One question to rule them all

Jaabg - Sanctuary

I know mods are players, taken from forum, game users.

GM = mythical being, don't know where they are chosen. Very rare sightings. Only interacted with one gm on sanctuary, and the last time he played was 2 years before 2012, according to him. He couldn't solve my cube issue that i had sent a ticket for. He was helpful, just not a regular player.
CM = mythical being, sighting oftens in the forums, in game no idea.
Customer support = no idea
Lower management of pwi = no idea
Top management of pwi = no idea
Marketing team of pwi = no idea
Decision makers of pwi = no idea



My question is

1) All the people from the above list from GM to Decision makers, do they play pwi?

2) Do you think pwi will be in a different state if they played pwi like the rest of us?



My answer

1) I think from the above GM are more likely to play the game, the rest i am not sure.

2) If management sees first hand the debacles they have created they will understand the game better.

PWI paid employees also get a monthly zen bonus if you check their hiring page benefit.

Rules for answering.

I do not want people listing alts, main of any of the players they think (or actually are) are GM, CM or other folks.

Stick to answering the questions, if you want to propose solutions to the economy visit this thread

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1696231 by Djcale - Raging Tide

If you have issues with bugs in this game and want to vent go here

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=291

If you want to derail this topic in any shape or form go here http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=111 and be a necromancer.

Eoria - Harshlands

CM is obviously Hermes.

Dblazen - Dreamweaver

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

I know mods are players, taken from forum, game users.

1) All the people from the above list from GM to Decision makers, do they play pwi?

GM = Hardly, they just get on to do their business and then are off to the other games they'll have to manage.

CM = Supposedly, since he's going to host some pvp event tournament thing.

Customer support = Probably not, maybe 1 or 2 of the interns

Lower management of pwi = Too busy kissing the *** of the following:
Top management of pwi = No chance, too busy griding money from cashing players and making stupid decisions.

Marketing team of pwi = Doubtfully.

Decision makers of pwi = No idea what these are supposed to do since management makes the decisions


2) Do you think pwi will be in a different state if they played pwi like the rest of us?
Maybe, but no chance that'll ever happen.

/5char

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

GM = Yes. I know of a couple that do play outside of work. No one can know who their toons are, and they can't play with their GM toons outside of events.
CM = Hit or miss as to whether they play or not. Most of them support several games.
Customer support = They're mostly college interns. They might, but I really doubt they support all 16+ games they support. So, once again, hit or miss.
Lower management of pwi = Unlikely
Top management of pwi = Very Unlikely
Marketing team of pwi = It's rather obvious that they don't
Decision makers of pwi = The guys in Wanmei you mean? Good luck figuring out the answer for that. We can tell the developers don't though.

Also, your poll is a bit silly.

foley3k

GM = Yes, they do exist. On HL, one of them spawned a world boss for some GM event thing. Then lured it near safe zone killing dozens of people. Also, a GM gave someone a full neuma portal set and a couple crown of madness. This I cant verify, cause well the GM is not my brother. The math was done and to get the set, and the amount of money to spend to get the set was way high. Unless the guy had a horseshoe up his ***, with a leprechaun attached to it.

CM = They reportedly give "updates" that are usually, cut and paste from the previous months updates. They are the meat shields that have to deal with the mess that the people above them consistently **** up. They try to try and make event for people to bring something new to the game. Personally I feel its more of a distraction to make people forget about the massive issues currently plaguing the game.

Customer support = They are there. Sort of. They provide no actual support anymore, but just advise you to go to the forums. Where you are then told to submit a ticket. It is an endless loop. Legend has it that there is an end, but no one has ever returned from it as of yet.

Lower management of pwi = It was written into the game, but was not intended for our version.

Top management of pwi = No one has ever seen one, but there are rumors of their existance. Legend has it they currently rolling around in a giant pool of the cash shoppers money. Here is an artists rendering of what they may look like
Click Here for picture

Marketing team of pwi = I stepped in dog **** once. That was more marketing that they have ever done.

Decision makers of pwi = HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA


Edit forgot to answer #2
2) Do you think pwi will be in a different state if they played pwi like the rest of us?

