Valid question

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear

What would it take to get the staff of Perfect World Entertainment to listen to the players, and manage the community? Seeing as how they have a specific person to "manage" the community, and he is on now bi-weekly to tell us whether or not we have maintenance that week, I'm curious. Also, that specific person took over the roll of eatwithspoons ages ago, and stated he would be around to manage the community a lot.

Would it take the server's populations decreasing so low that a server merge would be needed?

Would it take a few thousand tickets?

Would it take a personal meet-and-greet with their company?

Etc...

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver

Tremb, we can't exactly all fly over to their base or the one in china and protest >< but that would be the only real solution.

If we all walked out or flamed on the forum (like what I call the Great Firestorm of 2010, where we lost many players on the forums), they wouldn't pay attention as usual. But then again, this IS their flagship game.
TBH i'm pretty much unsure.. and probably having a blonde moment from posting this.

John_Smith - Harshlands

A time Machine, a knife, and the name of whichever manager decided to start "reducing support".

Strife_son - Sanctuary

Time to start the daily thread bump until a PWE staff member looks at this thread!

+1!!!

krisnda

Notified.

And I agree with the china protest idea lol.

Maelael - Heavens Tear

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What would it take to get the staff of Perfect World Entertainment to listen to the players, and manage the community? Seeing as how they have a specific person to "manage" the community, and he is on now bi-weekly to tell us whether or not we have maintenance that week, I'm curious. Also, that specific person took over the roll of eatwithspoons ages ago, and stated he would be around to manage the community a lot.

This is a management decision of direction and empowerment for the role.

Trem, if you haven't read this before, I highly recommend you do, specifically point #1:

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Top-Misconceptions-About-Gaming-Industry-40569.html

Understand that two things happen: One, they lie. Two, they are kept in the dark. It is their JOB to Position things to the public good or bad to positively affect morale and perception, IE damage control.

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Would it take the server's populations decreasing so low that a server merge would be needed?

Would it take a few thousand tickets?

Would it take a personal meet-and-greet with their company?

Nope. Two things:

1. Change in perspective of leadership. I've seen this once, here: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=2672

Change in personnel with a community focused perspective or come-to-jesus moment, either would work.

2. Directly affecting the profitability. Should not require explanation.


Really I have yet to see a company who "Does it right" by the forums or gamers according to the gamers. There has only been two games I've been generally pleased with, but they always need work, and typically the forums are about 50% on reasonable points. Concern wise, Id really say more than 85% of the complaints and suggestions are nuts on any games forums, including this one.

$.02 for the month. Back to RL forced game vacation.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Half the things people say on forums are ****. As for some of the non-**** assertions, I believe PW does listen.

They came up with a whole update that reflected exactly what players wanted: a modified PvE where APS doesn't dominate. This was the best possible solution to the APS craze - no further nerf on APS but a change in PvE such that every class is useful. In the new instances there were bosses that can't be APSed down at all, bosses that spawned adds that you had to kill, bosses that split themselves, bosses that were phys immune, bosses that could be stunned etc etc. Furthermore, Nirvana finally had another upgrade.

It was pretty much everyone's suggestion came true. It was slow yes, but implementation of ideas take time.

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Half the things people say on forums are ****.

Exactly (actually... probably more than half).

If they actually started listening to everyone, you'd probably see things go downhill even faster.

Also, what people seem to mean with ''PWE should listen to their players'' is actually ''PWE should listen to me''.

Maelael - Heavens Tear

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

It was pretty much everyone's suggestion came true. It was slow yes, but implementation of ideas take time.

I think what Trem is asking (or hoping he is) is an increase in communication from the staff, directed at specified concerns. Even if its a "No, we aint doin this".

genotypist

One of the most difficult things to determine in any gaming community is what the community in general wants. Any given group will oftentimes take both sides of an issue, and wherever it is that PWI stands, someone is bound to not be satisfied (hence the fallacy of seeing every decision PWI takes as having a negative player response). Even if everyone on the forums post the same feedback, that may not be the entire picture either. We do collect feedback from multiple sources, and try to account for varying wants.

Keep in mind that even if everyone wants something, that isn't necessarily the best option. Henry Ford is famously quoted as saying: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

That said, however, there's nothing wrong with perhaps taking a different approach to discussions and feedback. More communication is always a good thing. I'll see what can be done. No promises or concrete plans, as these things tend to be bandied about as a rallying cry later should extraneous factors not lead to any obvious changes.

