Have you ever thought about the phrases “the last straw” or “the straw that broke the camel’s back”?
The point isn’t that one last straw. The point is that there’s a big pile of straw, each of them insignificant on their own, but nobody ever got around to dealing with any of them. So they piled up. And they got heavier. And heavier. Then that one little last straw came along and it was too many.
That’s why each time this happens the threads are a little less funny. I lost track at some point but I remember keeping track through at least a quarter of 2018 and no update released that didn’t need a fix by the end of the day. This included somehow missing rollover on New Year’s Day.
Mistakes are human, but someone’s being paid to do this and sort of expects you to pay for it. It sort of gives off the perception that whoever it is doesn’t actually care. That’s not a good aura to emit when asking someone for their wallet.
But my guess is it’s not so much “not caring” as “overworked and stressed”. The text has to be translated to umpteen languages, and all of it has to be reviewed, and that’s ON TOP OF the dev changes that need to be made, and the social media work, and the meetings, and the meetings about the meetings, and the meetings about meetings that are yet to come. I’m sure if the team had more resources they’d be meticulous.
It’s not that we don’t care, it is that we are an exceedingly busy team. We are currently in the process of re-writing and fixing all of our text in game to ensure that it is more consistent. Please sit tight while we do this, as it is a huge task.
I have passed on to the team the misspelling or Hierophant, and we are working on changing it now. I do feel like the difference between “here” and “there” is a little nit picky, as it doesn’t significantly alter the flow of the narrative or negatively impact the player. The same goes for “There’s not time to explain.”
I also wanted to talk a little about our stance on community, or player, employment/work. We work closely with certain members of the community, especially when it comes to translating Gems of War into other languages. These community translators have a better idea of the game, and context of spells, jokes, etc, and often do a better job than contracted translators. We pay these players for their time with real cash dollars.
We will not work with players without paying them. As such, we aren’t comfortable with letting someone proof read our text in exchange for in game resources. (Looking at you @Starlite!) In regards to proof reading, it isn’t only that we would be paying for editing, but that more time would be taken to liaise with someone, send the text back and forth, etc. So it’s not only a paid job, but also a responsibility that one of our team member’s needs to make time for. As such, we won’t be employing any community members to proof read for us, whether it be for money or in-game resources. I hope this has answered this question and shed some more light on how our practices work.
Tx: is there/should there be an official thread where we can highlight some of these inconsistencies to try to assist in ensuring the process is as comprehensive as possible? (e.g. Summon Vs Conjure storms, ‘Transform’ gems used instead of ‘Convert’…)
I’m okay with the gist of the response, but I’m not a huge fan of characterising a player’s feedback as nit picky or harsh, since this feels invalidating, and like a rebuttal rather than showing listening/understanding – unless of course being harsh isn’t acceptable and lines need to be drawn.
I thought by the tone of my response and also the length that I was showing that we are listening to play feedback, and aren’t invalidating it. However, I can see how this was misinterpreted.
I feel that some of the language used above was pretty harsh when one considers that these spelling errors have not broken the game or made it unplayable. Feedback is good and appreciated! Harsh feedback too, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging that some of the aforementioned feedback came across as harsh.
I was gonna edit my post to expand on the bits of the response I liked the most or found the most helpful, when I said, “okay with the gist of the response”, but will put it here instead:
There’s an argument that players reporting bugs is unpaid labour – of a sort.
My frustration (hence, “no-holds-barred” phrasing) wasn’t because the problems are happening; it’s because I can’t see any signs of improvement. As Slypenslyde pointed out, bits of straw pile up over time.
I would like to see some process changes, both for your in-house QA (insofar as the effects we can see) and the bug-reporting processes for these types of bugs. I’ve sent some extra detail on this to Kafka.
Personally, I consider it as voluntary feedback. It helps to improve the game, so there’s sort of a benefit attached. I wouldn’t expect or want any kind of payment, I’d appreciate updates to bug reports though (e.g. “fixed”, “not reproducible”, “needs more info”).
Normally, I would agree. But it can become a question of how much time is being invested helping the devs fix things they somehow missed. Or posting to this thread. I’m out.
“It’s volunteering” isn’t an argument against “it’s unpaid labor”. It’s just a nicer word, like “prisoners with jobs” vs. “slaves”.
There are a couple of people who, on these very forums, spend a significant amount of time (compared to most players) taking screenshots of and documenting errors in the game. I think it’s fair for those people to say they shouldn’t have to be doing all that work, especially for such little recognition. I bet if they just got a “Speling Helpr” title or something from the devs they’d feel warm and fuzzy.
Also, “We’re working on correcting errors in the text” is a weird response to “you keep releasing new errors and it hurts”. Is the plan to fix all the old ones, then let the new ones accumulate until it’s a big job again, or is there some point where the plan is, “Don’t release new text errors”? There are a lot of English speakers on the forums who’d be glad to help you with it the same way you’ve enlisted the help of foreign language speakers. They help you every week. They need a break.
While there is a thread near the top of the forums for registering grammatical discontent, I have one more twig to add to the fire:
On the Adventure Board, there is a common task titled “Seek for Glory I”. A higher-rarity task is called “Seek Glory II”. Please remove the “for” from the name of the common task.
