Here's something from Mark Jacob's blog...

[Vell]

Taken from Marks blog in the comments section.

Posted at 8.17

http://onlinegamesareanichemarket.wo...-008/#comments

"Mark Jacobs, on September 8th, 2008 at 8:17 pm Said:

There is a fine line between what is acceptable and not acceptable in dealing with customers and potential customers. What is unacceptable for anyone to say when they represent a company is that the customers comments are “borderline sociopathic”.

That sort of comment, especially when delivered by a representative of a company (especially when that company caused the problems that led to the remark) is equally as bad as some of the comments made by a small percentage of the community. What made it worse was those comments were part of a message that he delivered to the community as both part of the company he represents (GOA) and by reflection, Mythic.

The bottom line is that those comments and frankly his entire update did nothing but further inflame a community that was already upset by what happened at GOA.
Oh, and the whole “I hope Ian won’t be made a scapegoat thing” is quite frankly, nonsense. Ian made those comments and for better or worse, he has to live with them. What he should have done is had the post taken down and apologized for writing it if he believed his comments were out of line.

BTW, I do not share the sentiment that some of the comments were “borderline sociopathic” that is a very, very strong term and one that should not be bandied about lightly."

 

[pez]

While we're playing the responsibility for ones own actions game, I wonder if Marc Jacobs will take responsibility for giving GoA the European contract despite overwhelming concern from its Euro customer base?

 

[rynnor]

Link seems gone?

 

[Vell]

Link seems gone?

Hmm, it's only put the ... in when you click it rather than the whole thing. I'll try again, 1 sec...

 

[pikeh]

I agree, It seems a very very unwise thing to say at such a time, but also when GOA get irl death threats, racist abuse etc, those are also things that are not to be "bandied about lightly".

 

[Vell]

Oh what a night, late on Sunday back in 008 - Updated Online Games Are a Niche Market

 

[Vell]

I agree, It seems a very very unwise thing to say at such a time, but also when GOA get irl death threats, racist abuse etc, those are also things that are not to be "bandied about lightly".

The important thing to remember though is that Iain's post was changed after it's original posting. He originally said that everyone who was upset or angry about not having access was a sociopath.

The whole sentence about it being the people who threatened them and made racist jokes only came in after he was told to change it.

 

[TdC]

and the point of this is what? if anything, read pikeh's post and try to get it, eh. playing fast and loose with whatever was said, who said it first, may have been said, was changed, speculation and the circumstances thereof is getting old really fast tbh.

 

[Flimgoblin]

The important thing to remember though is that Iain's post was changed after it's original posting. He originally said that everyone who was upset or angry about not having access was a sociopath.

The whole sentence about it being the people who threatened them and made racist jokes only came in after he was told to change it.

The original wording could be taken to mean everyone posting angrily - but I really doubt that was what was meant, hence the edit.

I'm pretty sure Mark Jacobs is referring to the edited version.

 

[rynnor]

Personally I dont think its right to do this kind of thing via a blog - to have the CEO of one company write this against an individual employee of another company is just plain wrong.

I also dont agree with him that suggesting that someone has sociopathic tendencies = making death threats.

Finally, I dont think he knows anything about sociopathy or anti -social personality disorders as they are more correctly termed.

1 in 30 of the population are thought to have it so its quite common (it doesnt mean they will kill anyone but they tend to lack empathy).

I suggest he read http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF

I hope GOA will stand by IainC

 

[Flimgoblin]

Wikipedia (that always reliable source )

Has Antisocial Personality Disorder described as

"pervasive disregard for the law and the rights of others"

I'd say death threats and calling for people to burn GOA's offices down aren't that far off the mark.

Now should Iain (two i's if you're going to start sniping at your partners/colleagues at least spell their name right) have posted it? Probably not, especially since everyone and their dog seems to have interpreted it as "IainC hates you and your dog!", even if the comment wasn't made at them.

for the record he already apologised for the confusion there:

Yes, to clarify, before people take things out of context the 'there is something wrong with you' comment was indeed aimed at the particularly vile minority who posted all kinds of really inappropriate stuff here and elsewhere. Most of you expressed your concerns without resorting to racial slurs, threats of violence and other totally unnecessary language. Sadly however a vocal percentage didn't.

