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disastrous twitter communication
torrenz1
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I'm sure the community appreciates the extra hours the person over at @NeverwinterGame has clocked today to try and keep us informed, so this is no accusation to him or her personally. I don't want to complain about the downtime itself either, because I am glad the devs are taking as much time with this issue as they need. What bothers me is that I have been baited with false communications to stay awake all night only to see ETA after ETA discarded and buried under apologetic PR talk and amiable smiley faces.
I'm only speaking for myself here, but perhaps others have experienced this in the same way. Surely the initial 1h downtime sounded too good to be true for anyone, but I was hoping to see something within, say, the first five hours. As it stands we're past the nine hour mark and at this point I've so little faith in @NeverwinterGame that I am perfectly comfortable typing this overly long complaint without so much as glancing at the (5) new tweets that I am convinced contain only vain chitchat to placate and stall the community.
I get that you want to communicate, and real-time social media can be a good medium for that, and I'm sure nobody in the PR business would advocate a communication along the lines of "this is a gigantic mess, you can go to bed/work while we figure this **** out and we'll let you know what's going on tomorrow", but perhaps more players would appreciate that kind of honesty? I for one did not appreciate being fed bluffed promises every hour, no matter how friendly the messenger.
I could've gotten a good night's rest from the first ETA to the most recent. I will likely miss the actual news because I'm about to drop dead of sleep deprivation. Any excessive grumpiness in my post I attribute to this condition and apologize only half-heartedly.
EDIT: Again, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. This is not intended to be unconstructive.
I agree, the CM/PR guy is likely doing his best with what he's allowed to do and he shouldn't be the scapegoat. I can understand the unexpected finalization hiccups, but I would love less placebo ETAs and overall a shift in the quality-quantity balance of communications in the future, from whoever is ultimately in charge of that.
I'm only speaking for myself here, but perhaps others have experienced this in the same way. Surely the initial 1h downtime sounded too good to be true for anyone, but I was hoping to see something within, say, the first five hours. As it stands we're past the nine hour mark and at this point I've so little faith in @NeverwinterGame that I am perfectly comfortable typing this overly long complaint without so much as glancing at the (5) new tweets that I am convinced contain only vain chitchat to placate and stall the community.
I get that you want to communicate, and real-time social media can be a good medium for that, and I'm sure nobody in the PR business would advocate a communication along the lines of "this is a gigantic mess, you can go to bed/work while we figure this **** out and we'll let you know what's going on tomorrow", but perhaps more players would appreciate that kind of honesty? I for one did not appreciate being fed bluffed promises every hour, no matter how friendly the messenger.
I could've gotten a good night's rest from the first ETA to the most recent. I will likely miss the actual news because I'm about to drop dead of sleep deprivation. Any excessive grumpiness in my post I attribute to this condition and apologize only half-heartedly.
EDIT: Again, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. This is not intended to be unconstructive.
I agree, the CM/PR guy is likely doing his best with what he's allowed to do and he shouldn't be the scapegoat. I can understand the unexpected finalization hiccups, but I would love less placebo ETAs and overall a shift in the quality-quantity balance of communications in the future, from whoever is ultimately in charge of that.
Post edited by torrenz1 on
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It's unbelievable incompetent to post every 5 minutes that you'll have an ETA soon or an announcement for 9 hours straight.
I completely agree with you. I've been here refreshing since the **** servers went down, and I keep trying because of Soon there will be news.
But I can't really blame the CM for it, it's his job to inform the public in the friendliest way possible, but the only thing he is allowed to say comes from his superiors. He can't say 'screw it, the game's broken, we'll let you know if we ever get around to fixing it', even though that might be the case. He has to instill confidence in the playerbase that PWE is taking this seriously, and are working on a solution. Why do you think they pretty much had a plan 3 hours ago, but have been finalizing/confirming/adapting it ever since? The actual plan hasn't changed (much, probably), but PR had to weigh in, the developers had to weigh in, QA had to estimate how long they would need to test it etc... He's just being fed information to bleed through to us.
Who can we blame then? I vote for ourselves. Staying up all night refreshing forum pages and twitter waiting for a statement is just dumb. Could have just as well gone to bed and found out what the statement was later.
Oh well, I guess I can read about it tomorrow.
They've said countless times they're not sure on even an ETA. Just go to bed and hopefully things will be back to normal in the morning.
"We are working on the issue"
then again 6-8 hours later the same line repeats till mystically and magically the servers were back up.
If I had to guess I don't think it's that community manager's fault (they work for Perfect World, not Cryptic). They're probably told what they can and can't say.
But what I find absolutely asinine is how hours ago today they said the development team is waiting on an "action plan". Just now this same rhetoric was repeated... waiting on an "action plan". Translation: nothing is being done. In other word, I wouldn't be surprised if this situation isn't resolved until Monday.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
I don't buy that their just forced to say whatever they're told. They can still use their judgment I'm sure and they have shown theirs is very poor.
I am not sure what's worse though... Nothing at all for 8 hours, or Saying "Just another hour and we'll have something" then an hour later, "another hour".
If they told us "8 hours or more" up front, then they can tap dance and do magic tricks all they want while the time goes by. At least the entire community isn't riveted to every morsel of 'hat-eating' and quick quips until the cows come home.
Loki < The Illuminati > 60 - Control Wizard
Protocol 60 - Great Weapon Fighter
The best he can is telling people over and over again he will post an ETA soon and never does? I work on multiple outages daily at my work. If someone handled it that way they would not be faring well with management.
I work in IT consulting. For us, whenever our PMs stall the clients with: "We're waiting on an action plan" it is code for: "The only guy who knows whats going on on this project is MIA and we cannot reach him on the phone. Hang tight till we can find someone who has a clue".
Wow, all he can do. Again, blindly defending incompetence with flat out ignorance.
this guy is probably right xD
The guy ran out of things to say like 9 hours ago.
I really have to laugh at this, because it's sooooo true. Every single word of it. Someone who works in the IT field myself I find it hilarious that the "updates" are the exact same phrases my guys use instead of saying I don't have a clue.
Pretty sure anyone with experience in handling outages could have handled that a lot better. I know I could have. Making promises you can't keep is pretty much customer service 101.
Not sure if you have even been reading the tweets this guy has been sending but he's resulted to telling everyone he will eat his hat if an eta/plan is not posted by midnight. You honestly believe he is just doing the best he can and no one could do better?
It's because we know from experience.