What running an AirBnB business has taught me about consumers & feedback. (How it's like to be Funcom)

I was actually encouraged to see that the CE developers were already wanting to add many elements that players have been suggesting for a while now. Its great that we’re on the same page. And I’m looking forward to seeing the realization of the dream (though I wish it was done yesterday… I hate waiting… but I understand that these plans take time).

4 Likes

I think it’s unfair that you stereotype/label every pvp player as a griefer.

Yeah it was a annoying that most of us had to suffer because of a few that exploited the orbs bug and we shouldn’t of had to suffer and lose items we legitimately farmed. End of the day though the bug was well known, had been reported and had been around far too long. It should have been acted on much faster.

3 Likes

It’s weird. Stereotyping PvP players as griefers is the single prejudice I possess, and i’m even aware of it. Maybe it’s a European thing, I donnoh.

It’s comes from my inability to differentiate the concept of griefing from the concept of PvP.

Anyone who gives himself the license to kill other players, whether they have the intention to do so or not, is a griefer in my book. PvP players give themselves and others the right of mutual destruction. If there are to be rules, it must be etched out from the chaos. But superiority by force in an environment that’s designed to be conducive to such, isn’t conducive to etching out rules, is it? Ergo, it always boils down to griefing. Vaults are merely a symptom of this. There aren’t any double standards in PvP. Either you grief, or you get griefed. There’s no other way to survive in a PvP setting. If someone uses vault spam, you kind of can’t afford not to vault spam as well.

It’s not people and their ability to know right or wrong that I don’t trust, it’s their emotions.

If there is such thing as a cooperative PvPer, who asks before shooting, then that’s an undercover PvE, cuz that’s not an action versus other players, but more WITH other players.

6 Likes

You nailed it! Virtually everyone needs to read this and consider it.

2 Likes

Hell, at this point who cares about promised features, right now they need to fix many of the current features. Especially those they break every other patch.

I’m cool and receptive to people’s opinions. Just not from Stonespear. Everything he writes is personal on so many levels. Passive-aggressive in pure form.

But I’ll control myself.

You could have headlined this with “The eternal struggle”!

Yes, in the bitter end, it’s always survival of the fittest. About competition to survive or excel. But if someone plays that card, he/she should keep in mind that this leads just back to a savage world. This thinking knows no civilization, nor something that we call humanity. That’s no free ticket for Funcom or any other company! It just means there have to be a balance between these extremes. And therefore, my little friends, we have rules. For the “holy” market, for your customer rights and for this forum. So keep a cool head. :sunglasses:

1 Like

So does address why bugs haven’t been fixed for over a year, and why funcom does not have the decency to delay a DLC to fix bugs first? Not even ones they introduced in the last patch?

In defense of both businesses, though:

The boiler was replaced by a professional installation company. During the delivery of the boiler (which took 4 whole days) 3 reservations was cancelled with the help of AirBnB, due to their extenuating circumstance policy, which means neither I or the guests incur any penalties from a cancellation. Full reimbursements and re-booking services were issued. In that regard, AirBnB rocks. In those 3 days where the reservatiosn were canceled, I drove to my country-side house so i could at least get a warm shower in the meanwhile and recover from that ordeal.

Then I returned to the city, and a few guests who stayed only for 1 night, could live without a shower. I paid them 20 euros as compensation and thank you for their understanding. Those were the cooler guests, who understood that boilers are a freak occurrence that happens once in 20 years. One takes a boiler and warm showers for granted until they actually break down.

Now as for Funcom.
They struggled and struggled, but still manage to put out a game we are passionate about. Passionate enough to frequent the forums.
Funcom’s presence is often felt there where it matters the most. I.e. like now, where Moderators moderation is is being put into question, Poof. Solace comes flying in with Miolnir, the Banhammer, keeping the peace with rationality, understanding and fairness. (I hope this doesn’t fall under the “moderation practises are not to be discussed” policy ^_^;; )

And believe it or not, Funcom really really really do read these posts. Whenever you make a dirty but clever joke, your more than likely to see Spynosaur Nicole liking it.

Tascha & Team are crazy worker bees who do catalog suggestions and feedback. Just because we don’t have a big brother camera view of the Funcom offices, doesn’t mean they are only sitting there, counting the amount of money they are earning from DLCs.

Naw, they are actively out there answering people. If for example Tascha isn’t answering your stuff, it’s either cuz your ranting or you didn’t tag her.

Jens is probably out there in Reddit territory or steam territory. I don’t see much of him cuz i’m more of a Funcom Forumite. I feel comfy here cuz believe it or not, Funcom forums are ALLLOOOTTT more lenient than Reddit or Steam forums. alot. These boyz and girls let you be a hard-ball within reason.

As for the coders.

Look.

Coders are constantly on the cutting edge of technology. It’s too convenient to say “They are incompetent” when things don’t go their way. This is the very essence and heart of the matter of this thread.

When people program something, they do something nobody else has done before, in this particular way.

Programming is an extremely “expressive” thing. There are a millino and one ways to achieve the same effects. And the more complex something is, the more crazier it becomes to manage. It’s what one would call a “coding hole”.

