Curse

Thom Banglooser · May 27, 2008, 02:56 PM // 14:56

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Establishing trust with your community is vital. If you want healthy relations and a good atmosphere to grow your playerbase through word of mouth then it is hugely important.

Trust is all about setting standards, hard rules and precidents, and then sticking by them absolutely - or having a damn good reason otherwise, which is the second part of building trust: Communication.

If your rules state that X action leads to Y with no exceptions listed, then that had better be the case for absolutely everyone. Even if you have simply made a habit of doing/not doing something you had better have a reason to give if you want to suddenly want to change that.

You must be air tight, impenetrable. Communities are good enough at inventing reasons to bitch without you also giving them ammunition. Every time you break one of your precidents or bend a rule for someone you are opening yourself up for criticism. It very easily triggers the snowball effect, and one example of 'favoritism' can spawn dozens of other conspiracies. Every time this happens your community becomes a little more jaded and unhappy with you, regardless of how well founded the original issue was.

On the same note, the message coming from your community staff and from your developers should be 100% consistent. If you want to build trust between your players and your community staff then people have to know that what they are reading is the god's own gosbel truth coming straight from mister chief head-honcho supreme lead developer.

With All do respect JR, this is Anet's game not yours. They have sold over 4million copies over 3 years, this fact tells me the regardless of how you and a handful of other QQ's may feel they have and are doing a pretty good job!!!

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I don't disagree with [rawr] not being disqualified, but I feel it was handled badly. We got no real explanation or statement, and as far as I am aware the rules have not been changed yet - though I believe that at least is in the pipeline.

To be honest JR, I don't believe this comment. (sorry but I just don't) To your point about Explanation. My guess is that no explanation was necessary, because any objective person looking at the accusation knows nothing happened. Therefore replying to such accusation would give credence to it. Also replying or commenting would set a precedent, that in every instance a group of 40 or so PVP'rs complain Anet would have to respond or look like they are not doing their job. (actually 39 pvp'rs becasue you have said before you don;t play this game anymore)

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don't disagree with [rawr] getting their cape back either, but again there has been a complete lack of communication about the issue. Not to mention [rawr] has had their cape badly restored before any other guild has been given their cape from the last monthly.

I must admit I am really glad to hear they got their capes back!!!
The problem I have with this statement is, by saying issue you are helping to confuse people. This has nothing to do with an account being hacked and people getting their gold, weapons, materials or whatever back. This has to do with a guild getting their cape back that they earned. Everybody in PVP and allot of people who PVE know that rawr were #1 and are the only guild to have won 5 monthly tournaments = 5 gold capes. This also goes for the history of rawr's victories on the ladder. It was their for everyone to see, and nothing that has happened over the past day has changed history. Also we all know how the ladder means nothing anymore and is a historical chart of a teams history correct? Once again any objective person would come to these conclusions and therefor no explanation is needed by Anet.

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Dear community,

In light of [rawr]'s commitment and dedication to the Guild Wars community we have decided to make an exception and restore their gold cape trim that was recently lost in an unfortunate incident."

If you keep quiet on pressing issues and don't communicate then all you achieve is encouraging speculation and criticism. This is what leads to a jaded and bitter community, and an unhealthy environment. If you are open and honest then you can go from being the bad guy to looking like the good guy.

This part of the industry is not about what you do, but what people think of what you do. Anet already has a particularly bad track record in this field, one that I was sincerely hoping they would improve.

As I have said in other simmilar threads: I had hoped that the communication between Anet and the players would pick up with the introduction of the new community manager. Instead it seems they are ignoring this fanbase, as if it were an annoying child tugging on their apron strings. However, this community is the foundation for Guild Wars 2. Most of us registered on this forum will probably go on to play the sequel at some point, and probably again be active members of the community. If we go into that with an unfavorable impression of ArenaNet then it will undoubtably spread and taint the atmosphere of that community also. It would also be good experience and practice for Anet to actually work on stronger community relations now, rather than to go even further into uncharted waters with Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars has become little more than a sandbox for ArenaNet to test ideas out for Guild Wars 2. GW:EN was a lot of fun, but everything since than has clearly had minimal planning, poor execution and next to no communication at all. That goes for game updates, additions, or simply how they have dealt with issues like this.

