So I was checking out the EQ Dev Tracker (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/tracker?role=Dev&no_redir=true) like i do every day or two, and I come across this little gem...

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=TNZ&message.id=83947&no_redir=true

Absor
EQ Designer
Posts: 32
Registered: 03-01-2004


Viewed 399 times


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Buur Whirr wrote:

Out of curiosity, but after a while how many folks really pay attention to the graphics? Aside from the current graphic issues, of course. I'll admit that when entering an area for the first time and the graphics are unique I'll be all 'ooh' and 'ahh' but five minutes later it all becomes background noise.
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That is certainly an important question. When I play games I'd say that I do sort of forget the graphics after several days of play. They sort of become background noise, you're right. But at that same time when you go from one game to the next, as a lot of us do, you absolutely notice the difference. And when playing games with really nice graphics you are much more likely to give out an ooh or an ahh a month into the game when you see a new cool thing you hadn't noticed before.


It's not like we're trading all of the great gameplay and content of EQ in for a new engine. The plan here is to give you both.


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Kandymann wrote:

Somebody did a nice wax job on that floor.
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Our artists also do windows.



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eldahr wrote:

ummm am i supposed to be impressed? i run a nice system and that zone killed my FPS. shiny water? Yippie
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Well, I suppose it would have been nice if you were impressed.


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if i have to turn the clip plane to zero something is wrong. if you want people to actually use this zone do the following:

* Remove the 12 billion wandering mobs, will reduce lag
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There were that many! Well then, I'll have the designer that put the zone together shot on the spot when he comes in tomorrow.


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* Make the rats non social at every level
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Nah. If you can't handle NPCs that help each other then perhaps you need to find another game. Maybe skeeball (no offense meant to those that like skeeball...)


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* Get rid of the fancy schmancy stuff, I want zones I can run around and enjoy not stare at the floor because my system can't handle it. (2.53P4 radeon9600xt 1gb ram)
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This is useful feedback. If you want to help us out please /bug that information while in the zone. Thanks.


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if oow is going to be this laggy there is simply no way im going to play. we shouldnt have to upgrade to a $500 video card every 6 months.
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We don't sell video cards, so I suppose there's little reason for us to force you to buy a new one. We do, however, want to improve EverQuest so that you will enjoy it into the future. Obviously we are working to optimize things.


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Inferna wrote:

By the time we reach 65-70 can we please not have to keep fighting rats and bats anymore.
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Actually, I was thinking that we should have huge bats and rats as end bosses throughout OoW.


Rats and bats just happen to be a very common NPC, so doing new models for them seemed like a good start.



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Tusk wrote:

Not reflections of the typical sense (You in a mirror) more like a polished and buffed tile floor that you can kinda see the glare on when the sun shines through the windows.... great effect, although someday I would love to actually see my toon's face reflecting off of his sword.
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y guess would be that you'll see that in about 2010, when we're all running on the P5000000000.

Zarkane - you might want to look at your video drivers. See if there's a newer one on the manufacturers site.

Despite my sarcasm above (and my apologies to anyone I may have offended), we appreciate the feedback. I certainly understand that nobody wants a new engine that reduces their framerate. We certainly don't. We're working to give you a better game experience overall. We'll keep working at it.

Thanks for your feedback, keep it up!

A(edited to fix wierd spacing and quotes)

essage Edited by Absor on 05-31-2004 02:13 PM


Now this is slightly edited from when I first read it, but I didnt think to copy the first draft... even still, the more I thought about his tone and attitude in this post the more ticked off I got. The level of unprofessionalism displayed here is just astounding. Here's a tip... mocking your customers isnt a good idea. And seriously, the sarcasm is not needed, especially now when everyone is very sensitive about anything said by a Sony person.

Someone over there needs to stuff the old Abashi sock puppet in his mouth (or I guess, on his hands) before he loses more EQ players for them. There are some sony devs who I have a lot of respect for... Grumbuk and Rytan to name only two... just let them talk. Absor, you need to do EQ a favor and stop. Remember when your Mom said, "If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all"? Do that.

The worst part is, I dont dare post anything resembling a complaint about this on their boards for fear of having my EQ account banned for "inappropriate" forum behavior...

Remember that 90% of the customers are idiots. They wouldn't know sarcasm if it bit them on the nose.

