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Thread: Paying Customer's Views

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    Quote Originally Posted by icer412 View Post
    Just random things I have thought of ( In no particular order ):

    1. Not given proper updates on server status'.
    2. Utter lack of concern about in game issues.
    3. Serious lack of freedom of speech on forums.
    4. No compassion or compensation to inconveniences produced by Evony.
    5. Nearly a complete lack of customer support.
    6. Absolute unwillingness to place ones self in the customers position.
    7. Non-Verbal threats (such as if you do such and such we will ban you, instead of "how can we help to resolve you situation")

    uhh, I will be sure to jot down other ways as they flow into my mind, then post them at a later time. If others would like to add in their feelings, I encourage all members to express their feelings (in the form of facts or positive criticism)

    EDIT: PS: I would like to add, out of my entire post and all that I have said, the only thing you care to discuss is "In what way have you been treated poorly?". Granted this is the most important point in my post, and I do appreciate that you take the time to even at the least discuss this topic. However, how can you overlook all the rest of what I have written about? It is precisely moments like that that cause irritation amongst the Evony community. Your skills at deflecting are unparalleled. I have seen no other customer service representative with the ability of deflection that you have.
    Fair points, all.

    Let me begin by disclaiming. Evony is a startup company and the game itself is less than a year old. We're also getting started with a wildly popular massively-multiplayer online game, whereas most gaming companies with anywhere near our number of users got started in the days before internet gaming, and certainly before the explosion of MMOs. Not only that, but we weren't prepared for just how popular Evony would be. I mean we knew it was great, but we didn't know just how many people would agree and just how quickly! This puts us "behind the 8-ball" in terms of staffing, both for customer service and bug reports.

    We're actually very pleased that our players have such high expectations of us. Players in many fly-by-night games would just accept bugs and poor service without much thought before moving on to the next game. We're glad that our players tend to see us as a serious, customer-oriented operation and that they make demands on us accordingly.

    I assure you that our goal is to meet that demand, and -- more than that -- to exceed player expectations.

    You're right that we have been delinquent in some areas, but I promise it is not for lack of trying. We have been slow to respond to some in-game issues, but much of that is because they will be resolved or become irrelevant in Age II. Yes, I'm talking about Age II again, but its a big deal and players will find a lot of bugs and other issues resolved when Age II is released.

    This is another reason that certain issues may be put on the back burner for right now. As a startup company we simply don't have the staff to dedicate to hunting down every bug and resolving every problem that arises. We try to fight fires as they come and deal with major issues. Sometimes that means some of the small things get lost in the shuffle. We know that nothing seems small when it is happening to you and we are constantly working to improve and expand our service. I would like all of our players to feel that they matter and are taken care of.

    We try to give compensation when service outages are extreme and out of the ordinary. It is simply not feasible to give out compensation to every player, every time something happens to them. Once again, we focus on the large issues and the fact that we have given out compensation on numerous occasions speaks to the fact that we do care about our players and that our goal is to make you all happy.

    If players violate the game rules, they will be banned. We have banned very few accounts on the first violation, hoping that a warning suspension will serve to let players know that we're on to them and that they should modify their behavior. If they continue to cheat, we have to ban them, both to make sure that future threats are taken seriously, and to protect the players who don't cheat.

    On the forums we welcome free speech and -- yes! -- criticism as long as the tone is not incendiary and the forum rules are followed. You may not like all the rules, but they are there for a reason and we constantly struggle to toe the line between freedom and limitations. You may be surprised to learn that discussions on whether or not to delete a thread or issue an infraction are frequent in the moderator chat channel. We want to give players as much freedom as possible within the framework of the rules that have been establish to promote this game.

    It would not be in any company's interest to allow speech on its forums which is likely to be harmful to its revenue. Microsoft won't allow you to go to its forums and write about how terrible Windows 7 is and demand that everyone reading the post should return the software for a refund. Neither will we allow such posts on our forums. Allowing such posts would not only be bad business, but it would be bad for our players. Bad business means less revenue, which means less staff and less production.

    That said, we invite honest criticism and open debate as long as the tone is proper. If things turn into flamefests, they will be shut down. That's just how things go around here.

    Our customers do have a strong voice in the community. Much of what we do is based on player feedback. Most of what we do isn't. Its not because we don't value feedback, but because the developers have a creative vision for the game that is both awesome and successful. You're not being ignored, but a game developed solely by the players would be pretty boring. Players love what we've done and we want to build on that success by incorporating your ideas into our vision. Its a team effort and, in many ways, every player is part of that team.

    Icer, you're well-spoken and intelligent. I would love to hear your ideas. I would love to hear anyone's thoughtful ideas. Bring it on! I promise you, we read this stuff!

    (TLDR version: I love cake).
    Last edited by Dawnseeker; 01-22-2010 at 07:58 AM.
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