How about saying what they really mean for a change?
by Alphaville Herald on 09/06/04 at 6:57 pm
by Kiss
?What we have here, is a failure to communicate?
Captain, Road Prison 36, as played by Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke
There really should be a modern day remake of the 1967 classic that this quote is taken from ? Cool Hand Luke. I absolutely love the dialogue in this great flick. That?s one thing that wasn?t lacking was between the characters – communication.
If only it were so between EA and their TSO users.
As we watch TSO spinning inexorably down the virtual commode to join its brethren EA games (Majestic, Motor City Online, Earth and Beyond) you might ask, ?How could this happen yet again to EA?? I mean really, this time they had such a winning hand!
A heavyweight company with plenty of cash for development.
A successful brand to build upon (The Sims).
A proven development team (Maxis).
How could even EA fuck this one up?
I have a number of things that I believe lead to the failure of TSO (custom content, other content, bugs, poor support, bad design, bad coding, poor graphics, poor management, lack of goals, etc.), but I want to explore just one of them today. I believe we have always had a poor communication between EA and the players.
Yes, I know, at first there was a huge volume of words going back and forth between them. Sadly, neither one really understood what the other was saying. It looked like a conversation between two mutes wearing mittens. For example, early on the developers listened to some of their most vocal players quite a bit, took them at word value, and made some pretty horrible changes to the game. Then, after realizing how they had totally fucked things up by listening to the EA butt kisser community, EA overreacted and now refuses to listen to any of their players at all.
You might also ask, ?How can listening to your players be a bad thing? Isn?t communication between the players and the developers critical?? Of course it is! That is if you are really ?listening? and ?understanding? what the other person is saying. Sadly, the communication has always been incredibly poor between the user and developer community here. It?s really quite simple as to why:
1) Most TSO players can?t express what they mean very succinctly.
2) EA put a stupid assed happy face on everything they did and said instead of telling the community the truth.
I would suggest that it was foolhardy for EA to have made modifications to TSO based upon the poorly phrased complaints of a handful of their shrillest posters. To make matters worse, they managed to frustrate the entire community by refusing to give straight answers. Note the deafening silence regarding custom content.
I have prepared two examples to illustrate what I mean.
Example 1
Player Complaint: Hey! This skilling sucks! It?s way too hard to max a few skills and maintain them! Have a cookie Tigger!
EA Reply: We here at your dedicated, hard working, professional, customer-oriented development staff are always listening to our wonderful customers (who we regard as #1! Woot! Woot!). The EA development Team is pleased to present SKILL LOCKS to solve this problem! Hooray for us! Thanks for helping us improve TSO by pointing this out! Bites cookie! Yummmmmm!
Result: Skilling is still boring as hell, you just don?t have to do it as often.
What the player really SHOULD have said: Hey you EA fuckheads, skilling is boring as hell. We?ve been telling you that since the first day of beta and you launched anyway to make the Xmas ?02 sales season. Yes, I know WW wanted to make it boring on purpose in order to encourage dialogue. That was just fucking retarded then and still is! I don?t like having to sit here like a brain dead moron watching my sim pump iron for a billion hours in order to max my body points. I don?t mind having to work hard in order to obtain my goal of maxing my body points, but for God?s sakes please make skilling more interesting! You can?t patch or work around this problem, it?s your game concept and structure that is wrong here!
What EA would have said to this useful posting: Post deleted. User banned.
What EA SHOULD have said to this but can?t: You?re right, skilling is boring as hell. We fucked up, but there is no way that we are going to spend a ton of money to develop an entirely new approach to skilling. We?ve already got $30 million down the crapper on this albatross and we?ll be damned if we do much more than milk it a bit on the dumb asses still here in order to lose less before we shut it down. Here?s what we are willing to do — We?ll basically throw a Band-Aid on the problem and give you some skill locks to minimize the pain. Happy simming ? Fuck off.
Example 2
Player Complaint: Mafia?s are ruining the game! You have to do something about these people running around red linking us! We?re going to quit and never buy another EA product if you don?t get the mean people out of the game!
EA Reply: We here at your dedicated, hard working, professional, customer-oriented development staff are always listening to our wonderful customers (who we regard as #1! Woot! Woot!). In the sprit of ?nice is good, mean is bad? The EA development Team is pleased to present a totally revamped FRIENDSHIP WEB to solve the red link problem that only a handful of you care about! We spent a huge amount of time and resources on this brand new piece of shit because of YOU ? our customers! Hooray for us! Thanks for helping us improve TSO by pointing this out! Now let?s all join hands and sing The EA/TSO song!