The fact that this game is buggy is well known. But so too is Funcom’s commitment to fixing this.

There are worse studios out there, for instance the one developing A17 update for 7 days to die. That patch has been in development since autumn 2017 and still hasn’t been released.

There are companies who sell DLC’s worth hundreds of euros, and dont’even have something that can be considered a “game”… - Star Citizen.

So why are we actually so utterly hard on Funcom, when even giants like Blizzard broke their own game (WoW) for 3 days with a patch?

Keep in mind, Funcom is severely understaffed and running on fumes.

It’s crazy as it is, that they are doing so much as it is, with so little.

It’s hap-hazard…but… I kinda like it O_o

3 Likes

So OP i guess you lied to your customers aka false advertisment, etc. When you say 'how it’s like to be Funcom" aye ? I say it’s kinda silly of you to even compare your [propably good or great] bussines to shady Funcom bussines. You’re not doing yourself a favor.

I didn’t know about them being shady as hell. Sadly, found about it too late. I would not have bought the game if i knew they run such shady bussines with cheating their own customers, slow patching [which always turns out bad & bugy as hell], milking money, etc.

I was here before EA and boy. Game idea, it’s core is good, sadly the developers with so many people aboard are totaly useless [ or simply CEO of this company are @@]

Funcom deserves every ounce of @@@ that is being thrown at them.
They can’t even maintain a good communication dev<>players which in this time n age is ‘must’.

If you want to see REAL developers at work, with real communication, go check Frostkeep.

Did you seriously just compare WoW to Conan Exiles ? Game that is 100000x bigger than this ? lol, haha :smiley:

Again - hahha. Funcom is understaffed, what !! ?

4 Likes

Hehehe. You know, if you frequent these forums, it actually starts becoming amusing how consistent rants are. They sound very similar to your comment. No offence.
One kinda just wanna give up, and continue improving the game, despite the ignorance of people in general.

General Discussion seems to have turned into a garbage bin of frustration.

Bug Report forum and Suggestions forum seems to be where all the progress is happening.

Well. The hour is getting late, so I’ll just close this off with:

If No Man’s Sky is any indication, it’s that people are fickle. Which means they’ll hate you when you fail, then love you, when you succeed. So stay awesome.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson said. My favorite quote: “Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.”

3 Likes

I’m one of the people who don’t enjoy being lied to, maybe some do i don’t… I gave them chance. I gave them feedback, reported bugs, patted them on the back for a long, long time.
They didn’t improve at all, they failed with their titles before, they are failing again, making the exact same mistakes as before.
They had their chances many times.

You think they were on the verge of bankrucy for no reason ?
There was reason for that and people can see it yet again why.

No man Lie, huh. [Almost forgot about this title] but hey at least their had balls n skill to fix their game. Funcom never did that with any of their titles.

Moderator edit: Watch your language. This post is on the verge of violating “accusation rule” for implying Exiles was a scam.

3 Likes

Ya know;
This is not the last time a mistake will be done in your life, either by you or to you.

How you choose to react to mistakes will decide who you are in life. It might save you a marriage in the future.

I have chosen to invest in games I like - I know scammers bait, then bolt.

But people who keep working on what they love, despite hurtful comments; that’s something else entirely. That’s called dedication against all odds. That takes a lot of balls, especially if you have to accept feedback, which usually carries an unnecessarily large component of emotional abuse.

Don’t even try this chit chat about ‘mistakes n life stuff’ on me.

Well it’s your choice, doesn’t matter to me. I don’t realy care and as i said before i do like the game, just not the company behind it which has proven to be bad at this over n over. I’m just here leaving my opinion and pointing towards facts on how Funcom does their bussines.
Oh and laughing at some of your comparisions [like blizzard<>funcom] and or saying Funcom is understaffed which are out of place ;]

@haha, you got me Hrukk12. My mistake :smiley: Corrected. ‘stuffed’ well, maybe they are understuffed ;p

2 Likes

Don`t you mean understaffed?

2 Likes

“Pointing towards facts” actually means linking articles and proof of Funcom’s business practices.

So far I’ve only seen you leaving your opinion with a predominantly large component of verbal abuse.

“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

Careful using the word facts. Better just say “it feels like…” rather than “In fact…”

Meh, ya know what?

It’s fine. I’m gonna go upgrade the last public maproom at the east jungle obilisk in white marble, with a Mitra well, and a few giant statues!

2 Likes

Person with passive agressive attitude is talking about verbal abuse … What ? Show me the parts with the ‘verbal abuse’.

Also Funcom history is proof itself on how they do their bussines, which led them to being on the verge of bankcrucy which again is another proof of them being bad at what they are doing.

2 Likes

That verbal abuse.

1 Like

There was no actuall verbal abuse in this post. Unless “■■■■■■■■ reason” [well you can’t see the word but i think you can imagine what’s behind those white squares] is verbal abuse to you, but at this point you are using this without seeing the post for yourself before it was edited by moderator.

We could argue on, but the reality is non of this actually matters.

What does actually matter is this:

That’s what positivity, peace and prosperity looks like.

8 Likes