruiting before they figure out things.
All that will come in a couple of weeks.
About the download - unless its an official patch for the game, I don't see the reason to download anything in order to "fix" things. Never in my years of gameplay have I downloaded a piece of third party code to fix anything in any game.
I'd really really like to know when EU players are going to get a herald and realm status web site? Goa have manged to get people in game but the web site is limping along.
Please ask jacobs to put some pressure on next time you talk. The EU clearly has a far inferior experience outsdie the game world itself.
GOA dont seem to have settled the accounts stuff in my view.
I am unable to get into the game. had an hour after loading.. recieved 2 (yes two) confirmations of account set up.. but now cant get back in the website doesnt show me a subscription despite above named emails confirming.. and te website help system doesnt even acknowledge reciept of my help queries...
At this rate my 30 days will run out without my being able to play.
Obviously that will finish me in the game.. there is no point paying while being unable to play and no point having help/support email sites that are obviously so burdened with problems that they cant ebven auto reply never mind resolve.
Out of AC UO AC2 DAoC CoH WoW CoV LotR AoC this has been for me at least the worst MMO startup. and some of those others had some problems
Jef Addley
While I like most of what Mark had to say, I would firmly disagree with his choice on having official forums. The Herald is a poor substitute for them. I don't want the forums as a place to complain but rather as a single place to go to collect information and a place to build a community. As it currently stands, I end up going to 3 or 4 different forums and find all sorts of different and conflicting information. I don't feel that there is any sort of tight community involvement (outside of what your own guild can provide) and I don't think that's a good thing for the longevity of the game itself.
The no forum rule doesn't bother me either. I also agree with your second point. I tend to think they won't do alot of listening unless EA threatens to shut it down when it's no longer profitable. EA isn't SOE and is less likely to keep the product going on life support. During interviews Mythic reps be it Jacobs or whomever said something in the spirit of...this is what we are going to do, if you don't like it don't buy it. Mythic fits perfectly with the EA basic rule. Still unsure why Mythic decided to take the EA out of their name.
EA takes the same stance with their single player games. Example Spore. People didn't like DRM with limited installs, but they still have it on their upcoming games. They will do what they want regardless. Then again they now are facing a global class action suit about it so ...maybe that's why Mythic took the EA out of the name. Mark is no idiot and probably saw trouble coming. May as well TRY to distance themselves. Who knows.
Time will tell how Mythic's approach works. The big test for them will be when a majority of people are on Tier 4 trying to top out their char doing the same scenarios and RvR...every day. Over and over....and over.
WARNING: RANT AHEAD
"Let credit cards do the talking"? Have gaming companies sunk THAT low? A game is not a magazine, for fuck's sake. In order to improve they need to interact with their players, not their credit cards. Craploads of money doesn't make a good, successful game. Sure, if you understand 'success' in a quantifiable way, then yeah, let the credit cards do the talking. When people still get to bad-mouth your game elsewhere, not only in forums but in real life as well, then your game is certainly not a success. A game like a MMORPG is a constant dialogue between developer and gamer, in a space where THEY ARE NOT EQUALS. Developers need to understand that they're in control of their product, while they need to answer to the needs and grievances of their, and I emphasize, THEIR players. We're playing their game, we're going by their rules already, all we're doing is voicing what we think is wrong with those rules.
A bad analogy: people bad-mouth the political system, the president, and whatever all the time. Does the president, getting all emotionally hurt, cancels freedom of speech and orders that every line, every caricature abusing his persona gets erased from the planet? No. Why? Beyond the obvious reasons of it, it's because he has the higher duty of looking through those personal attacks and realize what the message behind them is. It's his/their game we're playing, we're subjected to their set of rules, and just like we have the right to voice them over, they have the obligation to hear them and make sense out of them, be them abusive or not, simply because we can't become presidents ourselves and do things our way. Look at AoC - with Gaute's resignation, we can assume (and only assume) that Funcom are listening to their customers. They had to look through all the crap, all the "AoC sucks lol" one liners and realize that something was wrong with their game, and something was wrong with the direction it was taking. They acted upon it, and gave most AoC players a glimmer of hope. Where did all of this happen? In the official forums. Thanks to a centralized hub of not only information, but expression about something that people care about enough as to drop 15 bucks worth of their income every month. People who say 15 bucks is nothing, they're right, but what counts here is the committment, the intention behind those 15 bucks, not the 15 bucks themselves. That's what Jacobs is missing: for him we're not persons, we're statistics, numbers on their Excel spreadsheet. Credit cards don't talk, it's the people behind them who do, and they have the right to voice their opinion, however abusive it may be, and it's the developer's obligation to listen to each and every one of them.