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear

genotypist wrote: »

One of the most difficult things to determine in any gaming community is what the community in general wants. Any given group will oftentimes take both sides of an issue, and wherever it is that PWI stands, someone is bound to not be satisfied (hence the fallacy of seeing every decision PWI takes as having a negative player response). Even if everyone on the forums post the same feedback, that may not be the entire picture either. We do collect feedback from multiple sources, and try to account for varying wants.

Keep in mind that even if everyone wants something, that isn't necessarily the best option. Henry Ford is famously quoted as saying: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

That said, however, there's nothing wrong with perhaps taking a different approach to discussions and feedback. More communication is always a good thing. I'll see what can be done. No promises or concrete plans, as these things tend to be bandied about as a rallying cry later should extraneous factors not lead to any obvious changes.

The main problem I have with these forums, are the staff (you guys), aren't around... At all. Most, if not all player concerns about various hundreds of issues that are mentioned on these forums, in this sub-section of the forum - are completely and utterly ignored.

Example: The "where did our smileys go" thread, where a multitude of threads of the same question have arisen since the Decent expansion patch was pushed to our version of the game. No PWE staff has ever taken notice of the thread, and at least two of the main threads (doing a google search) have now died w/ no response. The players had to get another player to diagnose that the reason we don't have those few smiley sets that we had in the past, is due to a client-side limitation of smileys.

More examples: 5aps, OP gear, cash-shopped based items/stuff in-game, lack of new players, dead servers, new FF glitch, no sales/maint this week along with no staff to respond as to why/if this was happening, etc.

So, what would it take to get your staff to listen, respond with retorts, and read player concerns?

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear

More active player mods. The PWE Staff has more on their plate that goes on behind the scenes then any of us are in knowledge of. I doubt there is enough staff just sitting around doing nothing that can stare at threads all day long looking for issues to reply to. Considering all the different games out there that have different things involved around them.

The only truly plausible solution is to have dedicated player mods that are approved by the staff to shoot them PM's about which threads should require some kind of action / attention. (I am not saying the current mods aren't doing a good job, but there just isn't enough of them to sweep everything.... I think there is MAYBE 4 active mods?) And if I've ever noticed when they shoot a pm to the PWE staff USUALLY one comes by to leave the thread some kind of answer.

That being said if they had something like that implemented then I say the would designate a few moments of their time (30mins-1hour) to observe the PM's and threads and talk to the community.

My biggest defense to this kind of solution, is some of the threads I've seen are completely +1/waste of time to read / ignorant threads that should never have been made, or they require no attention of the PWE staff anyways in which case would be wasting their time on something that didn't need to be.

Time is money is the saying.

krisnda

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

More active player mods. The PWE Staff has more on their plate that goes on behind the scenes then any of us are in knowledge of. I doubt there is enough staff just sitting around doing nothing that can stare at threads all day long looking for issues to reply to. Considering all the different games out there that have different things involved around them.

The only truly plausible solution is to have dedicated player mods that are approved by the staff to shoot them PM's about which threads should require some kind of action / attention. (I am not saying the current mods aren't doing a good job, but there just isn't enough of them to sweep everything.... I think there is MAYBE 4 active mods?) And if I've ever noticed when they shoot a pm to the PWE staff USUALLY one comes by to leave the thread some kind of answer.

Read the dead thread in my sig. And 3 is the magic #.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear

Krisnda wrote: »

Read the dead thread in my sig. And 3 is the magic #.

The one about Game Advisers? I did a few months ago(not sure the reason why). CBA to go through every post but I understood the gist of it. Yes It could be helpful, however easily abused by the wrong person. Picking a correct person to do that particular role would take quite a bit of research and other factors....

As for 3 mods. That's WAY too few to go through all the subforums and read all the threads/posts to make sure everything is appropriate / following ToS / needs PWE Staff attention

There is currently
FuzzyWuzz
Krisnda
ChaoticShelly
(Could've swore there was a 4th but you being the mod know better so. I tip my hat off to you 3 for trying your best for helping out without any compensation what so-ever.)

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The one about Game Advisers? I did a few months ago(not sure the reason why). CBA to go through every post but I understood the gist of it. Yes It could be helpful, however easily abused by the wrong person. Picking a correct person to do that particular role would take quite a bit of research and other factors....

