On unpinned threads, WG EU attitude towards forumites
Дата: 23.03.2015 21:10:36
Schmeksiman, on 21 March 2015 - 08:46 PM, said: But a few things anger me here. First off I did PM Ectar as soon as
this happened and until now I haven't received an answer (and I'm
not expecting one today or tomorrow. Somehow I'd expect he'd be
available for discussion right after but apparently not...Ectar: You PM'd me on Friday afternoon and I was then on my
weekend. Atm I've very involved in helping promote World of
Warships. I don't work weekends so couldn't reply to you. I
have also advised players many times that out of all the things I
have to do each day, answering forums PM's is sadly low on my list
of priorities. I did however reply to you today once I had
time to clear out the 30 or so PM's waiting to be answered. I
would like to ask all other players to please take notice of this.
I get sometimes really really rude messages from impatient players
who seem to thing the PM system works like skype chat or instant
messenger and I'm available 24/7. That isn't the case.
Schmeksiman, on 21 March 2015 - 08:46 PM, said: But what gets me is the reason behind unpinning - apparently WG EU
now want only official posts pinned in general discussion. So let's
see: 
A useless pit of
whiners, conspiracy theorists, basically a general matchmaker whine
thread that lost its point ages ago and is ignored with a good
reason. 
Exactly the same what I
said about the first one, you complain, nobody cares.
Hey, at least one that
makes a bit more sense but no official response or any data to back
up what is said there. 
This one I call useful
but to be honest general discussion is not the place where it
should be. It's not about discussion but appealing against your
warning points. This need a special section along with forum rules
and similar topics (but since I don't have any warning points I
didn't really visit this one). 
Good initiative but it
stops there, hasn't been updated, some info is misleading, some is
missing and some just isn't active anymore. Basically someone is
needed who would maintain this thread regularly to make sense.
A good idea but again
this is not the place and not maintained by people who should be in
charge of historical stuff. But what do all these threads
have in common? Total lack of support by forum management, not one
community manager posted anything constructive since the first
page, never participated in a discussion, never offered any
information, shared their thoughts, policies or contributed in a
way it would be expected. Half of those are general whine areas,
where people should cry without making a new thread so forum staff
wouldn't have to actually log in and actually manage the forum.
Other topics are just not maintained, nobody bothers to spend some
time on something that might have potential. And those
topics are "official" apparently, those are worth being pinned so
more people could safely be ignored with minimum effort required.
So what kind of message does that send WG EU? If something that is
supposed to be official is in such state then something seems to be
wrong or not working as intended. Don't get me wrong, we need those
topics. But the fact is half of them could have been locked after
the opening post and would still serve their purpose in a dedicated
section.Ectar: The MM thread has been there for a while and there was a
thread before it. It's there for the same reason we used to have an
arty thread. To try and contain all the common complaints and
misconceptions to one area. Without dedicated threads all you
have is each day 4 or 5 more topics about the same thing. If
you'd rather have everyone create a new thread each time they
wanted to talk about MM then sure, we can unpin that and let the
same conversations loop round each week. I agree that there could
perhaps be more presence in those threads but when we appear in
threads we also have to consider what we're actually adding to the
conversation. Posting for the sake of posting make look like
we're active, but when half the content isn't actually adding any
value, it's counter productive. The team kill and team
damage thread was to let players know how it works. It's not for
players to appeal in, so saying we "don't care" by not replying in
that thread is not really fair. The Community Team don't deal
with in-game sanctions or penalties and the answer is going to be
the same from us each time. - "If you feel somehow wronged, please
contact customer support who will investigate it" Along with
"It doesn't matter if he shot first, if he's not blue, don't shoot
a team mate" - If the comeback is then "We don't have faith in
Customer Support" then you're still at square one because the
Community Team isn't able to do anything. Forum warning
points was to let players understand how to appeal against them.
There is really no need for us in that thread other than to keep
reminding players to read the first page. Museums and Events
in your region is due to be taken down soon, and the Focus on Fans
and Contributors is also going to be taken down and then restarted
with certain criteria before a site/channel/stream can be
submitted. They are both in the General Discussion section
because it's the highest traffic section of the forums. We wanted
to know who players watch and what resources they use, and we
wanted to know about events or locations in different countries to
help plan events. I for example as someone from the UK has no idea
about military events or locations in Hungary, Romania or Italy for
example. It's not possible for our company to employ someone from
every country in the European continent which is why we ask our
players who are from all over Europe.
