Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[keflex]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

No, it's more like if you took your car to get the oil changed, and the guy gives you either the SoE Response, "Sure, we'll get your oil changed in 15 minutes" as opposed to the Blizzard Response of "Hey, it's going to take longer than expected -- I'll need you to come back every Tuesday for the next 2 years while we slowly finish the work on your car. You might find yourself having nothing to do for a while, but, well, sorry - at least we didn't lie to you."

And when your engine breaks down because the mechanic said he gave you an oil change instead of actually doing it, my guess is you'll be just a little more pissed than if they'd been honest w/ you.

The problem is, SOE didn't have the finished content until months down the road either, just like Blizzard. Unlike Blizzard, however, they didn't have the audacity to lie about it. That's just adding insult to injury.

And if not delivering on promises and lying about it is equivalent to telling the truth, then I have to say your world is just a little bit fucked up.

[FohMD]

As Smed confirmed, any of those instances which can be construed as "lying" were simply cases of PR people (not CEOs, not developers, etc.) saying either what they thought was true or what they hoped was true.

Were the communication lines at SoE not so great back then? Yes.
Did upper management purposefully lie to players? No.

[FohMD]

Originally Posted by keflex

And when your engine breaks down because the mechanic said he gave you an oil change instead of actually doing it, my guess is you'll be just a little more pissed than if they'd been honest w/ you.

The problem is, SOE didn't have the finished content until months down the road either, just like Blizzard. Unlike Blizzard, however, they didn't have the audacity to lie about it. That's just adding insult to injury.

And if not delivering on promises and lying about it is equivalent to telling the truth, then I have to say your world is just a little bit fucked up.

Show me a quote (or paraphrase it and give context so others can confirm/deny) of an SoE employee (even a lowly PR guy will do...but I doubt you can even come up with that) saying that Vex Thal was completely finished and fully itemized.

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by FohMD

As Smed confirmed, any of those instances which can be construed as "lying" were simply cases of PR people (not CEOs, not developers, etc.) saying either what they thought was true or what they hoped was true.

Were the communication lines at SoE not so great back then? Yes.
Did upper management purposefully lie to players? No.

They are PR people. The entire point of their professional existence is to act as a filter between the CEOs/Devs & the players. You honestly believe that the upper management had no idea what they were telling people?

[FohMD]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

They are PR people. The entire point of their professional existence is to act as a filter between the CEOs/Devs & the players. You honestly believe that the upper management had no idea what they were telling people?

Yes - like I and others (Brad, Smed, etc.) have said, communication lines weren't that great back then.

But if you want to play the rhetorical question game:
Do you honestly believe it would make sense for upper management to lie to their customers when the company depends on repeat business?

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by FohMD

Do you honestly believe it would make sense for upper management to lie to their customers when the company depends on repeat business?

Absolutely, if it kept people paying subscriptions. How many people quit because of said lies? Not many I'd wager, because despite it's problems EQ was the one of the few games worth playing until WoW came out.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

They are PR people. The entire point of their professional existence is to act as a filter between the CEOs/Devs & the players. You honestly believe that the upper management had no idea what they were telling people?

Hell yeah I do. I've seen numerous similar occasions. Perhaps the players on the boards are all hassling the PR guys for a response on the status of a zone. That PR person tries to contact the guy responsible, but for some reason could not reach them/could not get a definitative response. The PR guy then makes an assumption, and tells the players something positive, not really having a clue what the real situation is.

Blame the guy who assumed different and then told the playerbase wrong. I highly doubt the guy responsible gave told the PR guy "Yeah about that zone, see it isn't working, cause we aren't really finished with it - lie to the players for us and tell them everythings fine." It just isn't logical.

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by Asmadai

Blame the guy who assumed different and then told the playerbase wrong. I highly doubt the guy responsible gave told the PR guy "Yeah about that zone, see it isn't working, cause we aren't really finished with it - lie to the players for us and tell them everythings fine." It just isn't logical.

I agree with you 100%, with a decent sized company shit happens. However, if a PR guy gives false information to the players it's the upper management's responsibility to make sure that information is corrected.

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

I agree with you 100%, with a decent sized company shit happens. However, if a PR guy gives false information to the players it's the upper management's responsibility to make sure that information is corrected.

Well I don't know the solution delivery process of SoE, but I see them as having two possible options to fixing the problem after the misinformation had been said: They could either, A. Leave the players misinformed, and just haul ass on fixing/completing the project, or maybe B. Telling the players they were misinformed, admitting your PR staff is shit (and remember, in a corporation, a person's actions (especially a PR person) reflect on the company as a whole), admitting the zone isn't finished/broken, and so on, pissing on the credability of the company.

It really translates out to A. Pissing off the raiding crowd, not the majority of their playerbase mind you, or B. Admitting to everyone that mentioned above, thus severely damaging the companies reputation even more so than the prior option would. With giant corporations, and with a company like SoE who had all those numbers of subscribers, when it comes to down to pissing off a lesser crowd of people and ruining the companies reputation with them, or pissing off the greater crowd, admitting guilt and pretty much admitting to even the non raiders that the company messed up - the prior option will ALWAYS be the best choice. I mean sure, they are both shitty options, but the company will always tend to look out for the company first in the end. Always. Customers come and customers go.