As for 3 mods. That's WAY too few to go through all the subforums and read all the threads/posts to make sure everything is appropriate / following ToS / needs PWE Staff attention

There is currently
FuzzyWuzz
Krisnda
ChaoticShelly
(Could've swore there was a 4th but you being the mod know better so. I tip my hat off to you 3 for trying your best for helping out without any compensation what so-ever.)

There was a 4th but KrittyCat has moved on to mod other PWE titles and is no longer a mod for PWI.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

There was a 4th but KrittyCat has moved on to mod other PWE titles and is no longer a mod for PWI.

Ahah! that's who it was. Thank you.

Steopie - Heavens Tear

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What would it take to get the staff of Perfect World Entertainment to listen to the players, and manage the community? Seeing as how they have a specific person to "manage" the community, and he is on now bi-weekly to tell us whether or not we have maintenance that week, I'm curious. Also, that specific person took over the roll of eatwithspoons ages ago, and stated he would be around to manage the community a lot.

Would it take the server's populations decreasing so low that a server merge would be needed?

Would it take a few thousand tickets?

Would it take a personal meet-and-greet with their company?

Etc...

The majority of PWI players are border line down's syndrome idiots. Its probably for the best that PWI staff dont just 'listen to the community'. Frankie had probably turned alcholic and is hiding away from the waves of stupidity he obviously faces on a day to day basis.

PWI have their own agenda (and legal obligation) to run the game as a business and benefit their shareholders. So in short, they wont listen, they dont need to listen and its probably for the best in a lot of cases.

knightsdarksoul

Well I'm sure the biggest issue isn't PWI staff not having the answer to everything they are asked , to ask something on that scale would be idiotic.
But the issue to me personally is that well a community manager is supposed to manage the community. That doesn't mean they are supposed to answer every single thing but just be an actual presence in the community.
Spoon's was good because he actually seemed to care, he would take part in topics not as a PWI employee but as a member of the community, talk to the players, laugh, joke and build a rapport with the player base.

The worst thing any business can do is to make their customers feel ignored

Quilue - Sanctuary

After the last disaster that came from Frankie responding to an issue, I can understand him not wanting to talk. You, the community, flamed Frankie heavily and laced your responses with sarcasm, some even resorted to calling him names, and now you want him to respond, why? So you can get angrier and flame him more?

It's like people here don't even know what they want.

"We want a response we want a response!" then "**** you you greedy scum!"

Reaperarm - Harshlands

"If you treat your fanbase right they'll reward you well with positive word of mouth and loyalty rivaled by nothing else. If you stay true to your creative vision then gamers will stay true to your product. And if you don't sellout the goal of providing a great product at a great value, gamers will continue to reward that with unfettered support. "

Taken from section 10 paragraph 2 from the link that Maelael provided. PWE employees you could learn a little from that paragraph. Stop trying to nickel and dime us to death every chance you get. Focus on makin your players happy and the money will flow naturally on its own like it did in mid 2009. People are more likely to spend money if they are in a good mood.b:laugh

HappysHAIL - Harshlands

The problem is that the community as a whole has long since felt alienated from those within the management team. It was my understanding that Frankie's role was to act as a liason and facilitate dicussion (and at times an understanding) between these two groups. In the past, even a simple response of "We're taking your views into consideration" or "Im seeing what I can do about X problem" has been met with positive feedback from the community. Unfortunately, the problem seems to have grown over time and increasingly larger groups become alienated with PWI due to one reason or another.

I accept the fact that various segments of the playerbase will always have different visions of how the game should be managed; or, what is better for in-game play. Because PWI is a revenue-generating game it often causes the management team to make decisions that are either viewed negatively by the community or frowned upon as simply "PWI Being Greedy." Afterall, PWI is here to make money. The result, however, is that conflicts of interest such as these, combined with a growing sense of alienation with portions of the playerbase over the years, have steadly lead to a dwindling population of players. When the first reaction from most forum posters to a "red name" replyiing is "Holy **** they do exist" you know you have a problem.

The playerbase must be given a feeling of representation. People need to know that their views and opinions are being heard, even if every change is not made. To borrow the most obvious (and perhaps dramatic) historical example is this: When people feel disenfranchised or underrepresented within a political state it generally leads to revolution. At the least, within most modern democratic societies, you see a change in leadership at the first possible opportunity (ie: elections). Now, I accept that PWI isnt a democracy. Yet, the standard is still true. Kings and tyrants have long been over thrown when the people have had enough. This is where PWI stands today. Newer and more exciting opportunities present themselves and PWI continues to turn a deaf ear to the voices of the remaining playerbase. Our "revolution" is to walk out the door and on to the next game.

