Offerings

[kirzen]

So no personal frustation at all now?

Frustration, certainly.

But am I 'upset', or 'angry', or 'tempermental'.

Perhaps the very slightest bit, and that only raises its head when people choose to senselessly decry rather than choose a 'point of arguement'

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

Since we're in the mood for questions.

If you make what you feel is an intelligent if -very- pointed suggestion to a third party and have a dozen people step in and rather than 'discuss' your suggestion, choose to go "Hey, Don't pick on them!"

Is it that they haven't read your suggestion? Is it that they don't understand your suggestion? Or is it that instead of coming up with an 'alternative' suggestion, they just want to shout and stomp their own feet?

[ffxjosh]

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.

Hindsight Is always 20-20 ey?

No doubt they will look back and find ways to improve. maybe they wont. maybe they thought they did the best job they could. if so, if the same thing happens at the same time expect the same thingas to happen.

I'm sure that GF will take this as a lesson.

I think its time we moved on. *raises beers glass from new years* Here's to a brighter future??

[kirzen]

Hindsight Is always 20-20 ey?

No doubt they will look back and find ways to improve. maybe they wont. maybe they thought they did the best job they could. if so, if the same thing happens at the same time expect the same thingas to happen.

I'm sure that GF will take this as a lesson.

I think its time we moved on. *raises beers glass from new years* Here's to a brighter future??

It always is, and it was honestly the entire reason for my post. The hope that someone who has some control over the situation will read this and think "Maybe we could have done better" or "Maybe we really haven't been communicating enough with our player base".

That's all we can ask really, is that every mistake comes with an improvement.

I'll definately drink to that!

[ffxjosh]

"Maybe we really haven't been communicating enough with our player base".

As a thought, is this their first *English* speaking game?

EDIT: English as the priamry lang

[kirzen]

As a thought, is this their first *English* speaking game?

Good question!

Their website lists that their target market is diverese.

Brazil / China / Denmark / UK / USA / France / Spain (Just a few choices from the many.)

They do have english language titles, but I'd have to find one online to try it out and find out if its available in english.

Edit : They administer other Web-Based english language products, some of them even look pretty sweet.

[kirzen]

As a thought, is this their first *English* speaking game?

EDIT: English as the priamry lang

Primary language I doubt.

But in the same way you can't really consider Ryzom as 'primarilly english' considering it was designed and developed in France by a French company.

[ashling]

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

Since we're in the mood for questions.

If you make what you feel is an intelligent if -very- pointed suggestion to a third party and have a dozen people step in and rather than 'discuss' your suggestion, choose to go "Hey, Don't pick on them!"

Is it that they haven't read your suggestion? Is it that they don't understand your suggestion? Or is it that instead of coming up with an 'alternative' suggestion, they just want to shout and stomp their own feet?

Well that perticular comment of mine wasn't a question but possibley they disagreed with your attitude towards Gameforge and felt that attitude needed comment more then anything else you said. If you'd just said they should have communicated better through more routes then klients I doubt many if any people would have disagreed. Instead you've been defending an original post that you admit was coloured by frustration by insulting people that didn't like that and claiming your the one getting picked on by childish barbs. You don't see any irony in that last part?

[kirzen]

Well that perticular comment of mine wasn't a question but possibley they disagreed with your attitude towards Gameforge and felt that attitude needed comment more then anything else you said. If you'd just said they should have communicated better through more routes then klients I doubt many if any people would have disagreed. Instead you've been defending an original post that you admit was coloured by frustration by insulting people that didn't like that and claiming your the one getting picked on by childish barbs. You don't see any irony in that last part?

But wouldn't it be a great deal more useful to make a suggestion as to why they choose to agree? You'll notice that towards the people that have kept their posts civil and quiet and fostered the notion that GF probably hasn't taken on any true responsiblity for Ryzom, I've in turn remained mostly complacent.

