An open question to GOA

[Raven]

Are you actually doing anything at all to help with the problems on the UK cluster?

A simple yes or no answer will do. If a yes please feel free to hint at what

Please can we keep the opinions out of this thread, all i want is an honest answer from GOA.


Yes i know there are several other threads on the subject but from what i can see there is no direct question to GOA.

 

[Palmer]

dont hold your breath

requiel has gone silent on fh it appears aswell.

 

[disdain]

if the answer is 'no', you think they would be honest and say that? come on...

 

[aika]

no, they will wait till 1.89 when mythic implements char transfer, then they will realise that they cant do a char transfer across diff language servers, and then they will say that they will work on a fix to that.. (while 90% of their staff is working on some free webportal that contains minesweeper online) so expect a solution by 2008 , right when WAR is out!

 

[scorge]

Are you actually doing anything at all to help with the problems on the UK cluster?

A simple yes or no answer will do. If a yes please feel free to hint at what

Please can we keep the opinions out of this thread, all i want is an honest answer from GOA.


Yes i know there are several other threads on the subject but from what i can see there is no direct question to GOA.

the answer is simple NO.

Requiel has stated in a previous thread that GOA are working on a super secret plan, that has many meetings between differant teams before they can decide on anything.

When they final decide on anything it will most likely take a few months to implement. By which time people on the cluster will have left and it wont make much differance.

GOA's inability to publically do anything, is quiet a stndard approach, its along the lines of :

"keep them in the dark, no news is good news for us, we dont get enough money from the English cluster in order to make us really bothered about increasing the player base"

Think of the dyvet cluster as a compnay that is about to go bankrupt - The managemnt will not alert its customers so that they can still take some money off them while it goes down the pan, knowing full well that they cant survive, but they want to grab as much money as possible before that happens.

The dyvet cluster is going no where fast, In GOA's case actions speak louder than words, they say they care all about the future of the Cluster and yet they dont do anything visible to there customers.

Your better off spending your subscription on a few pints down the pub, at least then you will know where your pissing you money up against the wall.

 

[Raven]

Well my subscriptions are open however i am no longer playing (popped on the other night just to take a look) they wont be getting renewed full stop now, unless i can transfer to the US and tbh i don't even think that would bring me back now.

GOA have proved they do not have the ability or resources to manage WAR in EU, the game has the potential to be huge, many WoW players are looking for something new, in a years time WAR will find a market ready for the next big MMO, its scary to think Mythic/EA trust a company that has shown time and time again how inept they are. From massive screw ups (dealing with the prydwen item issue, SOTG bollocks over the relic situation and generally not understanding the problem half the time over right now and just closing tickets on a whim) to failing to see the problem on the UK server to lying to its customers by promising they are doing something (but ofc its a secret) Rather than try and do anything about the problems they would rather make a stupid web portal that hosts trash games of the sort you find on Sky interactive. Not to mention the achingly slow patch translation and poor ping due to the French infrastructure (not directly their fault ofc but as they are part of France telecom i am sure they could do something)

An utterly worthless company that simply doesn't deserve to manage WAR

 

[elbeek]

I am in total agreement with Raven on this matter. Unfortunately it seems that GOA are either unable or do not have the man power/finances to handle this in anyway shape or form.

The very fact that the EU cluster is in its last stages and despite numerous requests, there seems very little they are prepared to do.

I would have hoped that the intervening years mismanaging DAoC they would have learnt some valuable lessons but sadly this seems not to be the case. Yet again it would appear that anything they handle will be a success purely on the grounds of the loyal player base and nothing more.

Thank fuck GOA does not run anything of any actual importance.

 

[Overdriven]

I am in total agreement with Raven on this matter. Unfortunately it seems that GOA are either unable or do not have the man power/finances to handle this in anyway shape or form.
.

EA work with Mythic, therefore GoA will have funding.

 

[Thadius]

Imo, Let the ex-Barrysworld team to run WAR!

They will run it better than GOA imo!

 

[Chronictank]

I got a e-mail on all my ex-accounts offering a 8 day free hehe

 

[Neffneff]

I got a e-mail on all my ex-accounts offering a 8 day free hehe

me too

i just let them 8 days calmly pass without even bothering to install an EU client.

