Runes of Magic US / AU

About the only thing I can agree with you on in your post is that there is more to do in RoM than just end game. After that, I could not disagree more.

First, and most importantly, every player has a unique experience in RoM. Some are good, others not so good. Who the heck are you, me or any of us to ask any other player not to express his/her opinions on the game simply because we disagree with it?

All MMORPGs have people that log on their game of choice's forums and complain about one thing or another. If a potential player is "scared away" because of it, that is on them, not the people posting their opinions or making complaints based on their experiences. Next, players have every right to blame GF & RW for not actively working to attract more players. If a company can't be bothered to market their product why should players be expected to do it for them? That's THEIR job, not the players job.

Finally, I believe the vast majority of players have a pretty good understanding of what GMs can and cannot do. What seems to be confusing people is who GMs are. Sure, they are unpaid volunteers but it doesn't stop there. They are also the first link in the chain of communication to and from GF/RW. In many cases, they the only ones, who in any way represent the company, that players have any hope of getting responses from outside of support tickets. Sure, people sometimes mistakenly shoot the messenger but that comes with the job.

Quoted from "poisonarmadillo"

1.) players rage about low activity and the need for advertising (I agree advertising is needed, but raging isn't the way to go about asking for it)
2.) new coming players read the rage and are scared away
3.)players that raged, now rage even more and blame RW/GF 100% for there being no new blood on the servers.

*facepalm*

For what it's worth, I have often facepalmed this same facepalm.

Of course players have/should use/DO use the forums to describe difficulties. It's just that when that usage becomes toxic and also adds to the exact problem they're pointing out, then probably some priorities and methods should be re-examined. Instead of asking 'who the heck are you to try keeping people from expressing their opinion' maybe just accept that he's trying to directly address the toxicity itself. In some sense, the first post of this thread is perfect: it would be a hydra of a task for anyone 'official' to try tackling, but maybe such a request made by a regular user could be effective.

Quoted from "Tuulikki"

Finally, I believe the vast majority of players have a pretty good understanding of what GMs can and cannot do.

I would have to disagree with you there. I've lost count of the times players have literally told me to 'just wave [my] wand' and fill their request. Related:

Quoted from "Tuulikki"

In many cases, they the only ones, who in any way represent the company, that players have any hope of getting responses from outside of support tickets.

I'm not sure why you'd draw some distinction between responses inside vs outside of tickets. The same support people appear in both places. Maybe you also have some misconceptions. Please PM me if you have questions about this.

I wouldn't be concerned about potentially discouraging the few-and-far-between new players with assessments of the game's severe population decline. I would concern yourself with retaining the small player base that is left. The people in charge of the direction of the game that actively ignored the concerns of existing players and took them for granted is why a lot of players quit in the first place. I watched it happen; a lot of us watched it happen. The forum is very silent already without the voices of those players.

I give credit to the forum users that continue to be passionate about advocating for changes that the game has desperately needed for years, especially the veteran forum users that have been doing it for years. You may not like how they voice their concerns, but at least they're trying and they're doing it for the existing community, the actual player base, the people you want to retain if you want to have a game at all.

It isn't that people have become too negative. It's that the game doesn't inspire people to say anything positive about it. Think about everything that transpired for the community to get to this point.

TL;DR EDIT: There aren't enough incoming new players to warrant catering to them. The forum should be catering to the current players. The population decline was not caused by negative forum posts, it was caused by issues within the game that were never addressed. The biggest problem with the game is the game itself. Doesn't matter who you want to blame, the damage has been done and I think it's irreversible.

To blame the players for the continuing problems with the game is just absurd. How are we to ever get they to fix the problems if we don't tell them? If we complain about the same problems and glitches in the programing for years again and again it is just because they haven't bothered to fix them. If we stop complaining they assume that the problem is fixed or never existed. That is the way their mindset works.

The GMs are hardworking underappreciated people who are trying their best to help players and fix the game unfortunately they have no power and are far too often ignored by management. We know they are not the problem. But unfortunately they are the only target who ever responds to us so life is far too rough for them. For them we can only say thank you and keep trying.

People who complain about negativity are just trying to ignore problems and blame the messenger and are unwilling to do anything to help solve the problems.

im not sure where you guys are coming from with this.

1 the players are to blame for flaming on other players and gms and upper managment.

2 the players are to blame for a non-existing auction house.

3 the players are to blame for not following templates for things such as bug reports and item shop suggestions

4 the players are to blame for passing around mis-information

5 the gms are to blame for volunteering their time and energy to try and help us THE PLAYERS.

6 upper management is to blame for not listening to players and for bad item shop sales

7 the game devs are to blame for not fixing content.

now before you proceed to roast me with your following comments please provide any proof that any of my statements are incorrect.

my personal opinion on this is that WE as the players have had a somewhat negative impact on the community. (i am guilty of this along with others)
we have indeed flamed and not followed provided templates for things such as bugs and item shop wishes. if you really like i can find proof in these very forums.

as far as the gms are concerned, i have no real issues with them even if i disagree with some things i have seen posted. i recognize that they are not the ones that make the decisions on bug fixes game content or the item shop.

i have had my account banned a couple times and in every single time it happened i was in fact breaking the rules. i hold no malice toward them for doing the job they volunteered to do.

as for upper management.......... i have had no opportunity to interact with them. BUT i would like for the shop guy to actually play this game and use their own money to get the same as we players get from the shop.maybe then they will realize that the equivalent real life currency converted to in game diamonds is not exactly optimal to make a good profit. ie mount prices. cheap ones are 199 dias.for me to buy 460 dias it will cost me $26.78 CAD so this is roughly 11 dollars CAD just for a mount. for plussing jewels at 45 dias for 1 jewel......that makes like 400 dias to get 10 plus 6 jewels.....and we all know how that will pan out. i also understand that i get less for my money due to CAD value vs the rest of the world.

now for the devs......... get off your duffs and actually put a little time into fixing the already broken content.

so all i can say is we need to place the blame for what the real problems are in the correct places. we the players can change a few things if we all make the attempt.mainly by not jumping in to new player threads with doomsday like posts.