While I agree Absor's responses weren't very professional in an "official spokesperson" sort of way, I'd much rather see SOE's reps given freedom to engage in open rapport with players than have them pasting form letters and CS/marketing-approved catch phrases ... you know, like GMs do? e.g. "I'm sorry for any incovenience. Please make sure to file a bug report. Is there anything else I can assist you with today? Thanks and have a nice day ...."

I'd also note that his responses didn't bother me at all when directed towards players whose posts were rude, snide, or sarcastic. If anything, it looks like Absor tried to take a lighthearted approach instead of ignoring or censoring them, which I suppose would have drawn just as much criticism.

When it comes to working in a community with such a wide range of expectations and definitions about what 'customer service' is, you're pretty much damned if ya do and damned if ya don't.

~Firemynd

There's a difference between sarcasm and condescension, and neither are appropriate coming from any form of customer service rep.

Now, just to show I'm not one of those people who is all criticism and no solution, here's how that message should have read, written perhaps by Absor's Indian replacement... (replaced parts in bold)

Ghandisor
EQ Designer
Posts: 32
Registered: 03-01-2004


Viewed 399 times


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Buur Whirr wrote:

Out of curiosity, but after a while how many folks really pay attention to the graphics? Aside from the current graphic issues, of course. I'll admit that when entering an area for the first time and the graphics are unique I'll be all 'ooh' and 'ahh' but five minutes later it all becomes background noise.
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That is certainly an important question. When I play games I'd say that I do sort of forget the graphics after several days of play. They sort of become background noise, you're right. But at that same time when you go from one game to the next, as a lot of us do, you absolutely notice the difference. And when playing games with really nice graphics you are much more likely to give out an ooh or an ahh a month into the game when you see a new cool thing you hadn't noticed before.


It's not like we're trading all of the great gameplay and content of EQ in for a new engine. The plan here is to give you both. This is fine.


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Kandymann wrote:

Somebody did a nice wax job on that floor.
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Thanks.



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eldahr wrote:

ummm am i supposed to be impressed? i run a nice system and that zone killed my FPS. shiny water? Yippie
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I'm sorry you werent impressed. We're working quite hard on addressing these fps issues, and hopefully you will see some improvement with the next patch of the engine.


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if i have to turn the clip plane to zero something is wrong. if you want people to actually use this zone do the following:

* Remove the 12 billion wandering mobs, will reduce lag
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ost fps lag is not actually caused by mob models. Player models and zone geometry have the largest impact. We are concerned with improving the performance of this zone, though, so I'll ask the designers if something cant be done to help.

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* Make the rats non social at every level
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Well we intended this part of the zone to be a challenge in that way. I'm sure if you brought a monk, enchanter or bard along to help with pulls and crowd control, you might find it a little more fun. That said, there are other areas of the zone where the mobs are non-social which may be more to your liking.

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* Get rid of the fancy schmancy stuff, I want zones I can run around and enjoy not stare at the floor because my system can't handle it. (2.53P4 radeon9600xt 1gb ram)
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Thanks for that. If you could, next time you are there and experiencing that problem in game, try using the /bug command. Using that actually sends us additional debugging info including your client status, character position, and some other things, which helps when trying to improve performance and nail down these types of issues.

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if oow is going to be this laggy there is simply no way im going to play. we shouldnt have to upgrade to a $500 video card every 6 months.
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He's already responded to the FPS issue, he should just move on...

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Inferna wrote:

By the time we reach 65-70 can we please not have to keep fighting rats and bats anymore.
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Sarcastic comment removed, rest is fine.
Rats and bats just happen to be a very common NPC, so doing new models for them seemed like a good start.


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Tusk wrote:

Not reflections of the typical sense (You in a mirror) more like a polished and buffed tile floor that you can kinda see the glare on when the sun shines through the windows.... great effect, although someday I would love to actually see my toon's face reflecting off of his sword.
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That would be very cool, but it's beyond the capabilities of the current incarnation of our graphics engine. Its difficult to put in features like this without significantly raising the required system specs on the box, and we are trying to keep EQ running on as many systems as possible.

Thanks for your feedback, keep it up!