Anet, you are making a mistake.

Once again JR with all do respect, this is Anet's game not yours. Sometimes it seems like you enjoy dwelling on any bad things (perceived by you) that Anet does.
Maybe you should go play a different game, or better yet go create one. That way you'll have nobody to complain about except yourself.

Please don;t take this as an attack on you, just yours was the only post that put all the grievances by a handful of people all together. So it was the best to try to make my point.

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That's rubbish. It takes 30 seconds to send the relevant developer an IM message, a few minutes to get a response, and a little while longer to turn it into something postable and put it out there. You don't have to be in the Anet office to do that.

Sorry but I just saw this response you just gave to someone and I just have to comment.
JR if you new anything about how a business works, you would know that just because someone is a head of or works in community relations does not mean they can go out and publish whatever they choose. Before any statements are made their will be a meeting of all relevant departments including top management. Yes the internet is a great thing but if you think people IM their bosses about how to word a statement. You are in for a rude awakening when you finally enter the workforce.

JR · May 27, 2008, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

With All do respect JR, this is Anet's game not yours. They have sold over 4million copies over 3 years, this fact tells me the regardless of how you and a handful of other QQ's may feel they have and are doing a pretty good job!!!

Granted, however, that doesn't mean they should slack on looking for areas to improve in. With stiff competition coming from AoC and WAR they aren't exactly sitting pretty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

To be honest JR, I don't believe this comment. (sorry but I just don't) To your point about Explanation. My guess is that no explanation was necessary, because any objective person looking at the accusation knows nothing happened. Therefore replying to such accusation would give credence to it.

It was a very real issue, not an invention. [rawr] broke the tournament rules on two counts, but were not disqualified. To clarify before anyone jumps on this: I did not want [rawr] disqualified, but a statement from Anet and an immediate amendment to the rules would have been nice. Moving along...

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Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

Also replying or commenting would set a precedent, that in every instance a group of 40 or so PVP'rs complain Anet would have to respond or look like they are not doing their job. (actually 39 pvp'rs becasue you have said before you don;t play this game anymore)

How many times from memory can you think of Anet allowing a specific guild to bypass tournament rules? One. It's hardly going to set a demanding precedent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

I must admit I am really glad to hear they got their capes back!!!
The problem I have with this statement is, by saying issue you are helping to confuse people. This has nothing to do with an account being hacked and people getting their gold, weapons, materials or whatever back. This has to do with a guild getting their cape back that they earned. Everybody in PVP and allot of people who PVE know that rawr were #1 and are the only guild to have won 5 monthly tournaments = 5 gold capes. This also goes for the history of rawr's victories on the ladder. It was their for everyone to see, and nothing that has happened over the past day has changed history. Also we all know how the ladder means nothing anymore and is a historical chart of a teams history correct? Once again any objective person would come to these conclusions and therefor no explanation is needed by Anet.

Ok, so if you get 5 gold capes you are insured against hacking? What about four and a silver? Three, two silvers and a bronze?

The number of capes you have won should have absolutely zero bearing on whether or not Anet will restore your guild if you lose it. They should have a policy simply on whether or not they are willing to do that for *everybody*, or for *nobody*.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

Once again JR with all do respect, this is Anet's game not yours. Sometimes it seems like you enjoy dwelling on any bad things (perceived by you) that Anet does.

Not really. I think as a developer Anet have been fantastic. Their one glaring flaw has been how they have dealt with the community, and naturally that becomes highlighted in a thread like this. It also happens to be an area I have considerable experience in.

Thom Banglooser · May 27, 2008, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Well JR we will have to agree to disagree on this.

Sorry but I just saw this response you just gave to someone and I just have to comment.

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That's rubbish. It takes 30 seconds to send the relevant developer an IM message, a few minutes to get a response, and a little while longer to turn it into something postable and put it out there. You don't have to be in the Anet office to do that.

JR if you new anything about how a business works, you would know that just because someone is a head of or works in community relations does not mean they can go out and publish whatever they choose. Before any statements are made their will be a meeting of all relevant departments including top management. Yes the internet is a great thing but if you think people IM their bosses about how to word a statement. You are in for a rude awakening when you finally enter the workforce.

zwei2stein · May 27, 2008, 03:23 PM // 15:23

I am not mad about rawr. After all, anet is not roll backing game for them, only restoring cape which we all know they had. To my memory this is kinda precedent.

