I love your game and happily “invest” hundreds of euros in this game like also in Path of Exile. Releasing regular content is what make you special and motivating, week for week, month for month!
But you also share one weakness: Shitty servers and hours and days of downtime that frustrates and drives away you playerbase. Is that concidence? Nerd developers that understand the desires of a gamer also tend to be oblivious to technical needs of their game? Is that a balance of the gaming cosmos so that nobody is TOO perfect? I dont know
btw: Take Chris(t) Wilson lead developer of grinding gear games as example and his interaction with the community here on reddit.
Even a small posting like “Yeah, the servers are down. Like my pants on the toilet I sat on while getting the news. I am looking into it guys! The server problems I mean!”
This will buy you hours of thousands of players understanding!
Now my proposal:
Last time stuff with the chatsystem went wrong you gave us gifts and everyone forgave you and many players returned your gifts with financial spending into you shop!
One day unplayable is about 300 guild seals. How about gifting them to everybody this week once? Maybe even on top of the weekly 1500 maximum so the “pros” dont complain ^^
A good way to promote the new guild system (and you purchasable guild keys)!
Thanks for your attention and great game!
EyeOfMars
Or to completely skip the cap, give 15-20 guild keys to everyone via mail (300-400 seals worth). It would basically be like a free pack of the smallest amount of seals available in the guild.
They were actively posting about the server problems. They went to sleep and stopped for a few hours, but they were on it immediately, and were giving updates for something like 24 of the last 28 hours. Gotta sleep sometime…
Maybe I did not see it but I could not find an official post saying that there were server issues. Yes, I know most if not all of us know about it now, but that is the post I would go to when I want to see if it is fixed. That is what I would do instead of trying the game again to see if it is functional and end up wasting time and losing more stuffs
We are not a hard core guild but most of us make the 1500 seals each week so giving extra seals that apply toward guild chests and not against cap would be awesome IN ADDITION to some kind of other compensation. This would be appropriate imo since this was such a severe problem and no telling how much was lost by players.
I hope this is taken constructively rather than critically. I really enjoy the game and think in general devs do a good job but the original poster is correct. Increased and clearer communication with your player base during times like these would go a long way. Devs do come into chat and talk but compared to the number of players that contact is minimal and based on Australian times while many of us (/raises hand) are in completely different world time zones.
I mean, there’s a thread that’s 200 posts long titled “Server Issues (October 10th 2016)”. You didn’t think to look there? It was at or near the top of “Latest” for most of the day. Even a cursory glance should’ve revealed that thread, and the devs posted probably 20 responses in it.
Sure I did … but it is not an official one. I think it responsible to officially post when a game is having problems and then post when it is fixed. Then you don’t have to wade thru a lot of comments … as you yourself noted the length … in order to see if it is up and running again. Chill dude
@DonBoba I did not know you could do that. Now that was helpful. Thanks
Btw, are the missing-guild-task-rewards also to be blamed on the server issues or is it a separate problem? (my initial guess was people dumping gold at the same time right after the reset, so maybe ppl from the top guilds finishing tasks on monday might weigh in if it happens in their guilds too). The weird thing though is the fact that it’s different stuff missing for different people …
as in, few people not looting guild task rewards from the reset until the evening for example, then comparing the amounts of stuff they got and … one person was missing half of the gem keys (sent a ticket and go it fixed from what I know), another one was missing 160 glory (didn’t have time to make a ticket, so I assume gave up on it), for me personally only 6 glory keys were missing, so I just didn’t bother … but it definitely is a problem : ( especially if people loot mass-guild-tasks without paying attention to the numbers, missing out on stuff without knowing it.
@Nimhain commented on another thread that you need to submit a support ticket for missing guild gold (I’m definitely paraphrasing but I believe I am correct in my interpretation):
I played thru a map to see if that would go smoother than pvp. I am sure I had well over the 60 moves required but the game errored me out at the conclusion and I got zip. Not a biggie that I would put in a ticket for but an example of other rewards being lost, time wasted and seals not credited.
I can’t help but LOL at the thread. I hope / trust / believe I picked up - that there was some tongue in cheek to the title and the body of the topic. There’s also plenty of truth in all that kidding that I see you after and of course the request for reimbursement, glad you did it with some humor.
I’ve worked in IT for over 25 years… I can imagine what @Sirrian and @Nimhain are going through. The fact that they take the time to communicate while also being up late and re-indexing db on the backend as well as posting answers and even a FB post on the official page stating sorry, we got some server stuff going on, working on it (I paraphrase) or whatever is great!
I receive less communications and worse service at times from Enterprise Class carriers and IT vendors at my day job. For me, it’s a game, and I have plenty else to occupy me, but hopefully all will take a breath and know, they want the system up and $ flowing just as bad as you want to play it.
My guess is the propeller heads and powers that be need to take a look at the load data, consider parsing out the load differently than what has been working, and remodel resource forecasts for new content. If a re-index along creates a 40% system cpu reduction, then some better analysis of db calls and maintenance schedules might be need be looked at in the short term, while a db restructure might be in order long term.
At some point, I hope they can eliminate all of the growing wait screens. Simply giving folks the option to completely turn off animations would be nice for speed of play, and the spinning icons of ‘please wait’ would do me wonders if they could be eradicated sooner rather than later…
I’m pleased with the content releases and response-time to issues. These folks are doing good and working hard I’m sure. Communication here is far better than many places, games or otherwise. Soldier on and keep doing what you do gang. This too shall pass!
Nicely said and thanks for the insight of an IT guy!
Of course I talk in a friendly and positve manner, sometimes with a
I am an optician and beeing used to be friendly but also to stand in for it when our production is too slow or faulty. Or customers get 1% discount for every day delay and that with a smile
Since communication is important I asked the devs friendly, gave an example of also struggling colleagues of them to show understanding and empathy, and offered and constructive advice for supporting the customers happyness while also promoting their new product.
Feedback of course hurts sometimes but is generally wished for.
I for my part am happy with this well evolved thread where players gave their opinion and Sirrian also answered
Have a nice day/evening/night/morning wherever you are!
EyeOfMars
Considering all that goes wrong, i wonder what the comp will be like when it is fixed. Actually now that i think of it what with the comp be for ps4 and xbox?
After the update on XBOX ONE, the sound effects are all jacked up and when casting spells, the characters appear on screen too fast, this has to change back immediately.
