Armorsmith Archive

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Kesslan wrote:

This whole situation is a bloody mess. And frankly I have to agree with others that point fingers at SOE. Now sure we as AS may have overreacted in someways but what the heck can you expect from people who get totally ignored. I mean SOE goes and makes massive changes to every profession. Doesnt even ASK any of the player base before hand what they think. They throw it up in TC, give us no feedback. The professions boards burn in rage all around. And then we get a letter like " All player feedback is positive! This CU is gaining popularity every day!". From some one who has obviously never once visited the profession forums.

The exit questions on testcenter are increadibly limited. They seem to be looking at how CU affects just the combat professions. And to hell with all the crafters, doctors, and other suport classes that make up the other half of the game. And even the combat classes get ignored a good deal. I swear SOE's management must be right out of the dilbert cartoons. Hell maybe SOE is where the cartoonist gets most of his inspiration from.

Now some other guy said at one point he went as far as contacting Lucast Arts, got nowhere and went to the BBB. And then SOE paid to become part of the BBB and then continued their malpractices. Well you know what? Just cause their in the BBB doesnt make them immune to it. I'm starting to wonder that instead of bothering to complain anymore about SOE, the CU etc here. We should instead write clear consise letters of our concerns as consumers. Do a point form summery of our issues as customers in dealing with SOE in regards to SWG and send it to the BBB. If that doesnt work start going to the gaming magazines and webpages. Ones like PC Gamer and other such large review companies.

Will it give SWG bad press? Hell yes. And at this rate it damn well deserves it for the way the playerbase who pays hard money gets generally ignored. And maybe all that bad press will actually reach the out of touch with the world people who are writing fantasies like how everyone loves the CU will actually start seeing. Hey what their doing is bad for buisiness. I mean it's obvious what they think of SWG when Lucas Arts had to sue them over the whole thing to begin with. And from what I've heard they even took money slated by LA for server upgrades and the like which seem badly needed to me with all the lag. And instead spent it on EQ2.

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ZionHalcyon wrote:

they might see me as too abrasive,

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JediSpam wrote:

To ZionHalcyon,

Although I see you as a superb asset to the AS community, I personally wouldn't want you to get thecorr. position. My reason for this is that I wouldn't want you to get fed up and see you leave.

You know that Great/Amazing Success post you had a while back?

It's people like youthat trulysupport the profession and I say that from the bottom of my heart.

Even you said Customers and Customer Service are 2 different things.

I just don't want to see another great AS get stressed out to a point where things burst like with Okram2K.

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Hehe, thanks for the support - at least someone remembers that I do contribute here.

Even if I got it, believe me, I wouldn't get fed up and leave. I ran a gaming clan for 5 years before this, and believe me, the AS people are as tame as pussycats compared that motley group I ran.

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ZionHalcyon wrote:

It was still wrong and an abuse of authority, any way you try to ratrionalize it.

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So? Is there a point to that? I've been a business leader for 20 years, and particularly in the last 10 years as we continue out of the dark ages of management, you can never sit back as a leader and just shoot someone for reacting or escalating matters out of the little boxes (like SOE's so-called rules for correspondents) that management legitimately or otherwise tries to box people into. As a leader, it is expected that you discuss why the reaction is as it is, why the box may not be appropriate anymore, and what's wrong with the culture or environment that causes someone to react.

In other words, when someone reacts, blows up, or elevates outside the box, they are not solely responsible, and in fact, upon evaluation, may end upbeing praised as a whistle-blower, or just praised as someone who had the ethical leadership to raise issues rather than continue to suffer a broken system of rules, and further that its often the leaders these days who are acted upon in the end, rather than the person who raised hell. That is the nature of business today, and rightfully so.

So this was SOE's first failing in just this situation, creating a business environment and ruleset in which people are forced to devalue their role, or act in an adverse manner to the success of the venture. SOE created this ruleset and this environment. Look to the leadership, not the response. Again, SOE's first failure (in this situation - there have been many, many other situations leading to the SWG project's downfall.)