Happy happy joy joy
Our users are moron slobs
We put up with these dumb asses
So that we can all have jobs
Okay, they wouldn?t really sing that to their customers but I liked it anyway. So sue me.
Result: Instead of tweaking the friendship web, players have pages and pages of so-called ?friends?. Dozens of which they don?t even know. The creative Mafia players find new and innovative ways to ply their trade, as red linking was only a small part of it anyway. The game is now more enjoyable to many of the best ones because they have to think more and work harder. The people who requested the change are still complaining about either specific features of the friendship web, or something else. They of course will never be satisfied until TSO becomes exactly what they want it to be. If nobody else wants that ? tough shit.
What the player really should have said: Hello EA board God. I?m a total pussy who gets very upset over almost everything. Can you please make my gaming experience totally risk and pain free? I also get very queasy whenever somebody says anything mean or naughty to me and feel you should protect me from them. I have to go now as I?m getting a little upset.
What EA would have said to this: We feel your pain. We too regard the Mafia and red linking as the #1 problem (along with the other 26 #1 problems on our list) to be solved by tomorrow. We are implementing a total overhaul of the friendship web and should be done in 6 months or so.
What EA SHOULD have said to this but can?t: Good fucking God, will you please grow a set of balls? First of all, have you not seen the boot/ban/ignore features? Start using them for Gods sakes instead of hoping and praying you can report somebody for saying something! Quit coming to me crying about every little pissant, bullshit problem you have in game and start showing some self-reliance. Have you no sense of pride or ability to take care of yourself? Do I have to solve all your penny ante in-game squabbles for you? What a fucking loser you are.
Second, all of our research shows that people leave online games primarily for three reasons: boredom (which usually means bad game design); their other friend?s are leaving or have left; or they have met all of the in-game goals and personal objectives that interested them (ran out of content).
Griefing/angst/whatever you care to call it ? has gained status as a ?hot button issue? among developers concerned about player retention. A high priority among many designers because of the almost deafening screams from the few players it affects, in actuality it is so unimportant as to why people really quit online games as to be statistically irrelevant.
Here?s your crying towel, now fuck off.
Ahhh communication – Where?s Paul Newman and Strother Martin when you need them?
Ian
Jun 9th, 2004
kiss, i know you dont publish much, but when you do, i love it! another great job!
RB
Jun 9th, 2004
Agreed. If it wasn’t for all the F words, it could have been something i wrote. LOL.
seriously funny report. agree with it 100%.
- RB
Liz
Jun 9th, 2004
lol that was great, agree totally with it.
alphasim
Jun 10th, 2004
Hey havent you guys read the coming soon items recently coming soon more interesting ways to develop skills and also skilling for the advanced skiller. Its on the boards now. Um this is in reference to example 1. Its posted in City Hall.
Claydog
Jun 10th, 2004
Hahaha nice article…and alphasim…no one cares about what new shit is coming to tso. Barely any one plays any more. THey are just wasting money.
alphasim
Jun 10th, 2004
Well actually alot of people are still playing where in the world hav you been.
alphasim
Jun 10th, 2004
What I meant to say was alot of people do still play and enjoy tso. I don’t know what city you were in but it seems like after a little lull for one week Alphaville has picked back up. Maybe a few select players you played with dont play anymore, but that hardly constitues sayiong that hardly no one plays. I for one love playing and I plan on going no where. The new things to look forward to look very interesting. And I can’t wait. Im a maxis lover! I love everything they have thrown our way.
Claydog
Jun 10th, 2004
A maxis lover…thats priceless. How can you love a company that treats its customers so shitty? They treated me like shit and thats the main reason i left. It first started when i got suspended for putting “We hate (part of a persons name)” in my bio. It was apreviated or h/e u spell it and it could of meant anything. I even had to talk to a EA Rep and he got all pissy with me and i got suspended.
Then i bought sum temp accounts…and then found out how to get my own..and maxis charged me for them. Over $100 on sum 14 day free thigns after they said i wasnt going to be charged. Its pure BS. Maxis and EA deserve everything bad that comes out of TSO. Oh and i did et suspended another time for telling a person to “Not drop the soap if you go to jail” I tried contacting maxis on both times of me being suspended. But turns out…THEY DONT COMMUNICATE WITH THE CUSTOMERS.
Claydog
Jun 10th, 2004
And that has nothing do to with what city i lived in or anything. The city i lived in,DG, had the worste ass-kissing-maxis-lovers. They are still around. Always talking on the boards with Tigger kissing her ass non-stop. And they were the ones pushing the “New Web” idea. Pathetic becuase they werent even getting tagged.
