The importance of being earnest... er honest

[Keriwin]

Flame me for posting this if you want but i felt that you should all know this 'disscussion' ive been having with GoA for a while now...

No offense but whats with all the fukups GoAs hitting lately? pised off at the customers? Techies can't be arsed? Wa?

I mean, this week has had... Constant lag, Frontiers problems on two occassions, tonight the login servers are not avaliable... last week the exc/pry cluster got hit.

Also... seems to most people that the item restoration has come to a complete halt? All the people i know that lost items still havn't got them back.

On another note, in my opinion unprofessional behaviour from the company. eg. Takits, even though he's been trying to get at GoA by posting on forums, i would have thought that you should be friendly and not try and get back with sarcastic remarks which in turn you got buttfuked by as it came back on yourself.


Answers? Please...

Pretty offensive and badly informed post for a post that isn't meant to be offensive.

Answers in the order you asked the questions:

No we're not angry at our customers and our techies can be arsed (can't believe I'm replying to these questions)

We are well aware of the problems and are looking into them as usual. But as far as we can see the lag is simply not coming from a part of the internet we can directly influence. If it was we'd influence the crap out of it till the lag was gone. You think we like all this happening to our service?

I have no idea about the login server problem I've been playing most of the weekend myself and haven't had problems with the login server once .. nor have I heard from anyone in my guilds/alliances who had problems with it. I could offcourse be missing it all by chance but the other option is that it might not be as wide spread as people make it seem?

Like we keep repeating but I'll gladly repeat it again Item restoration has all but come to a halt. It isn't going as fast as in the beginning for reasons we've mentioned on this and other boards several times but we will continue to work on them till they are done. If all the people you know haven't had their items restored then you must be some kind of mathematical miracle since we restored over 2000 characters now and have 500 left. All people who reported their items missing in the first couple of days after the incident have gotten their reports replied to. People might want to check their Rightnows to see if they're still set to under investigation or updated. And if we haven't requested more information from them that they just never replied to which makes it impossible for us to help them.

As far as I'm concerned we've been very friendly with Takits. We've just been honest and to the point as well. Some of the things he flinged at us are simply untrue or only partally true at which point we can chose to let him smear our name (further) or we can tell people why some off his points are invalid. If you think we should have been more on the receiving and less on the returning end of it then fair enough but we simply don't agree.

Look we appreciate your input we really do. And we realise that things haven't been very rosey lately (understatement). But we DO care and we ARE working on things as good and as hard as we can.

Not quite sure where this came from as most the answers were in other posts already. We're all frustrated ok. But lets try to keep things civil and work it out rather then to get into ****flinging contests.

I'm not reading any forums at all at the moment as I just don't need the added stress, however I'm adding my 2p here. I was playing off an on all weekend from the States, on a dialup that due to the absolutely crap phone lines in the area I'm in doesn't reach beyond 33.600 and I suffered very very little lag even in the frontier zones which were insane over the weekend. Take that for what it's worth.

Additionally at the moment there are 2, count em 2 GM's taking care of everything... you may ask then why don't they hire more... erm they're trying however when the people you ask to come in for interviews because they have the strongest applications change their minds there isn't a lot you can do...

Req and Xalin are both working their arses off they are human and can only do so much in a day and things have to be prioritised. The situation sucks at the moment, and to be honest it has since August but they are doing what they can. The timing on me leaving really couldn't have been worse but there was nothing I could do about it.

Speaking from outside at the moment, you guys have two GMs who really really care about the game and the servers and alienating them with personal attacks (which is so very beyond uncalled for) isn't going to do anyone any good.

Anyway like I said, my 2p

Zen

now.... what i posted, silly xalin lying

Like we keep repeating but I'll gladly repeat it again Item restoration has all but come to a halt. It isn't going as fast as in the beginning for reasons we've mentioned on this and other boards several times but we will continue to work on them till they are done. If all the people you know haven't had their items restored then you must be some kind of mathematical miracle since we restored over 2000 characters now and have 500 left. All people who reported their items missing in the first couple of days after the incident have gotten their reports replied to. People might want to check their Rightnows to see if they're still set to under investigation or updated. And if we haven't requested more information from them that they just never replied to which makes it impossible for us to help them.

taken from msn...


