plaguelands.comEvery Word Counts
I spent gobs of time over the weekend slogging through two 60+ page threadnaughts regarding the latest Player/Dev fiasco that involves a guild from EQ2’s Test server transferring to Unrest, a Live server. Trust me; this is not what I had in mind to spend the majority of my downtime over the weekend, but I’m a nutball and someone needed to dig around the trenches. Check out my post on Massively if you want more info on the particulars.
I also hate to see this happen to EQ2. Megaton Drama Bombs are the last thing the game and playerbase need. I don’t want to go into the full gory specifics or talk about Player / Dev affiliations in general ATM although that is a great topic that needs to be addressed by the blogosphere and I’d love to read the thoughts from Devs on this matter who are super smart and already blog and need some material to harp on about.
But what I do want to address are the initial responses by Grimwell (EQ2 Community Manager), Brenlo, (SOE Global Director of Community Relations) and Froech (EQ2’s official newly inducted Senior Producer). They sucked. Yea, it’s true that no matter what you write players will read into messages too seriously, dissect it and twist it ignorantly or brilliantly to their advantage. But honestly all the forum replies from these SOE reps were poorly crafted given the enormity of the situation. Check out the reply by Bruce Ferguson that probably cost EQ2 a couple of subscriptions.
“There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about something we were doing to show kindness to some valued members of our testing community who have been working diligently to improve EverQuest II for the last three years.
What we did was take a group of characters from the test server, scrub them by hand of all test gear, and any ‘privileged’ equipment, titles, etc, and grant their wish to continue to play as a group of friends, on a live server.
Had we been aware that being a little extra kind to these folks would cause such an uproar, there is no doubt we would not have taken this step. However, due to the current situation, I find myself apologizing to you for allowing this situation to occur.
We are in the process now of removing the characters that we copied to the live servers. Obviously, we overstepped the bounds of kindness in attempting to thank these people for their efforts in testing, and we are working to rectify this situation before the end of the day today.”
Thank you,
Bruce “Froech” Ferguson
Senior Producer, EverQuest II
The main problem with this response is that it is easily read as having a defensive tone. It’s easy to discern that the players who were transferred did nothing wrong and probably deserved it as some type of reward. Once other players that play on the Test server read this reply the general assumption was wow, that’s fucked up. I wasn’t offered a transfer, and it’s something many EQ2 test players want. The words sting, the message is conveyed in favor and can be taken in a holier than thou attitude even if the resolution is addressed at the end and there is an apology. This is why every word counts. I don’t expect these guys to be skilled wordsmiths that can spin the most gracious and sympathetic posts to appease their infuriated and confused playerbase, but they definitely could’ve cleaned this mess up on the forums a lot better if they had taken the time to construct their posts a little better.
Remembering every word counts is something that I struggle. I need to practice it more often. Fuck that. There.. that’s a good start. Maybe this is another example why some advocate against official MMOG forums! Damn you.
I was wondering how far into the post you’d get before you broke down and got all curmudgeonly.
The zombie pandas keep me thinking positive.
Passive-aggressive FTW!
Wooooooof. I think you told me to do it. Don’t lie!
Blech. That wasn’t an apology. That was a back-handed slam against the community. If they really were trying to do something nice for their testers and that’s ALL it was, they would have done it even-handedly and openly—transferring all those who wanted it and making the community aware of what was going on. The fact that they transferred that one group and did it below-board makes it pretty darn obvious this wasn’t some generous attempt to thank their testers. Sheesh.
It pays to have friends in low places.
I recently started up the ole EQ2 again.
The devs actions remind me once again why I love to hate MMOs. The idea of playing with friends rocks(!), until you actually start playing with them raggamuffins.
I have actually lost a close RL friend due to a disagreement in WoW. But that wasn’t what this post was about was it…
*crawls back in corner*
KK
Sad how that can happen, isn’t it?
I know a person I really like in RL, but who drives me nuts in games. I flat-out refuse to do most things with him online. He just becomes someone I don’t like when he gets competitive, and I realized that if I hung around with him when he was like that, we wouldn’t be friends for long!
What did you do? Was this on the hoof?
Yes, this was on the hoof.
I’ll try to make this quick, but I won’t promise anything…
A group of us moved from Silvermoon to Lightninghoof to give us a change of pace. On Silvermoon, our levels were so spread apart, that it was hard to do anything together except chat. So… we decided it was time to move and that we’d implement a little think called a weekly level cap. Every week we were “allowed” to get one level. I think Tuesday night at 6PM the level cap was moved to the next level.
This idea wasn’t a new one I’m sure, but it REALLY rocked for the group of players that joined us. It was a chance for us to have a life outside the game, but know that when we came back, we’d have a chance to play together. It was a respect thing that kept each of us from breaking the level. I remember breaking it on accident once and I felt like shit. (I was the Guild Leader.) That night, I didn’t get to go grouping with them because I felt it wasn’t fair for those that did stick to it.
We were level 40 something when two friends decided to join us on the server. They were excited about having people to play with and agreed to follow the one “rule” of the guild. They quickly leveled and caught up with us. (see where this is going?) Once they got to our level, the one that was a great friend of mine sent me a tell asking if he and his friend could break the cap. I requested that they please stick with it because it was something we were all doing. His response was “Don’t give me an ultimatum! Fine we’ll follow it.” I was taken aback from his response, but was happy he agreed to follow the one rule of the guild. It was basically the sole foundation of the guild.
