Could probably post this in General, but it makes me feel like swearing... so anyway:

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=clericbalance&message.id=762&no_redir=true

Kytherea
Community Representative
Posts: 132
Registered: 04-14-2004
Server: Stormhammer
Viewed 301 times

Thanks for the invite Doc000! At this time we have been asked not to post to off site boards, but this should not be a permanent thing and once permitted I will defintely stop by the cleric bard and say hi.


I thought they might pull this, but that confirms it. So to force people to use their controlled forums, where any dissention is met with threats of EQ account suspension, they are also the only source of actual dev communication.

Class act... Whoever's running things down there seems to have taken PR lessons from the Soviets.

I was going to reply, with this long post. However, the post was 99.9% flame and 0.01% post.

They know what they are doing is wrong. Maybe I should send them a bill for all 5 years they used TDG to ask for input on the druid class.

In all honesty... it doesn't matter. Regardless whether they post or not they are still gonna have to READ the other forums if they want to know what their customers think. They can force some square pegs into the round "yes man" format on their own forums, but if they want to know what their customers REALLY think... they have to read outside of their little bubble. And as for SOE reps not responding to posts here... well, it won't be the first time that they've intentionally left their customers in the dark. But if they want customer retention... they still have to see what the customers REALLY say, and customer retention seems to be a huge issue for them these days.

When is WoW going live? ;)

No surprise there. I was pretty skeptical when I read that SOE was asking for druid input...on their own forums.

Doesn't he say it's probably not a permanent thing? They probably just don't want their employees sat reading the likes of TDG when they have EQ2 to work on :)

If it's deeper than that though, then it is indeed a sad day. Some of the most positive discussions in druid history have involved SOE employees reading these forums. I remember... was it Absor? being a "regular" poster here. (I use the term regular loosely... in our terms it's extremely rare, but in the context of the big figures in corporate giants communicating directly with the customer, you don't normally expect it to happen at all)

I miss Absor.

That was posted by Kytherea who is pretty much a board moderator for the SoE forums. She making a statement I believe about her and Ashlanne's posting permissions. If Brenlo had made the statement I'd agree with the fervor, of course Brenlo hasn't posted here since december 11th when he first took the job (SoE boards went live Feb 26th) so don't expect miracles.

No surprise there. I was pretty skeptical when I read that SOE was asking for druid input...on their own forums.

Not skeptical for me, incredulous is closer.

When I first read that they wanted Druid input on SOE boards, first think I thought about was the old Whineplay.

Then I figure there are going to be a whole bunch of Druids with rotating cudgel avatar.

...and asking for the bear pet to be stronger.

Filled with a whole bunch of "Druids are fine, EQDruids type 'we are the wo-rld, we are the dru-ids' crap".Az, you can kiss it.

Let me know if I am correct,

(I use the term regular loosely... in our terms it's extremely rare, but in the context of the big figures in corporate giants communicating directly with the customer, you don't normally expect it to happen at all)Actually, I disagree. For Absor's position with SOE it shouldn't have been unexpected at all. In fact, Sony reps should be in touch with the players all the time. Any service company that loses touch soon finds it's customers "voting with their feet" and moving on.

Could probably post this in General, but it makes me feel like swearing... so anyway:

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=clericbalance&message.id=762&no_redir=true

I thought they might pull this, but that confirms it. ...
You should have finished reading. I thought it was nicely explained further down the page.

Rolaque

You mean the part where a non-sony employee tries to defend the comment?

Or where she backpedals by suggesting a reason why it might be the case, although not actually answering why?

It is not really a prohibition, my take on this is simply that Ashlanne and I are too new as Community Representatives and it is desired that we take a little time to get used to our positions before going to fan sites and posting.

That's her take on it, although its difficult to tell as she used some sort of weird quoting standard...

I'm friends with one of the SK board mods, and I heard about 6 months ago from him that SOE was planning to start their own class boards and cut all lines of contact to the other class boards, except for the classes that didn't sell out to yantis/ige (in his words, everyone except the sk boards). SOE ended up making their own SK board and basically saying **** you to the shadowknight.org people by cutting communications, which is why they sold out to yantis/ige.

This is in rants right? Ok, good.

**** you

I've felt like this is what they've said to all of their customers for some time now.