No, the game was made and designed to make money. The one thing that I will give to PWE, is that they know how to make money.

opkossy

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

GM = Yes. I know of a couple that do play outside of work. No one can know who their toons are, and they can't play with their GM toons outside of events.
CM = Hit or miss as to whether they play or not. Most of them support several games.
Customer support = They're mostly college interns. They might, but I really doubt they support all 16+ games they support. So, once again, hit or miss.
Lower management of pwi = Unlikely
Top management of pwi = Very Unlikely
Marketing team of pwi = It's rather obvious that they don't
Decision makers of pwi = The guys in Wanmei you mean? Good luck figuring out the answer for that. We can tell the developers don't though.

Also, your poll is a bit silly.

This hits the nail on the head.

Funny thing is... the CMs we've all loved (spoons and Hey, You!) did at least have a legit account they played normally when they had spare time. sparkie also falls into that group, though he's completely new to the game so obviously many of the high end things don't affect him and he has no experience on what things were like prior to New Horizons.


For your second question... I doubt it. Even if they casually played the top brass would likely assist themselves ingame anyways and not have much of a vested interest. Even on the off chance they did, they'd only be able to do so much before running into the brick wall for major changes known as China. At best we'd have a better playing environment (rules being enforced, sensible sales, actually supportive customer support, advertisements for PWI actually occurring again to bring back new players, etc) which is a MAJOR benefit. But we'd still have the underlying issues of playing a game developed in China with devs who don't care as much about our version as they do about their own.

temeshop

I think The "its all China" excuse is just anoher PWE lie


They buy there content from China...that makes them the buyers and china the suppliers...and big buisnesses dont keep customers by not giving the customer what they want


I think if PWE paid for the content and request the updates it would happen in a flash


Instead they soak up the money and invest it into another game they think may have a shot...which is tragic because all these new games are Eye Candy cookie cutter junk.


Instead of anything new coming here ..any fixes or serious thoughts of change..they wil **** the money away on another in there long line of miss-managed games..


Here`s to watching your stock hit bio-ware status... clueless..simpley clueless.

PWE will take every game good or not and run it into the ground with there approach

opkossy

temeshop wrote: »

I think The "its all China" excuse is just anoher PWE lie


They buy there content from China...that makes them the buyers and china the suppliers...and big buisnesses dont keep customers by not giving the customer what they want

You're wrong. They're publishers, not developers or customers. They don't "buy" anything. They have a legally binding contract with China that basically says "You can host our game for your area and make profits off of it but you can't make any major modifications or we shut you down."

It's the problem with playing a game that has all the people who hold the power to make changes to the game itself on the other side of the world with their own version that has an entirely different mindset than your own. There's a lot of fixes that would be ridiculously simple to perform if PWE were allowed to touch the game's code... but PWE is not allowed to do so and thus we have to wait on China's mercy for the things that do make it past upper management.

The fact the way the game is managed has been going down the drain for a while now just makes the issue worse because we have to put up with both the things they can/should do AND the underlying issues with the game itself that they have no real control over at any given point in time.

Vedovis - Lost City

I found our old CM FrankieRaye in Orchid Temple a few years back. I'd post screenshots but they're somewhere on my old laptop

temeshop

Do you Honestly think PWE has anyone that can correctly change or update any of this code ?


Being a publisher and having a binding "contract"..is just another fancy way of saying PWE Pays China for permission to run this game here...


Thats exactly my point...they paid for or are currently paying for the right to run this game in its current state here......If they want updates or changes to the content above n beyond what this is...they would need to PAY for it...and make yet another said "contract"..


Your assumption there are people in PWE just sitting by ready to make the needed fixes and updates if Big Bad Old China would just get out of the way..is well..in my oppinion silly


Forms Mods are now PWE jail house lawyers it seems too..gj

opkossy

temeshop wrote: »

Do you Honestly think PWE has anyone that can correctly change or update any of this code ?


Being a publisher and having a binding "contract"..is just another fancy way of saying PWE Pays China for permission to run this game here...


Thats exactly my point...they paid for or are currently paying for the right to run this game in its current state here......If they want updates or changes to the content above n beyond what this is...they would need to PAY for it...and make yet another said "contract"..


