Offerings

[kirzen]

There are two reasons for this post. The first is simply a matter of venting recent frustrations, the second is significantly more imperative. But to understand its best to know that I've played most of the large MMOs and a relatively significant slice of the bad imports from tiny companies, so I think I'm qualified to talk about the major differences between the games that go the distance, major offerings. And the games that drop immeadiately off the face of the earth.

One of the major things that is going to set SoR above the competition in the next month or kill it rapidly is the game's web presence and the presence of the current owners. Personally GameForge, you're doing the **** job I have ever seen in a decade. The homepage for a game whose entire presence is online should -never- go down completely. I can't stress this enough, especially during times where no one knows what's going on. Without proper communication your player base has no idea what's happening, for all we know you could be pulling Ryzom completely and folding it up, we'd never know. (Yes, I understand this would be corporate suicide, it doesn't change the fact that its our biggest fear.). The main website for Ryzom has been down more than three times in the past two weeks, sometimes for a matter of moments, which is tolerable especially during the period where you were sorting out hosting immeadiately after taking over from Nevrax.

Right now, the Ryzom home page is down, and the servers are down. To us, this feels like complete abandonment, and as an international corporate entity providing a completely online service, you have failed in communicating to us as to where we should turn when the servers are down. Should we use Klients still? Should we speak with Jolt? Should we throw rocks up into the air and try to use their pattern when they land to determine if and when the servers will be up again?

Which itself is a second point of discussion.

Communicate with us.

And do it now.

Its nearly two weeks since you took financial control of what, to some of us, is our daily hobby. But no one has heard a single word from you in regards to the future of Ryzom, business just rolled forward as usual on the main homepage and the hand off from Nevrax was smooth on the web-end, too smooth. You didn't even say a word to us about whether we should be watching for server instability or inaccessability of the Ryzom home page, and you did nothing to allay our fears and uncertainties about the future of the game. The server has been rediculously unstable ever since you took it. I could honestly add up the times that Ryzom crashed when I was under Nevrax on one hand, and four of them were probably my own fault for fiddling around with the ingame MP3 player (which, for me, seems really buggy).

This month I've had Ryzom crash at least two dozen times. In fact, if I don't babysit it while it loads, it'll crash during loading about 1/2 of the time. But despite the rocky period since you took over, no one has said a word. Downtime is acceptable, especially under the circumstances, but a lack of communication is unacceptable and rediculous.

Get the home page up, and tell us what's happening, even if its "We're recovering from a giant crash because Bob spilled coffee on the server", honestly, we'll understand. And even if it takes a week to set things straight, we'll not be pleased, but we -will- be understanding.

How can you expect sympathy or understanding, when we don't even know how to talk to, or how to reach them, especially when your web presense is currently -nothing-.

[tr808]

thanks for this post and im sure ur not the only one feeling this way.

[ffxjosh]

There are two reasons for this post. The first is simply a matter of venting recent frustrations, the second is significantly more imperative. But to understand its best to know that I've played most of the large MMOs and a relatively significant slice of the bad imports from tiny companies, so I think I'm qualified to talk about the major differences between the games that go the distance, major offerings. And the games that drop immeadiately off the face of the earth.

One of the major things that is going to set SoR above the competition in the next month or kill it rapidly is the game's web presence and the presence of the current owners. Personally GameForge, you're doing the **** job I have ever seen in a decade. The homepage for a game whose entire presence is online should -never- go down completely. I can't stress this enough, especially during times where no one knows what's going on. Without proper communication your player base has no idea what's happening, for all we know you could be pulling Ryzom completely and folding it up, we'd never know. (Yes, I understand this would be corporate suicide, it doesn't change the fact that its our biggest fear.). The main website for Ryzom has been down more than three times in the past two weeks, sometimes for a matter of moments, which is tolerable especially during the period where you were sorting out hosting immeadiately after taking over from Nevrax.

Right now, the Ryzom home page is down, and the servers are down. To us, this feels like complete abandonment, and as an international corporate entity providing a completely online service, you have failed in communicating to us as to where we should turn when the servers are down. Should we use Klients still? Should we speak with Jolt? Should we throw rocks up into the air and try to use their pattern when they land to determine if and when the servers will be up again?

Which itself is a second point of discussion.

Communicate with us.

And do it now.

