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Dear Devs, here is the reason why so many people get angry...

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  • notauriousnotaurious Member Posts: 156 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    I don't blame the community manager. They probably got no info and thusly just tweeted the standard mojo. It's staying on the safe side for the job.

    It's also Sunday. I would imagine some of these people are coming in or conferencing in on their day off and holding down for a deep night to resolve this. Most of us would be smart and ignore our boss if he called us on our day off. These guys are doing something, and that is far better than nothing.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Short Code Copy/Paste: NW-DJC4R9H3R
  • raphaeldisantoraphaeldisanto Member Posts: 402 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Nice OP. Except that, frankly, no company would ever post anything like that. If any of you work for a large organization, go ask your marketing people or your director of marketing what they'd do in this situation.

    My bet is, they'd do exactly the same thing as Cryptic and PWE do.

    Because that's how big companies operate.

    And any marketing staffer who dared to make a public statement like that would likely find himself or herself out of a job before the twitter feed had even caught up.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • khandar21khandar21 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    0gb1Jjy.gif
  • kartosathentia1kartosathentia1 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    That was the biggest waste of my time ever. Thanks for posting such useless information. Now, please look back at what you posted and tell yourself, "****, I need a life" because truth is you need one badly.
  • tredotredo Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    trickshaw wrote: »
    Maybe I'm completely off base and Developers are totally aware of how they drive a goodly chunk of players completely insane with unscheduled down time or emergency maintenance. In which case, good for you. You troll like a master anon at /b. Perhaps they don't. If you're a Developer and you are a member of the latter demographic and not the former then this thread is written explicitly for you.

    The primary cause of player distress during these unfortunate events isn't the fact that the server is down. In fact, despite popular forumite belief, your average MMO gamer is quite reasonable, intelligent and understanding. Sure, you have that initial shock of "Server Not Responding" then the follow up kick in the jar-jars as the forums fail to respond due to every nerd on the planet trying to find out if it's just him or the entire population who got disconnected. And then of course you have the supplementary realization that the servers have gone down "again" and the "AAAARGH!" that follows.

    But shortly after that initial 2 minutes of aggravation the coherent side of 99 out of 100 people's brain kicks in and they either move on with their day or wait patiently for an update.

    This. This right here is where you, as Developers, completely and unequivocally--every... single... time--drop the ball with damage control. Somewhere along the line during the last 15 years someone decided that it was good policy to keep their player base utterly in the dark in hopes that rhetorical idiocy, like the following example, would placate the population. Allow me to illustrate by using one of the most insulting public addresses I've seen since the Gulf Oil Spill.

    It reads as follows,

    "We have a plan of action. We're verifying the exact timeline, then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting. We're not finished yet, folks, but we're getting closer -- thank you all for your patience."

    Allow me to break this master piece of stupidity down for you, the Developer, so you "see" what we "see" when we read this kind of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.

    "We have a plan of action." --- Yeah, no kidding. We kind of figured you would. Instead of telling us the obvious how about you tell us WHAT the plan of action is and why it took 8 hours to figure out a plan of action?

    "We're verifying the exact timeline..." --- Really? You're just NOW doing this? As opposed to 8 hours ago?

    "...then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting." --- Who are these "key stakeholders"? Are you talking about the players? You know... the most "key" of all "key stakeholders"? Share holders? Gods don't tell me you're going to have a share holders meeting before you decide to post a time line. Are you referring to lead developers or some big wig at PWE?

    "We're not finished yet..." --- Are the servers back up? Nope. Then yeah, I figured that part out for myself thanks.

    "...but we're getting closer." --- I should hope so. Although it would be pretty funny if you were getting "further away".

    And the best part...

    "...thank you all for your patience." --- Ok this one sentence pisses people off more than the entirety of moronic rhetoric that came before it. 1.) No one is being "patient" because you are doing a horrible... H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E... job of keeping people in the loop and 2.) This single sentence is so patronizing it infuriates more than it placates.

