Before TERA was released, even before the hype was building we pretty much had a glass view of the inner workings of En Masse; Every single minor update or change that came up resulted in a post on the forums. Sure there were many things that we did not know about, however you guys did a very good job keeping us up to date.

Then changes start. You requested feedback and a lot of the feedback was actually reflected in the changes that slowly trickled out. It was almost as if we were a part of the team when it came to some decision making.

This all changed -Immediately- after the game's release. Almost all Mod-Community interaction ceased. [filtered] it was even hard to get a response from you when the billing issue happened until other sites started reporting about it.

Now; certain obscure websites gets news before we; the people who actually play this game and are interested in the updates know. In all honestly, it is starting to get really bad; to the point that I honestly don't want to stick through the launch phase longer.

This game has glaring problems; issues that existed since CBT; issues, which do not exist in the Korean version. It is clear that you are patching the game and are trying to put changes in place that would make the game better, however you are lacking the one thing that made your company a good one in some of our eyes; “Communication.”

Why is it so hard for you to have a moderator make a blue post acknowledging the issues that people bring up?


Tell me, En Masse: What make you think that you are better than BioWare or EA? What makes you think that you will escape that faith simply because the combat in your game is good?

Communication is all you had. It was not the combat, or the lore of this game, but the communication which made many of us choose to stick with this game through 3 delays. There are some of us who were following this game from 2009; when the game was mere whispers in the wind, but because of communication, even though it was simple, we remained at the edge of our seats; waiting to be surprised.

Again, En Masse: Tell me; why would it be so hard to have a moderator simply voice whats going on? Why do we have to sit and wonder what never content we are getting and what new abilities the classes are getting during the summer patch, even though the information is already available, and has been available to you for almost a month via Blue Hole?


Here is a short list of issues:

Enchanting is broken
Only 2 instances for end game content
There is an annoying sound bug
The queue times for DPS are too long
Level 60 Quests are giving xp, and only xp as rewards
ToT boxes has a chance of wasting 5 runs (With queue times, that is more than 9 hours of someone's life)
There is a delay / lag bug with certain skills which is not present in the korean version.
Nexus lag

Why is it so hard to state that you acknowledge that they may be an issue with enchanting, but either you are fine with it as is, or you are working on some changes?

Why is it hard for you to mention that at least 2 end game dungeons are being added with the summer patch? It would be one of the fastest major content patches in mmo history; don't you see that as a major selling point?

Why not state that you would like the users of the community to bare a little longer, and the queues for dungeons will be much better as soon as warriors (the most common class) are able to queue as dps or tanks?

Why is is so hard for you to explain to the community that the lag from the nexus is caused via a bottle neck that happens at the Hard Drive, and that it is difficult to fix but you are working diligently to get it solved?

Whats with the lack of proper communication?

I want to like this game; I want it to succeed. However this game will go the way of the fishes if you guys do not attempt to improve your communication. It's a simple task. We are not asking for magic. We are not asking for you to spontaneously generate fixes and new content; all we want is communication. All you need to do is take 5 minutes to make a general post saying, “We acknowledge that there are issues and we are working to fix them.”

The longer you wait, the more bitter the taste of this game will become until it gets to the point that the taster's pallet is completely destroyed. No matter how delicious a content patch or treat you may server may be once they get to the point, the only thing that can cleanse their pallet is something a break and another game.

Will this thread also go unnoticed like all of the other amazing threads offering thoughtful feedback?

TL;DR: Learn 2 Read

While I can't agree with everything you've stated I will agree to the fact that EME has been very poor in communicating their plans and have rarely acknowledged they are aware of a particular problem. The most I've seen is "we are aware of the community's concerns and are working diligently in correcting them." This doesn't tell us anything because it doesn't specify what they view the community's concerns are. For all we know, what they find the community's concerns could be that we want more cosmetic items that we can pay for with real money. Granted, that is just one example and I only used it to get a point across.

Communication is key in understanding what the community wants. Let's take Square Enix and FFXI for example. For years they ignored the player base's outcries to do something about the RMT running rampant in the game. After a few years they finally announced they had plans to do something about it and another year to get that promise going. A lot of people left because it was extremely time consuming if you didn't buy Gil and most people felt SE didn't care.

A lot of these outcries on this forum could be alleviated if EME merely replied directly to these issues so the players know they aren't being ignored. I'm not saying they need to respond to every single post or that they are ignoring the community. I'm saying we feel EME isn't doing its best in arriving at a mutual understanding between the company and player-base.

inb4 lock.

