I would like to highlight that my post is mostly an open letter to the company not to Rox to which only the last parapgraph is dedicated. And that part is anything but mean. If you’ve read my post you would have noticed that most of my letter is geared towards business decisions that have to do with our soon to experience in-game content. I was fortunate to be involved in product decisions in my ex line of work but her case is likely not that. She can only create and maintain a proper flow of communication between the playerbase and the various teams. She might not even do CS but manage and or colaborate with a CS team on best practices. So I am not being mean Rox, but I am being apprehensive about ASG. Try to read not diagonally.
When you say my post should have been private, by that logic this forum should not exist since basically our feedback can be directed privately. Thank you for your concern. You are too kind.
P.S.: My goal is to express myself and offer my flavour of feedback on this beautiful game that I can’t wait to play. Thank
There was this article back in january on AGS past.
Long story short, AGS reportedly spends 500 millions a year for the past decade. The studio was founded in 2012 so it is “old”. They have tried their hands at more than two games, all failed before or shortly after release, New World is the first that wasn’t cancelled or removed from stores.
I would say that with New World, they have their first real experience of making an innovative game. I know they can learn from the past and deliver great games in the future. New World is already a step in the right direction when you look at their past.
Also they are publishing Lost Ark which they can’t fuck up too much even if they were to put black squares instead of original costumes and never address the community, the game is that good to begin with.
I find myself thinking that their communication - while very corporate and ambiguous sometimes - is much better than what I was expecting (but I have low standards having seen much, much worse).
Hey burning one’s hands instead of the whole arms is progress in my book ^^
I understand a big company with money and employees to burn wanting to develop their own tools to make games. They’ll save a lot of money in the long run and their developers will acquire great expertise in the programming fields involved. They’ll also have more control over their engines and tools in the future. Assuming they don’t scrap it all at some point. But it’s like making games ; it isn’t perfect right from the start.
Smilegate had to redo entire parts of unreal engine to make lost ark. UE / unity aren’t really mmo worthy. “Recently” you have unity trying to bring data oriented programming to its engine - the way it should have always been imo - a decades old concept. It’s taking them years to bring it to their engine, and they have decades of experience.
Ah, some people gets their rocks off belittling everything they disagree with or feel the need to validate their existence in taking such actions online. It’s nothing but moral masturbation if you ask me.
I thought it was a gem of a read. Sure, bits and parts felt bit unorganized and to be honest, it did not necessarily feel like PR advice, but you were spot on when it comes to pointing out what playerbase really wants from game studios and their PR reps, which generally deviates from what corporate PR professionals are taught, which, in my opinion, continues to fail to capture niche culture of gaming and unique animals called gamers.
Something that could help avoid misunderstanding is clarifying that you’re mentioning your experience only to state that you have firsthand experience and can closely relate to what the PR staff must be going through and see the situation from their perspective, and your intention is not to claim subject matter expertise.
We just want transparency and honesty. This means instead of saying a lot without saying anything, just give it to us straight. When you need to announce a controversial decision, at least have the decency to explain why the decision was necessary and help us understand. This industry is unique in a sense that there is extremely high product loyalty compared to other businesses, and gamers have great emotional attachment to their games. Just because we’re loyal doesn’t mean you can walk all over us and treat us as just dollar signs.
It matters not what you believe :))). We’re not at church. It’s inconsequential to the matter at hand. It’s my feedback and that’s that. Better be grateful that more people of this player base are banging on the same door. Who knows, maybe it cracks if enough players say the same thing. But people like you make sure people like me never go into forums again. I should thank you. So, thank you.
You didn’t make public forum post to give adice to Roxx, you did it to publicly baby cry, like hundreds others do every day. If you’d REALLY wanted to give her advice, you’d do that privatelly in dialogue, it’s not hard to find her. So yea, better luck next time with your lies.
I think it good she shares her views publicly, because it allows us to comment on it, agree or disagree, and maybe add some things that would have been missed. The likes on OP shows it and give some weight to the argument.