    Allow me to give you an example of what a proper public statement would be in order to placate your players:

    Step 1 - AS SOON AS THE SERVERS GO DOWN

    "Alright guys, here's the situation: People, as many of you are aware of, were duping Astral Diamonds effectively destroying any semblance of value that currency held in-game. To contain the damage as early as possible we brought the servers down. For now, we're going to have a meeting to figure out the best course of action to take in order to correct the damage, ensure this doesn't happen again and to punish those who were blatantly perpetrating the problem to begin with. Shortly after the meeting is over, I'll come back on here to let you guys know what the plan is and an ETA for server restoration.

    BE ADVISED: This will be quite the endeavor and the server(s) will likely be down for quite some time.

    I should have word for you within the hour."


    Step 2 - AS SOON AS THE MEETING IS OVER

    "Ok everyone, here is our plan of attack. We've decided that the most cost effective and time efficient way of handing this situation is as follows:

    One team is being assigned to fix the mechanical issues within the games code which allowed for this problem to occur to being with. Another team is tasked with finding the point in time when this problem became main stream and started to negatively impact the game on a large scale. This will be the point in which we roll everything back (or as near as we can get it). Finally, we have a third team dedicated to tracing down the perpetrators of the "economic crash" to ensure that they are properly dealt with as per our Terms of Service.

    Rest assured we are extremely sorry about the inconvenience but please be patient and we will get this resolved as fast as we can. With that said, be advised that there is no ETA on the servers coming back up and we expect this to be a long day if not night so those of you who were planning on spending the day in Neverwinter, as grateful as we are for your patronage, should not expect to get online today.

    Again, we apologize for this outage and we will do our best to expedite the process but we are committed to ensuring that this doesn't happen again and in order to do that we're going to have to work on this for the better part of the day if not in it's entirety. If anything changes I will make sure to update you post haste but until then thank you again for playing Neverwinter!"


    And then post this EVERYWHERE.

    RIGHT on your FRONT page as well as in the Launcher so anyone who comes by can see it without ever setting foot in the forums.

    Do you see the difference there?

    Players, if given I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N, will happily give you as much time as you need in order to rectify the problem. Yeah, can't play today, that sucks but at least I know --WHY-- and I know not to waste my time sitting by the 'puter or double checking twitter every 10 minutes. No gaming today, hey guys let's go catch a movie instead or maybe I'll get tomorrow's chores done today so I can game tomorrow instead?

    It's that easy.

    That simple.

    Information. Honesty. That's what people want; not rhetoric and patronization. We get enough of that from the leaders of our respective countries. We don't need that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in our virtual escape. I guarantee you... guarantee... that the next time something like this happens--and it will--if you follow what I just outlined for you, players will not only be GRATEFUL but you'll cut down on misinformation, speculation and rage threads on your forums.

    Plus, the white knights who get off on patrolling your forums and being complete jerks to anyone asking for info won't have anything to do and, to be perfectly frank, that's just hilarious in my book.

    You can thank me for my consultation with Astral Diamonds in-game. 1 billion should suffice.

    ;)

    P.S.

    It took me, literally, 20 minutes to type this in it's entirety. Unless your PR staff is populated entirely of special needs chimpanzees it shouldn't take E-I-G-H-T hours for someone to post something remotely resembling a coherent update on progress.

    THAT is what really ticks people off.


    yeah... what he said!! I could not agree more! Perfect statement in my opinion!
  • mustachemavmustachemav Member Posts: 115 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Sometimes i wonder just how well some of you who post know the history of Cryptic & PWE. Its been a complete PR cluster F when it comes to communication to the player base. Now I only know the company since Beta of STO and a little of CO but i'm not at all surprised with the player base reaction to this whole situation.

    Iv'e seen it all too many times before and sadly im sure those who dont rage quit and stick this one out will find something else to rage on in the coming months after this is resolved. Cause im sure its not going to be resolved in a manner that appeases everyone. But again, its typical.
    Facebook | STOked Radio
    Twitter | @STOkedshow
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • apexjanapexjan Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Wel said. Hope they learn something from this
  • drizttydriztty Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    well said trickshaw, lets hope their pr learns a little lesson from this
  • brokensaintvxbrokensaintvx Member Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    rakeleer wrote: »
    It is kind of mind-boggling why MMO teams have migrated to this "Don't say anything" philosophy of dealing with their customers...

    But as someone that works in IT, and is a part of the damage control team for a large network, I know what it means when there's no communication.

    It means A) Someone royally screwed up, B) Someone doesn't want to own up to it, C) No one is absolutely sure how they screwed up and how to fix it.