SOE's 2nd failure in this situation, also which would lead to action against the leaders in any other organization, was in their dereliction in communicating it with respect to the correspondent. Instead of communicating that, "we apprecaite the work you have done, however we must enforce our rules (plus whatever explanation they may want to add to address the failings of the environment that led to the "outburst") and we must remove your role as Correspondent at this time." That message should have been delivered, probably not by email either, before any action was taken to remove his rights as Correspondent. What did SOE do? They just poofed his rights and let him show up and discover he didn't have the Correspondent bells and whistles anymore. They failed to communicate respectfully, failed to recognize his efforts and showing him the door with dignity, failed to be leaders. That was their second error. Any one of these errors would have led to serious repurcussions in any organization I've been a leader with.

Their third failure in this situation, again demonstrating their lack of leadership which has led to the community being disenfranchised with this SOE SWG regime and their ultimate failure, is that when the community spoke up and recognized that this Correspondent had been stripped, and mentioned it, the SOE rep (Tiggs) comes in with a turt reply basically, publically, saying, "you were bad, you got what you deserved," rather than doing what any business would expect their professionals to do, which would be to apologize for the manner in which it was communicated, and that, "we erred and should have communicated with you directly before we took action on your Correspondent status."

3 strikes, demonstrating dismal leadership, all in one situation. And I can chronical their lack of leadership, project management, manipulation of the community and customers, and lack of communication skills all the way back to the hologrind. I've watched it daily and weekly, and have been amazed that they continue to get any support from the community, and it is dying. They need to go, they are incompetent and will lead to the death of our game, or their firing, whichever comes first.

All we can do is help them along to be fired by cancelling our accounts, and speed the process along to recovery with a new regime.

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RedDestinyCC wrote:

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ZionHalcyon wrote:

It was still wrong and an abuse of authority, any way you try to ratrionalize it.

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So? Is there a point to that? I've been a business leader for 20 years, and particularly in the last 10 years as we continue out of the dark ages of management, you can never sit back as a leader and just shoot someone for reacting or escalating matters out of the little boxes (like SOE's so-called rules for correspondents) that management legitimately or otherwise tries to box people into. As a leader, it is expected that you discuss why the reaction is as it is, why the box may not be appropriate anymore, and what's wrong with the culture or environment that causes someone to react.

In other words, when someone reacts, blows up, or elevates outside the box, they are not solely responsible, and in fact, upon evaluation, may end upbeing praised as a whistle-blower, or just praised as someone who had the ethical leadership to raise issues rather than continue to suffer a broken system of rules, and further that its often the leaders these days who are acted upon in the end, rather than the person who raised hell. That is the nature of business today, and rightfully so.

So this was SOE's first failing in just this situation, creating a business environment and ruleset in which people are forced to devalue their role, or act in an adverse manner to the success of the venture. SOE created this ruleset and this environment. Look to the leadership, not the response. Again, SOE's first failure (in this situation - there have been many, many other situations leading to the SWG project's downfall.)

SOE's 2nd failure in this situation, also which would lead to action against the leaders in any other organization, was in their dereliction in communicating it with respect to the correspondent. Instead of communicating that, "we apprecaite the work you have done, however we must enforce our rules (plus whatever explanation they may want to add to address the failings of the environment that led to the "outburst") and we must remove your role as Correspondent at this time." That message should have been delivered, probably not by email either, before any action was taken to remove his rights as Correspondent. What did SOE do? They just poofed his rights and let him show up and discover he didn't have the Correspondent bells and whistles anymore. They failed to communicate respectfully, failed to recognize his efforts and showing him the door with dignity, failed to be leaders. That was their second error. Any one of these errors would have led to serious repurcussions in any organization I've been a leader with.

Their third failure in this situation, again demonstrating their lack of leadership which has led to the community being disenfranchised with this SOE SWG regime and their ultimate failure, is that when the community spoke up and recognized that this Correspondent had been stripped, and mentioned it, the SOE rep (Tiggs) comes in with a turt reply basically, publically, saying, "you were bad, you got what you deserved," rather than doing what any business would expect their professionals to do, which would be to apologize for the manner in which it was communicated, and that, "we erred and should have communicated with you directly before we took action on your Correspondent status."