That wasnt so hard! 8) Admittedly I've had over 12 years of experience in customer service, but the basic rule is you *dont* respond to rudeness with more rudeness. As an employee you are representing your company, the image you put forth is a direct reflection on the company as a whole. There is no excuse for anything less than professional behaviour, especially in a medium like a message board forum where posts take time to compose and the temptation for quick and rude spoken responses is almost nil.

I'd much rather see SOE's reps given freedom to engage in open rapport with players than have them pasting form letters and CS/marketing-approved catch phrases ... you know, like GMs do

Some of them do. Take a look over at M-B some time, there's some who post there who do so with real info, no attitude, and a friendly demeanor. And that place was (and is) one of the most openly hostile and anti-SOE forums there is (with good reason.) Again, it's the bottom line, there's no excuse for poor behaviour from paid reps. As for canned responses, yes they do suck. But Absor wasnt obligated to post anything, unlike a live GM who pretty much has to deal with you whether they like it or not. And in fact, he didnt actually offer any useful information at all. It's all sarcasm with "Oh and get the latest drivers" tacked on for good measure.

Yeah, there have been a few impressive posts recently. For example, one person was complaining about the cast time on the Veil of Flames. It seemed like yet another complaint thread that would end up going nowhere, until a developer posted that he agreed and reduced the cast time on that and a couple other items: http://p201.ezboard.com/fmonklybusiness43508frm1.showMessage?topicID=45850 .topic
Responding in a straightforward manner to issues raised has made the developers look good. It's rather encouraging to see this.

Interesting read here on wall issues: http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=development&message.id=1183#M1183

Because there are two sides to this is the exact reason corporate speak exists.

y thoughts on reading this is that maybe Abosor is losing it. After all, imagine going to work every day and all you see all day long is people griping about how terrible a job your doing even if its not you doing the job.

MOG developers, and especially their public relations personnel must possess a great amount of fortitude to be able to continue from day to day.

Sarcasm doesn't come off well in text form (especially in CS) because a few people see a sarcastic tone but most just get offended. Absor's posts have almost always made him sound like an uncaring ass from the very first post I ever read by him. It's hard to know whether he actually cares about the issues at hand or if he's just looking for material for a "witty comeback". I never much liked his posts. Wasn't there a huge uproar about him a while back that forced them to take him off posting? I'm sure he's a decent sort in real life, but unfortunately his posts don't show it, and as a representative of a company that should be customer oriented he should learn to control the sarcasm.

I found Absors post refreshing. It is nice to see him injecting a little humor and sarcasm. I would MUCH rather see honest answers that I don't like than lies to placate me.

Deller

I agree. Especially about the comment about rats being made non-social. I'd hate to see that EQ player jump into CoH where it's usually 6 Heros vs. 15-20 villains. I'd like to see more of that kind of fun in EQ.

I could in no way do Absor's job. I would be fired within a week because once I get going the sarcasm doesn't stop and rampant stupidity about things that should be common sense drives me nuts.

...and rampant stupidity about things that should be common sense drives me nuts.Like a corporation's representative being flippant to a customer who believes his issue is important, and then posting it for the whole customer base to read? Honestly, I don't know which lacks the most common sense. The representative doing the posting or the corporation who lets it continue. :/

The funny thing is the player he was responding too enjoyed it, and wasnt mad at all, but of course even if your responding to someone, a messageboard is to an audience and should try to take that more in mind..

e personally? I dont see much wrong with what he said, but i'm pretty laid back about sarcasm, and unless its an an insult or assault I dont care, but others obviously do!

Like a corporation's representative being flippant to a customer who believes his issue is important, and then posting it for the whole customer base to read? Honestly, I don't know which lacks the most common sense. The representative doing the posting or the corporation who lets it continue. :/

Some of the things people believe is an issue is not an issue. Like the rats being made non-social. Now if something that was hitting for 6k a round and AE'ing for 3k every so often was very social, I would understand... but they're just rats. Every book I've read, damn near every D&D session I've played involving rats... there has always been more than one. They came in hordes and hordes... not one at a time ignoring all the other dead rats around it.

That's another thing I'd like to see in EQ... NPC corpses mattering when an npc is following someone. If they see a trail of corpses... they might think twice about continuing to follow and instead go get help immediately.

I didn't find Absor's comments in the least offensive or troublesome. But then again, I have a wife and two teenage kids - I have to have a thick skin :)

Vestix
63 callous druid of Tunare

I love Absor's wit.

