Time for some self-reflection

So, I am curious when conversations on Discord became so fraught with strife. Is it a reflection of our current society? Angst and nervous frustration stemming from the pandemic, leading to ill-considered overreactions? And yes, I’m aware that this post will likely be swiftly locked and/or removed, but I’m tired of ignoring the elephant in the room.
Regardless of the source, I would like to address the Discord ban I apparently received this morning. Our story begins with a conversation Den Mum and I were having about the Overseer in general chat last night. It had been a rather long week, and I was trying to find some motivation to do more than send out agents, before I ended up calling it a night and logging off for some well-deserved rest:


(screenshot taken after I logged in this morning and saw Kander had tagged me in an apparent overreaction.)

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised to see such a reaction, and spent some minutes reviewing what I’d said the night before in case I wasn’t remembering an offhand comment or something. After some thought, I concluded that I wasn’t misremembering anything, and dashed off a quick response while making my morning cup of coffee:




Apparently my attempt to clarify my comments and suggestion to step back and realize that not everything is a slight or criticism of ones work, was construed as a personal attack. Sometime in the following hour or two (was doing a bit of bag/bank maintenance so I don’t have the exact time, plus nothing was said via DMs or otherwise), the ban-stick was wielded and my chat history wiped from Discord. I think I am more disappointed than anything else. That the divisions and rancor in society that many of us come to Norrath to escape, seem to be popping up here as well. As such I think I’ll take a period of self-reflection of my own, and spend some time in other realms.

Sorry, man. You broke the rule for discord:

Discussing bugs - Welcomed.
Discussing design decisions - Not allowed unless it's platitudes.

Well this has been up a long time. Too many views to effectively censor maybe?
It does seem very unreasonable. It'd be interesting to hear someone higher up the food chain give some reaction to this. You're not the first person to be banned for literally nothing. It's all down to whether Kander's in a bad mood, which it looks like he was on this occasion.

I don't do discord so I can't speak from personal experience but I have heard that people get banned all the time over silly stuff. I'm guessing Kander took offensive at you suggesting some self reflection. I actually think he crossed the line when he jumped all over you because he definitely didn't read/comprehend/understand your post. Maybe when you have put out a product that you know is so much less than it should have been you are constantly on the defensive and take everything as a complaint or criticism. Sad times for EQ2.

I think if the perceived criticism is aimed at overseers, which is Kander's baby, then yes. I think there is a lot of criticism too, because it's effectively a replacement for real quests and you know, content. These things are much heavier on the resources required to design and implement them, and the solution is overseers. Let's just spin the RNG wheel 10 times a day and see what we get, it's FUN guys.

The whole overseer "feature" is like a bad mobile app that rewards in game prize boxes. There is no reason it couldn't be a web app right on the eq2 web page.

I understand the devs are stressed and maybe even super upset that Luclin has turned out to be the worst product they ever released.

But lashing out at the playerbase who points it out will never make the current expansion better, nor will it make the next one potentially good.

They should accept that the game sucks right now, listen to the feedback and do something about it instead and swallow their pride for now.

What is your post history (among all of your Discord usernames) previous to Kander's response?

I think there are two sides to this story.

Got a little something on your nose there....

When I mean post history, I mean months or weeks leading up to the response.

Was there a sort of brewing antagonism on the OP's part?

Well the convenient thing with your question, is that the Discord ban-hammer deletes all history. You know this, which is why you've asked the question, to attempt to do what you always do, which is to derail threads.
I was reading Discord at the time, I had contributed a little earlier, just casually discussing which agents I was still missing. There was nothing belligerent going on at all. Your question is irrelevant. The screenshots and subsequent ban are indefensible.

The OP admits that this post is inappropriate for the forum:

This is a public forum and the OP's post will be subject to scrutiny.

An objective observer wants to know both sides of the story. There's only a small chance that the ban hammer was used out of the blue.

The fact that the OP making a strong effort at framing his post as an innocent foray shows that he had some culpability (at least, in the past). OP decides to conceal his own negatives which makes me question his credibility somewhat.

What is more probable is that the there was some longstanding, simmering antagonism between the OP and Kander that merited the ban response (more proportionate than how the OP represents it).

Edit: I am not defending Kander per se but everyone deserves a fair shake.

Based on his post history that seems unlikely. Wulf speaks his mind, but he's not belligerent or disrespectful. I try to keep a positive attitude here on the forums. But the fact that dialogue resulted in a ban is disturbing to me.

Thank you.

I think it's hard to gauge the longstanding dialogue on my end without seeing the text but I trust your opinion.

There are ways to subtly "jab" at people or engage in non-constructive discussion (especially over a long period of time) and perhaps Kander took OP's post as the final straw. Whether it was disproportionate is for 'people in the know' to decide.

And, yes, I don't discount the human factor/error on Kander's part.

