Dev's, drop everything you are doing.

[Frith-Rae]

So you're saying that because they're ranting - its not a "polite" quesiton and so the devs don't have to answer it??

Cuz I rather thing they are REDUCED (emphasis not yelling ) to ranting beacuse the polite questions remain unanwered.


The facts are thus:

We have no updates on WHATEVER is going on with the Unity process - at all. Wether they think it can be done or can't be done or well anything at all. No notice on how much, if any, progress has been made.

Tulga had this history, VI is having it (and really its not unusual in MMOs, and neither is this ranting about it ) now - a history of not giving out information when its asked. All people are asking for is an update - SOMETHING saying "here's what we've done/trying to do right now/hope to do in the future."

Even if they've made no progress - a post stating that they are working on it but aren't any closer would be something that is asked for.

Silence answers nothing and helps noone.

Unity players *deserve* some response on this issue. ANY response would be providing information and insight into what's "taking" so long or what the "difficulties" are. Honesty with the player base is key. Honest and Openness.

They're not getting it - so dang right they're tired with asking politely. How can you blame them?

Now I appreciate yoiu trying to get answers Val, and I do hope you get something - but it doesn't replace the fact that Vi needs to be providing these answers and progress reports on their own.

And don't give me that speel about "they can't spend all day reading forums" blahblah - this took me 2 mintues to write. An update post would take no longer - and leave *everyone* feeling better.

edit: ok apparently we posted simultaneously though - that post did come out better Val btw - I'll stand by my points as they needed to be made - and again thank you for at least being one who responds.

[LaughingOtter]

We LOVE this game! We want nothing more than to be able to play it again! Most of use are intending to drop subscriptions to other, more "modern" games, so we can come back to a game we love! A community we love! We just want to be able to come back with characters we poured our hearts and souls in to for years!

How can this not have gotten through?!?

Antonath, Takora, I think the issue is that this request was presented as a rant. I wouldn't take Velea's response as one directed to the Unity players as a group.

I don't see anyone ignoring the Unity issue or the Unity players. It would be a monumentally foolish thing to do. It would also be monumentally foolish to proceed with character transfers too soon. It is in Virtrium's best interests to make the character transfers happen as soon as possible in order to retain as many Unity players as possible, so the only reasonable explanation for the time it's taking is that there IS something complicating the process.

I can't give you any answers. I wish I could. It's not my area. I'm a storyteller, not a DBA. However, everyone else I know who has a role in Virtrium - everyone - wants to see your characters live again. It wouldn't be Horizons without you.

[Peaches]

Cobal?

There is, in fact, a very good reason to do so.
Or have you forgotten the past of these boards?
Anyway it happened as I predicted and was moved to the Unity forum so that it can be forgotten and ignored.
Just like Peaches and all the other mod's did.



Please leave me out of this, whats done is done and the past is just that, the past.

[Velea]

Frith, I'm not doing this out of love for Unity players. As much as I do love ya'll, and I do want to see you back in the world playing for those who haven't started new characters... this is my job. Part of what I do at Virtrium is to raise to the developers things that come up on the forums and say "Hey, look here". So when this isn't Velea just being sweet, loving and nice. This is Velea working here.

What I'm saying is that this is "Virtrium" (the entity) paying attention, because through forum moderators and volunteers who "nudge" the devs to looking at specific issues, is how everyone's time is made the best use of.

[Antonath]

Let me quote from the last time we went through this, a month ago.

See, THAT is what I needed. Now I have something I can take back to the devs and say "Would it be possible to, say, every other week, put out a short project update?" I did see you said weekly, but I'd rather not push my luck, keeping in mind that from what I've read most of the developers are part time, not full time, so I don't want to take that much time out from working. From having done status reports in the past for various jobs, I can say it takes more than just 5 minutes to produce something to go out to the public. Internal, perhaps only 5.

Thank you, Spirit. Thank you very much.

Has anyone come back to us about that? Even to say "sorry, devs too busy - how about every 3-4 weeks".

That's why we're upset.