03/10/2005 20:08:50 (F) Protege Moi (F) Xalin what are you guys doing still on btw?
03/10/2005 20:09:28 (F) Protege Moi (F) Xalin heard of something called home?
03/10/2005 20:10:04 Xalin (F) Protege Moi (F) heard of something called Prydwen?
03/10/2005 20:10:20 (F) Protege Moi (F) Xalin item restoration still?
03/10/2005 20:10:33 Xalin (F) Protege Moi (F) yep
03/10/2005 20:11:33 (F) Protege Moi (F) Xalin many more to do?
03/10/2005 20:14:21 Xalin (F) Protege Moi (F) little over 500



o rly?

I have no idea about the login server problem I've been playing most of the weekend myself and haven't had problems with the login server once .. nor have I heard from anyone in my guilds/alliances who had problems with it. I could offcourse be missing it all by chance but the other option is that it might not be as wide spread as people make it seem?

http://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=179962
http://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=179940


and you guys say you listen to your customers...

oh also...

i mean...
1 - you told people that there wasnt many,
2 - then that cluster wouldn't arrive before all items were restored (and lied about that)
3 - you then said that there still wasnt many to do
4 - october 3rd - xalin little over 500 to go
5 - october 17th - req 500ish to go
6 - november 28th - xalin 500 left


all i can say is... WHAT THE ****!???

Also - from what ive seen you'll be losing quite a bit of customers after their subs run out unless lag is sorted

Did you ever stop to think that the rate at which reports come in is the same or greater than the rate at which the GMs can do them?

Yes we underestimated the problem of the stripped characters at first. We thought it would be less than it was (the indications Mythic gave us were way off) and we decided AT THE TIME that it would be best to cluster once everything was done. When it became clear that it would take a long time to restore everything we changed our decision to cluster and then continue with the item restoration.

And you make that seem as if we planned it all and lied to you on purpose??

Oh it gets better....

Did you ever stop to think that the rate at which reports come in is the same or greater than the rate at which the GMs can do them?

Yes we underestimated the problem of the stripped characters at first. We thought it would be less than it was (the indications Mythic gave us were way off) and we decided AT THE TIME that it would be best to cluster once everything was done. When it became clear that it would take a long time to restore everything we changed our decision to cluster and then continue with the item restoration.

And you make that seem as if we planned it all and lied to you on purpose??

you still told your customers far from the truth

you still told your customers far from the truth

Not at all. We told people what our intention was at the time. When we said 'we will cluster once all restorations are complete' that was entirely true at the time. The fact that we later re-evaluated the situation and went ahead with clustering when we did, doesn't make our first statement a lie.
We did not decieve anyone.

And this is the exact reason why we wouldn't give people exact numbers. Because someone is going to draw wrong conclusions from them.

With clustering loads of people reopened their accounts and we've been getting a steady stream of new reports in. We've also been doing a steady stream. Even stronger if we had stopped accepting news ones when we first mentioned we had 500 left we would have been done now.

Requiel explained why we did cluster even though we weren't done with the item restores. Re-evaluating your options is something very normal and healthy if you want to have a cheap shot at us for re-evaluating then be my guest ... oh wait you already are.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You are more then welcome to share your opinions and ask for answers. But the way you're going about "pointing things out, expressing your views, and asking for answers" is a bit on the flamey side which, frankly, won't help your case any.

TOTALLY contradicting themselves yet again

God i felt smug getting back for Takits posting this one...

And this is the exact reason why we wouldn't give people exact numbers. Because someone is going to draw wrong conclusions from them.

so you are decieving people? not telling people what they want to know yet twisting the actual truth and telling them that is deception.