Well folks, I have taken some time and come to a decision. After considering everything that’s happened, the current state of the game, and the way Darkpaw treats its customers/players, I’m going to step away for a while. I’ll continue to check in with folks every now and then, but both account subs are cancelled and expired within the last 2-3 days.
Specific factors I considered include:

• Lack of content in recent expansions
• Total disregard of the crafting community
• Comportment and attitude of Darkpaw representatives on Discord and the Forums
• Lack of any sort of bug tracker, known issues list, etc.
• Emphasis on the marketplace, with a corresponding failure to keep it update with fresh content and items (30 slot fuel depots, for example) appropriate to the current state of the game

I think there’s numerous examples of the first four items; to expand on the last, I took the time to add up all the costs for each account since September 2019, and was a little surprised to find it was over $500 each (I’d guessed it would be around $300-350). Here’s a breakdown for Myst’s account (Wulf's is almost identical):



The bulk of the DBC was for housing depots and merc “hire anywhere” unlocks, plus 3,500 DBC for the Reforging feature (little surprised that wasn’t included in the expacs, but hey, gouge ‘em where you can, right DPG?) The fact that something that seems to mean so much to their revenue stream is so ill-kept is quite baffling. And if they wanted to leverage it to drive purchases, why get rid of the player-created items?

As I move on, I think the things that I’ll miss most are: DenMum, ‘cause Niami rocks. Everyone knows this is true. The memories of what this game used to be, and the people that used to play. Running / flying through zone after zone and not seeing another player is depressing. The “old-world” heritage quests and story arcs. There was real love and creative effort put into crafting that content, and which is very obviously missing from recent content. The artwork – it is (and always has been) one of the strong points of the game, but it’s not enough to cover the gaping fault lines that are increasingly prevalent.

Fair winds and following seas, Norrath.

That was sarcasm, in reference to the arbitrary Discord ban. Next time, I'll indicate that with /s

(not really)

Again, you are talking about something you know nothing about, as you don't participate in Discord.

Again, you are incorrect. But you know what? You're right - Kander and I HAVE interacted in the past. As a matter of fact, here's our last DM exchange:



And I'm sure Dreamweaver can go back and review the Discord server logs / chat history. I can't imagine any organization (especially one subject to CCPA) today, that wouldn't take every opportunity to cover their hindquarters.

Finally,

This sums up the bulk of your forum interactions well. Fortunately, you are not one of the "people in the know" that will be deciding anything (or whose opinion I care to entertain).

Pretty Messed Up. This is why i hate game devs communicating on discord instead of the forums

Luclin (though the graphics were drab) was a very interesting/unique expansion in EQ1 and I was very excited to see what it would look like in EQ2. I think (for me) the bar was set pretty high seeing what SOE had done with Faydwer in 2 vs how it looked in 1. Graphics wise it's okay, they didn't make a radical impression on me like previous expansions but the lack of content for the first time, startled me. I just completed two year break recently, and came back to enjoy two expansions and neither were very interesting or exciting but Luclin was alarming in it's vacuousness..

Overseers are an awesome mini game but using them as a content cope is a bit cynical. I'm sure anybody who was involved in the decision to proceed in that direction is processing their mixed feelings about it. The person who was tasked with making it work is in a thankless position so maybe that contributed to their emotional outburst about the subject. To the OP, I'd try not to take it personal. Imagine how anyone who values their labor would feel having to invest their time and creativity into one of EQ2's biggest busts feature-wise.

Our whole family has played EQ1 since Lost Dungeons of Norrath and EQ2 since start. We collectively, as a family, thought with as much love that went into this game, the thought to ever turning the servers off would be an abomination. But, seeing what the new studios would do with their turns at bat, I'm starting to wonder if a quick death is more dignified than another expansion that exists solely as a cash injection. But when I get too jaded, I just role a new character and enjoy the content of years past, where creative people who loved Norrath created magic that's still exciting.

Thanks for reaching out, I enjoyed reading your response. While I did take it a little personally at first, that's why I stepped back to give myself some time to objectively evaluate the situation. I've had many projects in the past that provided great products or processes in their prime, but as they aged became less effective. Did it hurt a little when they began to get criticized? Sure, but that's when you take that info (criticism), evaluate it objectively, and use it to develop something new. This happens even more frequently in the tech realm and companies that do well tend to value this "growth mindset" in employees. How do you think engineers that worked on Windows for 15-20+ years felt when Microsoft announced it was moving it's focus onto other areas, then rolled the entire Windows division into another team during a re-organization? That would be my response to anyone that can't handle criticism or customer comments. I mean, this is the Internet age - products are going to be reviewed and criticized almost before release! Finally, if it had just been me, I would likely have shrugged and moved on. A quick scan of the forums will show you that there's been multiple other bans that were also handed out under questionable circumstances. Dreamweaver has helped reverse them for some folks, but I personally don't have any desire to return to that Discord.

I also have played since EQ1 - and I think it's important to point out something you say very well: "But when I get too jaded, I just roll [sic] a new character and enjoy the content of years past, where creative people who loved Norrath created magic that's still exciting." I agree wholeheartedly! The best part: all that content is included in f2p, 'cause I'm not re-subbing without drastic changes.

Secondly- has anyone rolled a new character to enjoy BoL or other recent content a second/third/fourth time (really, I'm honestly curious), or is it only to relive the "good ol' days?"



Oh well, as the song goes:

"...Gone daddy gone
The love is gone
Yeah it's gone daddy gone
The love is gone away"

Ah, is that why windows 10 is virtually unusable by anyone with any kind of accessibility issue? Interesting.