Let me tell you their names- Legolasthegreat, Gracie Nito, Hyper, Leah, Meanie…theres more but there is to many of them U can visit them in DG and thank them. They are such great ass kissing people. And btw, they’re annoying as hell.
Claydog
Jun 10th, 2004
And when i said kissing tiggers ass, that was a while ago.
Ian
Jun 10th, 2004
I would defiantly have to agree with Clay on that one, you can still see it on the boards. DG is the worst MAxis Lovin’ city.
Also alphasim, When is the last time we have had new content that made the game more enjoyable to play or enhanced game play. And do NOT say cannons, because they were not given out to anybody. Whatdid you have to do, to get them?? Oh that’s right, recommend more people to this shitty game. Haha, makes thinks it’s customers are stupidd…
But please tell me… what content that enhanced game play or made it more enjoyable has come out lately??
The friendship web, didn’t enchance gameplay, it did far more worse than good. It caused MAJOR lag for several weeks, many players to leave the game, and not just mafiaoso.
Ian
Jun 10th, 2004
I would defiantly have to agree with Clay on that one, you can still see it on the boards. DG is the worst MAxis Lovin’ city.
Also alphasim, When is the last time we have had new content that made the game more enjoyable to play or enhanced game play. And do NOT say cannons, because they were not given out to anybody. Whatdid you have to do, to get them?? Oh that’s right, recommend more people to this shitty game. Haha, makes thinks it’s customers are stupidd…
But please tell me… what content that enhanced game play or made it more enjoyable has come out lately??
The friendship web, didn’t enchance gameplay, it did far more worse than good. It caused MAJOR lag for several weeks, many players to leave the game, and not just mafiaoso.
MattyS
Jun 10th, 2004
lol if you ask me the last time something that i really liked came out was the stores and the casino games. The pets sucked if u ask me lol. the pets were on the offline version. oo ya and i also liked when band came out
MattyS
Ashley Richardson
Jun 10th, 2004
Nice article.. except for all the cursing lol
Sim who Thinks
Jun 11th, 2004
If you don’t care about the game, and you talk about how horrible it is. Then why do you read the boards with the people who enjoy the game. If the DG people enjoy the game, good for them. Hopefully you can shut up, and go a different activity instead of coming here, posting about a game you hate. If my account got suspended, I would never visit this site or any other site related to the game. Why would I?
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
Because maybe they dont like the game but they got friends in the game.
MattyS
Sims Who Thinks
Jun 11th, 2004
Oh, this was a great true passage. I am surprised they didnt keep the old enemy link thing and just charge people to get them off. Call it the Red Link HUD
Ian
Jun 11th, 2004
Sim who Thinks are you talking about me or the writer? Either way your opinion isn’t valued since you are obviously to afraid to post your real information.
Tammy
Jun 11th, 2004
Personally I love the friendship web. It adds to the game not takes away. Its great making friends.
alphasim
Jun 11th, 2004
All I was really trying to get across was that some of us don’t spend all of our time complaining we spend all of our time playing. Answer me this if you go buy a new car are you going to moan for two years because the great makers won’t keep adding to it. They dont really have to add anything you bought the game as it was if you don’t like it find something else to play. Suck it up and move on. I mean when you bought the first offline sims game and the next expansion didn’t come out for a while, did you sit and moan that oh we need more content. Do you get what im trying to say. Its like ordering a peperoni pizza and moaning cause now you don’t have mushrooms. You got what you bought. Ya we pay 10 a month but that just keeps us in the game we bought. It will get better more stuff will be added, but it takes time. Id imagine they are not magicians. Maybe I am so satisfied because Ive played since Oct 02 and I have seen this game come along way. As far as the last new thing added. Well its been a while but maze was readded you know. It just takes time. They don’t want to release all their ideas at once, because then what would we have to look forward to. Im sorry if you are not enjoying game play, oh and by the was I dont have a sim in dans grove. I only reside in Alphaville.
alphasim
Jun 11th, 2004
Oh and as far as the cannons go they were a great addition. Everyone says the company doesnt care but let me tell me and the friend I referred had problems getting the cannon. I called a number and guess what do to all of her hassle and our hassle do u know they gave us a free month of game time. No one ever states the good things they do to try and make up for the bad. But the helped us out got me my cannon and we both had an extra 30 days. So they do care if you talk to them nicely and explain the situation.
Claydog
Jun 11th, 2004
I did leave the game. I thought i made that clear. And why would you buy a car and ask why they arent adding on to it. This is a online game. Not a new car, there is no comparison. When the game tells me its going to add more content etc. i expect more things to come out of it than sum dumbass pets and the newly designed maze.
