EI's 3 Month Ownership Thoughts

[Piira Laxdaela]

On July 21, 2006, Danu posted the following on the Community home page.

It is a privilege to be a Member of this community. We view the stewardship
of Istaria as a great responsibility.
The world you all call home will not undergo any great change or experience
an attack against its essence.

It is The Mission of the Empires stewards:

To preserve game play as the culture of the citizens of each seperate shard
have enjoyed it;

To bring new live events as advocated by the players; and,

To provide steadfast support on all levels.

Indeed, after acquiring Horizons, EI Interactive has made good on all of it's missions. There have been no great changes, game play has been preserved, sporadic live events have occured, and we have had support.

You ask yourselves, 'Did he just say we've had support?'. Yes, I did. There *has* been support. However, it isn't steadfast, is it?

So, I think that after three months, we need to look at what EI has done and not done, and hopefully improve the game and community.

For myself, I think that it would be a nice thing if we received a lot more communication from the development team. What they are working on, what they plan, what is going to happen, the State Of The Game speech, as it were. An update would also be nice, perhaps the confectioner changes or region improvements.

What about the rest of you?

[vahrokh_the_ancient]

I think that too many of you played too few (if any) other MMORPGS. In those, you never ever have the luck of having anyone informing you, talking with you, bothering with you.

Yet, with Horizons we had people wail like drunk sailors because they were not babysitted by an hot blonde or their four tickets a day promptly answered like HZ's life depended on it.

I think EI is a less noobish company and with this come some behaviors some will see as less "responsiveness".

It's the way it goes. With the old developers you had to go to their home and kick them in the nuts so they'd correct a bug, maybe these ones can fix stuff without such heavy interaction, like *gasp* a real company.

[CallakDW]

I simply wouldn't need interaction with the devs if I actually saw things taking place. But that's not really happening, and understandably. Thus I would LIKE to have a progress report come across mabe once a month just to make me feel better untill we start seeing patches to the game. Once that happens, then I will be happy to sit back and be ignored.

[Phillip]

I think if you expect any goodies after 3 months of a very rocky transition, you are out of your mind. I hope something did happen which made this so, I wouldn't want to call someone stupid, for that would be very rude.

[Death-knell]

Only thing I would ask is to fix the big things that are broke. For instance tyhe accounting system still doesn't work for a lot of people. 3 months, thats just irresponsible!

[IndyMan]

Vah .. those other games have hundreds of thousands of players. A game with fewer than 3000 can show a more personal touch to the players.

I dont think we need a daily or weekly info thread, but monthly.

[Vandellia]

I dont understand the total myopic view lets alll step back andx take off our biased glasses and reassess the entire over all picture

1. Nothing in game has changed since buy-out
a. no massive sweeping changes or nerfs
b. No fixes/tweaks/adjustments nor any any new content
2. mini-events are not now nor ever will be "new content"
3. Silence is neither good nor bad, However silence can be construed by man as a conformation of their worst fears.
4. In my opinion EI was truly unprepaired for the buyout
a. they didnt understand the games player base
b. they did not understand the relationship between the developers and the player base
5. Trust has been an issue with most of the player base since beta and most people percieve that EI has done little to instill any sort of warm fuzzy feeling in them beyond the fact that the game can still be played.
6. Lack of a broad brush detailed listing of plans for the future of the game simply dont exist which
a. feeds the doom and gloomers
b. unsettles the moderate players
7. Problem with doing 6 above means people will see their plans as an absoluet plan and if they dont meet a time line or their perceptions of it then they will be innundated with whys and a general wailing and gnashing of teeth so they simply dont say anything

Simply put they need to earn my trust and faith in them they havent i dont mis-trust them i simply dont trust them. I simply dont see the world thru rose colored glasses nor thru the dark doom and gloom ones either. I understand that they bought a game far more complex and with far more issues then i think they though they were getting, That however does not mean that we dont and shouldnt demand and get some sort of positive proof that some tangable progress is being made and breif bullet statments are not going to be bought by me. Lets see some true progress some actual fixes someting i can see for myself then i will have someting to go on.

[Frith-Rae]

I'll only take issue with the steadfast support...

After three months and the billing issues supposedly fix, they aren't - you can't update/change/add information to account or billing management from the login screen. That includes continuing your current subscription even when you WANT to stay...

So no...I give them a 1/10 on the support thing. They were rockin in the first two weeks, but have not since then. IMO.

[Justa Mirage]

All I see is a desert road that has no curves and can be seen to vanish into the illusion that there is "something ahead"

The game (as Vandellia put it) has not changed in 3 months. People may say "this is because they are getting used to the software still" but if you weren't prepared to "take over" and "run things" at the point of the purchase... you WERE ill-prepared to run this MMORPG.

Original developers and programmers were needed to keep "adding" even the slightest content to the game if the new owners needed to be brought up to speed on running / programming the game (simdoc, dbase setup, etc...)

Usually when a company gets sold to another one, the buying company has a "plan" for the "acquisition" and is already tooled up to take care of customer questions, have plans for customer reassurance, and would continue to cater to the customer base, making them feel that the company (game) they used to belong to, is not going to fail, but live on.