What I don't like is the absense of it. I can handle his barbs, not like they really could ever penetrate my thick skin.

I would hopefully have his sense of humor after these years, if I were in his position. Remember Abashi, the guy was a fuggin hateful spiteful troll by the end of his tenure.

If you don't let him vent(a little) he would probably explode.

The eq graphics engine has always been the suck. I have never heard a real reason why it always tries to render stuff you can't see. That is as lame as a 3 legged cat.

And I thought SOE employees have had a self imposed moratorium of posting on MB. Has that changed?

Yea - Absor's post = Absor's Smash - rather have the straight truth even if its a slap in the head post .. even I have had some oh yea Duh .. post before... quite frankly he's a Dev now so even though he's still in the public eye.. Dev's don't need to be nice they just need to be frank. Yes or No - and this is why! /sarcasm and being a bit harsh stops people from trying to re-argue the same points over and over.. but thats my take on it.

The moratorium on M-B posts was strictly a personal decision by Absor, and didnt apply to anyone else. Other Sony devs did indeed post there during Absor's boycott.

I suppose I'd be a bit startled if a new dev or PR person came bursting out of the gate with any sarcasm, but this IS Absor we're talking about ... someone who has been around player communities for a couple years AND someone whom we've seen many many times accepting due criticism gracefully and often poking fun at his own goofs when making corrections.

Even so, I'll never be an Absor fan. I'm too cynical over the half-truths and double speak he's posted here several times in the past, especially when addressing questions about priest balance. But I'm not going to bash him for giving some 'tude when players act like 5-year olds with ridiculous exaggerrations instead of just making their point (e.g. from a player: "Remove the 12 billion wandering mobs, will reduce lag" .. necessary? I think not).

Also, to be fair, your copy/paste of Absor's replies did not show the smilie face icons that were in his actual post; and in an online forum those can make a *huge* difference in how any given comment is perceived.

~Firemynd

To be honest, I didnt even see those Two robot-happy.gif things in the original... I thought they were some sort of graphical glitch (looks like a tin can) and just mentally ignored them. Regardless, as you say, sarcasm does not travel well in this medium, robot smiley or no robot smiley...

I guess some of you are just so used to being treated like crap by these guys that you just dont care about his behaviour. In any other venue, this man's job would be in jeopardy. I saw a quote on mobhunter that was pretty apt:

http://www.mobhunter.com/message.jsp?articleid=-1950615164&msgid=-1786608670#message
Equate this to the grocery store. If you told the manager you felt the shopping cart needed replacing due to a faulty, stuck wheel, then the box boy came back and told you if you "If you dont like our shopping carts, go shop someplace else" he would be fired on the spot. This is a prime example of how SOE Customer Service treats its paying customers.

The other thing you guys seem to be saying is that it's OK for him to abuse customers that are abusive to him... well, I can only assume that you've either never worked retail or have just awful customer service at your local stores... that's just not normal tolerated behaviour from a professional. The point is, if someone's complaining at you sarcastically, *dont respond.* Sarcasm does not require a response, and is infact best left unanswered. Ignore it. Be the better person. Be the professional paid representative that we pay you to be.

And again, the bottom line is that he said nothing in his post (this one, and a few others recently.) There was no need for it. It's not his job to mock his customers, and finish off with a "Oh thanks for the comments, please keep them coming so I can mock you some more." Things like this post just should not have happened. It's all just mean-spirited sarcasm, and "If you dont like it, try another game."

Well, what can I say. People are, Alan. People are.

Meh, I don't care much for all the PR political correctness bs. I'd much rather have reps that tell it like it is and don't coddle their customers with fancy double speak. It's stupid. I wish more devs would post like Absor. Maybe some of the players with their heads stuck in the sand would see the light of day.

Bottom line... SOE is in the business of providing a product to customers. SOE wants to RETAIN customers. Sarcasm does nothing to retain customers and the usual result is an angry customer. Show the sarcastic interchange to the rest of the customers and you have a mass of angry customers.

You can chide those who don't agree with Absor's use of sarcasm for lacking a sense of humor, but the net result SOE is looking for is NOT furthered by posts of his sort.

I'd be willing to bet that most people just don't care about what Absor posts and the people who are upset are only a minority of the players. I doubt SOE would be too worried about it.

