Planeshift

Plenty of times on this forum, I've claimed that there's a culture problem among the developers of PS.  At the least, it's a rudeness problem.  At the most, it's dissent among the ranks.  The leadership (Xillix, for example) has really cleaned their act up.  While I'm not happy with everything that happens, they're being much better models for those who they have supervision over.  They've made a serious attempt to improve relations between the developers and the Planeshift community, as well as the player communities outside of Planeshift such as those of us on mmorpg.com.

But they're still not there yet.  Not until the rest of the team falls in line.  PS developers:  Please, if you don't know the right thing to say in a given situation, at least exercises enough self-control to be quiet and let your bosses say what needs to be said.

Plenty of times I've claimed that there's a problem.  Plenty of times, people have denied that any problem exists.  At one point, I went to the official PS forum and dug up many quotes of developers being unduly rude and inappropriate.  Recently, I chanced to find another whooper.

A player gave a critique of the game.  This is a series of replies that followed:

Xillix: "We have heard all of this before, join the team, break the cycle."

A player's response (Mathy): "If you have heard it all before isn't your job to break the cycle Xillix? Or a better question should be if you have heard it all before why haven't you done anything about it?"

A settings dev responded, quoting in his post only the last 7 words of Mathy's post.

Settings dev:  "This makes me want to go right to your house and slap you in the face. You have NO idea what Xillix has done in the last two years. None. Xillix himself has turned the rusty and empty Settings Department into a working machine. He has helped push forward features that players have been asking for for years. He is the only reason I and most others in Settings are on the team. He is the reason there are close to 300 quests in the game, the BF area exists, more rewards are given in quests and for loot, more Settings themed events go on on a large scale, more books are ingame (and MANY more on the way), and many many more things I don't know about.

You have no idea, and your statement shows what kind of person you really are. Frankly, it is not someone I would want to know."

What kind of person is this dev talking about?  The average player?  Because Mathy very much represents the average players in PS.  The average player doesn't know what's happening behind the scenes in DEV land.  So why did this dev decide to respond the way he did?  Is there any good reason for it?  Any justification at all?  Not that I can see.

So why wasn't the post deleted, given that it's blatantly inappropriate and reflects badly on the PS staff and project?  Since it wasn't deleted, does that mean the PS dev team leaders are OK with it?  I doubt that.  It's an unanswered question.

The thing is that this still isn't an isolated incident.  I've proven before that there are a number of developers on the PS community who consistently display this kind of behavior.  The amazing thing is that some developers can still behave so poorly, when the leadership has learned to respond to harsh criticism like this:

"Thank you all for the feedback. We will move on these issues as fast as we can and hope you can enjoy what we have in the mean time."

A common response to criticism I've seen is "If you don't like the way things are, send us an application to become a dev."  Perhaps more people would be doing that if more devs behaved as in that last example.

Yeah, that's a very "above the bar" way to respond to someone...

Want to go to their home and slap them in the face for speaking out on something about the game.

That's rational.

(and that was sarcasm :)

Still, not entirely surprising. My experiences with PS have never left me with a very good impression. And I've gone back to give it another chance a few times at least. Always ends the same way.

There almost seems to be this tone where the developers are expected to be met with adulation for their efforts.

That "if you don't like it, sign up to become a developer" response seems a way of saying "If you think  you can do better, then apply.. otherwise shut up". It's basically an arrogant, defensive cop-out of a response.

But... well.. they have a history of being belligerent and hyper-defensive toward those who criticize the game. I've certainly had my rounds with them already and I'm not about to get drawn into the fray yet again. I already know what it'll result in.

So.... I'll just respond with "More of the same, and I'm not at all surprised" and leave it at that.

I agree with ya OP... they definitely need to work on how they regard the people playing *their* game. There are definitely more diplomatic ways to do so than saying you want to slap someone.

Mathy has not, does not, and will never represent the 'average player'. She has been in constant contact with the Devs for the past year at least. She has been told many times very nicely what is being done. Whatever the answer, it is never enough for her. She plays the chronic victim. I and others (Devs and players alike) have had to put up with her incessant 'woe is me, if the entire world does not agree with me and pity me, it must hate me personally'. Many times the conversation (with other players, not Devs) was forced to center on her, with everyone trying to convince her that just because someone had a different opinion, it did not mean she was hated. Those conversations generally ended with "I can see I am not wanted here. I am sorry you hate me." -Log out-. It came to the point where it became so bad that other players would leave IRC as soon as she showed up if they did not have her on their ignore list already,  and we received many requests to ban her from IRC, which was done.