So far the warm fuzzies weren't there, a lot of silence, and a poorly implemented billing system. Customer service: you can't "fix" what you don't "understand yet" (this is why they hired Amadan for the most part, the "fixing" customer problems as a CSR)

The good part... the game is still the same after the buy-out. It still drives down the unchanging road of uncertainty. There are new "database lag issues" and rendering large cities with buildings takes up to 2 minutes before you even see your character appear, but the game works.

Months before the buy-out, talks of adding new assets for confectioner have been actually showing up in-game. New flying dragon disks were introduced, and tweaks and fixes to the graphics, polygons, and the database entries were on-going. This has ceased to exist and makes those of us that still play the game wonder if this perpetual world has come to an end, and this is what we will have to look forward to for the months beyond.

[Fratricide]

I don’t want to repeat what has been stated by the previous posters except for vahrokh, so Ill just Amen their assessments and comments and reiterate that a bit more communication from REAL Developers, and trying not to be disrespectful at all, not an Advertiser (or whatever Nagafen's job is) as to what is actually going on behind the scenes, or actually seeing something get fixed. Seeing some sort of real result for any kind of problem that has been ongoing since the procurement of the game would show some sort of glimmer of light at the end of the preverbal tunnel.

Anyway... not trying to get off into a rant, so I'll leave it here.

[Thamoris]

Lack of communication has been my biggest complaint. Two decades in retail and customer service postions has taught me constant commuication is essential in any service oriented business. Even if that communication consists of " I have nothing new to communicate today." It shows an appreciation of ones customers. The majority of the frustrations I have read on these boards has all boiled down too.." I feel taken for granted ." This is particularly important when a crisis pops up. How hard could it be for a staff member to post a quick post awknowledge peoples conerns?
The public relations thread stickied in these forums is a step in the right direction...more is needed though. I know many other mmo's don't place particularly high importance on customer service and I suspect as the mmo market thickens...this will be their downfall. It will also be an opportunety for EII and Horizons to shine!!
I applaud Amadan as he has been quick to respond any issues I have had..ty

[Garfonso]

hm...

You can't really compare a normal overtaking of a company with hz getting sold by TG in a rush, because they were running out of money and EI jumping in, because they just liked the idea, but had no real expierience with such a project (but very likley TG hadn't found anyone else...)


After all I would keep one thing in mind: This is very likely the last chance of Hz... and personally I wish all the best for EI and their HZ project.

[Phillip]

Chris B. was pulling the plug on HZ. It was done for. If EI didn't come for the quick purchase, we wouldn't be playing HZ right now. It's over. Say good bye to your dragon, and your gimpy biped. The end.

Yet we are still here. Knowing it was a rocky transition and misc issues soon followed, yet somehow, it seems obvious that EI didn't live up to your expectations after 3 months.

[MadDwarf]

Phillip is right on this account.

Chris Baker was done. Horizons and Tulga were losing money on a monthly basis and the game has never made a penny in profit. He was tired of funding it and it has now become a tax writeoff for him. He sold the game at a bargain basement price to the first corporate entity that showed an interest in it. Believe me if he had more credible offers he would have jumped on it because he would have been garanteed a higher sell price. So no EII has no experience running a real mmo and if they hadn't taken it over the game would have been shut down for good.

We can discuss all day about what EII can and cannot do. Fact is their resources as well are limited. Otherwise they probably would have hired the developers who had been working on the game. So what you got now is what you are going to have for the long forseeable future. Sprinkle in events here and there and thats about it.

[Peaches]

You have a crystal ball and can tell the future of EI? *shakes head*

[CallakDW]

There is a lot more information here aobut what EI's plans are and what's happening with the game than anywhere else. However, I'd like to take the opertunity to mention that there are people that play the game that hate visiting forums. Or don't have the means time or patients to look through them to find the information that would make them feel better about things that are happening. I ran across one person that was in total gloom over the entire situation, and spreading it in game. He felt that there is not any communication what so ever going on (which I personally dissagree with). I feel the reason for this is that he does not like forums, and even when he does visit, he doesn't know how to look for information in them because when I suggested he do so, he looked and he still felt that there was no communication here.

Previously I know announcements used to be made right on the log in page, which is visible to anyone that plays. I tried to bring this up with Nagafen twice. After the second time, it became obvious to me that he must be ignoring the question. For what reason I don't know. He has been very good at answering or gathering the information for every other question I've layed out for him.

[AA0]

It is more like MadDwarf is using logical and reasoning of the current situation and information at hand; more than just hoping his eyes and praying for the best outcome.

[Peaches]

However, I am not dreaming. I have faith, and to me, that is what counts over a post that pretends to tell the future.

Yesterday is gone, there is not a tomorrow yet, today is what counts.

[CallakDW]

Faith... hmmm. Faith is too blind for my tastes. Believing in somthing that you have no physical proof of is not a good practice. ---in my opinion. And just as bad as trying to predict the future.

[Peaches]

*shrugs*

Thats why each of us is different, and thats a good thing. If we were all the same, the world would be in deep trouble.

*shrugs again*

I am having fun ingame, that is what counts in the scope of things. I worry not about tomorrow, nor yesterday, nor today. There is no reason to worry over something that I have no control over!