Official Forums - the difference between being a Mythic customer and a GOA customer

[GReaper]

This reminds me of DAoC, if you wanted to give feedback on the future of the game then all you could do is send crappy forms on the Mythic website and get ignored. US customers will get more direct access to the developers, whilst Euro customers are left out.

It's things like this which makes you wonder why you bother being a customer of a host who doesn't develop the game. You know that regardless of what measures they take you'll always be an indirect customer who isn't always taken into consideration.

 

[peo]

Not knowing the exact numbers but I would be highly surprised if the people playing on english language server in europe doesn't outnumber the others by a factor of 5 at least.
What good is a forum that doesn't give access to anything? What people want and need is some way to feel included in the development. Talking to CSR or GMs doesn't cut it only access to developers do, otherwise we can be 100% sure any and all concerns which might differ in europe compared to the us will be ignored (which they seemed to be during beta i've been told)

 

[Tetley]

I don't see what the big fuss is about. If something is wanted by enough people over here in EUland the I am sure Mythic will be aware of it and treat it in the same way as in the US, i.e. ignore it.

As far as I can see the concerns about the games forward path are the same in the US as in EU - they are thinking roughly the same things. If I wanted a loot bag to drop packs of condoms then I don't care if Mythic introduce it because the EU want it, the US want it, or EA want it - so long as it is done.

Just keep up with the (constructive) whines and I am sure Mythic will at least know what we want.

 

[Bahumat]

and people from essex, they're not even human.

We're the next evolution

Yeah baby! *holds up essex flag*

 

[Aiteal]

Yeah baby! *holds up essex flag*

Is the flag actually just a white high heeled slingback on a snapped of ford cortina aerial?

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

Magnus, i have you and Nic pegged as doing your very best for the EU community (and you generally do very well) so dont take this personally.

That said:

Mythic devs will, naturally, be more visible on the US boards.
-Magnus

I really agree with you there. That does not bode well for us in the EU despite the best efforts of your company and CMs.

At best we can participate in things second hand, and at best it will result in the dev's attention being split between two forums. At worst it will result in you just passing our feedback along rather than our being able to take an active part in the discussions and feedback as it happens.

Further though - and this is often conveniently left out of the debate by English speaking Europeans - the devs speak English and Mythic just don't have the resources to operate in five languages
-Magnus

There are many ways to circumvent the language barrier, from translation webpages to plugins that translate text for you to "best guess" of the plugin. It's not a perfect solution but it is a way around it. Also it is very unusual now to find a player who does not speak any English at all.

One thing is certain though; the GOA Community Team will have close access to the Mythic devs via a dedicated section of the forums and there, we'll be able to ask direct questions, share feedback etc. -Magnus

With the greatest respect, that is not the same as the EU players having a discussion directly with the Mythic Devs.

It's akin to going into a bank to talk about a loan, and instead of being met by the loans guy and having a chat in a quiet room, you're met by his assistant who pops in and out of the room after every sentance relaying messages back and forth.

It feels unprofessional, and when a message has to pass through several people to reach it's destination it can easily be changed inadvertantly (Chinese whispers).

hosting dev chats
-Magnus

Generally Devs do not discuss things in a Dev chat session, they will take questions, but that is not the same as discussion and evolution of ideas based on feedback.

It is not a development discussion if the dev's just post updates and thoughts occasionally, or take part in a Q&A session.

There are challenges involved and compromises will need to be made, but we'll find ways to deal with them.
-Magnus

I'm confident you will, but the simplest explenation that would make the community happiest is to allow the EU players access to the US official forums.


Anything else, no matter how hard you try, no matter how good your intentions, no matter how much the devs juggle their time, will not be the same and certainly will not allow us to contribute to the shaping of the game as much.





Something worth bearing in mind Nic/Magnus, you do a good job and this isnt me bashing you. It is me explaining why the community doesn't accept

Excuse the bad grammar and any spelling, i've had two 18 hour working days and a thumping migraine.

Dont take the above personally, just my thoughts on it based on your comments.

 

[Bluesky]

stuff

Excellent post and i wholeheartedly agree with all points especially the work Nic and Magnus do. They seem more "involved" with us as a gaming community. Sadly though, we in euroland will always be that one (or more at times) step behind the US players on so many issues and I can't see anything changing in the near future

 

[Svartmetall]

What TheBinarySurfer said.

 

[Mr_Grumpy]

With the greatest respect, that is not the same as the EU players having a discussion directly with the Mythic Devs.