    So apparently, that's the status quo on these teams. It's likely there aren't enough people with sufficient expertise to do the work, and this method of "communication" is to compensate.

    Don't get me wrong, I don't want to personally slander any of the, I'm certain hard working and underpaid, staff at Cryptic... But silence speaks volumes.

    I certainly feel bad for the community manager whose job it is to cover for them while they frantically try to empty a leaking boat of water.

    It's a communications method known as Circular Reasoning. Circular Reasoning is a very specific type of Logical Fallacy in where, the less information you give someone about a certain topic the better most people (the ignorant masses) feel about the situation. Effectively, in order to use Circular Reasoning all you have to do is talk in one big circle, which in turn causes the listener to listen in one big circle. It generates, believe it or not, brand loyalty. It causes a products user to repeatedly check in on it's progress (Just like checking twitter or the NW:O forums for updates) to see if your favorite past time, bar, or cigarette company is still alive and well.

    Here's are two great examples of a Circular Reasoning:

    You should exercise because it's good for you.

    Basically all that says is "you should exercise, because you should exercise, because you should exercise....because you should exercise..." you get the point.

    Ethnic Cleansing should be practiced regularly because other races of people are bad.

    Well... first off, it's not just circular reasoning, it's also racist!


    Circular Reasoning typically helps to generate false trust in a companies brand, and is used all over in the media. Just watch ANY commercial on television and you will see it smeared with any number of Logical Fallacies, specifically in videos where sex-appeal is utilized heavily.
  • antovarasantovaras Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    People get upset because a) they are unable to think rationally, b) are self entitled muppets, c) Arrogant enough to believe they know better...
    A world to defend
    A city to protect
    innocents to save
    "Why?" They ask "they hate you"
    We're heroes it's what we do.
    *patiently waiting on Paragon City*
  • lishyaaklishyaak Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Trickshaw...thank you for posting this. Somebody needed to explain this
  • trickshawtrickshaw Member Posts: 497 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Derp-da-derpity-DERP!

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • proudfurryproudfurry Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 22 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Agreeeeeeeeeddd +1
  • trickshawtrickshaw Member Posts: 497 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    antovaras wrote: »
    People get upset because a) they are unable to think rationally, b) are self entitled muppets, c) Arrogant enough to believe they know better...

    The irony of this post, given your posting history, is palpable.

    Just sayin'.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • warfluxwarflux Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    antovaras wrote: »
    People get upset because a) they are unable to think rationally, b) are self entitled muppets, c) Arrogant enough to believe they know better...

    Claiming there are only 3 reasons why people get upset is even more than arrogant. It's....Not even going to bother with this.
  • visgangvisgang Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 34
    edited May 2013
    trickshaw has many many good points. couldn't agree more.
  • warfluxwarflux Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    trickshaw wrote: »
    The irony of this post, given your posting history, is palpable.

    Just sayin'.

    That's funny, I was considering calling his post ironic. It reeks of arrogance.
  • char561char561 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Please hire him as your head of pr
  • dcoy1dcoy1 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    trickshaw wrote: »
    Maybe I'm completely off base and Developers are totally aware of how they drive a goodly chunk of players completely insane with unscheduled down time or emergency maintenance. In which case, good for you. You troll like a master anon at /b. Perhaps they don't. If you're a Developer and you are a member of the latter demographic and not the former then this thread is written explicitly for you.

    The primary cause of player distress during these unfortunate events isn't the fact that the server is down. In fact, despite popular forumite belief, your average MMO gamer is quite reasonable, intelligent and understanding. Sure, you have that initial shock of "Server Not Responding" then the follow up kick in the jar-jars as the forums fail to respond due to every nerd on the planet trying to find out if it's just him or the entire population who got disconnected. And then of course you have the supplementary realization that the servers have gone down "again" and the "AAAARGH!" that follows.

    But shortly after that initial 2 minutes of aggravation the coherent side of 99 out of 100 people's brain kicks in and they either move on with their day or wait patiently for an update.

    This. This right here is where you, as Developers, completely and unequivocally--every... single... time--drop the ball with damage control. Somewhere along the line during the last 15 years someone decided that it was good policy to keep their player base utterly in the dark in hopes that rhetorical idiocy, like the following example, would placate the population. Allow me to illustrate by using one of the most insulting public addresses I've seen since the Gulf Oil Spill.