And I know you don't intend for this, Velea, but sometimes your posts read as if to say "sit down and shut up". This is the interweb - if a sentence can be misinterpreted, it will be misinterpreted. Perceived insults and rudeness coming from another player is tolerated. Coming from a moderator, people take it in a worse manner, even if they know that's not how it was intended. A few badly phrased posts on both "sides", and everyone gets angrier and angrier. Add in the fact that our polite queries get drowned out by everyone else's somewhat-less-polite queries about their must-fix issues, and it seems as if all us Unitarians do is rant and yell and pick fights with moderators, when that's not the case.

Antonath

[Velea]

It does not seem to me that all Unitarians do is rant, yell, and pick fights with the moderators. And I dropped the ball a month ago, I'm sorry. I asked, but I never followed through when I didn't hear anything back. I got so involved in other things that I didn't follow up.

That's why I say honestly and truly, if it has seemed a while since the last word, ask again nicely. Send me a reminder PM if you don't want to post. Or post saying "Hey Vel, it's been a week since you heard anything, any news?". I'm getting older, and forgetful. To say nothing of having three kids who I swear have been sucking up my brain cells for years.

[Antonath]

I'm getting older, and forgetful. To say nothing of having three kids who I swear have been sucking up my brain cells for years.

Of course - how do you think kids get smarter as they get older? They steal their parents' brain cells! Having three means it's happening at three times the rate

Antonath

[Antonath]

http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17345

Now, y'see, that's more like it

Antonath

[Takora Drakan]

*hands Cobal and Antonath a big chocolate gnome*

[awdz]

*eats the chocolate she was dipped in before getting eaten, and gives the dragons each ten chocolate mice instead before scampering off*

[velveeta]

hopefully, today's dev post has settled this thread.
and equally hopefully, it will settle down the demands for updates for a couple of days......

[Antonath]

Ooh, chocolate mice. Useful as bait...

As for settling the thread, I'd say it has. Although I don't doubt someone will start a thread commenting on why we haven't had this sort of communication all along. Won't be me though

This should settle demands for updates until January 1st. After all, that's the new year, why haven't the test transfers started? Again, won't be me saying that. I just know how people think.

Antonath

[Cobal]

It seems to me that they are doing the best they can, and now YOU have to decide if it's good enough for YOU. But please don't try to make ME feel the same way as you since I am not you.

I have re-read my posts several times and I do not see where I am trying to make you feel like anything.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand how I slighted you here, I don't think I did.

Anyway:
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17345

Info, good.

I still wan't to know the details of the problem but, I'll be silent a bit now.

*munches on a chocalate mouse as the chocolate gnome has gone missing*

[Antonath]

The dev post mentioned legal issues. Chances are, that was the major hold-up, which means we'll probably never hear what the specific problem was.

Antonath

[Takora Drakan]

Yes that explains that they could not give exactly updates to us because they could break the law or something.

*dips cobals tail in chocolate and munches on it* : P

[Tryagain]

heh I'm going to say this. I have quite a bit of experience with databases.... access to some people who are what I call ultra guru's in both oracle and SQL ( which is what HZ uses).

The task of pulling out unity characters from another database is a task not for the weak of heart. Its not an easy task and its a time intensive task. It depends on how far behind Unity was with the NA patch time lime and more important what database changes were made in those patches. Since we know that Horizons lives and dies on its database well....

Quite frankly I will be shocked if this gets done within the next few months. Nah not shocked but I won't be surprised if there isn't a lot of issues they are going to have to contend with.

One thing I was surprised with on the developer update on this was the "Legal hold ups" do they mean legal issues with the european based owner ? Or the former owners of Horizons ? Did not Luca say that the DB is freely ready to be handed over to whoever wants it from Horizons developers ?

Another point here. This transfer is just going to entail characters and Vault contents correct ? There is NO way of restoring your plot and or lair. The reasons are obvious...

Then why don't you just make new characters ? Unless you are saying that the level 1 to 100 game sucks so bad that you can't stomach creating another character ?

[Pharcellus]

Dev's, just drop everything your are doing and concentrate 100% on the Unity situation.

Not gonna happen, in ANY game ANYwhere. Unless you are gonna say it in terms like these: "Is everyone who CAN do something about it ACTUALLY doing something about it? If not, why not?".

Just stop developing new stuff and stop bug fixing because NOTHING in Horizons is more important then restoring Unity or moving it's characters to order/chaos.