While I love communication, one point struck me.

Simple point... we are not on the development team. Game developers do not need to include us in the decision making. I think too many people have started to feel that they should have a say in how Dev's (who are artists in their own right) design their product. We really don't.

More importantly, often the forum team that answers our questions, etc... do not have the facts of what is changing and what is not. It is much more complex than "taking 5 minutes" to answer a few forum posts. Could you imagine the embarassment of one miss informed Mod answering a question, and starting a storm of complaints? (It happens.)

Now... in the interest of more communication... how many times will that mistake be repeated? Instead of one miss informed response leading to QQ'ing and sub loss, it could easily be dozens. I'd rather wait two weeks for one correct answer then three hours for many incorrect ones.

That's all.

Quote: Alexisia on 06/20/2012, 09:28 PM - view
I'm not really talking about game changes or extra features that may separate the player-base between wanting or not wanting the change. The major gripe i have is whether the bugs I've reported are being worked on. Its been quite a few patches since I've reported 20 or so bugs and only 1 has been fixed.

Even if what you are saying was the case, so long as they format their information to make players aware that it is subject to change, I can't really see why people would quit that they didn't get what was promised. From what I've experienced that appears to be what the problem is, developers "promise" something by making it seem all "official" and "in stone" and when the content is released in a package different from what the players were expecting they can become irritated.

I personally feel my bug reports are getting ignored because I haven't seen any acknowledgement from EME about them. There is also the fact the threads I create end up with not as much support from the community as I hoped.

Quote: Alexisia on 06/20/2012, 09:28 PM - view

This is not Elder Scrolls 5, Diablo 3 or Any other Pay once then off with you game.

With MMOs, while it would be incorrect to say that "Players are the shareholders" it may be correct to say, "Give me a reason to pay for next month."

I understand the premise of your statement, however within application it does not apply to MMOs. Yes, it is as simple as taking 5 minutes. They do not have to state a fix within 5 minutes because again, i am not expecting a miracle. There are a [filtered]storm of complains right now as i type this. A bit of misinformation is perfectly fine in the field of a mmo because it's dynamic content that changes.

With that said, concrete facts are not what they need right now. They just need to rebuild their community interaction.

Quote: Catatonic on 06/20/2012, 09:22 PM - view
Exactly.

Quote: Batgirl on 06/11/2012, 01:14 PM

And here we are yet again.

Quote:
from: http://www.enmasse.com/blog/posts/final-thoughts-before-launch

Just check that last line: "I say don't judge us on our size and our budgets, but instead judge us on our skill and ability to react to your needs as a player." It's like they are a completely different company

Communication and interaction with our community are something we are continuously trying to improve. We have recently set up new measures that will allow us to do so better and are planning for more. Definitely expect us to be posting more and sharing more information with you! (starting now :) )

To speak more on DPS's queue times for IMS, we hope that the warrior being able to tank better (announced with new skills) will alleviate some of this issue but we also have a few more ideas and will continue to monitor them.
I am not sure which sound bug it is, could it be this one on our FAQ page?
For level 60 quests with XP rewards, we are thinking of what rewards will be meaningful without affecting the game and economy balance.
We are also aware of skill delays in instances but this is being looked into and we've asked forum folks' information to help us investigate this issue.

As for bugs, we have a bug tracking system and they are categorized by how critical they are. That said although no game is truly bug-free, we will never stop squashing them!

As much as I love Tera, I am a bit disappointed by the way EME seems out of touch when it comes to keeping contact with it's player base. Even Ragnarok Online, a game known for having somewhat incompetant and lazy GM's, keeps better touch with it's playerbase and the GMs actually take time out to reply to forum posts and announce their plans and intentions in order to quell unrest.

IF only EME were able to communicate the same way the lads over at Riot games do, I think people would be willing to be more patient with upcoming content. Right now it just seems like we are all trying to tell the developers about potential problems with the game, but we have no way to know if our complaints/suggestions are being heard or not. EME continues to hype on as if they aren't aware of the issues at all, and while you have to expect that from them as a company it is a little disheartening.

Freezing issues? Popori/Elin racials? Enchanting? PVP Hitboxes? End-Game content? Missing Korean Content? Dungeons? Laggy Nexus? A more rewarding crafting/economy system?

A little more input into plans for dealing with these issues would be wonderful. I for one am content to be patient and enjoy the game as it evolves, but many of the new generation of gamers may not feel the same way.