Schmeksiman, on 21 March 2015 - 08:46 PM, said: But Schmeks, why such a fuss about a few threads? If it was only
about that I would not spend more than an hour writing this. But
when you consider everything I've seen and witnessed through my few
years here, how this forum (at least the english section) went
downhill, how even those few from WG that cared suddenly stopped
when the chair got more comfortable, how one whole dimension of an
official forum - being able to communicate with developers, get
your ideas through, get official info just disappeared over time
and any outside attempt was again axed and undermined, drowned in
empty promises of an EU Q&A, EU news that matter, EU supertest,
EU player support and staff player cooperation. Heck, this reminds
me of pre-parliamentary election period... This is the only
way I could make someone from WG EU notice it, a lengthy drama
post because any other channel is ineffective or simply doesn't
exist. And I can't do much else, none of us can. I'm 95% sure this
thread will get locked tomorrow noon with locking post coming from
some community manager denouncing half of the stuff said here and
promising the other to happen in very distant future. And that's
it, the final instance, after that is back to the old ways, let's
pretend everything is fine if we ignore enough issues, right? Oh
well...Ectar: Ok lets back up here a few moments. I've been posting on the
EU forums for almost 3 years now. There was no "glory days". When I
started there was only the World of Tanks forums and a fledgling
World of Warplanes Alpha forum. There was an "Ask the
Developer thread" that Overlord answered when he felt like it and
he was never in communication with the EU team. There was
pretty much no other presence on the forums apart from Supercharge
who had only started about 3 months before me. Now instead of
just the World of Tanks forums, we have a full World of Warplanes
forums, World of Tanks Xbox, World of Tanks Blitz, World of Tanks
Generals starting up and World of Warships that all need an element
of presence. It's not just appearing in forums it's also
creating all the weekly reports for each forums AND covering the
social media elements for each of these products. Loop in the
programs like the contributor programs, keeping on top of
our own product knowledge and playing our own games with
either official or personal accounts, working on planning community
events, and working on any other project work... There isn't a lot
of time to just "hang out" on the forums like days of old. We
do that in the English section with a team of 4. We wanted
to do an EU Q&A and tried it for a while. Sadly when we do
stuff for the EU community, that means all our players. Not just
the English speaking players. I've said this time and time again
and each time people just gloss right over it. Wargaming.net
is the reverse of pretty much every other game you play. Our
developers speak Russian, our game was launched to the RU players
almost a year before NA and EU, our largest playerbase by alomost
70% is Russian speaking. The developer interaction that you
all demand is there, it's just sadly not in English. I know you'd
all love for translations to be provided instantly, however our
developers post as and when they choose, either on the RU forums or
on their personal blogs. That's not something we have any control
of here in EU and it never will be. EU Supertest was given
after being pushed for by myself and Tuccy, and then within 2 weeks
everything on the Supertest was leaked to an external source who
encouraged people to leak more. We said "Trust us" and then
sadly a minority showed that we couldn't be trusted at all.
Now sadly leaking future content on the Supertest is rampant
and if it ever came back to EU there is countless players in queue
ready to be the new cool kid who leaks all the stuff. - Prior
to EU Supertest there was pretty much zero leaks and stuff that was
to be tested was tested and revealed in time. Yes it was a
minority, no it's not fair to tag everyone with the naughty brush,
but the trust element was well and truly broken and it's unlikely
ever to come back.
Schmeksiman, on 21 March 2015 - 08:46 PM, said: This is the only way I could make someone from WG EU notice it, a
lengthy drama post because any other channel is ineffective or
simply doesn't exist. And I can't do much else, none of us can. I'm
95% sure this thread will get locked tomorrow noon with locking
post coming from some community manager denouncing half of the
stuff said here and promising the other to happen in very distant
future. And that's it, the final instance, after that is back to
the old ways, let's pretend everything is fine if we ignore enough
issues, right? Oh well...Ectar: It wasn't the only way to get someone to notice it. I've
spoken to you personally at length face to face at Croatia, and
have replied to any PM you've sent me in the past. This is
the only way you can create a little drama though and you knew
that. You then set up some options where it doesn't
matter what we do, it's already wrong as you've given us a loaded
selection. All really because I haven't replied to a PM
within a few days. That really isn't fair.
Grimdorf, on 21 March 2015 - 09:45 PM, said: And now my not so polite post......who ever made such a
puerile childish decision should be sacked forthwith as they
obviously have absolutely no idea about customer satisfaction. It
seems that WG EU just go from one blunder to another and that the
entire customer related staff in paris have simply given up and
don't give a shite any more. Ectar: And here is where things get rather unreasonable. As some of
you have noticed we've pulled back our presence on the General
Discussion section. It was noted that on a good few threads where
we did reply, our messages went unnoticed or unacknowledged. There
was also a good spat of personal attacks and rather petty and silly
messages directed at staff whilst players were acting like they
were taking the high road. Now I accept people might be
grumpy at me because of what I say, but I'm always just the
middleman. What I write is rarely my opinion unless things are
getting out of control. Saying someone should be sacked
because a thread is unpinned is getting a bit out of control.
The thread is still active. It's still on the forums, and if
people continue to use the thread as it was intended for, it will
be on the front page. It's not deleted, we don't want to hide it,
and nothing has been taken from you. Calling for someone to be
sacked is just showing that people are taking things totally out of
proportion and people are really starting to become unreasonable.