It wasn't my intent to insult the vast majority of you who were disappointed and said so but kept their criticism within reasonable bounds, if you felt that I was then I am sorry for that.

That said I'm really surprised that Mark Jacobs is bringing this up on a blog of all places, a phone call might have been a better idea - what happened to the GOA/Mythic communication? Pick up the phone Mark.

 

[Javai]

While I thought when I read it the comment was unwise (if understandable given the crap the CMs take on a daily basis) I have also felt over the last week or so Mark Jacobs has repeatedly undermined the CMs and/or inflamed situations rather than making them better. GoA have clearly not delivered and that's a problem but the CMs are people and have to take alot of shit, I think the management of both companies should be backing them up in public if not in private.

 

[Rayko]

is this about the story with the german CM?

 

[Flimgoblin]

is this about the story with the german CM?

nope, this is IainC (Requiel) posting an update on WHA which included the paragraph:

A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

The original version didn't make it as clear that he was refering to the people "compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts".

FH was thankfully clear of borderline-sociopaths (that or they kept themselves to themselves... or just got on with moderating the forums *ducks*)

 

[Vell]

Wikipedia (that always reliable source )

Has Antisocial Personality Disorder described as

"pervasive disregard for the law and the rights of others"

I'd say death threats and calling for people to burn GOA's offices down aren't that far off the mark.

Now should Iain (two i's if you're going to start sniping at your partners/colleagues at least spell their name right) have posted it? Probably not, especially since everyone and their dog seems to have interpreted it as "IainC hates you and your dog!", even if the comment wasn't made at them.

for the record he already apologised for the confusion there:



That said I'm really surprised that Mark Jacobs is bringing this up on a blog of all places, a phone call might have been a better idea - what happened to the GOA/Mythic communication? Pick up the phone Mark.

Do you not think he has said so over the phone? Do you think he would have posted such a thing if he got any kind of satisfactory response from GOA? You can tell by his posts of Warhammer Alliance and on his blog that he's every bit as frustrated as the majority of us. Iain should not have edited his post when he was pulled up for it - he should have flat out deleted that entire paragraph. He has absolutely no sensitivity towards the attitudes of the hordes of us that still don't have access as shown by the multitude of threads congratulating his colleagues for essentially plugging in and switching on a few game servers, when there are so many other problems that need addressing, but instead he's only glossed over them. Not one of his posts has had an apologetic tone. He's proved over the past few weeks that he is completely incompetant at his job of CM. Inaccuracies, lies and deflections of blame is essentially all he's posted.

Magnus, on the other hand, appears to have done his best with what he's been given, so a pat on the back to him. The current situation is not all bad, but it's pretty shit, lets be honest.

 

[Barbar_Bar]

Well what to say... Welcome to MMO and Nerdrage.

Btw he is right you know?

 

[Flimgoblin]

I agree a tack of "sorry guys, this really is a balls up, working as fast as we can to make it better" might have been more acceptable to the forum folks waiting to register still, but to be fair, part of the post is that, it's just not highlighted in bold.

Ho hum, things can only get better...

 

[Cordain]

Hopefully so..

Then again if we live trough with this again with head start or live launch then the poo will REALLY hit the fan. I'm pretty sure the fans and haters alike are stretch to their limits RIGHT now. One more failure and there's going to be a riot. I'm talking newsworthy mayhem (ok mainly gaming magazines, but still).

 

[Muylaetrix]

tbh, i don`t want to know what people have send in private ways of communication and on other sites but i can imagine it was ugly.

i have posted stuff in anger before that with hindsight i regret (most of those times i hardly remember posting them because i was to drunk to remember at the time of posting). and i assume most of us have at one time or another made a regretable post.

>>
A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.
<<

sunday and monday must have been hell for the CM`s from GOA. i can understand him calling some of the POSTS borderline sociopathic tbh. if he would have called PEOPLE sociopathic, then he would have been out of line (even if he was right about it).

 

[Fitzbert]

Well thanks, Flim. Now I have "Things Can Only Get Better" by bloody Take That stuck in my head. -.-

 

[Prudil]

Guess MJB has spoken direct to GOA prior to making his famous blog post...