It's akin to going into a bank to talk about a loan, and instead of being met by the loans guy and having a chat in a quiet room, you're met by his assistant who pops in and out of the room after every sentance relaying messages back and forth.

Actually its akin to going to a bank for a loan and speaking to someone in a quiet room, who takes notes and promises to pass the info on. Later an edited version is passed to the bank manager but you have no idea what info or when.

 

[Ctuchik]

i dont get why we (EU and US) should be able to talk to them on forums in the first place.

we have suggestion forms if we want to suggest something. thats perfectly fine.

or are you ppl so desperate to see "were looking in to it" or "no that wont work"?

 

[Motowntheta]

Does anyone know if we are actually getting official Euro servers, or has the idea been stealth shelved by GOA?

 

[Mr_Grumpy]

careful now someone will come along and quote you and get their knickers in a twist over you insulting their precious GOA!

Problem is goa are so inept that they cant even set up a fkin forum.

nuff said.

 

[Jaberwocky]

Looking at the US forum I'm not overly impressed by the Dev or CRM interaction to start with, well at lest the EU forum will give us a change to put a few points across without being spammed by the yanks.

So what forums are we looking at:

English
French (boo!)
German
Italian
Russian

Anything I've missed out?

Now all I have to do is work out the equivalent of QQ and L2P in each damn language.

[edit] The reason given for having separate EU and US English language forums is the difference in US and EU data protection laws, to be honest this is a very flimsy excuse and takes a rather extreme view of current data protection legislature.
Basically it's to much work for Mythic to really bother with.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

Basically it's to much work for Mythic to really bother with.

This sounds familiar somehow - oh wait that's where i've heard it before! It's the attitude of nearly any American company to those outside the USA.

I've never before come across a where the US&Them mentality is so thoroughly ingrained (puns intended).

Here is the view of the world a frightening number of Americans have:

http://www.tallrite.com/weblog/blogimages/refs2006/AmericanWorld.gif

or for those of you unable to comprehend such a sophisticated view:

http://humor.beecy.net/misc/world/world.gif

and finally dumbing it down again for any rednecks reading this:

http://culturedecoded.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/feb-07-news-map1.jpg
(thought it'd inject some humor into what has been a pretty depressing thread).

 

[Motowntheta]

Am I impatient?

"The forums will officially open in March right after the release of 1.2! We are looking forward to seeing you on the forums - taking your game experience to a whole new level, and improving our interaction and your community!" Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning

I think I don't understand the concept of 'right after'.

 

[Kami]

I love how people think Mythic are better than GOA - have any of you actually played Warhammer or DAOC on the US servers? There's little difference.

When I played on the US servers, the Warhammer servers were down daily for maintenance everytime there was a patch, not just a few days after, but sometimes several times a day - at least GOA limit it by having combined patching.

Mythic's DAOC servers and support were arguably better but not Warhammer.

Frankly I'm happier with GOA at the moment than I was on Mythic's servers, never thought I'd say that though!

 

[Motowntheta]

I love how people think Mythic are better than GOA - have any of you actually played Warhammer or DAOC on the US servers? There's little difference.

That's not what I'm asking about, I'm asking whether the forums are actually coming. Maybe they are.... but we have heard nothing about them for a while and Mythic have had theirs up for weeks (albeit in closed beta for some of that).

And yes I've played loads on the US DAOC server, it was much better with all the internal tools working in the game and with a much better herald.

 

[Kami]

What internal tools? Honestly, where there any for DAOC?

My only concern at the moment is that people seem to think that any official GOA forums will make things better, it won't as it'll only get worse! I remember the GOA official DAOC forums, complete flamefest, amusing but a waste of GOA time.

 

[Motowntheta]

To a certain extent I agree with you, but I have based my support on the idea that we will get as good support as the US customers do from Mythic. Now I understand that GOA != Mythic and they have been doing 200000% better than they did with DOAC, I just want my forums

 

[Bleri]

What internal tools? Honestly, where there any for DAOC?

Oh yes although there was some denial of there existence when they somehow found there way into a third parties hands and were used to spawn Bosses in Emain.

Am I impatient?

"The forums will officially open in March right after the release of 1.2! We are looking forward to seeing you on the forums - taking your game experience to a whole new level, and improving our interaction and your community!" Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning

I think I don't understand the concept of 'right after'.

Nor me? So when are they coming? Or is that going to be when they fix the Realm War pages. BTW did they ever fix the DAoC ones?

Dont want to blame just GoA for the Realm War situation though, could well be down to the way Mythic create the code and it has to run through translation this side of the Atlantic. But then again maybe not, those that know probably wont tell us.