Its nearly two weeks since you took financial control of what, to some of us, is our daily hobby. But no one has heard a single word from you in regards to the future of Ryzom, business just rolled forward as usual on the main homepage and the hand off from Nevrax was smooth on the web-end, too smooth. You didn't even say a word to us about whether we should be watching for server instability or inaccessability of the Ryzom home page, and you did nothing to allay our fears and uncertainties about the future of the game. The server has been rediculously unstable ever since you took it. I could honestly add up the times that Ryzom crashed when I was under Nevrax on one hand, and four of them were probably my own fault for fiddling around with the ingame MP3 player (which, for me, seems really buggy).

This month I've had Ryzom crash at least two dozen times. In fact, if I don't babysit it while it loads, it'll crash during loading about 1/2 of the time. But despite the rocky period since you took over, no one has said a word. Downtime is acceptable, especially under the circumstances, but a lack of communication is unacceptable and rediculous.

Get the home page up, and tell us what's happening, even if its "We're recovering from a giant crash because Bob spilled coffee on the server", honestly, we'll understand. And even if it takes a week to set things straight, we'll not be pleased, but we -will- be understanding.

How can you expect sympathy or understanding, when we don't even know how to talk to, or how to reach them, especially when your web presense is currently -nothing-.

anyone else read that and think "tell a company that (apparently) has 4 million playes somthing they dont know?"

Im not saying that what you said isnt vaild. far from it. infact everything you wrote i do agree with. but somethings are unavoidable. and give em a break they took over right at the xmas/holiday period!

[kirzen]

nods to Mordarion

Its just so frustrating to see a large multinational company with its head completely stuffed up its own arse. These people aren't children, this isn't some basement startup or freebie fresh out of someone's basement in South Korea. This is a large multinational company, who just doesn't seem to have even an ounce of understanding about how to conduct itself in the MMO world. Customer relationship is the most important facet of the online experience, and they're honestly flushing any goodwill they had down the toilet with their inability to communicate with us about the status of the game.

[kirzen]

anyone else read that and think "tell a company that (apparently) has 4 million playes somthing they dont know?"

Im not saying that what you said isnt vaild. far from it. infact everything you wrote i do agree with. but somethings are unavoidable. and give em a break they took over right at the xmas/holiday period!

Honestly?

I refuse to give them any sort of 'Break'.

I gave them a break when the server started acting strange and both the web site and the servers were flickering on and off shortly after they took control of the game.

They had their chance to communicate to us, even a friendly wave and a quiet little "We're GameForge, we're going to be taking over for Nevrax, you can expect the following difficulties over the next few weeks and this is where you should go if you have any problems <Insert Critical Information>."

Downtime is unavoidable, a lack of communication is not.

[acridiel]

May I just state that at the time of this post here in Germany it´s just after 0.00 o´clock.
At the time the servers went down it was about 1 am on New Years Day.
So, as **** as the situation is, please be realistic.

Thank you.

Acridiel
*going to bed now*

[ffxjosh]

Honestly?

I refuse to give them any sort of 'Break'.

I gave them a break when the server started acting strange and both the web site and the servers were flickering on and off shortly after they took control of the game.

They had their chance to communicate to us, even a friendly wave and a quiet little "We're GameForge, we're going to be taking over for Nevrax, you can expect the following difficulties over the next few weeks and this is where you should go if you have any problems <Insert Critical Information>."

Downtime is unavoidable, a lack of communication is not.

Like ive been saying all night Klients is your best friend. there you cant get them to shut up. so plenty of communication.

[kirzen]

May I just sate that at the time of thios post here in Germany it´s just after 0.00 o´clock.
At the time the servers went down it was about 1 pm on New Years Day.
So, as **** as the situation is, please be realistic.

Thank you.

Acridiel
*going to bed now*

Actually, the server's been down for nearly 20 hours now Acri.

I should know, I had my sword buried in a Stinga when the lights went out.

And as I said. Downtime is acceptable on the servers, downtime is inexcusable on the web site. Customer service stops for nothing, holidays included.

[kirzen]

Like ive been saying all night Klients is your best friend. there you cant get them to shut up. so plenty of communication.

And despite the fact that they're saying a whole lot of things. From what I can gather the support staff either has no clue as to what's going on with the servers and web site, or they've been instructed to tell us that they've no idea what's wrong. Which in this instance, makes Klients worthless.

And even then, that doesn't excuse the lack of GameForge's presence during the hand off or their lack of main-line communication to the playerbase in regards to how things will be handled in the coming weeks.

[ffxjosh]

And as I said. Downtime is acceptable on the servers, downtime is inexcusable on the web site. Customer service stops for nothing, holidays included.

I wrote a long post about this. but then decided that i could convay what i wanted to say in a few words.

SirYesSir!.. oh shuttup

Its a flame post. so shoot me

*is now off to bed*

night