I have read IanC’s post on the situation and I have just communicated to GOA my thoughts on it. I’ll simply say this, I do not agree with what he said, I do not support what he said and his comments were, in my opinion, way out of line.

But as Flimgoblin said, kinda unprofessional airing dirty laundry in full public and especially when you cant even spell his name right! See above quote.

Iain is his name not Ian...

This whole episode is becoming a farce in customer relations, business communication and common decency. IainC made a fool of himself - but so did MJB!

PS: what I don't understand is that only ONE of TWO CM's are on duty the release day of both the registration system and the OpenBeta servers.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Well thanks, Flim. Now I have "Things Can Only Get Better" by bloody Take That stuck in my head. -.-

blame rynnor he "takethat-rolled" me

 

[Flimgoblin]

PS: what I don't understand is that only ONE of TWO CM's are on duty the release day of both the registration system and the OpenBeta servers.

They had one in the office (Magnus) and the other working from home (Iain) on Sunday.

 

[Bone_Idle]

This is the reason i'd make a rubbish CM, forum mod etc..

I have the shortest fuse ever and if people made threats at me i'd just explode and say very bad stuff.

When i play games i'm constantly breaking mice, keyboards, computer desks and once punched an lcd monitor smack in the middle.

I'm normally quite calm but put me in a computer game and i start losing heavily the red mist comes over me.

 

[lairiodd]

The original version didn't make it as clear that he was refering to the people "compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts".

The original message was quoted later down in the thread, you can see it here

This is the snip:

A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

He does open with saying that what was posted was out of line, so at least there is some indication of what triggered the message. Ofc, he also says 'many of the posts', rather than a small number of the posts, but guess not much point in getting in post-forensics.

I can't believe he left any of it up, especially the word sociopath. I guess taking it down could be seen to make things worse.

 

[Draylor]

but to be fair, part of the post is that, it's just not highlighted in bold.

Not really, his post starts with every bit as much of an attitude problem as it ends with.

For some reason he feels the need to start by claiming that noone predicted the type of problems GOA would have yesterday:

Funnily enough however they didn't go wrong in the way most people thought they would or for the reasons that were being thrown around.

Funny that, I thought we'd been telling them for weeks that if they launched their account pages on the same day as the flood of users were given access to the servers theyd die under the load. Isnt that exactly what happened?

The post he shouldve made today was far simpler. "We fucked up, sorry, heres what we are doing to fix it".

 

[GReaper]

I think given the entire situation people had a right to be angry. If your company fucks up a major launch then you shouldn't start criticising your paying customers because they're upset. Many people predicted some sort of problem, leaving code entries to the last day was bound to end in disaster if some unknown problem occurred - and it did.

Fair play to Mark for the criticism in his blog post. I personally find it slightly comforting that people at Mythic are voicing their concerns instead of ignoring the situation like European DAoC.

 

[Idris]

I dunno, I tend to agree more with the 'don't air your dirty laundry' brigade. Iain's post maybe wasn't that clear on a could of points, but people have totally jumped onto another thing to flame GOA for and it did come after Mark expressed similar thoughts (but without the emotive language perhaps) on his blog.

I hope they don't roast Iain over the coals for that post.
I also hope everyone gets into open beta and I'm still on a crusade for a bowl of custard!

 

[Urrunoa]

Mythic is a great company, which put a lot of effort into making and promoting a game which looks very promissing. But just one thought here, and it is based on my experience from a few years back, when GOA delivered a very bad customer service.

Mythic made the decission to continue their professional relation with GOA for the EU release of WAR, they also seem to have not ensured that GOA will provide to us the EU players the same level of service. It is Mythics / EAs game, they failed to ensure we get the right level of service and at least to me it is not being a surprise.

However I still hope WAR will do well and we all can enjoy the game in due time. I do believe things get eventually fixed as this is business and it is not viable to loose revenue equally to the US / NA market here in Europe. So earlier or later they will act about it.

Just my 2cc.

 

[Iceforge]

Am I the only one who gained loads of respect for Iain the moment he said that?

Honestly think he is right on the money, at least in the edited version