Good feedback is shared by the community and it is when people back it that it is really taken into account.
I think that’s the first step to be a bad video game company. Just look at FFXIV and the way they handle the community. It’s a “people are gamers, not consumers” mentality. That’s respect. Treating people as a walking wallet is not respectful. Making video games is more a work of art and expression than selling houses or cookies. The good thing is that, by thinking of gamers as gamers, they become consumers. So it’s win-win. The reverse isn’t true.
unfortunately many companies think that way nowadays. money comes first! while they should think of making a good game that way they win both gamers + $ but yeah… when a company thinks of money rather than the quality of the game that’s how you fail. you need to deliver a decent product to make money out of it rather than think of the money instead of the product you’re delivering. it’s indeed a win/win if you make a good game i totally agree.
Don’t twist my words or take them out of the original context. I meant that sentence in the sense of respect and what all it entails, from customer support to us.
I don’t expect a Community Manager to come and say to me: “Yo! You’re banned smh. Now baiiiiiii lmao”, like how gamers treat each other.
I was always talking only about customer support and how they should address us for these important matters like announcements, closing topics or dealing with our questions. They don’t need to shove their personal view while they are handling us when we have a problem and seek help.
I don’t mind if they voice out their opinion about what they personally like or dislike and loudly affirm their stances in a random forum topic about “this character is the best” or “I think that the company is doing this nicely because you know, I’m a girl!”, but if I have a genuine question that needs to be dealt with regarding issues with the game, don’t answer it based on what you like or not. Be objective.
You are mixing things and adding how the company as a whole should treat us and how they should make us happy while using their product. Pay-to-win and other things that you have added are uncalled for and not even the focal point of my highlighted comment. Customer support, the Community Managers and whatnot aren’t the ones deciding if you are going to bleed your coins with each step. And to be honest, between you and me, we both know that if you treat your players like walking wallets, you’ll have a barren game very soon, so there’s no point in even discussing that.
Anyone in the area of customer support shouldn’t forget that before gamers, we are consumers and, they should give us the same treatment that they should give anyone if they were in a store dealing with a client. The level of formality might be toned down a little because we are gamers and this is a more relaxed environment in comparison, but never to the point as if we were in-game and we were going to have a casual chat.
I didn’t twist your words. I too used them in the sense of respect and what it entails. It’s literally written :
Customer support should treat us like the company does. So if the company should treat us as gamers before consumers, as you imply, so should the community managers, for they are part of the company.
But you and I have a different vision of what treating us as gamers means, and I think this is why you took my post wrongly.
I think it’s a stereotype. Sure a lot of gamers are like that, but I’m not, and I have played over decades with people that aren’t either. It’s about maturity and respect. Just look at their twitter joke on the last community vote “event”, with the cm saying “now go touch some grass simps”. Isn’t that treating us like gamers before consumers ? People taking offense should learn second degree.
I don’t talk about P2W at all … I think you read me very very fast. I was talking about treating people as wallets (meaning consumers) and not gamers. It’s a figure of speech. It’s not first degree.
I could repost my previous post, again I’m not twisting your words. I simply disagree. Customer support needs to adapt to what they support and what product they sell and maintain. To the fact that they may be the ones making and selling the product opposed to just selling it. To the status of the people they support : consumer, client, usage (entertainment, factory, military, …).
Treating us like gamers / clients before consumers means we are heard when we voice our opinion and offer game feedback. Being treated as consumers is just a repair / replace job. There is a difference. Applestore doesn’t listen to your feedback to change their devices when you repair an iphone, neither does wallmart when you shop, do they ? Consumer, client, gamer. All different meanings and level of service.
You think that being treated as gamer means being disrespected. You have a biased view of what gamers are because of a majority of immature and disrespectful people. But mature people treat other gamers with respect, even more so when they are in charge of community management as a job for a product their company is “making” and selling. I’ll point you to FFXIV again and how they are close to their community which they view as gamers, maybe clients, but certainly not consumers.
