Communication by the devs

[Elandal]

From the Hawk:

Im sorry, but I do NOT agree with Kori locking that thread, and I do not think this conversation is over. You can't ask questions like that, and only have the conversation available when you are online. I knew that a lot of the people who had stuff to say were not here at the time. I would not appreciate someone unlocking my thread without a conversation about it beforehand, so I am going to leave Kori's thread alone. However, I will sticky this one, and it can be the OFFICIAL thread for any forum member to respond to the topic. but we will keep the conversation STRICTLY to this topic. I will be monitoring it as I can, and I will delete any post that goes astray. Kori can check it at her liesure.

EDIT: This does NOT mean start your post off with the word communication, then go into a rant about the exploit. This thread is for comment on what you think of the devs communication skills, or lack thereof.

Today, Kori create a thread titled Communication. It was locked about an hour later by herself, wasn't sticked, and wasn't announced. It was actually on the second page already when I was catching up the forum.

Tell you something: that's bad communication. I hope some mod stickies it, summarizes it, or copies Kori's first and last posts from the thread to a sticky.

As it's locked, I'll talk about the issue in this new thread.

First, it was noted that the CA ingame news is the first and, to many players, only place of communication from devs to players. This was noted by Kori, so we can hope for it to be used a bit more.

Second, FB page about the game was noted as an important place for communications. Kori noted that FB had frowned upon using that, which is really really weird - ever looked at how much Zynga spams their game pages? I hope it has been a misunderstanding or alike, and that CA Staff can use the game FB page (or, if necessary, create a separate "CA Fans" page for purpose of communication) to announce and explain. Pages aren't well suited for discussion, but that's what this support forum is for.

Third, announcements have been sparse. Kori noted that they felt not explaining things allowed users to experience them better, which might be true to some degree. But all new features and changes should be announced.
I feel that CoH was very badly handled, as it was never announced anywhere officially - it just appeared, and even then it worked differently for different people: it was not possible to know what it's supposed to be, but the timer lent to the idea that it's similar to egg gift events. Any announcement would've been better than none, and in case of limited time event (which is how it looked to players), it should've been very clearly explained from get go: send requests to inactive players only, at most one gift per inactive player.

I hope Kori (and/or other members of Phoenix Age staff) do in the future take the time to keep players updated by eg. "hi, it's sunny here and we're working on something interesting that we hope to release within a month" notice if there really is nothing to say weekly. That's in addition to what is currently posted, the ingame announcement (and identical posts by Vulcan here in Herald/News) which are really the captain obvious ones. CoH was much more important to announce, as it was new feature - monthly general already is on the Home page of CA, and there isn't anything in the news that isn't on the general.

Fourth, this support forum is hard to use, navigate, and find things in. Anything of any importance should be posted so that it can't be missed: the CA Herald area. It's almost unused currently, with, well, Vulcan's posts that are a copy of the ingame news (whether they're actually copies of Vulcan's news here, or both copies of in-company newsroll is irrelevant). Except, WOW!, I found Kori's post there from today morning (to me, so it's like yesterday evening for US West Coast). That post is a wonderful example of communications! Great! Superb! We're on the right track, clearly Also, linking to it in the ingame news is The Right Thing to do.

Fifth, a way to contact the devs that gives the user a copy, hopefully with automated response that tells the Issue has been received, and always, ALWAYS, a reply to it later when it's actually handled. A support ticket system.
Facebook report -link and form leave nothing for the user. I don't have copy of a report I sent. I receive no confirmation that the report has been received by Phoenix Age. Unfortunatelly, this leads me to believe that the company staff does not even read all the reports sent - they in no way indicate they have received it, read it, done something about it, and I can see nothing change in the subject of my report.
I remember four times I've contacted devs using this method. Might be I've used it a few more times, but four I can easily name. Exactly one time did I receive a response - three times I did NOT receive any response at all. And the times I did not receive responses were IMHO more serious issues than the one time that I did receive response (although I consider that one very important too, as it deals with the security of CA the game in the form of checking inputs and validating them).
If I do not receive even acknowledgement of the fact that a report has been made and received, will I bother using that report feature again? Honestly?


I understand that all of this is work that takes time, and that time is out of something else. But how can communications not be of the highest priority?

I have quit games because of feeling that the company held players in contempt by not communicating. CA is a great game. I have great friends with whom I play. We have lots of fun. I'm not quitting. I'm going to buy FP in the future too, I'm not calling for boycotts. I'm actually calming down already. Give me a week or two and I'll forgive you yet again. But please, let it not happen again.