    It reads as follows,

    "We have a plan of action. We're verifying the exact timeline, then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting. We're not finished yet, folks, but we're getting closer -- thank you all for your patience."

    Allow me to break this master piece of stupidity down for you, the Developer, so you "see" what we "see" when we read this kind of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.

    "We have a plan of action." --- Yeah, no kidding. We kind of figured you would. Instead of telling us the obvious how about you tell us WHAT the plan of action is and why it took 8 hours to figure out a plan of action?

    "We're verifying the exact timeline..." --- Really? You're just NOW doing this? As opposed to 8 hours ago?

    "...then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting." --- Who are these "key stakeholders"? Are you talking about the players? You know... the most "key" of all "key stakeholders"? Share holders? Gods don't tell me you're going to have a share holders meeting before you decide to post a time line. Are you referring to lead developers or some big wig at PWE?

    "We're not finished yet..." --- Are the servers back up? Nope. Then yeah, I figured that part out for myself thanks.

    "...but we're getting closer." --- I should hope so. Although it would be pretty funny if you were getting "further away".

    And the best part...

    "...thank you all for your patience." --- Ok this one sentence pisses people off more than the entirety of moronic rhetoric that came before it. 1.) No one is being "patient" because you are doing a horrible... H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E... job of keeping people in the loop and 2.) This single sentence is so patronizing it infuriates more than it placates.

    Allow me to give you an example of what a proper public statement would be in order to placate your players:

    Step 1 - AS SOON AS THE SERVERS GO DOWN

    "Alright guys, here's the situation: People, as many of you are aware of, were duping Astral Diamonds effectively destroying any semblance of value that currency held in-game. To contain the damage as early as possible we brought the servers down. For now, we're going to have a meeting to figure out the best course of action to take in order to correct the damage, ensure this doesn't happen again and to punish those who were blatantly perpetrating the problem to begin with. Shortly after the meeting is over, I'll come back on here to let you guys know what the plan is and an ETA for server restoration.

    BE ADVISED: This will be quite the endeavor and the server(s) will likely be down for quite some time.

    I should have word for you within the hour."


    Step 2 - AS SOON AS THE MEETING IS OVER

    "Ok everyone, here is our plan of attack. We've decided that the most cost effective and time efficient way of handing this situation is as follows:

    One team is being assigned to fix the mechanical issues within the games code which allowed for this problem to occur to being with. Another team is tasked with finding the point in time when this problem became main stream and started to negatively impact the game on a large scale. This will be the point in which we roll everything back (or as near as we can get it). Finally, we have a third team dedicated to tracing down the perpetrators of the "economic crash" to ensure that they are properly dealt with as per our Terms of Service.

    Rest assured we are extremely sorry about the inconvenience but please be patient and we will get this resolved as fast as we can. With that said, be advised that there is no ETA on the servers coming back up and we expect this to be a long day if not night so those of you who were planning on spending the day in Neverwinter, as grateful as we are for your patronage, should not expect to get online today.

    Again, we apologize for this outage and we will do our best to expedite the process but we are committed to ensuring that this doesn't happen again and in order to do that we're going to have to work on this for the better part of the day if not in it's entirety. If anything changes I will make sure to update you post haste but until then thank you again for playing Neverwinter!"


    And then post this EVERYWHERE.

    RIGHT on your FRONT page as well as in the Launcher so anyone who comes by can see it without ever setting foot in the forums.

    Do you see the difference there?

    Players, if given I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N, will happily give you as much time as you need in order to rectify the problem. Yeah, can't play today, that sucks but at least I know --WHY-- and I know not to waste my time sitting by the 'puter or double checking twitter every 10 minutes. No gaming today, hey guys let's go catch a movie instead or maybe I'll get tomorrow's chores done today so I can game tomorrow instead?

    It's that easy.

    That simple.

    Information. Honesty. That's what people want; not rhetoric and patronization. We get enough of that from the leaders of our respective countries. We don't need that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in our virtual escape. I guarantee you... guarantee... that the next time something like this happens--and it will--if you follow what I just outlined for you, players will not only be GRATEFUL but you'll cut down on misinformation, speculation and rage threads on your forums.