Sarcasm is the essence of "double speak". Sarcasm provides no useful information. Don't confuse willful belligerence with being an increased level of truth.

Developers should respond technically because they are technical people. Any defense of false claims should be done with fact in a clinical way.

Equate this to the grocery store. If you told the manager you felt the shopping cart needed replacing due to a faulty, stuck wheel, then the box boy came back and told you if you "If you dont like our shopping carts, go shop someplace else" he would be fired on the spot. This is a prime example of how SOE Customer Service treats its paying customers.


Real world examples often translate badly onto the internet where different rules apply.

ost people wouldn’t dream of expressing in real life the levels of abuse and disrespect that are seen as normal behaviour in an internet discussion. When I write on the internet I often drop capitals, punctuation and don’t worry about poor spelling, but I don’t do this in real life, nor to I expect to read it outside of the internet. If I play on battlenet it’s a rare night when I don’t encounter a cheat or a griefer whereas in real life it is extremely rare to encounter such people.

In my experience, the customer service from SoE is much the same as that from all the other MMORPG producers.

If its just techno babble well then you will lose me in the first paragraph.. and quite frankly I won't know if they are actual trying to fix it or if they are saying.. "hell, I didn't know there were 50,000 rats wandering around reducing your 6000 dollar system to 1 FPS." (in other words.. the person is exaggerating a bit)

But in the same thread you had a guy wanting to see the reflection of his face in his sword.. I mean come on people - the **** people say to these devs I would expect a response of sarcasm; in any event I am still under the belief that not all people will be happy no matter how nice.. or how technical or how sarcastic its put.

Feedback is tough... either positive or negatively put.. but all feedback when asking for ludicrous ideas that is just not possible in "this game" without another overhaul of the engine.. is just silly.. but at the same time.. it maybe taken into consideration in EQ 2. Not saying you will see this.. but you never know.

In any event .. at least you have a place to vent here.. and sure maybe I will pass this thread a long directly to Absor and ask him to make a statement.. thought I did see Absor post a "save face" statement in there.

And don't get me wrong.. Absor has pissed me off in the past.. but quite frankly I wouldn't be calling for a hanging either.. and thats the feeling I get off these types of post.. he's a public figure .. so anything he says can be construed as negative by some and positive by others.. just the nature of the beast.

I have been there.. "But Sobe said.. yada yada" so it must be true.. even though the statement was more or less in jest or a discussion I was having on the boards. As to me and how I view post.. I try not to get emotional (sometimes I can't hold back) when I read threads.. and hope to get a bit of a chuckle out of it.. and push for those ideas that could be possibly to become possible.. all jokes aside.

As to a conclusion of this post; As the author of this thread has wrote in so many words..

"There is a time and a place!"

That I must agree with ;)

As to threat of losing your account.. no one can blame you.. but at the same point its sad that people actual have to worry about that.

- Be Well

I get the feeling that Absor is just trying to be funny but the customers aren't in the mood to be joked around with.

Technically, he should do whatever it is SoE chooses to put in his job description. If they want him to respond with less-than-skilled attempts at sarcasm, then he is doing a great job and deserves no personal blame.

However, in business, you should not say "no" to a customer. You can either respond with a direct solution or with a reassurance that their views are being taken into account. This applies across the board, both online and off. The confusion of a new "thing" (the widespread use of the internet) allows a certain amount of leeway for a (relatively) short period of time. In the end, though, businesses will be expected to behave online as they do offline. SoE has already had a negative impact from their past behavior. Eventually, they will realize the impact in their sales and shift their behavior accordingly.

I'd be willing to bet that most people just don't care about what Absor posts and the people who are upset are only a minority of the players. I doubt SOE would be too worried about it./shrug. I don't think any company with a product/service to sell would ever say that alienating customers is ok as long is it isn't "the majority".

A company that is interested in success is interested in keeping every customer. Not just those in the majority, and not just those who take joy in reading poorly written sarcastic posts filled with nothing but attitude.

As for why I quoted his whole post, Autumn... well quoting out of context is bad. Bad enough that I missed the two robot smileys, I'm not about to pick and choose off colour statements and quote them all by themselves to prop up a flimsy point. The post stands on its own as an example of belligerence from a top public representative of SOE, which in my opinion, as both a customer and as a customer service professional, is in amazingly bad taste, especially given the problems EQ has now with customer retention and satisfaction.