[Bristolen]

i didnt like the thread was locked either, i didnt even see thread when foruming today until it was locked =/

ill read rest of your post and respond in a bit. lappy wants a break from CA forums

[Punkle]

this is the only communication from Kori have seen today:


Good thread Elandel. Many good points

[lfcfrom1970]

Originally Posted by Punkle

this is the only communication from Kori have seen today:


Good thread Elandel. Many good points

This is the thread in question: http://www.castleageforums.com/cforu...ad.php?t=56885

Kori said it would be re-opened but was logging off. I think that. A) She/He forgot to re-open it before logging off or B) Closed it till she/he is back online to answer questions without having a 30 page back log.

[kenster]

I hate the part about reactivating the feature, will there permanently be a feature that allows me to send requests to people no longer on facebook and taunt me for the rest of my CA days.

[Punkle]

I saw the thread, and reported it to get it sticky! Silly to have a thread about communications (and the lack of it) and *not* sticky it.. :P

[Bristolen]

with hidra and marinetanker supposedly taking a lot of work off kori in tech support, that might free kori up to do more communication to gamers elsewhere on forums. i havent looked at tech support lately, but i noticed hidra posts when they resolve an issue - that is a good trend to start. shows visibility that reports/issues do get fixed or at least looked at.

the general sense that devs dont take peoples suggestions also needs to be addressed. people say stuff like "devs never listen to us or take player suggestions into account!!!%111!!1". its like these people either have short memories or zero idea what player suggestions have been. sad part is they barely get corrected, and people go "YEAH!!! STOOPOD DEVS NEVAR LISTEN TO US!!!1111"

it would be nice if every once in a while a dev posted in suggestion forum that an idea is completely unworkable for x,y, or z reason or steer the topic on to what they want discussed more in-depth specifically. the devs can even start their own threads in suggestion forum. at least shows they are in that section, and people believe devs read their own topics right?

and needless to say. i do want devs to fix old bugs and glitches. reading the 100th thread on the same stupid bug in suggestion forum, tech support, or general discussion does nothing but clog up this forum, makes people keep persisting in their beliefs devs do nothing to fix game, and makes players alienated and apathetic about a game devs dont seem to care to fix. if these old issues get resolved; perhaps people will have a new outlook and posting demeanor in their threads and respect for devs. and we can move on as a playerbase to discussing the present issues and future of game.

[Anisixia]

Kori did say she wanted to lock it so she could refer back to it. Too big and it would have been unmanageable. True to a point I suppose.

I'm glad they took the suggestion of in-game presence and linking back to the forums. That's a great start. Now for consistency...

[Tallulah]

Originally Posted by Elandal

Second, FB page about the game was noted as an important place for communications. Kori noted that FB had frowned upon using that, which is really really weird - ever looked at how much Zynga spams their game pages? I hope it has been a misunderstanding or alike, and that CA Staff can use the game FB page (or, if necessary, create a separate "CA Fans" page for purpose of communication) to announce and explain. Pages aren't well suited for discussion, but that's what this support forum is for.

Kori's thread earlier asking for suggestions was locked before I could say this, but this is so true. If FB has an issue with Castle Age posting a message every couple or days or less often they have a huge problem on their hands.

Not only Zynga, but sources like the Discovery channel often have the same issue for myself. I can't see that as a realistic problem. If they have server issues FB should remove all of the other junk they force on people.

Even if Kori doesn't see my post here I'm tossing my suggestions out regardless.
The common thread after reading that thread was communication and I agree completely. I have a few suggestions.
-If there is an issue address the player base as soon as possible. Post a message on the Castle Age front page and have a URL to the forums here for more information.
-Related to the previous suggestion a forum that is for the mods and devs to post in only to address current issues and what we can expect (i.e. something being unavaliable for a time etc).
-Announce when there is going to be a change in the game, an addition, or a subtraction from it. You don't have to tell us what it is or how to do it, but a teaser would be nice and could possibly get people excited.
-Last suggestion is a closed server to test things. This is self-explanitory. Do not roll out a feature if it is not going to work. Minor errors are to be expected with new things, but CoH was just a disaster.

That's it. As for the tomfoolery that went on with CoH; looking back it seems inevitable. It was introduced and in my opinion did not work. People tried to figure out how to get it to work and they did to an excess. Inviting people back to the game is fine, but most people who leave a game are going to block it unless they remove their whole army from their friends. Not realistic in most cases. Some people are always going to get into trouble and/or look to find ways to hack or exploit anything. Recent history if you keep up on current events should show that. I highly doubt that Castle Age has the security depth of Sony and look what happened to them.

Anyway, my two cents since Kori is lock happy this evening.

[pull lead]

It was a step in the right direction for sure. I'm pretty sure Kori meant to sticky it but just forgot.