That's DEFINITELY *NOT* gonna happen. You *know* better than that, Cobal. So, you want to come back to a buggy, content-less game, when the people who CAN do something about getting Unity characters back, actually DO it? Meanwhile, the rest who CAN'T do ANYTHING about the situation just sit around on their thumbs? That's, in a word, crazy.

No need to waste more then two sentences on this since it is going to be ignored/deleted anyway.

Well, I guess THAT expectation didn't pan out.

Has it occurred to anyone here that the most likely explanation for the delay may be the legal issues? I recall that there was some issue discussed during EI's reign (not related to Unity transfer, but privacy of EU players), where the point was brought up that EU has very strict privacy protection laws. Is it possible that the hold up is related to the fact that some of the data includes YOUR private information, and that GN can't release that information, but some part of it is still needed for the transfer to work? I mean, if the system is designed to key everything on a player database (not the character or item databases), as I would expect a game system to be (I have wrote several now, and that's how I do it), but there is private personally-identifiable customer infomation in it, is it possible that THAT is the sticking point?

If so, blame your country's privacy laws for the problem. Sure, I suppose you could say "just delete out the PII bits", but how will they know which game assets belong to whom, if there is nothing left to tie YOU in RL to your HZ assets.

It could get very sticky for everyone involved. Maybe you will have to sign a release and send it to GN so they will release YOUR record out of the database. That is assuming they want to go to that level of hassle. I'm not sure I would.

Anyway, point being, there MAY be problems that are far outside the control of Vi or anyone at Vi. Everyone assumes it is Vi that is holding up the process because they are too busy goofing off and making content and fixing bugs for the rest of us. But, maybe, just this once, considering that there IS a known external third party involved, and there HAVE been questions raised about this issue before, it really is out of their hands.

================================================== =====

I realize that how I'm saying what I've said isn't very politic. I'm not mincing my words and trying to be nice here. Blunt, direct... yes, those. But I wanted to make it very clear why this thread was moved off the general forum. As I said, I should probably just move it to rants rather than here on the Unity forum.

Personally, I prefer frankness and bluntness, but it has to be righteous.

And Xoshara is basically correct, there is no reason what so ever to "challenge" the moderators with the "this is going to be ignored/deleted" line. Menkure and I are very consistent and clear in our moderating, and you always have the option of sending a PM to Horizons CS if you are concerned about how we've moderated something in the past. However, challenging the moderators as you did would, on many forums, be considered moderator baiting, and we have very clear rules against that here.

No, that's not righteous, that's self-righteous. Close, but no cigar.

Velea, if you are going to play the role of CM, you need a little bit of chutzpah. Don't respond to the words of the message, respond to the spirit of the message. You have to stop for a minute and ask yourself "WHY is he saying that?" The whole reason for what Cobal said in that sentence is because the "leaders" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of this GAME community have a long and sordid history of mishandling customers and their communications. When you understand that, there's no moderator baiting involved; it's just simply built up frustration from being squelched over and over again for so long. Thus, the best response to it is to avoid it coming into being by not ignoring it (which you didn't), not locking/deleting it (which you didn't), and NOT grousing about the expectation being expressed and threatening it otherwise (*sigh* which you did do), which is only baiting the players anger that much more, as you can see.

In the mean time, assume that no news means that it is still being worked on.

That's not anywhere close to good enough. Sorry, but there it is. ESPECIALLY when you said YOU would do something about it in the past, and didn't follow through. (Yes, I am posting ex post facto your apology for this, but it needs to be pointed out for the next part).

From my own experiences with having done the work for this latest event, I know that every time I had to stop and provide a status update, I lost nearly twice as long as it took to give the status update itself to get back into the right mindset to be being productive again. So I don't like to stop our database experts from working very often just to give an update when they've already said that it will be ready when it's ready. Hopefully anyone who has worked with computers in any fashion will understand the honesty in that statement. Sometimes you really just don't know how long a project will take.

That's why you (Virtrium) need to do two things, YESTERDAY: 1) Hire someone whose job it is to devote themselves FULLY to being an effective Community Manager. I have harped on this for more than FOUR years, through THREE companies (I was not here for EI, thank the gods). 2) Set up regular meeting times in one form or another so that person can do their jobs and communicate to the rest of the team, to get from as well as give to the team what each other needs to do their effin' jobs.