Brenlo posted on the SoE boards about asking what rangers want. I think another query was posted for paladins but I cant remember where I saw it, but I do remember the ranger one. Maybe Delacroix can help me out. Seems like the questions should have been asked earlier.

Class act... Whoever's running things down there seems to have taken PR lessons from the Soviets.

...the forum posts to YOU!

Ya can't be sure what that means

It could mean Kythera and other people in her position are asked not to post on other boards. That very well could be because it's Brenlo's job and only he can post.

I'm not saying thats what it means, I'm just saying that because Kythera cant post on the cleric boards doesn't necessarily mean Brenlo can't does it? Not entirely sure who "We" is.

Easist way to be sure is to ask Brenlo. If he posts then ya know hes allowed to. If he doesn't then ya know he isn't allowed to, isn't reading the post or simply doesn't chose to reply. If I he does ya know he can. if he doesn't ya play the same guessing game we are playing now.

You should read down further. They're new to their positions and they've been asked not to post outside the SOE boards until they get acclimated... or indoctrinated. :)

a rhetorical question.....

Kythera was told not to post on non-SOE boards, doesn't know why, yet goes ahead and posts that she isn't supposed to. Her response to the entire EQ community when asked "why?" is her own speculation and not based on any facts given to her by SOE. How comfortable should I feel that this person is going to take the correct information to the devs when she seems more comfortable speculating on the why rather than simply asking "why?".

Then I figure there are going to be a whole bunch of Druids with rotating cudgel avatar. ...and asking for the bear pet to be stronger.

I'm normally skeptical towards any suggestion of making our bear toy stronger -- especially while we're trying to emphasize the most pressing needs of the class and not waste list space asking for fluff -- but I try to keep an open mind when druid issues are discussed.

Personally, I would not outright dismiss the idea of a new spell that gave us an upgraded bear pet, or even a new timer-based AA to summon one. With additional AAs and/or spells designed to imbue the pet with a few procs and some defensive capability, we'd have something a bit less powerful than the beastlord's warder, but more on par with a typical DC pet - perhaps even a bit stronger and sturdier.

As you recall... when DC was first implemented, we were at a stage of the game in which having a 'perma-charmed' 46th level NPC was a nice boost to our DPS in many of the places we were grouping and some of the places we were raiding. Remember all the discussions regarding various zones and mobs we could use DC?

As we progressed, however, not only did DCable animals become more scarce, the few that were available didn't scale very well, relative to their 'normal' mob counterparts in those zones. For instance, it's pretty obvious in certain PoP zones exactly which mobs (and mob types) were put in place for the sole purpose of being DC'd.

A significantly upgraded bear pet could offer the same DPS potential as having a DCable animal, along with the other advantages inherant to having a summoned pet rather than charmed: not being restricted to mobs available in any given zone, not aggroing mobs, and not being a liability due to bad pathing (i.e. can use "summon companion" to retreive lost pet).

Granted, something like this might not be as crucial as healing issues at the moment, but I don't think we can afford to place all our eggs in one basket. It's apparent that we will never be permitted to rival the cleric in a primary healer role for anything except 'older' content; it therefore seems prudent not to neglect our DPS role in balance and improvement discussions.

Would be nice to see an expansion where druids had something to look forward to other than a "slightly better" nuke and "slightly better" heal. Doesn't necessarily need to be a pet, although that would at least be within the scope of an existing class trait.

Just my opinion, of course. )

~Firemynd

How comfortable should I feel that this person is going to take the correct information to the devs when she seems more comfortable speculating on the why rather than simply asking "why?".

If you get the changes you want, it's not a problem. If you don't get the changes you want, you still won't know whether it's Kythera's fault... so don't worry about it. At least K posts at all.

Anyone that wants to mess with Kytherea has to come through me!!!!! She is the most generous person that SoE has on their staff. Being the lead gm for stormhammer, and seeing her drunk several times at fanfaire, I can just say that she is a genuinely honest person.

I agree with Ladred, Kytherea was a cool GM when she was Cazic's server GM. She'd often come by and drop off cookies to our raiding group, actually be "sorry" when she told you that there was no way she could return items, rez you because your connection dropped, and blah blah blah.