Its not 'just' that they haven't communicated better, its that they haven't communicated at all. GameForge as an entity has been entirely hands off except for a very brief message to tell us the subscription servers were back online, and an interview prompted by an ourside additional entity, that's entirely in German, and is woefully short and goes no where (I've read it). As for Klients, even once Klients came back up, what we were given by the reps on Klients is that even they didn't know what was going on. Which made Klients useless to us other than as a shoulder to cry on. Which though its appreciated, isn't a function of GameForge, its a function of the wicked representatives over at Jolt, for whom I've nothing but praise and admiration, they're doing their best to make a **** situation better.

I'm defending the few parts of my original post that were important 'regardless' of the frustration that colored them. I expected my frustration to color them, and that's why the first words in my original post were supposed to be taken as "Please try and look 'through' the frustration and anger and talk about the issues at hand with communication between the player base and GameForge".

Instead, all people decided to work on was that frustration.

I reserve the right to call someone dumb if -after- reading a disclaimer they decide to proceed anyhow, in the same manner that I'd do with someone who disregards a "Please don't get too close to the edge" sign and falls off of a cliff.

That said, I suppose that my disclaimer wasn't big enough, but honestly I think that the -vast- majority of people were interested in only the tone of my comment rather than the words, perhaps I'll just have to use a much bigger sign next time, or color it bright yellow. "Caution - Trollish Post - Proceed With Care and Read Carefully"

*grin*

But anyhow, moot point. The game is up, and GameForge will either choose to find better ways to communicate with us in the future, or they won't.

Edit : I'm also going to go out on a limb and remind you that my comment about 'childish barbs' was directed to a -single post-

[moyaku]

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?

I get your point, although I think it s pointless to shoot at GameForge right now (or anytime actually) for a few reasons :

1) Come on they just arrived at the wheel ! give them a little time to get to know the system. The only magic in Ryzom is In Game. Plus if I am not mistaken GameForge is certainly used to manage BrowserGame but Ryzom is their first go on MMORPG (at least it s the first Time they Rule it from head to toe)

2) It's Useless. It won't change anything right now and pointing out at troubles they already know about won't do any good it can only add some pressure over their shoulders and that's certainly not what they need to do their job properly.

3) Can you imagine how many changes occure when ownership of a company changes hands like it just happen to Nevrax/GameForge ? It was obvious whoever was to take over Ryzom would have a lot to do before game development/marketing can go on normally.

Just give them a break their only human not gods. They already saved our game from death so be grateful for this and wait a bit for things to settle down.

[ashling]

Its not 'just' that they haven't communicated better, its that they haven't communicated at all. GameForge as an entity has been entirely hands off except for a very brief message to tell us the subscription servers were back online, and an interview prompted by an ourside additional entity, that's entirely in German, and is woefully short and goes no where (I've read it).

A minor point but a Gameforge staff member has posted a few times on this forum since the change in ownership. I think he was the liason to the Nevrex office and staff that Gameforge took over.

I'm defending the few parts of my original post that were important 'regardless' of the frustration that colored them. I expected my frustration to color them, and that's why the first words in my original post were supposed to be taken as "Please try and look 'through' the frustration and anger and talk about the issues at hand with communication between the player base and GameForge".

Instead, all people decided to work on was that frustration.

I reserve the right to call someone dumb if -after- reading a disclaimer they decide to proceed anyhow, in the same manner that I'd do with someone who disregards a "Please don't get too close to the edge" sign and falls off of a cliff.

That said, I suppose that my disclaimer wasn't big enough, but honestly I think that the -vast- majority of people were interested in only the tone of my comment rather than the words, perhaps I'll just have to use a much bigger sign next time, or color it bright yellow. "Caution - Trollish Post - Proceed With Care and Read Carefully"

The better approach next time would be to post your point without the rant part to it or to not get upset when the rant part just detracts from what you were trying to say.

Edit : I'm also going to go out on a limb and remind you that my comment about 'childish barbs' was directed to a -single post-

While it was in responce to one poster I read the people in "when people don't seem to want to 'debate' something and are happier to offer childish barbs" as directing it at more then the one person you quoted. A mistake on my part if your saying you didn't mean it that way but I'm standing by it being a reasonible mistake to make from the context