A week later my computer crapped out on me. I was gone for a few days due to it and when I came back, I saw that he and his friend were above the level cap. When I logged on, I got this overly nice greeting from my friend asking how I was. I sent him a tell asking what had happened and why he was above the cap. He told me that since I wasn’t online, he asked one of the officers (one out of the 5 or 6 of them) if he could go past it because it really hurt his “enjoyment of the game.” The officer said he didn’t see a problem with it and so my friend took it upon himself to do what he wanted too. (My friend had my cell number preprogrammed into his phone and called me weekly.) When I asked him why he didn’t call me he informed me that he knew I was having a tough week and didn’t want to bother me with it. (Basically he KNEW I’d shoot it down and ask him not too so he went around me.)
I got him and his friend on TS and started talking to them. I told my friend that I was pretty disappointed of the way that he went down and I didn’t think it was fair to the rest of us they they break the rule. I asked if they would consider dropping out of the guild or stop playing their chars until we caught up with them. This set him off. He immediately started yelling at me in TS and took his char out of the guild. He then logged on all his alts and removed them too.
The other guy said that he understood and was sorry it happened.
From that point on our friendship was in the shitter. He started going to each guild member trying to get them on his side trying to convince them that I was the one in the wrong. It got so bad. I decided to hold a guild meeting to discuss the situation and explain why it happened. I was going to let the rest of the guild decide what should happen since it was obvious that my friend wanted back into the guild. When I called the meeting, my friend’s friend asked me if they were invited to the meeting. I said that I didn’t think it would be appropriate at that point in time.
My friend took that to be even a bigger slap in the face.
Since his wife’s character was still in the guild, he logged her on to sit in on the meeting. He logged on his char and showed up where we were meeting saying “If anyone has a question they’d like to ask me about what happened please feel free to ask. I’m right here.”
It was an overall shitty experience. All of that to say, it was a dick waving contest and he didn’t like the fact that I held some “power” over him. He felt I was making the guild more important than our friendship. That wasn’t the case at all, but it was pointless to argue with him about it since he had taken it so hard.
A month or two later, I called him up to talk to him about it. I wanted to try to smooth things over between us. I told him that I was sorry for the way it happened and that if I had a chance to do it over again, I’d have acted differently. He then said, “I wouldn’t have. I’d have done the same thing I did before.” I knew then that it was pointless trying to salvage the friendship.
Wow, guts spilled eh? I’ve mostly gotten over it. I can’t believe a fucking game got between us like that. Oh, and the guild voted to keep them out until the level cap was their level again.
Ah, memories!
KK
It’s strange how competitiveness can bring out the worst in some people, isn’t it?
Holy sinewy guts strewn across my blog in a bloody disaster! haha. I asked for it, I guess, I’m going to have done my Dr. Phil hat and expound my counseling insight on this tragedy to make everyone just get along. Can’t we all get along? Hell no! Doh. I thought the level cap was the most appealing thing about your family fun time happy foozle slaying guild, well that, and all the desperate house wives. (Bow chicka wow wow. I kid. I kid. I know I didn’t last long. I let my account expire because I had friends on three different servers wanting me to level up with them, and I couldn’t keep up so said screw it. haha. Yea, I’m the worst WoW player ever.) This reminds me of that time when I was in every guild I’ve ever been in. I’ve witnessed all sorts of crazy real-life guild situation drama bombs. Everything from couples splitting up over some other guilded jacktard; Lost scholarships; Lost jobs; Addiction that slays real-lives; Rampant favoritism amongst real-life friends who have all the power; Good people morphing into incredible assholes; And other depressing stuff that makes you reexamine your own life and whether or not playing a MMOG is worth all the crap. Then you see a shiny loot and everything is all better again until you get that next tell: “I’m leaving the guild unless Kitten Killer gets one more piece of loot over me.” One thing is for certain, leading, helping, or hell babysitting a guild isn’t worth it really. This old friend of yours really needs an ass kicking. Not only is he a moron, but he is a selfish prick. Maybe he was showing his true colors. If it were me, I’d move on to another guild, something that fit my playstyle, or I’d make another alt brigade to waste my life on. Last thing I’d want to do is piss off my real-life buddies. I don’t have many I consider true friends to begin with. Hurray, kindred spirits. Do you want to go play WoW dolls together and watch some UFC together? It’ll be fun, fun, and more fun! Is the What the Hoof guild still around? Exiled is good! At least the majority saw through his two-faced deception. I say, good riddance. Maybe he will apologize if he pulls his head out of his ass, after your call though, I doubt it. Their loss! Some hilarious guild drama I’ll never forget. Since I’m a charismatic stallion I make all the friends. Well, this one guildie and I became friends to the point where we metup IRL and everything, we lived close by, it’s no biggie.. Shit, it’s been awhile since I’ve really got into the whole guild thing. I’ve been in plenty of guilds, but in the past 2-3 years I treat them mostly like chat channels.One day she calls up, she’s sick and wants to get better. She suggests in order to make this happen that I need to get off on the phone with her. Now, while you might call me a faggot for not going with it, I didn’t want to cross that line. And really the whole phone sex shit doesn’t work for me. It cracks me up, it’s retarded. I’ve been there with old girlfriends when I was in high school. Plus, crossing that line would lead to awkward; we should be in a relationship type shit later down the road. She was that type, yea some guys are too. She was one of those. I had to hang up on her ass, and she wasn’t pleased about my reaction. Too make a long story short: the succubus made my guild-life hell. Friendship over the second I hung up that phone. She accused me of stalking her IRL to other guildies, tried to get me kicked from the guild, and all this other crazy shit. Haha. Ah man… I’m glad I’m not in that guild anymore. I’ll have to tell you about the time when a Gay guildmate tried cybering me, (he flirted with all the males in the guild). I took screencaps and got his ass booted, he had so many complaints against him the guild leader finally had enough. When all that shit hit the fan, this other well-liked guildie came out of the closet and hooked up with that guy, and everyone was like WTF, You’re gay? You’re only 16…. Man, I’m glad I haven’t taken guilds seriously in awhile. Haha.