Well, just maybe some of those companies are realists. They know for a fact they cannot retain and keep every customer happy. So they choose to focus on the ones that are happy and try to keep them happy. If they get a chance to improve something for the perpetually unhappy ones, so be it... but they shouldn't be a priority. Most of those whiners would just find something else to whine about instead of quitting the game like they should.

If people are going to keep playing a game, but yet keep bashing it on a forum/feedback over and over, ignore 'em. They obviously have no clue what they want. They keep playing a game they seem to not enjoy if you read their message board posts or listen to 'em in chat... but they keep playing and playing and playing. It's ridiculous. There's just no pleasing those people and no frelling point to even try.

I would ignore damn near every message board out there just because they're filled with those kinds of people. They keep playing, but they whine about it louder than a stuck pig. I'm guilty of wanting to change EQ into something better. But that's just my personal opinion of fun reinforced by other games already out now. =) I think some other people are starting to see why those games are fun and what's wrong with EQ too.

Aly... didn't you quit EQ?

I quit EQ but retain my account(s) - so my concern is still there.

- Have to understand one thing, I put 5+ years into EQ - I would love to come back.. I love my guild to come back but right now I just don't see it happening .. but I have Sobe.. he's still my pride and joy.. and yes I sign on once and a while.. its hard to let go.. but we all already know that.

Hense why I didn't go to the summit and requested for both Scirocco and Chenier two Serious players. Yes most boards only were able to send one person.. but these two come from different game play styles.. I thought as an Admin and a Community Leader that this in itself was very important for this type of Summit. Sony Agreed and gave us permission and really it wasn't a fight.. they were VERY willing to talk with our representatives.. IE: Your respresentatives.

- As to myself.. I still admin one of the strongest Class sites in EQ and make sure you guys in the community are still supported even though the Grove has branched out a bit into other games.. by purchasing with my own funds new boards.. Rahjeir working his ass off to create these communities; again another long time EQ player that has recently left.. but still pours his heart and soul into our community because of what we as a community represents in past and present and we want to maintain for our future!

Its my feeling that if people decide to move to EQ II or stick with EQ they don't have to move to another board.. another community and rebuild the reputation that they have gained here.. as well as WoW.. which I firmly believe it will become a strong running game that also "serves" the Druid Class.

So what I am saying is this.. just because some may of quit today or yesterday there is always a possibility of people coming back.. and that in itself allows them to speak.. freely here on the Grove.. not trying to piss you off Arienne.. but I think you get where I am coming from.. no worries my friend.. its a valid question.. but isn't always true to the form when dealing with EQ or other games.

Bah! Skipping to the end! Nothing Absor can say beats:

"Be quiet little man and send me your ten dollars. My porsche needs some upgrades!"

aybe not the exact quote but it was pure ownage.

Bah! Skipping to the end! Nothing Absor can say beats:

"Be quiet little man and send me your ten dollars. My porsche needs some upgrades!"

aybe not the exact quote but it was pure ownage.

OMG! Who said that? :)

Milo wrote that in his Ask Milo column, I think. He was one of the early 3d artists for Everquest if I remember right.

(Aha, found it! Hooray for google...)
http://www.everlore.com/askmilo/default.asp

LOL! - yea that does own!

"I don't think any company with a product/service to sell would ever say that alienating customers is ok"

Umm, you are talking about SOE. As in Verant.

They started off not only alienating, but antagonistic.

But they were smart enough(genius int) to know that it was us(as in we players) that would keep us(as in we players) coming back, not their graphics engine.

You have to admit that the social interaction with us(as in we players) is what mainly kept you there, or keeping you there, or what you miss since you have left.

Seeing what Milo was responding to, I would agree with him.

Funniest thing I saw there:
I'm 5'8 - 130 - Master Jeet Kune Do - You say you're not afraid of little dorks, well I fit that bill

And as such he should know that karate is so you don't have to fight, not so you can pick a fight. Therefore I conclude that this guy is really just a master of why-I-aughta.

I think Absors post was a blast.
Big deal if he pumped out a few slams. Lord knows we have beat, slammed, flamed, kicked, quoted and insulted him enough times. He's a person, he stepped up to the plate and laid down some smack. All the power to him. I hardly think it will seriously impact the game.

