Offerings

[akicks]

What people seem to fail entirely to grasp is that GameForge isn't a tiny little company that's just trying to get its feet under it.

No? I'm sure you, as an employee of GameForge, can tell us all of its inner workings. You could tell us when they are going to work on the game, and when they are going to be able to set down and discuss the problem that have been happening.

Oh, that's right. You are not an employee of GameForge and so don't know how those things are working.

And that communication isn't there. Not just 'lacking' or 'secretive' but entirely absent.

Unless you can read German.

Does that not worry -anyone- else? Does that not frustrate -anyone- else?

Klients is also an option in times of "lacking" and "secretive" information.

People seriously need to get off their blood "Its New Years" trip.

Guess what, people -do- work on new-years.

Emergency Services, can't be without them. Public officials, and so on and so on. The point is that just because people do work on New Years you can not expect it from everyone.

We're not dealing with three or four guys who are nursing a hangover at their kitchen table, we're dealing with a company, with a marketting division, a customer relations division, a support division.

Thank you for more of your inside knowledge on the way in which GameForge operates. I'm sure that every division you mentioned must have been working New Years. Why else would you mention them?

People are also either forgetting my original post, or are too dumb to read it . I 'did' say a full half of this thread was a personal venting of frustrations.

If you don't want people to point out why your frustrations are wrong and why you should go and take a chill pill, do not post about them on a forum.

If you don't want people to reply to you, keep it bottled up inside.

[kirzen]

Nice, people don't agree with you so they either don't understand or are dumb ..... this thread is going to go nicely from here I think.

Well Ashling.

Presuming that absolutely everything I have to say is based on some sort of hell-bent "The Corporations are Evil" crusade isn't exactly showing a great deal of careful, conscise arguement now is it.

I've told people that a good fraction of my original post is personal frustration, but instead of taking that at face value, they'd rather assume I'm just being mean and nasty.

[kirzen]

Ok so Kirzen. What would have YOU done. lets pretend you are the guy incharge of GF(france) you've ha a nice holiday and out of no where you get a phone from one of your employees.

"Sir, Sir."
"Yes what is it" <-- thats you btw
"It appears as if there has been a major fire in one of the Data rooms for ryzom"
"Omgosh, is anyone hurt" <-- you
"We're not sure yet but we know that all of the servers, the site and Klients has gone down"
"Sir?? Sir are you here?"
"Yes im here, i was just thinking" <-- you
"ok Sir, what would you liek us to do?"

So. you have no site, no game and no Klients. What would you do?

Please enlighten me as to how the hell you would have done a better job?

Oh and please. do NOT imply that GF is my personal "saviour" (or Jesus as u said but trying to be a bit more PC) i was actually in favour of Ryzom.org

I sit down with the rest of my employees and finalize the decision to place a bid with Nevrax to purchase the game content of their fabulous MMO. And once I've placed that bid I get on the phone to my head of public relations and ask for a press release to be crafted that can be placed on the front page so that the current players who have heard little to nothing from Nevrax can be told that we're looking forward to working with them in the future.

I have that press release drafted a week before I'm even told that our bid is successful, it goes up on the front page the very date we assume control of the web site. Days later a similar message to tell the playerbase that the registration and billing servers are now online is posted.

At this point I've communicated to my player base that I'm here, and that I care (And this is what people seem to be MISSING ENTIRELY from what I've been trying to say. Downtime isn't important, the reason isn't important, knowing there's someone over at GF that gives a damn? That, is important, and it hasn't been done. And it shouldn't take two weeks, it shouldn't take one week. It should be in place before the sale is final and ready to go.)

But lets continue with this.

My support staff tells me a fire has occured and everything is down.

My response is to immeadiately ask for an estimated time to get the web site back online. Nothing else, the website. Because I want a news bulletin in the news section of that website to tell the player base what's happened.

I tell them second priority is to get Klients back online, and to inform the valued members and customer service representatives working on our end of Klients that we don't have an ETA for server or forum up-time, that a fire occured in the database but that we're optomistic that no crucial data was lost.

Third priority is the forums.

Fourth priority is dual.

Its a news release on the website to tell people what happened as soon as I can get an estimated time from the support staff as to when the game servers are going to be back online. I say this is dual because I'm a foreign company, and this release will have to be a group effort between support staff to provide an updated ETA and PR staff to provide translated copies of the news release for the front page.

Notice the difference?