[Kaxmax]

I understand your point completely, and I see the business reasoning. Unfotunately I am not Joe Casual, and neither is the vast majority of this board. Option A affects me, hence why I prefer a company who flat out says "X isn't finished, we'll tell you when it is".

[Asmadai]

Originally Posted by Kaxmax

I understand your point completely, and I see the business reasoning. Unfotunately I am not Joe Casual, and neither is the vast majority of this board. Option A affects me, hence why I prefer a company who flat out says "X isn't finished, we'll tell you when it is".

Point taken. I guess in our choice of work, and by that I mean being in the raiding crowd, i've become accustomed to eating the lemons i'm dealt.

[redjunkopera]

In both of the above cases, you have a single person making a single definitive statment saying what they believe to be true, simply trying to be helpful and that statement getting latched onto and turning out in the worst of ways.

Unfortunately, neither person who made the statements in the above examples was aware that they weren't right because they weren't directly involved in the subject matter they were discussing.

Then MMO-Companies need to lock down what ARE the approved channels for releasing information, make sure information is only released through those channels, and make sure that information is reviewed before it is released. Ignorance doesn't absolve culpablity. If your product wasn't a game you guys could have more problems than a just disgruntled fan-base... and as the market gains ground as a legitimate industry I wouldn't be surprised to see the same kind of regulation applying more and more often.

Don't underestimate people's desire to be nice and overestimate people's desire to be sinister. In both of these cases, the poster was genuinely trying to be helpful and encouraging.

It's hard when one entity repeatedly makes such massive "mistakes" with releasing information. You know if it was a once per game type thing you might be able to reasonably sell it as a simple mistake, but when it happens consistantly and repeatedly over a bunch of games over a time span of nearly a decade without any visible effort to remedy the situation, it's time to shit or get off the pot. Fix your information distribution system or accept responsiblity for the mistakes you have made in a very public and visible manner.

[keflex]

Originally Posted by FohMD

Show me a quote (or paraphrase it and give context so others can confirm/deny) of an SoE employee (even a lowly PR guy will do...but I doubt you can even come up with that) saying that Vex Thal was completely finished and fully itemized.

I hope this will do for now until I can get home...

Originally Posted by smedley

There has never been a release by Sony Online Entertainment that has been incomplete.

Originally Posted by fohmd

But if you want to play the rhetorical question game:
Do you honestly believe it would make sense for upper management to lie to their customers when the company depends on repeat business?

Your naivete is astounding, but here's another rhetorical question: Do you honestly believe that every company that has had something to gain by releasing a product early will always do what's in the best interests of the customer?

[FohMD]

Originally Posted by keflex

I hope this will do for now until I can get home...

Assuming Smed did actually say that (which I doubt - it's far too concrete for any CEO), the word "incomplete" is open to interpretation. He could have simply meant it in the sense that SoE has always released products which met all their (i.e.: not yours) requirements for "completeness". Before you go off yelling at me, yes I know it isn't exactly ideal that SoE's idea of complete isn't/wasn't the same as ours BUT if its reasonable to suppose that players won't reach a zone for 3 months, it seems reasonable to me to release the game "early" and finish the zone while players are busy in other parts of the expansion.

Your naivete is astounding, but here's another rhetorical question: Do you honestly believe that every company that has had something to gain by releasing a product early will always do what's in the best interests of the customer?

There is certainly something to gain from releasing a product "early", that's obvious. Your underlying assumption, however, is that releasing a product with unitemized/unpopulated zones is the same thing as lying. It isn't unless you specifically state somewhere "Expansion contains fully itemized, fully populated zones x,y,z".

[keflex]

Originally Posted by FohMD

Assuming Smed did actually say that (which I doubt - it's far too concrete for any CEO), the word "incomplete" is open to interpretation.

As is the word "is", I suppose.

Anyway... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1335511.shtml

He could have simply meant it in the sense that SoE has always released products which met all their (i.e.: not yours) requirements for "completeness". Before you go off yelling at me, yes I know it isn't exactly ideal that SoE's idea of complete isn't/wasn't the same as ours BUT if its reasonable to suppose that players won't reach a zone for 3 months, it seems reasonable to me to release the game "early" and finish the zone while players are busy in other parts of the expansion.

You mistake my argument for a product's incompleteness to be tantamount to lying in my eyes; this is incorrect. An incomplete product doesn't bother me as long as I know it's incomplete.

There is certainly something to gain from releasing a product "early", that's obvious. Your underlying assumption, however, is that releasing a product with unitemized/unpopulated zones is the same thing as lying. It isn't unless you specifically state somewhere "Expansion contains fully itemized, fully populated zones x,y,z".

Once again, my point isn't that releasing a product incomplete is lying, it's that releasing a product incomplete and lying about it being complete is lying.