    Plus, the white knights who get off on patrolling your forums and being complete jerks to anyone asking for info won't have anything to do and, to be perfectly frank, that's just hilarious in my book.

    You can thank me for my consultation with Astral Diamonds in-game. 1 billion should suffice.

    ;)

    P.S.

    It took me, literally, 20 minutes to type this in it's entirety. Unless your PR staff is populated entirely of special needs chimpanzees it shouldn't take E-I-G-H-T hours for someone to post something remotely resembling a coherent update on progress.

    THAT is what really ticks people off.


    /applause, well said
  • anarookanarook Member Posts: 4
    edited May 2013
    This is going to get deleted in a matter of minutes, but... ever seen Warframe's forums? That is a **** good example of what we're looking for and the positive feedback it produces.
  • protocol87protocol87 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 85
    edited May 2013
    Well I'm busy with work this week, wouldn't mind playing a little though hope they get things resolved. Sucks noncheaters gonna get screwed on what they farmed, only live once that's a lot of hours lost in questing/xping/dungeon runs/pvp o.o

    Almost prefer a full wipe compared to rollback.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Loki < The Illuminati > 60 - Control Wizard
    Protocol 60 - Great Weapon Fighter
  • kulsveinkulsvein Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 15 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Well put - Cryptic please take note!
    The stupid questions are the ones you do not ask;)
  • tobogontobogon Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    trickshaw wrote: »
    Maybe I'm completely off base and Developers are totally aware of how they drive a goodly chunk of players completely insane with unscheduled down time or emergency maintenance. In which case, good for you. You troll like a master anon at /b. Perhaps they don't. If you're a Developer and you are a member of the latter demographic and not the former then this thread is written explicitly for you.

    The primary cause of player distress during these unfortunate events isn't the fact that the server is down. In fact, despite popular forumite belief, your average MMO gamer is quite reasonable, intelligent and understanding. Sure, you have that initial shock of "Server Not Responding" then the follow up kick in the jar-jars as the forums fail to respond due to every nerd on the planet trying to find out if it's just him or the entire population who got disconnected. And then of course you have the supplementary realization that the servers have gone down "again" and the "AAAARGH!" that follows.

    But shortly after that initial 2 minutes of aggravation the coherent side of 99 out of 100 people's brain kicks in and they either move on with their day or wait patiently for an update.

    This. This right here is where you, as Developers, completely and unequivocally--every... single... time--drop the ball with damage control. Somewhere along the line during the last 15 years someone decided that it was good policy to keep their player base utterly in the dark in hopes that rhetorical idiocy, like the following example, would placate the population. Allow me to illustrate by using one of the most insulting public addresses I've seen since the Gulf Oil Spill.

    It reads as follows,

    "We have a plan of action. We're verifying the exact timeline, then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting. We're not finished yet, folks, but we're getting closer -- thank you all for your patience."

    Allow me to break this master piece of stupidity down for you, the Developer, so you "see" what we "see" when we read this kind of <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.

    "We have a plan of action." --- Yeah, no kidding. We kind of figured you would. Instead of telling us the obvious how about you tell us WHAT the plan of action is and why it took 8 hours to figure out a plan of action?

    "We're verifying the exact timeline..." --- Really? You're just NOW doing this? As opposed to 8 hours ago?

    "...then we'll be triple-checking the planned forum post with all key stakeholders before posting." --- Who are these "key stakeholders"? Are you talking about the players? You know... the most "key" of all "key stakeholders"? Share holders? Gods don't tell me you're going to have a share holders meeting before you decide to post a time line. Are you referring to lead developers or some big wig at PWE?

    "We're not finished yet..." --- Are the servers back up? Nope. Then yeah, I figured that part out for myself thanks.

    "...but we're getting closer." --- I should hope so. Although it would be pretty funny if you were getting "further away".

    And the best part...

    "...thank you all for your patience." --- Ok this one sentence pisses people off more than the entirety of moronic rhetoric that came before it. 1.) No one is being "patient" because you are doing a horrible... H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E... job of keeping people in the loop and 2.) This single sentence is so patronizing it infuriates more than it placates.