 

[Phantomby]

vote with your feet, close them subs and turn dyvet into a ghost town....







oh well done, that was fast

 

[knighthood]

An utterly worthless company that simply doesn't deserve to manage WAR

Perhaps all the daoc players in euro shuld email mythic and remind them of this b4 its too late, cmon its been delayed till 2008 im sure you got plenty of time. Personally i couldnt care less really who runs it , ill only make another 20 ful lvl chars and delete them in that too, but if u all seriously dont want GoA to run it thats the only hope u got.

Until then hold ure breath, who knows GoA mite just pull something out the hat, or u might die of lack of oxygen :O

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

No company in their right mind announces plans they cannot implement until they are sure they can follow through. Things are rarely as easy as saying "We're going to do X, love us forever!"

Actually, that wouldn't help anyway because the complaining would change from "What are you going to do?" to "When are you going to do it?" then if there is slippage on delivery due to problems the issues are compounded.

As galling as it may seem, the correct route to take is the one to say nothing until a solution is certain and confirmed.

While some (many?) companies' silence indicates inactivity, though slow, GOA do tend to chug on with things and they get there in the end.

I understand the frustrations from lack of population but that is not directly GOA's fault - DAoC has been around a long time and in several areas has been bettered by subsequent games so many players have moved on. Its the natural progression of things.

 

[scorge]

No company in their right mind announces plans they cannot implement until they are sure they can follow through. Things are rarely as easy as saying "We're going to do X, love us forever!"

politicans do it all the while, but thats a differant topic

Your right though companies dont annonce plans the cannot implement, because that would just be dishonest.

I dont want GOA to announce plans the CANNOT implement, but those options that they are thinking about and an update on where they are with them, and possible how long.

Although that probably wont be in the best interest of GOA, they are not going to tell there customers that it is going to take 9 months to get back on track. Because all people will do is not subscribe till 9 months time again, if that. GOA in the meantime have lost 9 months worth of subs and revenue.

GOA wants your money, its a business and they are there to make as much as they can for as long as they can, they are not going to post anything perceived as negative on there official website. In this case as GOA are doing they will keep as silent for as long as possible in order not to deter any players.


requiel posted this on the 2nd march 2007

I can't tell you just yet what the plans are, however they are not just limited to the marketing we're doing currently. I can tell you that we're taking the issue seriously and that senior people here and at Mythic are working on solutions. I don't want to fuel the rumour mill and I don't want to pull timescales out of thin air that may or may not be realistic. All I can say for the moment is that people are working on this now and as soon as we have a resolution it will be in the news.

thats 2 months away or in other words 8 offical friday news postings, with nothing in the news, its coming up to 3 months without any word, thats a quater of a year, dont hold your breath...

 

[Esselinithia]

While some (many?) companies' silence indicates inactivity, though slow, GOA do tend to chug on with things and they get there in the end.

The question is: Will GOA have a solution to the problem before it is too late to fix it? As you see, being slow and late with action can lead to more people quiting or moving to other games. If you move to another game, you either come back in short time, or you will have too strong ties with your new characters, with the other game and community to come back.

Lack of communication means: GOA has no solid plans they can execute now. We can say, they are slow. But if they are slow, can't they start discussing the problem earlier, to have a solution ready in time?

While they can say, they thought the low population is because of a traditionally low activity period, but comparing november to november, comparing december to december, etc. compares low activity period to low activity period. So if you see a much smaller playerbase, you can be sure: It isn't because of the low actitvity period. If GOA staff isn't intelligent to recognize this, then it is a problem.

While most players recognized the drop in the population and made solid forecasts months ago, some even before that, GOA didn't recognize the problem till it was already late. It speaks about lack of knowledge about the community and the game. It isn't a good sign.

But even with this 2 problems, if GOA would want to work professionally, they would prepare for any problem that has a real chance of happening (say 5%+) or that concerns the customer base already.

Since they seen population problems on other servers, they had a good chance to prepare for the problems, with good and solid ideas, long before people got impatient.

If GOA would have designed a solution when they seen the first big population problems, they would keep such ideas updated, when some plans (like the one they used to save classic) doesn't work, make new ones quickly, we wouldn't speak about being quiet now.

Why? Because at that time noone would ask them about new plans to fix population problems when they happen on dyvet. And in december when people got realy worried, they could use some of the plans.

But in all honesty, I think the population problem which hurts the population now is one thing. Losing customers, losing revenue, losing market share, etc. is a problem that is present for a long time. If GOA would try to solve that problem, and work hard to make the population high, and wouldn't wait for the change from low to critically low, we wouldn't have the whole problem to deal with.