I don’t understand how the one sentence I quoted, without attacking you at all, warrant such lengthy posts from you and me to make our views clear.
I fully agree about CMs being as objective as possible. On that we have no misunderstandings.
Posts are lengthy because I like to discuss without leaving loose ends. Since you prefer one line, I’ll boil down that to a few words and only reply to what this post was originally about and forget about the rest.
Have you ever tried to interact with Valorant or Genshin Impact support? To name a few examples.
“Hello~! I am ‘X’ and I’m going to help you with ‘Y’. (emoji face)” was the starter of my ticket reply. I don’t find that professional, no matter how much you want me to, and I will never will.
The company should treat us as gamers first, then as consumers. Customer support shouldn’t in some aspects. I find their choice of words in their replies mildly disturbing. While some like to be treated as if you were talking casually to a friend out of the blue, I don’t. Doesn’t matter if it’s here or if it’s buying a car. I will never have a sense of security from someone using emojis or shortening my name using a diminutive (that happened at Amazon support to a friend of mine that showed me the screenshot). That’s not a stereotype against gamers. That’s a stereotype against behaviour that looks as if the one helping you wasn’t taking things seriously.
Since we have stated our points of view, it’s not needed to continue rewriting the same things over and over, so that’s all I had to say.
I agree with that actually, I didn’t understand your first post that way. Your quoted experiences from support are at best unprofessional and at worst disrespectful. There’s a fine line between understanding your client as a gamer or a buddy and some cross it.
Sorry with the “lengthy posts” comment about both of us, it was a little on the attack - I leave it because it happened. In better form, I meant that we agree and just have semantics issues, which makes our lengthy posts weird for something that simple.
PS : How’s the popcorn Helleios ? ^^ I think Helleios liking each post just shows we are more or less saying the same thing, just differently.
From the very start, I was talking about that behaviour from customer support, and only for customer support. The OP is talking about helping Rox, and she somewhat belongs to a customer support branch.
Whenever I say that customer support should treat us as consumers first before gamers, is to prevent the kind of replies that I wrote to you, to never forget that you are dealing with a consumer after all. We aren’t going to do a raid together, you are going to help me solve a potential problem that might be serious for real.
Anyway, it’s all good. I understand that discussions on forums might be hard because you can’t hear the tone of the other. Can assure you I was pretty calm from the very beginning, and I never intended to attack you or anything, nor do I find offensive your ‘lengthy post’ response.
sounds a bit like contradiction. Gamers and professionalism, why would you insist to mix them together. It’s not some high society meeting with a dress code. Or some CEO’s meeting that can take two hours without even touching any of real points of the deal they are making.
If anything “gamers” should be used to all kind treatment. Even “Hi, I’m me, I’m here to help you.” (what an awful introduction!).
As you should be. We are all amigos (and trolls) here afterall.
Being it not “gamers” but “consumers” you would only take away the emoji out. As it’s better not to assume the other side will even understands that. But gamers should.
But truth to be told: ever I ask support for help I only care about hkw they solve the problem. Not at all about how they talk. If they start with “GM here. I’m listening”, it still seems all the same for me. Better then some copy&paste from manual.
I swear to God people here read the quoted sentence without reading the whole context.
Even if we are gamers, we deserve to be treated right.
There’s a difference between “Hi, I’m CustomerSupport01, and I’m going to help you today! How may I assist you?” and “Hey~~! I’m CustomerSupport02 and I’ll help you today! (◕‿◕✿)”
Believe it or not, but the last one makes me feel like the person isn’t taking things seriously. Cool if you don’t believe the same, that’s your opinion after all.
And about this: “It’s not some high society meeting with a dress code. Or some CEO’s meeting that can take two hours without even touching any of real points of the deal they are making.” Why do you read only what you want to read? From a few posts above, from me: “The level of formality might be toned down a little because we are gamers and this is a more relaxed environment in comparison, but never to the point as if we were in-game and we were going to have a casual chat.”
I’m not going to repeat myself again, so all the information is above.
You are too kind.