Communication is the difference. The first priority should be communication, communication is the key to all relationships, be it personal or professional. And people are kidding themselves is they don't feel there is an important relationship between GF and the player base of Ryzom.

[moyaku]

Little baby is having a tantrum...

[kirzen]

gameforge won their bid for ryzom just before Christmas, do you honestly think that in the 5 working days following the courts decision they have taken over anything?

let me enlighten you - of course they haven't!! They have left everything as was in the hands of Jolt and will probably be sitting down seriously with all parties concerned in January to access and understand the company and IP they have purchased.

and no i'm not a gameforge fanboi (please see rather cynical earlier posts )

Alright, now we're getting somewhere. (In regards to people having something interesting to say that isn't "Shut up! Quick picking on GameForge! *sniffle*"

Its very possible that they have taken over quite a bit of the administration of the servers, but its also quite possible that that haven't taken over anything at all.

-But-

The important thing is that someone, somewhere, whether its GF or Nevrax, has control over the information on the front page of this website, and whomever they may be, their very first response in a severe server outage should be to try and communicate with the player base and their in house support staff as to the nature of the problem and when things will be fixed.

Instead the website, Klients, everything goes down and even once they get everything put back together, game servers included...

Still, not a single word outside of Klients.

[ashling]

I've told people that a good fraction of my original post is personal frustration, but instead of taking that at face value, they'd rather assume I'm just being mean and nasty.

Ok then, what reaction do you expect from people to a post that is a good fraction of personal frustration?

[kirzen]

No? I'm sure you, as an employee of GameForge, can tell us all of its inner workings. You could tell us when they are going to work on the game, and when they are going to be able to set down and discuss the problem that have been happening.

Oh, that's right. You are not an employee of GameForge and so don't know how those things are working.

And neither are you.

But what both of us know is that GameForge is company who hasn't much problem with laying out a large sum of money to purchase another company's content. That tells me that they're large enough to have a few employees.

It tells me that not only should the understand the value of communication, but they should be ready to roll the moment their bid hits the table.


Unless you can read German.

Its rusty, but better than some folks I'm sure.

Thank you for more of your inside knowledge on the way in which GameForge operates. I'm sure that every division you mentioned must have been working New Years. Why else would you mention them?

I'm going to at least wager that someone got a phone call when the servers went down in the late morning. And that said person fired off an immeadiate response to someone above him, until it reached a point where it was in the hands of someone who should have control over front page content, enough control to at least fire off a news bulletin to let us know what's happening. I don't think that would be too much for a large company to handle, even on new years.

If you don't want people to point out why your frustrations are wrong and why you should go and take a chill pill, do not post about them on a forum.

As long as they have something intelligent to say abou the matter, like a few of the other posts I've responded to, then I'm more than happy to argue it out with them. But a blanket response like "Hey, don't pick on GameForge" with nothing more to bolster it than the idea that they haven't been around very long and should thus be completely excused for not doing things that other, -much smaller- companies do daily, is silly.

[kirzen]

Little baby is having a tantrum...

No no Moya.

For me to be having a 'tanrum' I would have to actually be upset.

I'm actually having a wonderful time, gives me something to do while I'm busy working away at a node or scanning through my inbox. Sometimes a good arguement is nice, perhaps a little frustrating when people don't seem to want to 'debate' something and are happier to offer childish barbs.

But hey, to each their own. Least I've gotten some people thinking, and if it means that it ends up on someone's desk tomorrow that the player base in Ryzom hungers for more communication from GameForge in the future, then all the better, neh?

[ashling]

No no Moya.

For me to be having a 'tanrum' I would have to actually be upset.

So no personal frustation at all now?

Sometimes a good arguement is nice, perhaps a little frustrating when people don't seem to want to 'debate' something and are happier to offer childish barbs.

Says the person who is saying everyone disagreeing with him isn't able to read what he is saying or is stupid ....

[kirzen]

Ok then, what reaction do you expect from people to a post that is a good fraction of personal frustration?

For them to keep it in mind and take my comments with a grain of salt.

And from there, decide that perhaps shouting me down for mere personal criticism of GameForge might not be the best course of action. Honestly, my hope was to get people to sit back and think about what -they- want in the future from GameForge.

What do 'I' want from GameForge?

I want someone upstairs to realize that in the world of steaming, always-on content, communication is key, and has been sorely lacking from even before GF took control. So I suppose part of my post is a "Hey, GameForge, please learn from one of Nevrax's few mistakes, please communicate with us, please fully utilize the 'news' portion of the main page.