Your assumption there are people in PWE just sitting by ready to make the needed fixes and updates if Big Bad Old China would just get out of the way..is well..in my oppinion silly


Forms Mods are now PWE jail house lawyers it seems too..gj

You... don't seem to understand what I'm saying, or are kinda ignoring it.

For one thing, I never claimed we have devs over here that are sitting around waiting to change the code. I said there are many EASY fixes for the code. Honestly anyone with even a slight amount of knowledge could deal with a rather large amount of the issues in the game code... but we can't do that here because lolChina.

Also, PWE does NOT pay for their updates. That's why we were always one of the fastest to get the new patches. PWE is basically the child company for the main people in China. It's like how the McDonald's in China is just a branch of the main company in the US and can't make any sort of major changes without permission from its head office. Same thing applies to PWE and this game. PWE gets to publish the game here and profit... as long as they don't do anything the bigwigs in China say they can't do. Like how PWE was forced to pull medals of glory from DQ rewards because China said so even after the exploit that was used on them was fixed.

Your assumption that PWE is paying China is what's wrong here. They're essentially part of the company on a lower rung and contractually obligated to do what their overseas bosses say or lose everything.



And I'm not a PWE lawyer nor someone who cares much for defending them. I simply have enough common sense from real life experience to know how this sort of thing works. That, and I actually read up on the company so I know what I'm talking about unlike many who simply make wild mass guesses based on incorrect thoughts about PWE. So, I wind up having to defend them at times from people who are totally wrong about certain things. Though I also don't hesitate to point out there's a lot they are at fault for/in control of and need to deal with. >_>

temeshop

So they are basicly a Franchise of China..can make all this free money..and they have to pay china nothing ?


Wow that sounds like a wonderful buisness model...


What world do you live in ?

You know they serve bugs in Some Mc Donalds around the world ?..think if China ever bought out Mc Donalds they would force us to eat and buy bugs from Mc Donalds too ?


Your premiss is filtered behind knowledge to construct a fabrication through facts.

No company profits while the parent company does not..

No franchise would be forced to offer goods and services there customers did not want and would not buy

Different franchise companys offer different products according to region and demographics all the time..

Yup...sorry not gonna buy this excuse

Also i think if you look at how the game is run in China..how its doing there..and look at how its run in the US

you can clearly see where the issue in this game lies..Hey Maybe Wammi Needs a new US Publisher ?

opkossy

The way the game is managed has nothing to do with the game's code and development.

I have already stated plenty of times that we have absolutely horrible management over here. However, even if the management suddenly became far superior to anything else around, the game itself would still be limited by the devs over in China because nobody on this side of the ocean could touch the code. Forced PvP for primal quest? PWE can't change that. Terrain having plenty of holes to slip through? Nothing they can do. Auto-cultivation being an annoyance? Out of their hands.

Third party bots being too common? THAT, they can handle. Poor customer support? They can work on that to change it. People constantly ignoring ToS? PWE has the full power to ban them. Lack of advertisements for the game and GM presence ingame? Totally something they can get on.


Again, either you don't understand that they're a branch of the same people and aren't paying the devs to do anything... or you simply don't know how it actually works. The McDonald's on the corner doesn't have to pay their corporate office for the recopies they use for their various food. That doesn't mean that they're allowed to start serving donuts even though they may have all the ingredients for that. And guess what, because of the difference in audiences, PWI and PWCN have different priorities... but PWCN's priorities are what matters because the devs are there.

Perfect Horns? We hated them over here and they were removed from the boutique. Over in PWCN, they're loved and it shows as they're now rewards from an abundance of low level freebie quests. And there's nothing PWI can do about that even though their demographic doesn't want that.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

temeshop: I understand your frustration, but please create a new topic to discuss your grievances or take it up in personal messages. I did not create this thread to figure out the corporate hierarchy, SylenThunder already created a post in the past that did this to some effect. It was an open letter, you can use that as your groundwork if you wish.

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple

@ temeshop, Look PWE up in Wikipedia. Go read the PWCN web sites. Read up on how you can lease a copy of the original game that Wanmei owns.