Just my opinion so relax :crazy:

Sil

And as such he should know that karate is so you don't have to fight, not so you can pick a fight. Therefore I conclude that this guy is really just a master of why-I-aughta.

I love to nitpick, so I'll point out that Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist) is not Karate. In fact, it's source is not even Japanese. It is a universal style invented by Bruce Lee, who was American (born in San Francisco), though of Chinese descent. In an interesting semi-related sidenote, Lee knocked the 13 rank Japanese champion Ken Kazama down in 12 seconds.

I love to nitpick, so I'll point out that Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist) is not Karate. In fact, it's source is not even Japanese. It is a universal style invented by Bruce Lee, who was American (born in San Francisco), though of Chinese descent. In an interesting semi-related sidenote, Lee knocked the 13 rank Japanese champion Ken Kazama down in 12 seconds.

Just another side note, JKD is very saturated with "McDojos". Getting a blackbelt in JKD is sometimes as easy as paying your $50/mo for five years, not necessarily "learning" anything. It'd be interesting to see Bruce take on some of the scary UFC type fighters now days. I still maintain that he'd be pretty screwed if one of the Gracies got into grappling range.

Aly... didn't you quit EQ? - Arienne

I quit EQ but retain my account(s) - so my concern is still there. - Sobe

Yes, I quit, but I retain my accounts because I may come back if an expansion piques my interest. I've said it before, I like the storyline in EQ, but I just got so damn frustrated with not being able to participate in it firsthand because I refuse to spend 10 hours a day grinding xp for levels and aa and ridiculously long and boring quests for keys and flags.

I did the Positron task force in CoH last night and the night before that. In total it took about four or five hours. What is great about the taks force missions, is that you can log off in the middle of them and start again the next day. The only bad thing is that you can't do any other missions or join any other groups while in a task force group. They also changed task forces today with a patch. Instead of scaling the task force missions to the level of the TF leader, it automatically starts at the highest level possible for that task.

Such as Positrons. You have to be at least 10th level and no higher than 15th level to start his task force missions... so now all the NPC's in the missions spawn at 15th level instead of say 11th and 12th for a 10th level PC. It makes them a lot harder, but instead of pulling a SoE/Verant... they increased the rewards for the harder missions.

It'd be interesting to see Bruce take on some of the scary UFC type fighters now days. I still maintain that he'd be pretty screwed if one of the Gracies got into grappling range.

It is impossible to know what would happen. Jiu-Jitsu is commonly accepted to be the most effective style in most "real life" encounters. However, in a "real" encounter, it is very much a contest of individuals, not of styles, and it just isn't fair to say either side would win based on past performance in vastly different arenas.

The other thing you guys seem to be saying is that it's OK for him to abuse customers that are abusive to him... well, I can only assume that you've either never worked retail or have just awful customer service at your local stores

:) Actually the opposite is true. Starting in high school and continuing past college, I worked retail for a company positioned in the more affluent side of its market (i.e. clients expected premium brands and 'above and beyond' levels of service). My last 6 years with that company were spent as CS manager for its top store.

After I resigned from there, and over the past several years, I've worked in the software industry; specifically, managing tech support and alpha testing, and acting as liaison between beta testers and devs.

Being intimately familiar with both environments, I can't even begin to describe the huge difference between customer interactions in a brick & mortar atmosphere compared to an online forum.

I've seen my share of difficult customers face-to-face, but even the nastiest of those customers have been nowhere near as nasty or petty or unreasonable as online customers can be. Online, they're communicating somewhat anonymously.. from behind email addresses, screen names, avatars, etc. Online, they just don't feel as obliged to show decorum -- and online they're much less likely to treat CS reps like real people or consider their feelings in the slightest. Message board forums can be the worst, as users who seem to believe they're championing a cause are often much more vehement, openly hostile and overly demanding. Yet they still expect to be placated the same as they'd be if what they were demanding was reasonable or even realistic.

While I agree that representatives of online companies should be held to a certain standard, I don't believe they should be subjected to abuse from online customers who quite frankly would *never* act that way in a brick&mortar business. Sometimes internet users need to be reminded that they hold a share in the responsibility of maintaining a pleasant atmosphere.