Devs: do some meditation, read some self-esteem-raising books, learn how to prioritize your life in terms of what people (worst of all, completely strange, unrelated people whose opinions shouldn't affect you in ANY way) say to you, I don't know. Just don't ignore them under the premise that you'll get hurt, because you have a duty to respond to, and that duty is to make a game that is good, fun, and appealing to each and every customer. Again, we're not numbers in a spreadsheet. And again, we're not equals to you... ever since we log in we agree to play within your set of rules and mechanics; we're subjects, but we're subjects of the twenty-first century, individualized and full of opinions and voices that will judge you harshly and cut your head off if the violence grows intensely enough - but on the other hand that judgement, if you do your job right, will be full of praise and faith and loyalty to whatever you do... in other words, we'll be fans. And I bet that just as abusive comments hurt your feelings, praising comments full of warmth (as false as it may be) fill you with accomplishment, with "feel-good". You don't need to fear us (not even in mob form) and our voices... you just need to work hard and win ALL OF US over.
That's it. I'm done preaching. I hope they add official forums at least only for Tech Support. Just a little forum, no need for huge amounts of moderation. Sorry for the rant.
I can see your hope in official forums. You also have to realize that listening to your customer base does not mean success. For example EQ became very raid friendly after time and it drove away many of the original players. Raid friendly as a result of what a selected few wanted. They enjoyed a short amount of success, but after a bit may have realized it was nothing more than the beginning of the next best thing crowd. EQ has low population now and what is left of the raid crew.Most who played from the start have long left the game.
Don't expect EA to change for you. I don't expect them to change for me. The game is too simplistic in design to change. Even the map beyond current zone is a flowchart. I think they realized that making a world map may be tricky. I don't think they NEED a forum. AS I had said earlier they are going to do what they want anyway so a forum would only annoy them in their tower.
To Stradden. I enjoy your interviews....almost forgot this is a commentary on your interview. This was not a bad one. My only advice would be to be stronger in your approach. By that I mean don't get tough towards the weak when they are down, but get tough when the strong are up.
Best wishes to you.
Eh, he "feels passionate" about everything he does.
Damn right a customer has the right to be upset; we also have the right to complain if the product doesn't work right. You accepted out money, now you have to take the heat when it doesn't work right. It's called being help accountable!
It's a complete cop out not to have a forum and give the excuse he did. Oh, people said some mean things... GTF over it! We wouldn't say "mean" things if you got your act together.
So sure, you block out the complaints but you also block out the suggestions. In your arrogance, you miss what the player base is looking for ... what is wrong with your game. After the frustration, people move on and you are left twiddling your thumbs wondering what happened.
Congratulations, you get the genius of the year award!
Edit: Btw, its exponentially harder to gain a customer back from cancellation than it is to retain a custom prior to that. Telling customers to cancel, sure we are going to do that ... most wont look back. Then you get to pass the buck to someone else...
Personally, I have NEVER! returned to a game that I have canceled due to bugs/content. Once the time I have paid for runs out, I am gone for good.
ROFL!! I love your Avatar. Very nice
I think I find more amazement in the fact that people are surprised by this action by EA Mythic. They had no forums before it went live. They had no forums for DAoC. It is nothing new. Despite the initial rose colored love of the game it may face some nasty results because of it's simplicity.
What amazes me is the small-mindedness and general mulishness of Mark's attitude. Maybe that's why DAoC server population right this moment looks like this:
Currently defending the realms:
1,391North America
2,015 GOA Europe
3,406
That's from the Camelot Herald. Those are not numbers to be proud of and, frankly, I'm surprise EA gave this guy as much free reign as they have. Unless there's a shift in management, this is the future of Warhammer and it won't take 7 years to get there. People have a lot more choices now and, as a poster above so aptly put it, once some people leave, they never look back.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
You talking about the Camelot Herald ie: Dark Age of Camelot, or the WAR Herald for... Warhamer? Some scientists are now saying that they're two different games.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com