3 strikes, demonstrating dismal leadership, all in one situation. And I can chronical their lack of leadership, project management, manipulation of the community and customers, and lack of communication skills all the way back to the hologrind. I've watched it daily and weekly, and have been amazed that they continue to get any support from the community, and it is dying. They need to go, they are incompetent and will lead to the death of our game, or their firing, whichever comes first.

All we can do is help them along to be fired by cancelling our accounts, and speed the process along to recovery with a new regime.

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ZionHalcyon wrote:

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RedDestinyCC wrote:

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ZionHalcyon wrote:

It was still wrong and an abuse of authority, any way you try to ratrionalize it.

---

So? Is there a point to that? I've been a business leader for 20 years, and particularly in the last 10 years as we continue out of the dark ages of management, you can never sit back as a leader and just shoot someone for reacting or escalating matters out of the little boxes (like SOE's so-called rules for correspondents) that management legitimately or otherwise tries to box people into. As a leader, it is expected that you discuss why the reaction is as it is, why the box may not be appropriate anymore, and what's wrong with the culture or environment that causes someone to react.

In other words, when someone reacts, blows up, or elevates outside the box, they are not solely responsible, and in fact, upon evaluation, may end upbeing praised as a whistle-blower, or just praised as someone who had the ethical leadership to raise issues rather than continue to suffer a broken system of rules, and further that its often the leaders these days who are acted upon in the end, rather than the person who raised hell. That is the nature of business today, and rightfully so.

So this was SOE's first failing in just this situation, creating a business environment and ruleset in which people are forced to devalue their role, or act in an adverse manner to the success of the venture. SOE created this ruleset and this environment. Look to the leadership, not the response. Again, SOE's first failure (in this situation - there have been many, many other situations leading to the SWG project's downfall.)

SOE's 2nd failure in this situation, also which would lead to action against the leaders in any other organization, was in their dereliction in communicating it with respect to the correspondent. Instead of communicating that, "we apprecaite the work you have done, however we must enforce our rules (plus whatever explanation they may want to add to address the failings of the environment that led to the "outburst") and we must remove your role as Correspondent at this time." That message should have been delivered, probably not by email either, before any action was taken to remove his rights as Correspondent. What did SOE do? They just poofed his rights and let him show up and discover he didn't have the Correspondent bells and whistles anymore. They failed to communicate respectfully, failed to recognize his efforts and showing him the door with dignity, failed to be leaders. That was their second error. Any one of these errors would have led to serious repurcussions in any organization I've been a leader with.

Their third failure in this situation, again demonstrating their lack of leadership which has led to the community being disenfranchised with this SOE SWG regime and their ultimate failure, is that when the community spoke up and recognized that this Correspondent had been stripped, and mentioned it, the SOE rep (Tiggs) comes in with a turt reply basically, publically, saying, "you were bad, you got what you deserved," rather than doing what any business would expect their professionals to do, which would be to apologize for the manner in which it was communicated, and that, "we erred and should have communicated with you directly before we took action on your Correspondent status."

3 strikes, demonstrating dismal leadership, all in one situation. And I can chronical their lack of leadership, project management, manipulation of the community and customers, and lack of communication skills all the way back to the hologrind. I've watched it daily and weekly, and have been amazed that they continue to get any support from the community, and it is dying. They need to go, they are incompetent and will lead to the death of our game, or their firing, whichever comes first.

All we can do is help them along to be fired by cancelling our accounts, and speed the process along to recovery with a new regime.

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Your business points are valid, but my point is, does that then justify essentially breaking the law to get attention? Sorry, but it does NOT.

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RedDestinyCC wrote:

He didn't break the Law, he broke some vapid forum rules written and enforced by inept kids playing at running a business. I'd put human dignity, respect, and the hard work at stake for those who have put in their hard workand passion for the last two years and have it being trashed... in short, human beings and human issues, above the vapid forum boxes they impose on customers. So yes, it does justify.

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