Feldon Battlegrounds vs. Oasis
Battlegrounds were locked this afternoon/evening due to significant lag and zone time issues. The servers were also rebooted. However the biggest issue is that Oasis is almost unplayable for some players.
This quote from the EQ2 Forums:
We’re aware of the problems facing the Oasis server right now and several people are working on it. It will be addressed more fully tomorrow when everyone is back in the office and I’m sure we’ll have more information then. There is an active thread on the Oasis server forum.
Character Corruption
A few players are reporting sporadic issues with losing AAs, levels, gear, etc. after lagging out from playing in Battlegrounds. I and others have played Battlegrounds and not had issues, so this seems pretty random issue. Sometimes, I did have a 5-10 minute wait leaving the Battleground and being sent back to my home server, but saw no other issues.
A Word about Forum Moderation
When I started using the EQ2 Forums I remember how intolerant the moderators were towards differing opinions and constructive criticism. Any kind of useful feedback was deleted and members banned for expressing themselves. I just plain stopped posting there. I, along with thousands of other players, moved to EQ2Flames.
It is only under Kiara‘s guidance that the EQ2 forums clawed their way back to being a place where constructive criticism is allowed and players are truthful about their favorite parts as well as the major issues within EQ2. She has fought at every turn to allow players to speak their mind.
Do I think Kiara is perfect? Of course not. Nobody is. But in my 9 years experience in moderating 2 other forums, I think she’s doing a damn good job.
And yet, in the past couple of months, I have noticed unbelievable hostility towards her, blaming her for EQ2 development choices, database issues, expansion launch pains, etc. I see people shooting off at the mouth about things they don’t even understand.
But what has really turned my stomach is when I heard about players gloating to their friends that they reported her to her supervisor.
You know, I manage to post on the EQ2 Forums and express EXACTLY what I feel I need to say about all of the shortcomings and problems at SOE and the EQ2 development, and I manage to do so without getting banned. And when Kiara has done something I’ve disagreed with, I’ve told her. We’ve had some pretty heavy conversations. 😉
But really, if someone out there is too chickenshit to resolve their issues with Kiara, why don’t you send *me* a mail here on EQ2Wire. You might learn something.
I totally disagree on what you think is good moderation. Kiara has continue banning people who firmly simply express their feelings. I have feedback several issues in the past (which includes race change potions, quicker server transfer, and itemization) and all I get in return from Kiara is a locked thread and several warnings. In no way have I ever cursed or even berated any person on the forums.
As for a trend of hostlilty towards Kiara, well… it is pretty apparent that I’m not the only one who thinks she abuses her powers. Personally, I hope she is removed from her post.
Hear Hear!
Kiara is doing a great job running the forums. With the kind of language she (and the voluntary moderators too!)has to deal with, I would have been using the banhammer a lot more.
I was not aware that people are complaining about her and I would add my full support to your remarks about her.
Worst case scenario: seems like BGs weren’t properly tested and now all these issues are upon us, what with the massive lag and the long zoning times and the broker lag.
From a technical point of view I would love to know what’s causing the broker lag, because I can’t see a relation to any change lately.
/agree re: Kiara.
I also agree on Kiara. She is doing an awesome job as a community rep. She went out of her way to find out why I was having an issue in game. It isn’t her fault for anything people might not agree with about the game.
As for battlegrounds, I have yet to play them (I am not touching them for atleast another month) but there’s only so much testing someone can do in a small-scale test compared to live deployment. Test and Test-Copy are only two servers, compared to the 24 or so live servers. Sure, testing could have been better, it always can, but things, especially technology, don’t always scale up as expected.
wanna send som <3 to kiara!
ur doing a good job, ignore the flamers.
/hug
Given how many MMO game forums are cesspools of half-baked thoughts, I think Kiara is doing a great job. Of all the complainers (most of them on EQ2Flames) I’ve seen on other forums, I can see why most of them have been banned. As for Zizzu, posts are locked when there are already active discussions on the subject matter, perhaps that’s the reason why your threads have been locked?