BUT Anet is notorious for ASAP unbanning active community players who get repeatedly (!!!) caught in anti-boting nets. If anyone has issues with anets favoritism, he should speak about that. Not some silly cape which is first of that kind (but anet should better act exactly same way next time another trimmed guild is disbanded in such way ...)

R.Shayne · May 27, 2008, 03:24 PM // 15:24

The whole thing is upsetting in so many ways.

1. If anet finally realizes that something is wrong with their server and resolves the issue now, how many people are going to say, "When my account was hacked nothing was done but when his account was hacked something happen."

2. If anet does show any favoritism I would suggest they revert it, I could care less if the trim was poke-a-dot, but people who have had their account hacked / stolen (regardless if it was user or server side) are going to be screaming how unfair it was.

3. This could even open them up to criticism from the gaming news media (How much would it affect GW2 success if an article appeared in PC Gamer or on Gamespot detailing specially treatment given one or select few customers.) Then there is the old saying, “There is no bad press.” Then again seeing how the news media depends on selling adds to publishers like NC Soft they most likely would not touch it.

In my opinion ANET best course of action is to do nothing and limit communication between customers even more. If they find a server hole, fix it, and tell the community nothing about it. I so hope ANET does nothing since my future enjoyment of this game depend on their business success.

JR · May 27, 2008, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

JR if you new anything about how a business works, you would know that just because someone is a head of or works in community relations does not mean they can go out and publish whatever they choose. Before any statements are made their will be a meeting of all relevant departments including top management. Yes the internet is a great thing but if you think people IM their bosses about how to word a statement. You are in for a rude awakening when you finally enter the workforce.

I have worked in community management on an MMO title. I am not theorycrafting my responses.

Friday · May 27, 2008, 03:34 PM // 15:34

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Originally Posted by Killed u man

I'm confused, they actually got their caped back?

If so, /uninstall GW and go buy AoC...

Favoratism is ftl...

So wait, when random person X sends a query to Anet they got hacked and their characters deleted, they say: "Fcuk you!", and when the leader of a top guild acount gets hacked, he has to snap his fingers in order for Anet to give everything back?

Wow, and then people wonder -mainly the fanboys- why the majority of the community is so sceptic about Anet?

Bottom line is: no-one got ANYTHING restored after a hack, and now this person, owawa or whatever his name was, gets his guild, cape and everything back?
Your head has to be really deep in Anet's ass to not realize this is plain favoritism and simply wrong as a developer...

I am sorry, but just a quick question here:

How do you get from "a guild cape being re-instated" to "Guild, cape and EVERYTHING back"? That is some leap of logic there.

As far as I know, the Guild Cape is ALL that has been re-instated and not even that is confirmed by a reliable source on these boards. As far as YOU know that is ALL.

Just where do you source the information you are so righteously indignant about eh?

RotteN · May 27, 2008, 03:43 PM // 15:43

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Originally Posted by Friday

As far as I know, the Guild Cape is ALL that has been re-instated and not even that is confirmed by a reliable source on these boards.

Screenshot of Joe Hostile with the new cape :

Joe is indeed a member of [rawr], as can be seen on the rawr cup page :
http://www.guildcafe.com/rails/teams/contest

as you can see, it's a different cape, but with gold trim aswell.

-----------------------------------------------

All that aside, i agree with JR. Communication is key in decisionmaking. People will be more inclined to accept something if you take the effort to explain the reasoning behind the actions. I've made more than one "odd" desicion in my year as president of my student association, but no one ever cried havoc because i always communicated the reasoning behind it all. That doesn't mean everyone would agree with it, but at least they understood why i made the call, and didn't have to speculate about it.

Everyone nowadays has a cellphone, it's not hard to call people that matter and ask their oppinion before posting a small statement. It's what CR (and PR in general) is all about. I get called out of bed at 4am for some stuff, and i'm still a student. A CR manager should be able to call the lead developers during the day (even if it's a holiday).

Ec]-[oMaN · May 27, 2008, 03:47 PM // 15:47

Seriously put the matter to rest. Guild got deleted. A member remade the guild with same name and they got their cape which hasn't even been given out to everyone yet ie, who's to say that technically rawr even got their gold cape applied before the guild got deleted, end of story.