I have interacted with her personally many times, being very helpful. She asked that I read her story and give advice on how to improve her writing style. Apparently, that did not mean make any suggestions or find any flaws. As soon as I pointed out how some things could improve, she immediately started saying "I am sorry you hate it," and proceeded to go behind my back and say how everyone -loved- her story except for me, because I was mean, did not like her, and pointed out how "bad her story was". She went as far as publicly saying she would never write again because I hated her story so much, -despite- me saying many times the story was good, but there were some improvements that could be made in the style. Incidentally, she took my advice and did improve, but still tells people how much I hated her story, and by default, her as well.

I suggest you look back at her previous posts before you take one comment out of context. I also suggest you look up the term "Playing the victim". Mathy is not the average player. She is not even a typical player. If she was, then I would find some other place to ply my skills. In the end, forums represent a minor 10% of actual game players. They do not represent the larger populous that does not even visit the forum. They are just more vocal, more self-righteous, and often do not even play the game at all.

My comment stands. With what Mathy already knew (which is far more than the 'average player'), how personally she knows and interacts with Xillix and other Devs, and how she has personally gone on crusades to try to get people NOT to join the Dev team, she deserved a far harsher response.

pstruth, get some facts.

I'm not going to say the OP is right or wrong, but I do find it ironic how he's combating rudeness with even more rudeness. Man I sure hate it when people encourage incivility in general.

I have not found anyone at Planeshift to be particularly rude. I did my best to provoke them and darn it if they didn't deal with me with the patience one would show to your average six-year-old Democrat.

Very frustrating.

I think people need to keep in mind tha these fledgling MMOs which are amateur efforts are a different breed of animal than are the professional offerings such as EQ and WoW. I can remember my frustration and the arguments I had with Verant over some of the "dumb" things they were doing in the early days. And as they had a paid staff, they had a reliable infrastructure to not only create new content, but deal with bugs and exploits, some of which only manifest themselves only after clever (but unscrupulous) players revealed them.

I think people would do better when dealing with the voluntary MMO efforts by keeping this in mind, and begining their comment or complaint with three assumptions; 1) they probably aren't the first to notice a given problem 2) the developers are probably even less happy about the very same problem than you are, and 3) telling them about your l33t skillz while making the complaint (but not volunteering to help) is not going to make them the most receptive audience.

And that goes for all MMOs, not just PS.

I'm sad to hear you were trying to provoke them.  (Before the ps officials say anything, posting things that are provocative is different from actively trying to provoke people.)

I am happy to hear that your experiences with the ps team have been positive.

I do not wish to paint them all with the same brush.  Wherever it seems like I'm doing that, I give you my sincere apologies.

Coming and attacking a player with a flood of verbage in an associated forum is not the best response to this either. As a matter of fact it is highly unprofessional. To really understand the issue, it has to be asked why more people do not join the Planeshift development team. There has always been a high level of interest in the Planeshift engine. There have been a number of reasons that I have heard, all of them devolve back onto existing or past team members, as well as differences in opinion on licensing and leadership. The propensity of some team members to troll anyone who dares to criticize the project has been disproportionate in the past, and is clearly demonstrated in this thread. Don't attack players personally. Period. Ever. Write around that. It doesn't matter if they attack you first.

Originally posted by pstruth

I'm sad to hear you were trying to provoke them.  (Before the ps officials say anything, posting things that are provocative is different from actively trying to provoke people.)

I am happy to hear that your experiences with the ps team have been positive.

I do not wish to paint them all with the same brush.  Wherever it seems like I'm doing that, I give you my sincere apologies.

Please explain to me these things: how provocation isn't provocation except when it is; what the definition of "is" is, and how you can demonstrate suppport for an effort by relentlessly criticizing it.

I didn't say *how* I tried to provoke them, now did I? Perhaps I merely quoted your messages at them.

Or perhaps... *gasp*  I was employing sarcasm as a way of making a point? We'll never know, I guess, because I ain't saying and you don't have enough of a sense of humor to figure it out.

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticize." - dunno who