GOA had years to understand that losing customer base isn't good, and while clustering was an one time fix, it doesn't stop the game from losing customers, and both them and Mythic should work hard to attract more players and keep a lot of players.

 

[Imgormiel]

The question is: Will GOA have a solution to the problem before it is too late to fix it? As you see, being slow and late with action can lead to more people quiting or moving to other games. If you move to another game, you either come back in short time, or you will have too strong ties with your new characters, with the other game and community to come back.

Lack of communication means: GOA has no solid plans they can execute now. We can say, they are slow. But if they are slow, can't they start discussing the problem earlier, to have a solution ready in time?

While they can say, they thought the low population is because of a traditionally low activity period, but comparing november to november, comparing december to december, etc. compares low activity period to low activity period. So if you see a much smaller playerbase, you can be sure: It isn't because of the low actitvity period. If GOA staff isn't intelligent to recognize this, then it is a problem.

While most players recognized the drop in the population and made solid forecasts months ago, some even before that, GOA didn't recognize the problem till it was already late. It speaks about lack of knowledge about the community and the game. It isn't a good sign.

But even with this 2 problems, if GOA would want to work professionally, they would prepare for any problem that has a real chance of happening (say 5%+) or that concerns the customer base already.

Since they seen population problems on other servers, they had a good chance to prepare for the problems, with good and solid ideas, long before people got impatient.

If GOA would have designed a solution when they seen the first big population problems, they would keep such ideas updated, when some plans (like the one they used to save classic) doesn't work, make new ones quickly, we wouldn't speak about being quiet now.

Why? Because at that time noone would ask them about new plans to fix population problems when they happen on dyvet. And in december when people got realy worried, they could use some of the plans.

But in all honesty, I think the population problem which hurts the population now is one thing. Losing customers, losing revenue, losing market share, etc. is a problem that is present for a long time. If GOA would try to solve that problem, and work hard to make the population high, and wouldn't wait for the change from low to critically low, we wouldn't have the whole problem to deal with.

GOA had years to understand that losing customer base isn't good, and while clustering was an one time fix, it doesn't stop the game from losing customers, and both them and Mythic should work hard to attract more players and keep a lot of players.

You do know that GOA at one time was actually only two people running it - while running dark age!!? Think about how they have developed as a company and it's internal infrastructure and you realise there is alot going on behind the scenes that you don't know or even less care about.

Patches and more recently the new one in development mean that GOA's hands are effectively tied and it would be pointless to announce anything until things are finalised at EA Mythic's end with regards to characters etc. It's sad to see but I do understand the frustration on both sides to this arguement and yet nothing can be done

 

[Adari]

You do know that GOA at one time was actually only two people running it - while running dark age!!?

I very much doubt that.

GOA, compared to any other MMO game hosting company I know, including Mythic, have done more than fine. I'm confident that they well be well prepared for WAR.

Also, GOA cannot be held responsible for people losing interestest after 4 year's of DAoC, nor for having limited options with regard to solutions to the effects of this.

 

[Imgormiel]

I very much doubt that.

GOA, compared to any other MMO game hosting company I know, including Mythic, have done more than fine. I'm confident that they well be well prepared for WAR.

Nvm, I realise now that in error I said something that I shouldn't have with regards to GOA and to them I apologise.

 

[Phantomby]

I very much doubt that.

GOA, compared to any other MMO game hosting company I know, including Mythic, have done more than fine. I'm confident that they well be well prepared for WAR.

GOA employee 42 please come in your time is up...

Anyone who thinks that GOA have done a good job would probably be the sort of person to visit auschwitz and say it was quaint or something equally stupid.

Ok they have experience at running a set of servers (apart from the database corruptions, piss poor connections, zero ingame support, shoddy rightnow system, outdated flash website with woeful billing)

i can see how their superb customer relations involving SotG iron claw decisions have got them...a set of servers with dwindling players (re: customers) and very little support.

The only people left are die hard enthusiasts with 200 lvl 50 Ml10 alts that they can bare to leave behind, everyone else is on the US or gone to patures new.

