Noticing alot of irate people on Uhall these days, demanding answers, claims of "droves" of people quitting etc etc.

Spoken to a few people recently, even the die hard UO'ers and the general impression I'm getting is they feel EA isn't listening to their feedback, that EA is doing things their own way and doesn't seem to care much about what their players (aka paying customers) want.

What's your thoughts? do you agree on it?

I voted no, with a disclaimer.

I feel that the simple things are readily replied to, with larger issues back shelved until an expert is available to answer. However, the devs appear to be
1) overburdened with their ill-advised new client
2) under manned
3) lacking in game-specific knowledge (experts)

Conversely, the team then decides to tackle that which they do not understand and leave the simple issues until time permits. *scratches head*

For instance, the new formula for meditation was researched, written and coded in a day by Leurocian, in MARCH (see FoF on uoherald.com). Yet not released until AUGUST.

Is EA conforming to my demands for my own personal interest? I sure hope the heck NOT. They have to retain distance and not get over-involved in the " I died to a paragon balron, make them easier" people.

Is EA doing whatever they can to implement those ideas I have that would really help the game? simply, no. As someone who has provided a huge amount of feedback, with working examples of solutions, I can say that emphatically.

I don't think EA has ever really listened very well, and EA/Mythic has actually done worse. (canceling all official status of fan sites, no official forum, no real communication)

Jeremy is the only voice they have and she doesn't seem to be allowed to say much. Hell I used to run into Speedman and Sunsword in game! Where are the Devs now? (got one of the weirdest resurrections ever from an invisible Speedman!)

I agree with the person that said they never really listened. Not in any timely fashion anyway. And boy, calling a GM is WAY more pointless than it ever was in the past. What a shame. Hell, customer service in my fantasy life is just as crappy as customer service in real life!

Talk about art imitating life... hehe.

I am in the same agreement as Tuk on this one. They dont have official anything anymore, dont care what people say or ask, or report bugs on. They do their own thing, and just amuse people by occasionally posting a "we're looking into it" post somewhere, then doing whatever their agenda is.

I voted NO.

The problem is one of perception.

I do not expect, nor require direct input into every system,change,tweak.

I understand that it is EAMythic's game, I just rent access. But things should be discussed more before they introduce sweeping changes.

Just look at the way the resource change was handled. Now wether you agree with it or not. Its implementation left something to be desired. It was announced one day, placed on test center the next day, and the day after it went live to all shards.

Now I think that it was coded well, it works, I am sure it was ready weeks ago, but it is my perception that EAMythic did not want a discussion on this change, nor are they willing to have one. Outside of it not being aimed at scripters and it is to make "rare" ores/woods rarer. How is this communicating with your players?

GMs, what are they good for? Very little. It does get under my skin that better customer service was the reason for the price increase.
Why would it be so hard to have gms work online from wherever? If they have to be in the U.S. so be it. But to ask people to move to Virginia? Heck, I would take a gm job, if I could log in and work from home. Sign me up today!

Then we get to your community relations coordinator. Just what exactly is her job? The way I see it is just a public relations person (just a different title). IE to act as a go between the dev team/management of UO and it's paying customers. To relay information to the community in a timely, accurate fashion.

Why then is she not on the boards more? I can hear her defenders now, "that's not fair jeremy can't post on all the boards, all the time." Yeah? Tell me another one. Too many boards to post on? Whose fault is that? EAMythic canned the "official" fansite program. How about things change, adapt to them? Like EAMythic likes to tell the players. How many boards are there? That are truly active? I read/post on 3 (Here, Stratics, Lost Lands) are there others? If not she should be on each site reading/answering for an hour on each (If there are just these 3) . That gives her 5 hours to do what she does now. In a standard 8 hour work day. Hell, she does not want to do that? Then name an "official" site, and state while the others will be read/monitored/have interviews when available. But Questions will only be answered on site X (Thinking that it should be stratics, seems the busiest, at least to me), just pick one. Is she a programmer? No. Is she artist? No. Is she in the management section? No. Is she a server tech? No. Then if she is not here to answer questions/find out answers from the dev team, just what the heck does she do? I know she does not post as much as a community person should. And then when she does post, she often posts inaccurate/false/vague information. Which then has to be corrected.

One example : She announced that several servers were going to be down for extended maintenance. THATS ALL. Why? I had to post a question on stratics, for an clarification, which she finally answered. Because EAMythic are moving these servers to a new location. I did get flamed for wanting to know by a few people. But I noticed another thread speculating that it might be to add in new content, this was getting players hopes up that maybe finally, EAMythic was listening. So I asked, because since it was not ALL shards, I did not figure it would be new content. All the conjecture in that other thread could have easily been avoided, by simply stating the reason for the extended maintenance in the first place. This is the exact thing, I believe that the community is asking for.

I believe that the community is tired of "Soon", "You're gonna love it", "The new skill are cool", well at least I am.

To all the players, who want to say quit then, if you are so unhappy with the game. I am not unhappy with the game, but the service and the people behind it. I love UO, I intend to fight for what I think is good for the game/community. I was silent for many years, no longer will I stand mute!

*strikes* a dramatic pose : Friends, Sosarians, Countrymen, lend me your eyes. Now is the time for all goodmen to come to the aid of our beloved game! Cast off those shackles that bind you to your inactivity! Stand up and be counted, we can only survive, if we lift our collected feedbacks/questions to the man behind the curtain! We must demand answers! Free citizens everywhere must be read!

Just kind of had to joke there, I almost fell of my soapbox.

Had to go with "Other".

I don't send in anything for EA to listen to.

But I think a lot of where some problems come from start with this topic/pole.

No one should expect it in the first place.

Dip, the problem though is that they lead their subscribers to believe that they actually "do" care, and listen, when they do not care or listen. It would be better if they just came out and said
"all subsribers, we do not care about your input, and will do whatever we want to do, learn to live with it and just play the game"

Then I dont think people would have so much of a problem, cause when you dont expect anything, improvements are welcomed.

I don't think it's that bad Bo, I actually have to disagree and say that the team actually does care and listen, probably too much; the problem comes from trying to please the tiniest aspect (gripe). They take in each and every suggestion/complaint/rant/joke/etc. and at times lose focus on the bigger picture(s).

They should have never been as open as the are to suggestion by the playerbase and I do agree that they shouldn't lead people to believe that "they care" because using those words puts it on an emotional/personal level and it needs to stay in a business/professional level.

Not sure this is the best way to respond to the question BUT here goes. Yes I believe EA listens to us. The trouble is we don't "think" they listen because they don't do what we want.

Don't know how many times Beloved has told me I didn't listen to her. I did listen. Just didn't come to the same conclusion as she did.

I think a lot of players have the mentality that "IF" EA would have listened to me they no doubt would have agreed with me and done what I wanted. Any time they don't do what I want it is obvious that EA doesn't listen.

So there is my two gold coins worth

Vepl

I'm with Vepl, there is a difference between listening and doing. I know they listen, they just may not agree or actually be unable to make things happen the way X amount of users want it to. Now do I think their communication system is great, nope not with EA/Mythic. IMHO it has gone downhill since the takeover.

That being said folks on Stratics UO Uhall have been screaming since they opened that forum :-P I take it with a grain of salt.

Well said Vepl.