    Allow me to give you an example of what a proper public statement would be in order to placate your players:

    Step 1 - AS SOON AS THE SERVERS GO DOWN

    "Alright guys, here's the situation: People, as many of you are aware of, were duping Astral Diamonds effectively destroying any semblance of value that currency held in-game. To contain the damage as early as possible we brought the servers down. For now, we're going to have a meeting to figure out the best course of action to take in order to correct the damage, ensure this doesn't happen again and to punish those who were blatantly perpetrating the problem to begin with. Shortly after the meeting is over, I'll come back on here to let you guys know what the plan is and an ETA for server restoration.

    BE ADVISED: This will be quite the endeavor and the server(s) will likely be down for quite some time.

    I should have word for you within the hour."


    Step 2 - AS SOON AS THE MEETING IS OVER

    "Ok everyone, here is our plan of attack. We've decided that the most cost effective and time efficient way of handing this situation is as follows:

    One team is being assigned to fix the mechanical issues within the games code which allowed for this problem to occur to being with. Another team is tasked with finding the point in time when this problem became main stream and started to negatively impact the game on a large scale. This will be the point in which we roll everything back (or as near as we can get it). Finally, we have a third team dedicated to tracing down the perpetrators of the "economic crash" to ensure that they are properly dealt with as per our Terms of Service.

    Rest assured we are extremely sorry about the inconvenience but please be patient and we will get this resolved as fast as we can. With that said, be advised that there is no ETA on the servers coming back up and we expect this to be a long day if not night so those of you who were planning on spending the day in Neverwinter, as grateful as we are for your patronage, should not expect to get online today.

    Again, we apologize for this outage and we will do our best to expedite the process but we are committed to ensuring that this doesn't happen again and in order to do that we're going to have to work on this for the better part of the day if not in it's entirety. If anything changes I will make sure to update you post haste but until then thank you again for playing Neverwinter!"


    And then post this EVERYWHERE.

    RIGHT on your FRONT page as well as in the Launcher so anyone who comes by can see it without ever setting foot in the forums.

    Do you see the difference there?

    Players, if given I-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N, will happily give you as much time as you need in order to rectify the problem. Yeah, can't play today, that sucks but at least I know --WHY-- and I know not to waste my time sitting by the 'puter or double checking twitter every 10 minutes. No gaming today, hey guys let's go catch a movie instead or maybe I'll get tomorrow's chores done today so I can game tomorrow instead?

    It's that easy.

    That simple.

    Information. Honesty. That's what people want; not rhetoric and patronization. We get enough of that from the leaders of our respective countries. We don't need that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> in our virtual escape. I guarantee you... guarantee... that the next time something like this happens--and it will--if you follow what I just outlined for you, players will not only be GRATEFUL but you'll cut down on misinformation, speculation and rage threads on your forums.

    Plus, the white knights who get off on patrolling your forums and being complete jerks to anyone asking for info won't have anything to do and, to be perfectly frank, that's just hilarious in my book.

    You can thank me for my consultation with Astral Diamonds in-game. 1 billion should suffice.

    ;)

    P.S.

    It took me, literally, 20 minutes to type this in it's entirety. Unless your PR staff is populated entirely of special needs chimpanzees it shouldn't take E-I-G-H-T hours for someone to post something remotely resembling a coherent update on progress.

    THAT is what really ticks people off.

    Epic ****ing win
    This space for rent
  • possum440possum440 Member Posts: 145 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    The passionate rant from the Op is a nice vent but irrelevant. The EULA that you all sign without reading makes the OP's rant less than worthless. The post was fine in my eyes but the developers and mods (most rarely work with each other in real time) pay no attention to the forums unless they ask for something specific.

    The current situation is being slowed down by lawyers. The developers have to be careful how they release information and how they state cause and effect. Note, you will all see that Cryptic and PW claimed responsibility for FINDING the exploit and jumping on it. No where will you see that diligent players discovered an exploit and contacted PW officials.

    No where will you see PW or Cryptic take full responsibility for the failed code and the actions of others, this being in the EULA, this provides a loophole the company hopes will keep them from being implicated legally. Again the EULA rules until a judge makes final determination, remember that when trying to ask or rant about problems and you click your rights away.