Kiara’s supervisor would be someone else who has worked for many years in community relations, who has also been complained about to his/her supervisor. Players who complain to an employee’s supervisor want to make their voice heard because they feel their issues aren’t being properly addressed; however, they aren’t doing themselves any favors. Their complaints simply get roundfiled.
The SOE workplace is very “we’re a family”-ish. An employee doesn’t get fired or demoted unless they threaten the prosperity of the family or directly harm the family in some way. They have to deal with rabid fans and crazies all the time, hence the military-trained security, electronically locked doors to entryways that lead only to more electronically locked doors, and the multi-unlabeled-building campus. They protect their own.
If you want to make a positive impact, you’ve got to work ***with*** the team. You can’t do all of those things you wouldn’t do at your office, like hammer the same point over and over until everyone hates you, or badmouth someone to their bosses (who hired that someone because they felt that someone was right for the job and so feel obligated to keep them around.)
Zizzu wrote:
“In no way have I ever cursed or even berated any person on the forums.”
You don’t have to swear or attack anyone to still be an undesirable. Most people don’t know how to communicate effectively, so they end up sabotaging their messages by blocking discussion and disturbing the natural order. I don’t know your post history. I don’t care. But moderators like Kiara don’t do things willy-nilly. They have reasons, which might not be apparent. So just take a good look at yourself, at what you were saying, and the effect your participation was having on the conversation. Try to see what was going on from Kiara’s perspective: intentions aside, were you helping or hindering?
I agree that the forum moderation has improved a lot and she does a good job leaving constructive critism up.
People seem to forget that official forums are partly a ad board for a MMO. If they let it fill with too much negativity it does the game no good in attracting new players.
I put the people that brag about reporting her to a supervisor on par with the morons that gleefully post when a MMO staff has lay-offs. Most people that play MMOs and bitch wouldn’t put up with 5% of the crap that they toss at developers and community relations.
Having worked in customer service my whole life, and moderated large forums for several years:
Anyone who does that job deserves respect and cookies. It’s largely a thankless job filled with crazies, rudeness and abuse on a level that people who haven’t ever done such work before can’t fathom.
I am thankful for EQ2Flames however, avoiding it is a good way to pretend that the playerbase of EQ2 is more mature than other games.
>> People seem to forget that official forums are partly a ad board for a MMO. If they let it fill with too much negativity it does the game no good in attracting new players.
just a question: how about fixing the issues then instead of locking topics?
>>just a question: how about fixing the issues then instead of locking topics?
How about adding your issue to an already existing thread on the same issue? I asked one of the mods why they lock so many threads once. I was informed that it is so that the Developers can easily find what they need to look for. If a Developer has to take too much time to find EVERYONE’s thread, then that is less time to devote to the issue (since it takes them longer to search the forums…lol). So they lock them down and leave a link of where to post their info.
I remember what they were like before Kiara as well. Many people were thrown to eq2flames to post. However it seems that many have come back as well. Just remember that Kiara can only do so much, she is not a fixer of the servers 🙁
I’ve noticed that less threads are being locked. Instead, redirects are being posted to the main discussions.
If the EQ2 forums were running vBulletin, then when they merged threads, it would leave behind a redirect so people wouldn’t scream about their posts ‘disappearing’.
I agree that Kiara is doing a great job. Her job is made even more tough due to the fact that the search capability on the EQ2Players forums has been broken for several years with no estimate on when they’re going to fix it. I’ve talked to her about it and she says they know about it but no amount of cookie bribes on her part are going to get it fixed any sooner. If the search worked properly and returned the threads it should when you do a search, people would be able to easily find other posts that already exist about their issues. Then they wouldn’t start their own thread in the first place. Unfortunately, today, that’s just not the case.
Not sure what I’m talking about? Try this. Templars have a spell called Repent. So to search the official forums, do you search for templar repent, or repent templar? Shouldn’t matter right? You’re searching for the same two terms either way. Try it. templar repent returns 345 messages. repent templar returns 44,569 messages. With the search feature this broken, I’m surprised there aren’t more locked threads since people can’t find what they’re looking for and see that someone else has already posted about it. And yes, they know it’s broke: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=462518#5158332