F.A.O. -

Main Entry: deception
Part of Speech: noun 1
Definition: misleading
Synonyms: bamboozlement, beguilement, betrayal, blarney, boondoggle, cheat, circumvention, cozenage, craftiness, cunning, deceit, deceitfulness, deceptiveness, defraudation, dirt, disinformation, dissimulation, double-dealing, duplicity, equivocation, falsehood, flimflam, fraud, fraudulence, guile, gyp, hokum, hypocrisy, imposition, insincerity, juggling, legerdemain, lying, mendacity, pretense, prevarication, snow job, sophism, treachery, treason, trickery, trickiness, trumpery, untruth
Antonyms: candidness, honesty, integrity, openness
Source: Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1)
Copyright © 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.



I can do that kind of thing too *claps*

Following your logic it means that Mythic have deceived the whole player community for around 4 years because right at the start of DAoC they said there would never be any player controlled mounts and now there are?

So you believe that Mythic have deceived everyone for 4 years?

can you find the publicised quote of that? or did mythic state (which I believe they did) that there were no plans for there to be player controlled mounts?

also as that is not customer related (where the problems i am posting which IS losing YOU and not mythic, customers/money) but more of a long term development as it was needed to keep up with the likes of WoW (most of DR was copied from WoW if you look closely).

While mythic have gone on to develop the game for the benefit of the community, GOA on the other hand have taken little action to protect themselves for the longevity of the game or taken any action to build customer loyalty which is in the end creating such huge problems as you are facing now with another spate of customers leaving the european servers while this is not due (this time) to the release of a MMORPG competitior, this time is down to the sheer incompetence of GOA management, poor marketing, bad communication and general bad feeling as the playerbase feel that they have been lied to once too often

Did you ever stop to think that the rate at which reports come in is the same or greater than the rate at which the GMs can do them?

Erivoss, did you ever think that the rate at which the problems come into GOAs systems could be an indicator of some rather serious issues?

If 10 people report issues... it is 10 problems... if 1000 people report problems.. then there is a big problem... if 2500 people report the same symptoms... then there is a disaster happening and everything else should be put aside until every one of those 2500 customers has had their issue satisfactorily rectified.

And the current situation reflects that there was a 2500 report problem 2000 have been resolved (not all of which to the customers ultimate satisfaction) but the remaining 20% remain unresolved.

with 20% remaining unresolved GOA saw fit to release the cluster, and expect those 20% of customers with problems to accept that the resoration has "all but come to a halt" (meaning in english that it has basically stopped) and then you honestly expect the customer base to take this lying down.?

so apart from resolving one set of issues before moving to a state where there was potential for more issues you went ahead and have only compounded the issues.

working for a corporate us company and working with clients face to face and dealing with their money too i have to know that what i propose to them in writing has to go ahead otherwise we pay the consequences, lose business/money and jobs.

now maybe because you dont deal with you customers face to face and maybe because like you've said in posts your bosses don't need to deal with forums and read what their client base has to say you can hide the fact that you are doing a sh1t job nowadays (yes in past it was good, eg. when Kemor worked his fuking balls off basically by himself near on 20hours a day and at weekends from office + home) whereas GMs now are only avaliable what 8 hours a day and not in 8 hour shifts where one goes on and another takes over.

thats the end of it... ive now resigned from my E&E spot and have posted this link so as giving GoA a chance to read.

Flame me all you want, just thought the community should know

[Ankh Morpork]

I wonder if the will allow people to be E&E anymore when you post things like this (regardless of the truth or lies in the posts).

/Ankh

[Belisar]

Eeek don't read this lot after you have had a drink

The part that worries me is the bit where Xalin says "**************************".

If that is the case - we as players cannot change it, GOA cannot change it and therefore it is never going to go away. Ah well subs run out soon - maybe it will be time to find something less frustrating to play.

Sorry to see another E&E step away - I hope GOA take note of the protest but I also wonder if we have just lost a player voice in the place that matters.

[Quinlan]

Hmm interesting read i have to say. For me, and this is a IMO etc, they havent done much lieing about the numbers. You say they lied about the 'being done before cluster'..well cluster had to come at one point and obviously it took to long(as we see now otherwise we would still be unclustered) So they descided to cluster. Any decsision can be changed when new input and information is available.