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver

@Steopie, sorry but I got slightly offended at the Downs Syndrome remark.. Mainly because I got two mates with Downs who are going to uni to study biology and art. Try not saying that next time, thanks.

Ok, if they did listen to us and try to make us happy, I would agree with Reaper to stop thrpwing sales at us. But, I do have some sort of idea:

-gm or person who sends stiff to devs makes thread asking what players want, say, every month or two
- the players say what needs to be tweaked or added slash removed
-the creator of thread highlights comments that sound the same all away through. They ask players to specify this into one response or two.
-small poll is opened asking of this is what the players want.
- players are happy with response, and final ideas are sent to Devs.

If this sounds dumb, please tell me, its just a thought.

OIdpop - Heavens Tear

The only thing thats gotten weak in this game is the bh's,everyone has pussed out on them lately.Though i do sence a plot to disrupt the people who have multi lvl 100 alts like myself and make tons of coin just from bh.


other than that..bleh whocares,you guys need to lightn up and just take whats given.

Steopie - Heavens Tear

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver wrote: »

@Steopie, sorry but I got slightly offended at the Downs Syndrome remark.. Mainly because I got two mates with Downs who are going to uni to study biology and art. Try not saying that next time, thanks.

Im offended by your use of the colour purple as a font as I have 2 friends who were born with a skin disorder which made them purple and they were shot as part of a blackcurrant genocide because of it. So please dont use that colour in future.

Troll successful b:victoryb:victoryb:victory

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver

Meh, I could reply but then derailing this over something so petty would be rather silly. I shall accept your prejiduces and move on. They are doing brilliantly, so I shouldnt worry about sticking up for them over a few pixels of text. Beside we all have human rights of free speech, no?
Miss troll, I wish you luck in actually getting somebody like me to reply with an angry manner (ehats the word? Oh yea p*beep*ed off ) I bid you good day.

(ps. Purple skin would be so awesome to have )

SkogDyr - Lost City

What would help is a forum active and in game active CM (at least 50% of the work shift). Words that should be banned from the forum are;
soon
I will look into it
we are exploring our options
coming soon
we will check with the devs
very soon
it created client instability
really really soon
exciting news (just for you CS)

Have a rep from the PR, marketing and GM communities have a sub-thread where we can reach them direct. (if we feel that a sale is game breaking, maybe a direct marketing contact via thread would help.) Maybe using that 9-5 live support would help (in game and/or website based).

Please... for the love of all that is holy... no more freaking mods! We have had a few who think that the way you spell GOD is M-O-D. At least make sure to weed out the ones who are power hungry and think forum moderation is a new +12 r9 3rd cast Forumancer wep.

chaoticshelly

SkogDyr - Lost City wrote: »

What would help is a forum active and in game active CM (at least 50% of the work shift). Words that should be banned from the forum are;
soon
I will look into it
we are exploring our options
coming soon
we will check with the devs
very soon
it created client instability
really really soon

Don't forget "exciting news" b:chuckle

Mr_Buffs - Dreamweaver

I am unsure where they got the idea to tweak BH100 bosses. I AM 100% sure more players didn't like the result than did, hence why SO MANY quit.

I am uncertain why we haven't had the sales which SO MANY players have been asking for (10* orbs x5 etc etc), yet instead have a team of monkeys throwing darts to find the next sale.

If PWI continues with their dubious tasks, this game with fail faster than they had expected.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Yeah I'm sure people who didnt quit over pack sale, rank sale, MoG removal from DQP etc etc quit over some BH bosses.

ExMyPrecious - Dreamweaver

Steopie - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The majority of PWI players are border line down's syndrome idiots. Its probably for the best that PWI staff dont just 'listen to the community'. Frankie had probably turned alcholic and is hiding away from the waves of stupidity he obviously faces on a day to day basis.

PWI have their own agenda (and legal obligation) to run the game as a business and benefit their shareholders. So in short, they wont listen, they dont need to listen and its probably for the best in a lot of cases.

comes from a bm 105 glitch abuser.....so its pretty much obvious who is idiot

Maelael - Heavens Tear

ExMyPrecious - Dreamweaver wrote: »

comes from a bm 105 glitch abuser.....so its pretty much obvious who is idiot

Google what happens when you assume. Just leave out the part about the other person besides yourself.

(I believe Pie was in the 90s when I was I was in my 70s...in 2009.)