Please stop for a moment guys and look through some of the comments
either directed at our staff or at other players then explain to me
how the people saying those things are the better person or are the
ones to sent an example?
Schmeksiman, on 22 March 2015 - 11:12 AM, said: Since Overlord left things just slowly stopped moving, that Quasar
guy who was supposed to replace him has not been seen here for
years. There used to be contests running, stuff like "Hunt us down"
where we had to find and kill WG guys in randoms but these days it
seems they entirely lost interest, not even spending an hour for a
simple event like that. I would expect someone to devote some time
and effort for the company they work for, not just the minimum
required.Ectar: Overlord only ever replied to the Q&A thread and did
that at random. Quasar tried to maintain an EU Q&A thread but
there was actually issues from the non English speaking players who
felt their questions weren't being answered. Again picture
here. EU community does equal English speaking community. The
Hunt us Down events because impossible to cover due to increasing
player numbers. Event when we had all Community Team members, the
Moderators and half of Customer Service our reach in-game was tiny
and there was more issues with people saying they didn't see us,
than saying how fun they found the event. Devote some time and
effort? Hanging out on the forums all day whilst it may seem like a
fun job is a tiny part of all the stuff we have to do. I'd love it
to be like when I started but the amount of work and the amount of
players has increased drastically.
Sgt_Guffy, on 22 March 2015 - 11:34 AM, said: I think WG staff have not really grasped the idea that a forum
belongs to the player base, who choose to make use of it, and it is
managed by the management staff. That is how forums work
and that is the catalyst to make them thrive. In other
words the forum belongs to us, not Ectar! There was a
time Ectar and other staff positively participated on the forum.
Not now. I can understand if that is motivated by the view whatever
they put on the forum will be shot down in flames, but they have at
times made valid points and they, like any other player, are
entitled to their opinion. An opinion I think a lot of us would
like to see! I've been on many forums and on all of them,
without exception, moderators and staff have participated, even
if it's only to correct comments which are clearly wrong.
Ectar: You make a good analysis of the forums and what you say is
true to a point. If the forums belong to the players then the
players need to start accepting a bit of responsibility for
themselves. Here is some example of what I see daily: Regular forum
users making threads when they know other exists. Why do this?
Because their thread is more important. Their thread has something
different. (In truth it almost never is). Regular forum users
post pretty much the same message in 4 or 5 different topics about
the same issue, and then later make out something is a hot topic
when reading into it you can see it's the same groups of players.
Regular forum users creating topics in general discussion about
stuff totally unrelated to world of tanks Regular haters posting
nothing but confrontational posts and negative comments no matter
what the news is. Regular forum users insulting either WG
staff or other forum members/players usually attacking their
intelligence or play skill. If you guys want the forums to
be better, you have to help create that presence and atmosphere.
The whole "Get the pitchforks out against the EU staff" is totally
uncalled for, especially when we're the guys fighting for you
internally. When you guys start attacking us and saying we
don't care etc, that's pretty hard to take, especially when the "we
don't care" is basically "they don't do what we tell them to". You
guys need to understand that there is always limitations to what we
can and can't do. I agree it sucks that some things are
unclear or may go unanswered but that not through choice. We can't
give you answers we don't have.
Seekless, on 23 March 2015 - 05:30 PM, said: Hmm.... Ectar replied back to me several times on a PM as did
several other mods of the WG staff, maybe he has some days
off? Ectar: Yes, I have days off. They are Saturday and Sunday and
during those days I'm pretty much never going to be on the forums,
answering my e-mails or assisting players. They are days off and I
like to have some time to myself as I'm sure everyone else does who
works full time. We have other staff members in the office to
assist players when I'm not there and it's highly unlikely there is
an emergency that requires my attention where only I can assist a
player.
TLDR: Wall of text crits you for over 9000. Please at least take the time to read all of what I've wrote before skimming over one or two sentences and making a snap reply. I'm sorry but I'm not going to pin threads that will always remain on the front page so long as people use them. That's something you as the community need to get back in the habit of. Promote the good game play, share your good stories, help each other. Don't just come here looking for the new thing to complain on, or the new unconfirmed rumour from an anonymous source to take as absolute truth.
I want our forums to be awesome, but I need you guys to be on board with that and help with that. It's far easier to complain about something that to praise it, lets not do that here where we can.
TLDR: Wall of text crits you for over 9000. Please at least take the time to read all of what I've wrote before skimming over one or two sentences and making a snap reply. I'm sorry but I'm not going to pin threads that will always remain on the front page so long as people use them. That's something you as the community need to get back in the habit of. Promote the good game play, share your good stories, help each other. Don't just come here looking for the new thing to complain on, or the new unconfirmed rumour from an anonymous source to take as absolute truth.
I want our forums to be awesome, but I need you guys to be on board with that and help with that. It's far easier to complain about something that to praise it, lets not do that here where we can.
On unpinned threads, WG EU attitude towards forumites