Also i think you and takit misread the 'all but halted' and i know this will probably give more posts. All but halted in my book means everything but halted...iow...they are still working on it. He even says it 3 lines later but that you seemed to have missed

So personally i dont see what the fuss is about on this subject. Except for the point that we have 2 overworked GM's who can barely keep up with the rate of fixing people against the new incoming rightnows for fixing and some descisions have been changed which happens in every company.

[Quinlan]

[quote="Belisar"]Eeek don't read this lot after you have had a drink ]
They cannot fix it directly themselves. They have to ask someone else to fix it. The same situation was there a few months back. It eventually got fixed (and yes it took waaaaaaay to long). I trust it will be fixed. But i sincerly hope it will be fast

[Overdue]

Tis prolly something to do with their routers playing up again:p

Anyway, as Quinlan said I noticed that too. Should really also have dates on so we can interpret this better.

Also like to add that PLEASE stop throwing personal insults at Requiel and Xalin, they try their best and get flamed for it. Just put yourself in their place and see what you think, even if you are getting paid I might feel the urge to leave if a little over a 1000 people were angry with me:|.

[Gahn]

Hmm interesting read i have to say. For me, and this is a IMO etc, they havent done much lieing about the numbers. You say they lied about the 'being done before cluster'..well cluster had to come at one point and obviously it took to long(as we see now otherwise we would still be unclustered) So they descided to cluster. Any decsision can be changed when new input and information is available.

Also i think you and takit misread the 'all but halted' and i know this will probably give more posts. All but halted in my book means everything but halted...iow...they are still working on it. He even says it 3 lines later but that you seemed to have missed

So personally i dont see what the fuss is about on this subject. Except for the point that we have 2 overworked GM's who can barely keep up with the rate of fixing people against the new incoming rightnows for fixing and some descisions have been changed which happens in every company.

Item restoration's problem is all down to the slow going state in which it obviously felt; no need of a Physics Nobel to understand that an understimated manwork force with problems generated by Cluster and ppl coming back (and NAKED) for cluster would have only made situation worse.
Now we still got ppl with toons naked from months and new ppl with new compliants as they reopen accounts, add to that: Frontiers Zones crashes, Lag (mainly on since Cluster happened in this shape) etc, and that, meanwhile, a GM resigned ... Situation ain't a typical good one i'd say.

[Kari]

Also i think you and takit misread the 'all but halted' and i know this will probably give more posts. All but halted in my book means everything but halted...iow...they are still working on it. He even says it 3 lines later but that you seemed to have missed

'All but' in English translates as 'Just about'. If taken literally it appears to say the opposite, but English is a funny old language. Takit got it exactly right - perhaps the GM didnt understand the phrase he was using I guess, but it reads as 'restoration work has just about come to a halt'.

Seems there's a lot of infighting going on between the E&E's, GM's & GOA as a whole, but considering how the last few months have gone, that's quite reassuring to be perfectly honest, they should be worried.

[Quinlan]

'All but' in English translates as 'Just about'. If taken literally it appears to say the opposite, but English is a funny old language. Takit got it exactly right - perhaps the GM didnt understand the phrase he was using I guess, but it reads as 'restoration work has just about come to a halt'.

Seems there's a lot of infighting going on between the E&E's, GM's & GOA as a whole, but considering how the last few months have gone, that's quite reassuring to be perfectly honest, they should be worried.

he makes it clear tho in his next line...where he said they are working on it. So maybe officially it means what you say. He made it clear how he ment it. And tbh i wouldnt read it like you but interpretation is a very personal thing.

As Gahn stated the obvious the situation is bad atm with only 2 GM's and so much to do. The one thing i would 'blame' GOA for is not finding a GM or related personell to get the stuff done faster which they say is hard to do..funny in a country where there where just riots cause so many people are unmployed etc

[Takitothemacs]

If I was working on a new development... if I worked on 100 items a day for 20 days... then went to 1 item a week I would class that as "all but come to a halt" while I could still say that I was still working on it.

This is just to clarify my understanding of the statement.