Besides, when I read the original post, it sounded to me like she wasn't allowed to be the "voice of SOE" on foreign message boards. When you think about it, there have only been a handful of people from SOE which were allowed to post on external sites, and they were pretty high up in the CR chain. I think Brenlo would be the only person allowed to post externally - and I highly doubt that "general" customer reps will be given that chance - unless their posts are highly "nerfed" by SOE.

The reason made lots of sense too. Once upon a time, you'd get some dev folks into the mix with CR and "management" and they'd all be saying different things. On a system where your every word is documented, and players "bite you in the a$$" if something changes or gets dropped, well it's not hard to see why a company would want to have strict control over what gets said/promised/suggested to community sites.

Hi gang,

I will handle most of the offsite posting for now. Ashlanne and Kytherea will handle things on the internal boards. If you folks have a list of issues that you would like addressed please show me where and we will definately add them to the list. We are in no way trying to exclude those of you who choose to post and frequent other forums. It is just easier for us to consolodate it all there.

Thanks!

By the way, I will not be posting the rest of the week as I will be at E3. So please do not expect a quick response =)

Brenlo

Did anyone see a pig fly thru here? I think he was on his way to the 7th circle of hell cause my ski goggles are missing...

well ill be a monkeys uncle :thumbup: hello brenlo. first welcome and i apriciate someone finaly showing they do read the boards.(must do alot of reading) As to your list someone did link off to a forum we had a while ago into regards of fixing the druids that was mostly befor GoD. Understand and those veiws are still a concern. As of right now most people are trying to figure out how you excpect druids to heal GoD expesialy when u get higher and higher into it the gap is to large. Since you are asking druids i will leave sham out of this
cleric
CH
fast heal
group heal
HoT
aa heal (15min)
medium large heal

druids
75% ch (your jokeing right) i have yet to see KR or TR actuly heal 75% on a war that is tanking named in god
fast heal(not sure if you said it was fast or if we as druids did since are previous heal was 5.5 cast time) but this is slow ive seen tanks drop to 0% on mobs that cant 1 round them befor this spell cast
SI i can heal almost 3k thats with some decent foci / aas
NI 2.2k seams to be avarage

these 2 spells cost way to much mana for the heal they give(SI was a improvment)
these 2 spells are no were close to being fast heals 3.8 is way to slow even with foci and relaying on a cleric for spell hast i think are record is 1.8(EP) cast time that is the cast time to clerics fast heals

basicly in short druids are suposed to be 2nd best healers the gap was increased alot in god. with the diversity of spells ability to heal group hot and actuly fast fast heals that clerics have. you need to give the druids diversity in heals. a medium heal at a medium speed is ok at raids were u have to have 10 plus cleric to last and druids are there for suport but when groups requier 2 clerics becuase druids cant for fill a suport role you have problems.

there are alot of threads regarding numbers % mana to heal ratio between druids and clerics and the diversity if you would like these along with some sugestions for spells that a few people ahve come up with in the intent of makeing us able to suport but not overly powerfull say the word and i will gladly lead anyone willing into months and months of dicusions between druids to come up with something fesable.

btw thanx for showing us u do read :dance:

seferon goldenwolf
druid of the 65th season
Scarlet underground
TT

Please add your issues to this thread (http://www.thedruidsgrove.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7829).

We will organize all issues posted into a single, consolidated and well described list in a week or so.

Carry on arguments/discussions here, however, if you'd like. =)

Reminds me of the time I misquoted Gallenite... 8P

I hate SOE's board format. Also there are a ton of losers and trolls on that board. I rarely read it heh.

ok, so lets ask ourselves something...

Q. why didn't Sony do this before now?
A. $ cause they didnt want to spend the cash on the servers or staff or moderators and there were a billion class boards that they could just send their people trolling to for free.

Q. why are they doing it now?
A. $ cause all the class forums are either bought up by the plat sellers, or independent ones like this that are full of thoughtful, CRITICAL examinations of EQ and Sony's management of it...by controlling the only class boards that they will use for input, they pretty much keep their people where they can be handled and keep them from quitting.

too bad the quitting part is too little too late, but oh well. press for EQ2 hasnt been very good either, and SWG...i could go on forever.

glad this is rants, although last time i really went off on Sony, my thread got deleted. and imagine, this was the SAME DAY i got my "-=TDG Supporter=-" tag. go figure.