Heres the problem, everyone is framing it as its either 100% blame on the players or 100% blame on gameforge/runewaker.

Its a mix of the two and neither are willing to budge on any issues

Actually timthum you haven't been reading the forums if you say we are not using the templates they gave us, if you would bother to read the forums on the item shop you will find that we were provided with a template and there is a whole thread using the template provided to request items for the cash shop. It was totally ignored. Then two years later it was brought back again and the template was used again and again nothing happened.

If you follow any other MMORPG forums you will find that when there is a problem listed in the forums that soon you will find an answer from someone in management who actually can do something trying to get more information to fix the problem and after that a response and a fix.

The problem here is that no one in management has ever read the forums. The gms in their responses state that they bring the problems listed in the forums to management. Which makes it clear enough that no one in management not only plays the game but no one even reads the forums. If it takes a gm to bring a well documented problem from the forums to management it clearly shows where the problem is.


Anytime management has requested the players to do anything use any template or follow any procedure they have done it. Anytime the players have asked for anything it has been ignored. That simply explains the problems with the game and its cause.

on the contrary i have been reading the forums. you do realize that most of the posts that don"t follow the template are removed this is also standard forum procedure.
also keep on mind that i have been posting here since ch 3 start. as you well saw from my profile

Date of registration

Sunday, April 17th 2011, 9:48pm

i actually read the forums every single day.i may not post every day but i do read them.
more often than not we see threads regarding bugs that have no template AND are not in the correct section.

if you read the item shop wish thread you will see i did in fact post in there multiple time WITH the template.

i have ALSO been just as bad and made comments in the threads i just mentioned.
I am just as much to blame as any other person on these forums.
the difference is ....... i see and acknowledge these times when i have myself done the very things that we as a community should not.
and take a good look at the last year or so of my posts.i am at least trying to change my forum habits.

if i commented on every post i saw that did not use the template my post count would be well over what it is now.
my point was basically what was said by Sertet.

just a more long winded version.
there are issues here but we need to stop blaming those not responsible for them and place it where it truly belongs .
We need to do this in a manner that is not con strewed as flaming.
We need to do this with actual facts and not mis information

@Heron,
Quoted from Tuulikki: Finally, I believe the vast majority of players have a pretty good understanding of what GMs can and cannot do.
Quoted from Heron: I would have to disagree with you there. I've lost count of the times players have literally told me to 'just wave [my] wand' and fill their request. Related:

We’ll just have to agree to disagree but perhaps for different reason(s). I’m not saying players don’t “shoot the messenger” or ask for things knowing full well it is beyond the scope of the GM to provide it. That’s just how it goes for anyone in a customer service role. Because players don’t really have a viable option to communicate directly with GF or RW to voice their concerns, complaints or desires they turn to the only people they have direct access to who are in anyway representative of the company. If there were other options for players then GMs would have a very valid complaint for people not being more respectful of the limitations imposed by the scope of that role. As it is, what other options do players really have? Call or send GF/RW an e-mail directly? Fly to German or Taiwan to talk to someone in person? GMs should not be blamed or criticized for not doing things outside the scope of their role but at the same time, the same holds true that players should not be blamed or criticized for turning to the only people they have direct access to even if they know full well the GMs can't help them. Plenty of adages apply here: Never hurts to ask, you don't know until you try, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, etc. At the root it's probably just some mix of over-optimism and success bias that leads people to believe if they as loudly or often enough they will get what they want. I digress. Moving on.

Quoted from Tuulikki: In many cases, they the only ones, who in any way represent the company, that players have any hope of getting responses from outside of support tickets.
Quoted from Heron: I'm not sure why you'd draw some distinction between responses inside vs outside of tickets. The same support people appear in both places. Maybe you also have some misconceptions. Please PM me if you have questions about this.

It was never my intention to insinuate any distinction behind the scenes because it is irrelevant to the point I was making. When people take their car to a mechanic to get it fixed they don’t necessarily assume the person behind the counter is the same person who will be repairing their car and they really don’t care. They just want their car fixed. This really ties into my earlier statement so I won’t elaborate here.

Good discussion. Always nice to have an actual discussion/debate of ideas that doesn’t devolve into ad hominem attacks and incivility. We might never agree but I appreciate the approach. Cheers

It is hard to stay positive when nothing really positive is going on. Prime example is Zidlef. He's been loyal for what 7 years now? and recently turned to the dark side cause there is only so much BS you can handle.

Also, the loudest forum users are usually the worst ones. You don't see the card farmer posting that rare card they finally got after farming for months, or the lower guild finally being able to clear Pillars, or the underdogs in siege pulling a nice victory (that doesn't include fear capping 4 towers at the end.), Or the sweet loots that someone got, or the new player finally reaching lvl cap. All of it is just overshadowed by the issues we see everyday.


These people may or may not be correct but I think we can all agree that GF/RW, whoever, is not doing a good job at retaining and bringing in new players.

I don't know where i am going with this

Quoted from "sertet"

Heres the problem, everyone is framing it as its either 100% blame on the players or 100% blame on gameforge/runewaker.

Its a mix of the two and neither are willing to budge on any issues

But i guess this sums it up. We just suck.




Positive:

I love Vale of Rites. I love strategy. It was a great change when this instance came out. gives a sense of accomplishment every time you clear smoothly. I don't know what I would do if the next instance takes a step back and becomes burn or die again.