and how do you know that is true? do you have proof? other than andy saying it?
accusation? read⊠i said Theory. a theory is not an accusation but something that might be possible.
Why not? The messengers are the only ones who will actually bother to interact with us. They wonât actually come out and carry on a dialogue with the players because they are too cowardly to do so.
Yeah right. Hereâs how the last DevStream went:
âYou have LOTS of IMPORTANT QUESTIONS! We promise we will get to them!â
âOh, I suppose it would help if for the THIRD TIME I actually bother to put ability points in. Gosh I love admin mode, donât you?â
âWell, that wraps it up for our DevStream! I hope you enjoyed! And I know we didnât get to your burning questions where you were asking us specifically for accountability! But we promise that we will answer those next time. (Yeah rightâŠ)â
Thatâs how the DevStreams go. Forgive me if I do not have your faith. My dissatisfaction has reached pinnacle. Dissatisfaction is over 9000.
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Aside from the multiple places they have mentioned this, and the fact that they had publicly posted the positions on their website? It would be fairly easy to fact check them for any of the people who interviewed them when they made these claims, and yet those places chose to print their answers instead of refute them. Iâll take that as a sign.
noun: theory; plural noun: theories 1. a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.
a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based.
As I clearly stated, you have misused the word, and you backed it up by continuing to misuse it. 
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Thatâs a spicy question.
In general, this one judges it to depend upon who is delivering it.
If the person delivering it is responsible for it, then absolutely.
If the person delivering is a third party, not so much.
Professional correspondence can be met with professional response.
Now, the community engagement staff do have a job to do, and part of that job is being the public face. But really, there is no need to make someoneâs job more difficult. It accomplishes nothing. Especially when they are not a diplomat, they have no authority to seal agreements. What do we expect our words to accomplish.
Cruelty must never be pointless.
We arenât at an in person meeting, we have time to decide how to respond. Thus we can craft our responses with care.
Save the anger for those with authority.
Take the fight to your actual enemy.
This one does not suggest shrug and say nothing.
This one suggests that energy be note wasted, but rather conserved and directed. Say much, but say it to the ones who should hear it.
But that is this oneâs suggestion.
Just a suggestion. This one also notes that anger is not unreasonable at this time.
Angry people are often unreasonable.
So it would be unreasonable for this one to expect those offended to be reasonable.
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my theory is based in :
- slowing down the frequency of patches.
- less communication
- less content, even when that was kinda explained they wanted to improve quality . (words)
let me remind you, that they have said countless of time that they will improve the communication, (it got worse) . so i think there is a well based lack of confidence/trust in the things they say, - slower than usual to fix bugs.
- inability to fix performance on official servers, (the game cant support more than 20 people at official servers that are supposed to host up to 40, with 20 players you cant play, everything lags out,
- inability to fix bugs that are easily fixed, reported , yet not dealt with ,. and those have been fixed by modders with the devkit. (examples : cimmerians having a insane AR, or the issue with black corsair that you cant ko , (they only need to move a comma on their table to fix it)
- inability to fix the people falling thru foundations, (old bug, cant undertand how after many months this is still a thing and they dont even bother to provide official word, an update or anything.
- QA is still non existance. bugs with bazaar items : barachan castaway hammock, is bugged wehen you place a thrall you cant tell him to follow you again (you need to pick up the hammock) , issue with the celestial set. the library , is bugged (no books on it)
i could go on and on and on.
so how can you claim that my theory is not "possible? "
again there is an issue of trust about the things they say and if they are true or not, i again point out the many times broken promise of " we will improve communication"
I do not believe this part is accurate which is why the various nations aspect is important to this. I do not believe there is a legal reason to have the North Carolina offices to be shut down for a month anymore than Norwegian offices for Citibank need to have the 4th or july off.
I can just imagine their SOPs and how frustrating it is. Simple questions must have to go through a rigorous approval process - Iâve made this assumption because I donât believe itâs just âshort staffingâ, I think it is a matter of âimageâ or office expectationsâŠ
So the responses, when we do get them, tend to be calculated. Much of them are templates. Thatâs ok and is expected. But when the templated responses, especially for bug reports, look like tone deaf bots, it gets exhausting and confusing. Recently enough someone reporting the falling through foundation bug and being asked to verify their files⊠ugh.