Sheesh, i bet if GOA beat you with a stick you would politely ask for more

 

[Adari]

Sheesh, i bet if GOA beat you with a stick you would politely ask for more

I bet if you would care to use your brain the novelty will eventually wear off.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

The question is: Will GOA have a solution to the problem before it is too late to fix it? As you see, being slow and late with action can lead to more people quiting or moving to other games. If you move to another game, you either come back in short time, or you will have too strong ties with your new characters, with the other game and community to come back.

Lack of communication means: GOA has no solid plans they can execute now. We can say, they are slow. But if they are slow, can't they start discussing the problem earlier, to have a solution ready in time?

While they can say, they thought the low population is because of a traditionally low activity period, but comparing november to november, comparing december to december, etc. compares low activity period to low activity period. So if you see a much smaller playerbase, you can be sure: It isn't because of the low actitvity period. If GOA staff isn't intelligent to recognize this, then it is a problem.

While most players recognized the drop in the population and made solid forecasts months ago, some even before that, GOA didn't recognize the problem till it was already late. It speaks about lack of knowledge about the community and the game. It isn't a good sign.

But even with this 2 problems, if GOA would want to work professionally, they would prepare for any problem that has a real chance of happening (say 5%+) or that concerns the customer base already.

Since they seen population problems on other servers, they had a good chance to prepare for the problems, with good and solid ideas, long before people got impatient.

If GOA would have designed a solution when they seen the first big population problems, they would keep such ideas updated, when some plans (like the one they used to save classic) doesn't work, make new ones quickly, we wouldn't speak about being quiet now.

Why? Because at that time noone would ask them about new plans to fix population problems when they happen on dyvet. And in december when people got realy worried, they could use some of the plans.

But in all honesty, I think the population problem which hurts the population now is one thing. Losing customers, losing revenue, losing market share, etc. is a problem that is present for a long time. If GOA would try to solve that problem, and work hard to make the population high, and wouldn't wait for the change from low to critically low, we wouldn't have the whole problem to deal with.

GOA had years to understand that losing customer base isn't good, and while clustering was an one time fix, it doesn't stop the game from losing customers, and both them and Mythic should work hard to attract more players and keep a lot of players.

Did you ever consider just writing a normal post, and not one that spans multiple screenlengths on my 1600x1200 resolution screen?
It's a forum, not a proza contest.

 

[Cadelin]

Did you ever consider just writing a normal post, and not one that spans multiple screenlengths on my 1600x1200 resolution screen?
It's a forum, not a proza contest.

Have you considered trying a different forum? Maybe the Grats forum, your attention span will probably be just about long enough to read most of the post in there. Do you really have to reply to all Esselinithia's post with a tl;dr reply?

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Have you considered trying a different forum? Maybe the Grats forum, your attention span will probably be just about long enough to read most of the post in there. Do you really have to reply to all Esselinithia's post with a tl;dr reply?

My attention span is long enough when I want it to, however Essel's post are not only long, but also empty.

 

[Thadius]

My attention span is long enough when I want it to, however Essel's post are not only long, but also empty.

Agreed, Essel tends to wibble on about the same things constantly, except making them the size equivalent to War and Peace

 

[Cadelin]

My attention span is long enough when I want it to, however Essel's post are not only long, but also empty.

Ah that explains why you felt the need to quote everything Essel said....

If you don't feel there is anything worth responding too just leave the post, noone is forcing you to respond.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Ah that explains why you felt the need to quote everything Essel said....

If you don't feel there is anything worth responding too just leave the post, noone is forcing you to respond.

I felt the need to reply, because although her posts are empty, they are detrimental for the DAoC community.

 

[Cadelin]

I felt the need to reply, because although her posts are empty, they are detrimental for the DAoC community.

You sure are improving the DaoC community with post like these...

your posts are too long.... cba to read...

Did you ever consider just writing a normal post, and not one that spans multiple screenlengths on my 1600x1200 resolution screen?
It's a forum, not a proza contest.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

Meanwhile, back in the batcave, Batman and Robin are working on a feindish plan of getting this thread back on course!

Its this constant bitching at each other thats ripping the community apart too, try putting some more constructive posts together, anyone outside the game will read this and think that FH represents the most retarded gaming community, not one of great m8s supporting a game.

 

[GReaper]

Ah that explains why you felt the need to quote everything Essel said....

If you don't feel there is anything worth responding too just leave the post, noone is forcing you to respond.

It's just that Esselinithia seems to post an entire page into a single post every time, when a paragraph or two would be sufficient!

It gets a little bit annoying when it's the same with every post.