    The game being in "Beta" is a fallback for just these situations. The company can claim in development and not be hit with anything so long as real money is not affected in the solution. So until Cryptic and its lawyers decide on wording and what they will finally say not a single person can do anything but wait patiently. Working at RTI for a number of years I know the flow of information and what happens when things go wrong and just what developers are allowed to state, it must mesh with the EULA at all times. In the end the customer must read the EULA and understand it before signing it, right now, no one has any right to do or say anything other than wait.
    There is no worse feeling in the world than the moment during an argument you realize you are wrong.
  • sydanyosydanyo Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    The truth is though, as good as people think the OP is, and as much as people would want that kind of posts to come from the developers, the moment that would be the case, there'd be someone else crying about some other facet of said communication, or some completely different thing.

    No amount of eloquence on the developers' part is going to fix the playerbase, and it's the playerbase, the players, the people, who destroy games and communities.

    "I am consumer, hear me roar!"
  • daschladaschla Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 240 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    possum440 wrote: »
    -snip-

    Off topic.. Fought any animals lately?
    Sister Vanity knows if you've been naughty or nice...and heals accordingly.
  • perigornperigorn Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 6 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    kblaze wrote: »
    you sir/madam are correct on every point, the problem lies however with the fact doing what you said would actually mean ADMITTING they the developers/programmers/almightygodsofthegame/insertnamehere have made a mistake. I can tell you from personal experience that getting one of these people to admit something is actually wrong with something THEY created...well you'll have an easier time playing at pulling a tooth from a bull shark.

    I'm not saying they won't admit SOMETHING is wrong...I'm saying they won't admit it's something they DID or DID NOT do that caused it.

    This is correct and they won't ever say words like "sorry" or "we apologize" because then they are LIABLE, it's an admission of being LIABLE, which gives people fodder for lawsuits, etc. They are very vague because they don't want to say anything that can be used against them as a public record. That's what people are getting here.
  • yultyult Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 181 Bounty Hunter
    edited May 2013
    I'm excited about reading this Trickshaw post. His are usually good.
  • kblazekblaze Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    perigorn wrote: »
    This is correct and they won't ever say words like "sorry" or "we apologize" because then they are LIABLE, it's an admission of being LIABLE, which gives people fodder for lawsuits, etc. They are very vague because they don't want to say anything that can be used against them as a public record. That's what people are getting here.

    That is a reason, yes, but it goes beyond that with code, most devs look at thier creation as if it's one of the most precious or greatest things even made and generally do not take attacks even if it's simple constructive criticism about it in the greatest manner. Now granted this doesn't apply to all but the vast majority do in fact think this way and will defend thier work with the same passion as a parent would defend a child. It's only gotten worse as the tech industry has grown as well.
  • cutedge242cutedge242 Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    possum440 wrote: »
    The passionate rant from the Op is a nice vent but irrelevant. The EULA that you all sign without reading makes the OP's rant less than worthless. The post was fine in my eyes but the developers and mods (most rarely work with each other in real time) pay no attention to the forums unless they ask for something specific.

    The current situation is being slowed down by lawyers. The developers have to be careful how they release information and how they state cause and effect. Note, you will all see that Cryptic and PW claimed responsibility for FINDING the exploit and jumping on it. No where will you see that diligent players discovered an exploit and contacted PW officials.

    No where will you see PW or Cryptic take full responsibility for the failed code and the actions of others, this being in the EULA, this provides a loophole the company hopes will keep them from being implicated legally. Again the EULA rules until a judge makes final determination, remember that when trying to ask or rant about problems and you click your rights away.

    The game being in "Beta" is a fallback for just these situations. The company can claim in development and not be hit with anything so long as real money is not affected in the solution. So until Cryptic and its lawyers decide on wording and what they will finally say not a single person can do anything but wait patiently. Working at RTI for a number of years I know the flow of information and what happens when things go wrong and just what developers are allowed to state, it must mesh with the EULA at all times. In the end the customer must read the EULA and understand it before signing it, right now, no one has any right to do or say anything other than wait.

    +1

    If Cryptic/PW were really to come out and say "look guys this is exactly what happened", it's just going to be turned around and used against them, legally or otherwise. That's why there's always a wall of silence with MMOs. Have you guys seen how much people rage against incorrect ETAs? Now imagine if someone started to say something technical and got just one fact wrong.
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