And yes i do have friends in the game. And i like talking about how shitty the game is. Is that a crime?
Urizenus
Jun 11th, 2004
Tammy, I agree that it’s great making friends, but I would rather decide who my own friends are, and not let EA tell me. Plus, my best friends in game are not necessarily the people I talk to most (most likely true for the AVH reporters as well). Finally, while its great making friends and talking to new people, I don’tnecessarily want all of TSO to know who my friends and contacts are. My friends are *my* business. What sort of privacy policy is EA running that they record all our in game contacts for everyone to see?
Ian
Jun 11th, 2004
I didn’t really think about that too, but excellent point Uri. Also, alphasim, I have been playing since January 2003, I have not seen it come a long way at all. When they add content, (if that is what you would like to call it), they severly fuck it up. For example the maze. They might as well not of re-released it. It was a total waste of our time, and their’s. The payout’s are rediculous and sims are complaining about it non-stop. And I don’t blame ‘em. Now cannons, you are extremely naive alphasim. It was just a promotion for them to make some more bucks. If it was so great, then why didn’t every sim get one for free, huh? I pay my $10 a month, where is my FREE cannon? Now about friendship web, that was an extreme disgrace to the game and to those who wish to not make “friends” with sims they have never seen/talked to, but were at the same skilling house I was at. They were better off with “indulgences”..paying money to get rid of the “enemy tag”.
Claydog
Jun 11th, 2004
I think the cannon thing is rediculous. Giving people cannons for recomending people? I remember when they did that with the gnomes. I think every one should of gotten one because we all payed the 10 bux. And i recomended my friend when they werent giving anything away. What did i get? Nothing. Its truly complete BS. Maxis treats its people like shit. No wonder tso is going down the drain.
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
I think TSO is doing fine I bet by next fall it will be booming again. most people ushally only play in the fall and winter.
MattyS
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
If you ask me I think where they messed up was when they released the clothes,shops,casino items and stuff like that when summer was starting soon. Because not as many play in teh summer. I think they should of released the pointless shit like the pets and jobs. But then in the fall put out all the good crap to drag everyone back. Because i know when I first started playing in January there was so much shit to do all ready that i could of waited a little longer for the shops and casino items.
alphasim
Jun 11th, 2004
You have your point of view on this and you can complain if you like. really I just dont stress it and try to enjoy playing. I know comparing it to a car is not the same thing but you get my drift. Most things you buy you buy as is. Occasionally they will add more stuff but they don’t really have to is all im trying to say. They don’t owe us anything. We bought what we paid for. And the ea reps do help you out if you can get them to understand what you are meaning. We really did get extra playtime for our troubles, so when you say they don’t care i dont get it.
alphasim
Jun 11th, 2004
Oh and Ian you should have seen it in early Oct of 02 you would know what i mean. It really has came along way since i began….maybe not for you, but I think some people expectations are to high.
trailblazer
Jun 11th, 2004
No online game will survive without new content, that whole, “they don’t have to give us anything else” argument doesn’t hold water, yeah they don’t have to add anything, but how many people are going to stay playing a game with no new content, even the offline sims had expansion packs and user made content to keep it going, without that it would have died years ago.
The reason TSO isn’t getting anything is because more than likely they don’t have the money, EA has labeled the game a failure, and you know they aren’t going to sink more money into a failure, with The Sims 2 coming out that is where EA is putting it’s resources, when it hits the shelves I think TSO’s days are numbered.
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
what do u mean we got what we paid for? Did u forget we are still paying these fags a monthly des? I’m a little happy with the game but i dont agree with u that u think they owe us nothing. Maybe if we paid a one time fee it would be differnt
Ian
Jun 11th, 2004
Yeah agreed with MattyS because, the rediculous $10 fee is not for server space (look at Half Life, Diablo) .. they are free, and they take up server space. The $10 fee is for people to work for us.
Agreed with Trailblazer…all EA does is buy out companies and then fail.
Claydog
Jun 11th, 2004
Trail Blazers correct. After what..July 4th when sims 2 comes out (i think thats the date not sure tho) in the next few days they will break the news to the tso users. Just like they did for earth and beyond and all their other failure games. Just give up EA.
Claydog
Jun 11th, 2004
meant to say the next few days after they come out with sims 2
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
I think you are wrong about it failing the reason is the article Op/Ed: Stop Blaming the Techies! I really believe and stick by this is the reason it is failing. Anyone wanna try to prive me wrong
here is the link
http://www.alphavilleherald.com/archives/000114.html
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
prove*
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
Thats another classic story
MattyS
Jun 11th, 2004
Article*
damn I’m bad tonight