Everyone knows, by default, that it will be "ready when it is ready". Durrrr. You don't take a cake out of the oven while it is still a rising pool of goo. It doesn't take a PhD in computer science to understand that fact. However, you will notice that there is a window and a light in just about EVERY oven in the world. You know why? So people can look in and see what the status of the baking cake is. Virtrium NEEDS this window; Horizons has NEVER had it, and, for the most part, doesn't seem like it ever will. That's sad, because a window is a very important business tool; in the case of a company it allows information, knowledge, and understanding to go both ways.

I have worked with computers ALL MY LIFE. I will be found dead in my chair with 10 computer screens around me, the most central one showing a compilation window for some product I am writing called "The Holy Grail of Software", and one fatal compilation error left to fix. That said, I understand INTIMATELY what software and computer projects take, and I understand and appreciate the mentality of taking the time to do it right. It is the reason I spent more than a year telling Tulga repeatedly in the forums "Take your time and do ARoP and Lairs right, or you're gonna blow it". Well, for me, they rushed both at the end, and I hung it up for two years as a result.

Shirewood, if you, or anyone else thinks that ANYONE working on Horizons is doing it for the money, you are sadly and sorely mistaken. You aren't going to "hit us where it counts" by stopping paying.

Not everyone works for money, but without money, no one works. So, while you may be doing it for the fun, or the opportunity, for those who ARE doing it for the money (because they can't afford not to), if we hit them in the wallet, it will end up hitting YOU where it hurts: the opportunity. Think about that before you dimiss the importance of keeping happy, PAYING customers again.

And I'd like you to think for a moment about who you would rather put forth effort for. The person who calls you a liar and trashes you every single time you reach out and try to help, or the person who treats you with respect and shows appreciation for your efforts.

You're in a customer service position. You have to do what you do the best you can do it, no matter what anyone "calls" you. You have to have a VERY thick skin, especially when you "work" for a troubled company, but you have to have INCREDIBLY sensitive ears. You can't worry about whether anyone treats you with respect or shows appreciation in a way you'd like it to be shown. It's a bonus if they do, but you should NEVER change your approach just because they don't. Remember why you are doing this, assuming you are doing it for the right reasons, and not the wrong ones. In the latter case, you won't last very long, because CS is a CRAP job. Always has been, always will be.

You'll get a LOT farther sympathizing with the worst trolls than you will by ostracizing them. However, it has to go far beyond sympathy. You have to help them focus their angst, and then become their champion. If you can't do that, you're not really of much use, much like flowers in a war zone. We've had more than enough of DMZ beautification here, thanks.

I don't see anyone ignoring the Unity issue or the Unity players.

Then you have contracted "developer blindness", because (up until yesterday), no one has said a peep of significance about Unity for quite a while, even though it has been asked regularly.

Anyway, I am hoping that this new Amarie person is the long-awaited and fabled Community Manager that will fix the communications problems once and for all. While the update post was nice, if that's the only one we ever see (and it needed to be a lot more detailed and frank, IMO), I supposed I will have to classify the effort as YAF (Yet Another Fail).

[Takora Drakan]

Then why don't you just make new characters ? Unless you are saying that the level 1 to 100 game sucks so bad that you can't stomach creating another character ?

Search the Unity forum. The players and me have said it 1209786 times why some won't start over from scratch.

Because I personally don't give a company MY money that killed my character where I invested more than 3 years of playing.

[Mairynn Nalnair]

Search the Unity forum. The players and me have said it 1209786 times why some won't start over from scratch.

Because I personally don't give a company MY money that killed my character where I invested more than 3 years of playing.

Virt havent killed your chars, after all you have never been their customer-

[Pharcellus]

Virt havent killed your chars, after all you have never been their customer-

Doesn't matter. The current owner is just as responsible for the issues of the past. When you "buy" a company, you are buying not only the products and the operation, but also all the issues that go along with it.

Now, Virtrium can just say "screw off; we don't owe you anything", and technically, they don't, but they ARE NOT saying that, but instead are trying to take on the issues of the past, as a responsible company should.