When I was in retail, I held fast to all the usual mantras... including the universally known bit, "The Customer Is Always Right." And I would never have imagined that it could ever be good for business to lose a customer. Fact is, online business has rewritten some of the old rules.

~Firemynd

In my opinion, if you feel personally abused by a customer who doesn't even know you, you shouldn't be in the business of customer relations. Frankly, I think a store catering to the affluent is a poor example of how bad customers can act. I'd say Fast Food is a lot closer to the bottom end of customer behavior. When you're getting paid minimum wage to be physically threatened by some dumbass because he didn't get enough ketchup...that's when your resolve is tested.

I'm not sure why anyone makes excuses for inappropriate behavior. It's not about a fair situation. You don't deserve the opportunity to respond emotionally. It's your job, not the customer's. They don't have to play by your rules, but you still do. It's not appropriate for the representative of a business to respond emotionally to a customer. If the customer becomes irrationally emotional, you apologize to them, inform them you cannot continue the abusive conversation, and you hang up (or delete their posts/ban them from the board/warn them...whatever). You do not make wise cracks or respond sarcastically. You do nothing that can provide fuel for the customer's anger. Your job is to suck it up and deal. It's a tough job, and I wouldn't want to do it again, but that is what you get paid for (even if you don't get paid much).

While you make some valid points, Firemynd. I would, however, remind you of another difference in the SOE/EQPlayer CS relationship. SOE employees are never forced to respond to a question from any customer and they freely pick and choose which posts they reply to. To me... if a SOE repersentative fires off a smart ass response to the one smart ass question ignoring dozens of valid posts and concerns, HE is the one being the greater ass. That feeling of anonymity seems to work both ways on the internet. Absor posts often look as though he went shopping for *just* the right question to respond to.

BTW, some new Absor gems have appeared over on Graffe's...

http://www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18737

They really need to be read in context (i.e. wizzies are (rightly) ticked at the dumbing down of the game and the PoK poHate teleport npc), but here's some snippets.

I sorta figured there would be an uproar here this morning. Can I ask for some rational reasons as to why this has you upset? The "dumbing down" of the game thing doesn't make sense. You don't have to be a skilled player to have a wizard cast a spell on you rather than have an NPC do it. So let's leave that out. The game is not dumber because you can get bound in a city by an NPC, it's not dumber because everyone has access to a zone that was restricted by a player's ability to find a character of one particular class.

I accept that this removes a small margin of versatility from your class. That's a good point. But tell me this, when was the last time you took a group of people that you didn't know (your guild or pals can be assumed to have access to your help when they need it) to Hate? If you're not there to let people in, they can't go to the zone. That's generally a bad game mechanic.

And to the fellow that was upset that we've given other people access to his private zone, you should be ashamed of yourself.

A

Now this isnt terribly rude (although he gets a bit that way later on), but his reasoning isnt even internally consistent. As someone else pointed out later in the thread, why are rogues still required to access content in Seb, Chardok, HS, CoM and other places? Why are there keys on ST, VP etc if they require you to get help to gain access?

The whole port thing is a big hotbutton for Wizards (and us druids, for that matter) and they really should put a little bit of thought or maybe, just maybe, show a bit of sensitivity about these issues when the inevitable complaints pop up to a dumbing-down change that takes away from a class with no compensation at all.

/sigh. At least Brenlo came in with some damage control later on in the thread, but I bet he's getting tired of cleaning up other people's messes.

Wow, wizards like to whine a lot over something completely trivial and stupid.

..Sigh.

I am sorry. Wizards lost the port to Hate.... why should they care? I have always thought that needing a wizard to go to Hate or Sky is just dumb and an internally built blockage by SOE. KEYS make sense. Having a single class as required to go somewhere doesn't.

The community all realize that a cleric being required in nearly every group is silly right, right? Opps - wait.....

The community all realize that a cleric being required in nearly every group is silly right, right? Opps - wait.....This sparked an interesting question in my mind... is SOE part of the EQ "community"? My answer to your question would depend on your answer to mine. :D

This sparked an interesting question in my mind... is SOE part of the EQ "community"? My answer to your question would depend on your answer to mine. :D

I know you are joking but I'll answer anyway. I do not consider SOE part of the community - and maybe that is part of the problem.