In my experience with the moderators most of the time even if youâre patient, kind and professional, thereâs still no response. Iâve never treated them poorly, never will and oft defend them despite being as brutally critical as I am of the company. Not even a âIâll look into thisâ or âat this time there is no answerâ though. They just straight up ignore my questions. Mind you, my questions are sometimes a little complicated and have a history of silence. But even today asking for a simple explanation for an announcement with no details was met with no acknowledgement⊠perhaps tomorrow?
The most valuable conversations Iâve had were in 2021 through Zendesk when they still gave detailed explanations for suspensions and a few months ago with Umborls where I was actually getting answers (stopped short at a specific one but still, they were actually engaging!).
Even though weâre in their summer break thereâs still very common behaviours. Such as it appearing that their Oslo office mostly taking care of the forums, which for me means that they clock out around noon my time. If I am trying to get anything answered I try to keep it fresh and in the morning. I also know that if my comments/posts are somewhat controversial I can avoid an immediate deletion by posting at night. (Ahem, I also know what time they perform Zendesk actions based on patterns *cough).
Anyway, saying all this because I agree, youâre right.
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If we shoot all the Messengers, there is no one left to deliver the messages.
Even if the content of the messages is distasteful, it is important not to punish the person who is not responsible for the problem.
But make no mistake, this one is not a person of faith in this regard. Quite to contrary, this one thinks that the previous brief showing from on high was filled with falsehood, and that overall progress will be scant.
But objections here are read only by an already knowing crowd. Objections in the Devstream may reach an audience unaware of how things are. Also, then there is the possibility that the purpose of expressing outrage is to satisfy the self. In this regard, what satisfaction is there in howling at the herald? Howl at the actual Lord of Misrule.
Actual impactful protest would have to be in a way that draws public attention to Funcom 's habits ahead of the Dune launch so possible new customers think twice.
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Because, itâs like yelling at the clerk for staffing issues.
Itâs unkind and counter productive.
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Yes. I mean - I usually agree that shooting the messenger is wrong. But, inside this oneâs head, it must go something like this:
âHey boss. They be mad. But at least they respectful.â
âYeah, they always be mad. Just give them the standard platitudes.â
âYou got it boss.â
Thatâs not shooting the messenger. And that approach has not done us any good at getting more attention, a more player-connected dev team, or any better communication. So, instead, I am proposing:
âHey boss. They be mad. And theyâŠâ
âYeah, they always be mad. Just give them the standard platitudes.â
âNo, boss, you donât understand. They hella mad. They shootin at me!â
âJust do your job.â
âSee, I donât want to do this job. They mad, they got reason to be mad, and you are disconnected and unwilling to communicate with them! This is a poor situation, and youâre scapegoatingâŠâ
âAre you going to send them the platitudes, or not?â
âI resign!â
âI wonder why we cannot ever manage to keep any of our community people employed here. Huh. Must be something in the water.â
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While I understand and appreciate the point you are making, I spent too many years in the service industry to participate in the proposed solution.
because, in my experience, incompetent management does not care how the staff is treated because incompetent management is the first to treat the staff poorly.
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And our other attempts to get the dev leadershipâs attention have worked? And are productive?
What I was driving at is that itâs often within messengerâs responsibility to take a message back, too.
I canât speak for others, but I expect my words to be communicated back to those who ordered the crappy message to be delivered to me.
I agree wholeheartedly. Thatâs why I said I donât agree with crossing the line into insults, abuse, or any other form of cruelty. But I donât think itâs cruel to say âthis message is disgracefulâ.
I wish I could, but I donât have a line to them other than through their representatives, such as Sarealac.
All in all, I agree with you. And I think that some people here might be toeing the line of cruelty or even crossing it outright, and I donât agree with that.
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Kind and unproductive is preferable to unkind and unproductive.
I, for one, will not castigate the folks who cannot change the circumstances.
If worse comes to worst, Iâll step away from the game.
Because I already have enough regret in my life and justifying poor behavior is not worth my time.
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Now you are the one who perhaps has more faith.
This one thinks that the only two factors that matter to *the boss" are money flow and what the masters at Tencent think.
That is where this one is in doubt.
This one doesnât think the person whom they throw to the wolves is also going to have their ear.
Thatâs why this one says they are a messenger, not a diplomat.
This one suspects that the communication we received is deliberately one way.
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well since we do not if they do sent the message, i believe there is no harm for them to carry the message, if they deliver it or not is not our responsability
But it is always our responsibility what we say.
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only if the message is a personal attack,
otherwise it is fair game.
(thats my opinion of course)
I know why communications are taking so long. I just had a post reported and deleted from May 4th in a locked and delisted thread
Priorities.
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