Thom Banglooser · May 27, 2008, 03:49 PM // 15:49

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That's rubbish. It takes 30 seconds to send the relevant developer an IM message, a few minutes to get a response, and a little while longer to turn it into something postable and put it out there. You don't have to be in the Anet office to do that.

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I have worked in community management on an MMO title. I am not theorycrafting my responses.

Sorry JR but that is theory crafting your responses. This is why all Community or Customer relation departments are located at the main offices of any company. So before statements are made, a meeting can take place. When a company is worldwide, all statements will be run through a main hub before being released which is usually the main headquarters. All I am saying JR is your response just showed a complete lack of knowledge of how large companies operate.

English Warrior · May 27, 2008, 03:51 PM // 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

I'm confused, they actually got their caped back?

If so, /uninstall GW and go buy AoC...

Favoratism is ftl...

So wait, when random person X sends a query to Anet they got hacked and their characters deleted, they say: "Fcuk you!", and when the leader of a top guild acount gets hacked, he has to snap his fingers in order for Anet to give everything back?

Wow, and then people wonder -mainly the fanboys- why the majority of the community is so sceptic about Anet?

Bottom line is: no-one got ANYTHING restored after a hack, and now this person, owawa or whatever his name was, gets his guild, cape and everything back?
Your head has to be really deep in Anet's ass to not realize this is plain favoratism and simply wrong as a developer...

the hacked account did not get everything back if you read up another member re-made the guild they got the cape they had just previously won in the may monthly, wheres the favoritism they got what they won nothing else, also when som1 gets there account hacked anet don't say Fcuk You! they say we will try and deal with it sometimes they do and sometimes they don't in this case they did and if you have a problem with that you win 5 gold capes and have your account hacked and e-mail anet.

Thom Banglooser · May 27, 2008, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Well Said Leeds!!!!!!!!!

R.Shayne · May 27, 2008, 03:57 PM // 15:57

Thanks Rotten for the screen shot.

My wife would probably like to thank ANET at this time since it means I am done with Guild Wars, ANET, NC Soft, and these forums. I will not be part of something that tells one customer there is nothing that can be done and then bends the rule for another customer.

Once my six auctions have closed and all transaction have been completed and I have honored my word I will uninstall Guild Wars. I will miss these forums since they have been a great source of information and a few good debates.

Turn off the lights on the way out, cya.

Esan · May 27, 2008, 04:04 PM // 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

Sorry JR but that is theory crafting your responses. This is why all Community or Customer relation departments are located at the main offices of any company. So before statements are made, a meeting can take place. When a company is worldwide, all statements will be run through a main hub before being released which is usually the main headquarters. All I am saying JR is your response just showed a complete lack of knowledge of how large companies operate.

(1) Anet is not a "large company". All their employees (with the exception of small specialzed teams) work in the same studio in Seattle. (2) I agree with JR about how company PR should be handled. I work in one of the largest companies in Europe and that's how we do things. (3) Regardless, the minutes and hours after an incident are when the narrative is formed, and it is in any company's best interests to control the narrative. Anet have a long history of repeatedly dropping the ball.

JR · May 27, 2008, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

Sorry JR but that is theory crafting your responses. This is why all Community or Customer relation departments are located at the main offices of any company.

Actually it's not at all uncommon to have community relations separate to the developers. To give two well known examples; Warhammer Online and Age of Conan both operate that way with a company called GOA. They also have in-house community staff, but they certainly don't throttle their external staff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Banglooser

So before statements are made, a meeting can take place. When a company is worldwide, all statements will be run through a main hub before being released which is usually the main headquarters. All I am saying JR is your response just showed a complete lack of knowledge of how large companies operate.

A community managers job depends on a certain level of indepence. When something goes terribly wrong with the servers at 4:00 AM and you get a call from the ops team are you going to schedule a meeting about it? No. Your job, your responsibility, the reason you are hired is because a company trusts you to be their public face to the community. If a meeting had to be held before every post was made then there would infact never be time to respond to anything in the first place.

Go look through the game and dev tracker on this forum, and read through the posts listed there. Do you really think Regina had to have a meeting before every one to discuss exactly what would be said? No. The company trusts her to do that herself. She finds out the information, and she posts about it.