PWE just leases the game from Wanmei. PWE will say "we want X and Y in the game" and the developers at Wanmei in China make the changes. In fact, PWE doesn't actually make any games. They are simply a publisher. As far as I'm aware, the only thing they make in-house is the Arc distribution platform

PWE may also report bugs in our version, but it's still up to the developers at Wanmei in China to implement fixes.

Lesthar - Heavens Tear

I keep wondering how stellar the game would be if it had been managed properly, which is akin to considering a parallel world.

I still play PWI even if people call it a drifting shipwreck but I sure am not a financial contributor of any kind.
Actually, I'm glad there are big cash shoppers around, the type that complains but still pays a crapton per month, they keep financing the game in a nice way. b:shutup

ovenusarmanio

Perfect World Entertainment Inc. and Perfect World Europe B.V., two wholly-owned subsidiaries of Perfect World Co. Ltd., were established in the United States in early 2008 and in Netherlands in early 2010, respectively, to further expand our overseas developing and operating capabilities.

Source: http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/cus_naande.html

A subsidiary company is that company which is owned or controlled by another company, who holds more than half of the subsidiary stock. The hold of that company could be complete or partial. Controlling company is called as parent company while subsidiary company is also called as Daughter Company.


Franchise is a business method, which is famous around the world. It involves giving license of a trademark or method of doing a business. The central management is the same in this type of business. Chain stores are example of franchise.

PWE is a subsidiary and is thus totally controlled by China. I wouldn't expect for PWE to be paying a license fee given this setup, since most likely PWRD gets it's money from the profits of PWE as the primary stockholder.

This is why many of the primary issues of this game (that stem from the control of decisions not stemming from people who are even in this country and thus would not be as good as localizing experience as a native)would not be resolved simply by the higher ups playing this game.

However, what goes for sale and for how much could possibly be impacted by that, and sales have a pretty big impact on gaming experience. At the very least it would help them better communicate to devs which are big concerns and which are minor ones without needing a hundred page thread to do it.There certainly isn't much negative that could happen, although it is also beneficial to have at least some of them NOT play this game, and analyze purely on data. Somethings that would be totally awesome for players, may have too disastrous consequences on the company. For example, 100k gold should never come back. Even if there are people nostalgic for it. It just isnt' a reasonable price given the current state of the game.

I do know for a fact that some of the GMs have played this game before. I've even had talks with them about favorite instances. Unfortunately the ones I had access to were not the top brass, obviously. And being a really active player isn't necessary to be a good CM. As long as you're doing your best to understand, reading the forums daily, and talking to players about issues, willing to ask lots of questions, etc.

Selak - Dreamweaver

I think the important bit here is The Dev team is in China which makes sense since some of the code at least was written in Chinese.

It would be nice if they could have a Western team who could actually alter the code, rather than just translate text, but they would have to be able to fund it in the long term as the Eastern and Western versions of the games became more incompatible with time.

It would also probably have a relatively high cost, to just properly translate some of the code for the Western team, with continued expanding costs as the coding team expanded in time.

As to the OP
I know CM and GM pop in some times, and when I have seen them in those rare moments, it left me feeling good, as someone was watching the game even if only for a brief moment.

When I stood there and watched them get mobbed, I would chuckle and being a little shy would not pester them like the others but wondered how many times a GM would have to appear before peeps stopped mugging them, lol.

As to the rest of them I hope its a prerequisite for customer service and should be for the rest,
if you really want to know go to PWRD and look up job descriptions, someone once gave a link in the forums here to where to go but I am to tired/lazy to look for it.

Temeilion - Harshlands

Part of the same Parent company..but no power or voice to fix, update, change, or correct anything ?


So they do none of there managment tasks correctly..what makes you think they report the bugs/glitches and issues correctly ? or even at all ?


The assumption they are bad at only half there job is my issue here....Even if Part of the same company..they were put here to run this game and keep it profitable/entertaining..


I think they have Kept the game profitable..issue is, it is always at the cost of the player base in some form or fashion..which in the future makes the next sale check point just that much harder to hit..


There by requireing a harder squeeze to keep up the appreance all is well

I think China has little to no clue there game is falling apart over here..as long as the sales goals are meet..