Thats because I am evil Harvey - :devil-lau -= TDG Supporter =- doesn't give anyone the right to "Go nutz" .. it just gives you the knowledge that the board isn't going to up and disapeer tomorrow. - Brenlo came to us.. he saw a need to post and clear it up - I can't imagine the job he must have though I like to see more interaction with "those" boards that haven't sold out - Safehouse.. Graffe's.. The Druids Grove.. Mage Tower etc..

These boards are staunt supporters of SoE - we don't encourage people to go off on Sony - but we do encourage them to bring about a post that the poster can coordinate with the community (IE: Police it and keep it on subject and call upon moderation when they need help) and possibly get a positive response from them. Remember they are guest of our community and there is NO where written that they must come here.. though we do encourage it.

Just remember we are expanding while other boards are sold out.

Actually Harvey, you should probably know your EQ history a little better before saying stuff like this...

ok, so lets ask ourselves something...

Q. why didn't Sony do this before now?
A. $ cause they didnt want to spend the cash on the servers or staff or moderators and there were a billion class boards that they could just send their people trolling to for free.


In fact, Sony (Verant) <i>did</i> have the boards up before any class forums really got started. That's where the term "whineplay forums" (at least for EQ) comes from. The old EQ boards <i>used to be</i> the only location where devs/CR regularly posted. This didn't mean they never posted anywhere else, but it was rare.

Whineplay stayed up for quite a while, but it became so bogged down with spammers, whiners, and frankly, a crapload of people who never contributed anything worthwhile, that it was shutdown, and then reopened, but clamped tight. The only way you could submit new posts was to be approved through their moderation system. With something like five people watching the boards, and 1500+ users per day, well as you can imagine, not much got posted. So that's really when the class forums started picking up general game discussions. Before that point, the class forums had "class balance" type threads, but they were more of an aftershock of a thread from whineplay. Now, the big threads started on the classboards, and got Sony's attention, rather than Sony making policy and causing discussion after.


Q. why are they doing it now?
A. $ cause all the class forums are either bought up by the plat sellers, or independent ones like this that are full of thoughtful, CRITICAL examinations of EQ and Sony's management of it...by controlling the only class boards that they will use for input, they pretty much keep their people where they can be handled and keep them from quitting.


My guess would be because they don't have people who read and reply to message boards all day long. Back when Brad, Abashi, Absor, blah blah, replied to message boards, they made it very clear that it was not all they did. Actually, I'm pretty sure that replying to message boards was something they did "on their own time" (I'm sure they're salary, but in other words, instead of being at work, they could have been home). Even with Kyth and (that other new CR that I forget the name of) I really doubt that they're paid to "troll class forums" all day long. Besides, it's not like they've ever said the official forums will be closed. They've been around almost as constantly as the game itself.

As for "why have an official forum" type questions, well that's rather rudimentary in my eyes. There's no reason why SOE shouldn't try to condense their commentary to one forum. I know a lot of the folks on TDG read multiple forums, but I don't know anyone who reads <i>all</i> the class forums every day. With 2039843290 classes, 3-4 different class boards for each, well that's a full time job. One that does nothing but cost the company money, for no real return. On the other hand, you can condense everything down to one "official forum," make it a 3hr per day (assuming like 20min/hr) job, and be done with it. Makes sense to me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if reopening the whineplay forums was something that the CR's pushed for, rather than the "corporate entity".

Well, one thing that SoE did different this time with their 'new' boards is they went with Lithium software. From what I have gathered is that the community as a whole helps moderate the tone of the boards by voting, and ranking. From lurking on the EQ2 boards since they opened up, this software is amazing, on how it ranks you tracks you and keeps up with what people think of your posts.

I think Ashlanne and Kytherea have become like Faarwolf is on the EQII boards. Pretty much a full time entity whose purpose it to just moderate those boards exclusively as a part of the CR department. Which makes me happy because you couldn't ask for a better moderator than Kyth, did I mention before that she is a halfling?

Lithium software "is so expensive!" - I priced it and said.. wow I am in the wrong business! - from what I understand tho - its amazing software. "Get me 3 copies for christmas please!" - /ducks from Rahjeir .. Runs away!