The ability to see a situation and begin reacting to it immediately is core in the community management role. With major issues such as hacking spates or massive levels of exploiting it would probably be wise to have a meeting before releasing any major statement to iron out the facts, but there would already be a post up communicating that it was known and being dealt with. As Esan said so well; it is the period immediately following an incident that dictates the impact it has, and it's in a companies best interest to control that as much as they can.

Dylananimus · May 27, 2008, 04:14 PM // 16:14

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Originally Posted by Ctb

Just for future reference, to anyone else thinking of posting this sort of thing: don't.

Nobody here cares.

Least of all Anet

Ec]-[oMaN · May 27, 2008, 04:15 PM // 16:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ctb

Just for future reference, to anyone else thinking of posting this sort of thing: don't.

Nobody here cares.

Nor are the reasons for posting such a dumb rant even remotely correct.

Killed u man · May 27, 2008, 04:24 PM // 16:24

To the people replying to my post about Anet's obvious favoratism towards certain players:

The only arguement I seem to find valid is the one where U state that EVERYONE knows [rawr] deserves the cape, because everyone knows they have one.

Well, you're 100% correct in saying so: They deserve it, and I'm not a boogy-man that takes joy in seeing people getting punished on top of the fact they got hacked.

However, IF you go by this arguement, the fact everyone knows they had the cape so they deserve it, can be brought down to a simple fact: Restore it the way it was before the hack.
Now, Anet has access -duuuur- to the logs. From these logs, they can CLEARLY and 100% SURE define what items/characters a person had BEFORE the hack. Then why don't they re-instate these aswell?

I'm NOT complaining about the fact [rawr] got their cape back, I'm complaining about the fact that a certain player got priviledged because he was in a top Guild.
And yes, if this were to come out in mainstream public, I would love to see how many people will say "No thanks" to GW2, simply because no-one likes the feeling they are "less" then other people.

You can call this jealousy, but it is most definatly not an unhealthy dose.

If the same person in a company keeps getting pats on the back from bosses, can arrive late without consequences and gets a raise every 3 months, whilst everyone else has to work by the book, I wonder how many employees will continue to keep on working in that situation, yes not many...

Also, 2 more things:

1) Whenever, and I mean WHENEVER, someone gets hacked, HE gets accused from visiting malicious sites (Account/gold selling sites) so it would only be fair to assume Owawa was doing the same thing. -Visiting sites to try and sell accounts/gold- Why is there no accusations this time? The only thing I read is: "Poor Owawa and poor [rawr] and poor Alliance", whatever happened to the general accepted: "Don't visit gold/account selling sites, and this wouldn't have happened?". You could most definatly say that these are unbased accusations, which they are. However, whenever random person X gets hacked, we ALL join the bandwagon and saying it's his own fault.

2) I won't even start on the fact that I myself already know a few people who constantly bot -mainly for gold selling on Ebay sites to make some extra cash in rl- and always get the accouny un-banned somehow. Conspiracy theories? Well ok, and I gues you guys still believe that O.J. really was innocent? ...

RotteN · May 27, 2008, 04:27 PM // 16:27

no one ever stated Awowa got his stuff back.

DutchSmurf · May 27, 2008, 04:29 PM // 16:29

I do agree with you JR, if there was actually an issue here. But as much as people want to look into it, there is nothing to see. Now if Awowa gets his account restored, then there would be an issue. If rawr gets their rating restored without explanation, then there is an issue. Neither of those things happened yet, meaning there is no issue, meaning there is no need to communicate.

This is how I see it:
1) Awowa gets 'hacked' (wouldn't surprise me at all if that was thanks to his own fault) and rawr gets deleted.
2) another member of rawr remakes the guild with an ugly cape.
3) Izzy hands out gold cape to rawr, which they deserved last weekend. Since some guilds (mostly Europeans) still didn't get their capes for that one yet, there is nothing indicating that the cape got restored. It was just the reward they deserved last MAT.
4) a member of StP has been seen dancing around with Awowa's character name, meaning the account hasn't been restored. (source is the qq forums, so hard to say if it is true)
5) people try to create some drama on the forums

If anyone can be blamed for this situation then it is the mods here for not closing this right away just like the original thread.