Developers want to be treated better! It goes both ways!

[bluedreamer]

I remember reading this some time ago, I can't remember if it was on this forum, or somewhere else.

Then want players to remember that they are "human too"

This has stuck with me for quite some time. I would like to remind the developers, when they treat us "players" instead of like humans but Cash Cows. I would remind them to treat us as how you would like to be treated. Do you think I want to, like a large proportion of the community that you don't even listen to, treats you like a "good guy"?

The entire time subverting your messages, deceiving the players, lowering the drop rates, changing the core of the game, in essence acting against of the interests of your community. Do you honestly expect players to like and even respect you? I mean frankly, let's be perfectly honest, if it wasn't for community rules in certain forums etc, do the developers think they deserve politeness? Let's be honest, I'm sure we can make a list of all the lies.

I realise I am the outlier, But I am not getting anything financially to change my views. I'm not like a certain someone, Pretending to be neutral… Or like the multitude of streamers getting huge amounts of crowns and when I say that I'm not kidding, a relatively unknown streamer, thanked KI in his video, had something like 300,000 crowns.

KI is manipulating the game wit so called (paid) influencers. Why do you think they only post and engage with social media sites? When did KI give away the Lady Cat memorial mounts here? How often does anyone of importance show Central they mean a thing? NEVER?

[Dylan Windwalker]

It's a difficult balance I'm sure. Ki has plans and an agenda of ideas but almost always the player community has problems with it. But then if Ki caters to their fanbase and their ideas of what they want, Ki loses their own sight of what they had originally wanted and the control of their own game. Which then generates the feeling that they should stick with their gut and if the player community doesn't like their ideas, they simply have to deal with it. But at the same time, the player community has legitimate criticism and ways they could improve their ideas because they care and Ki should listen to them instead of closing off their ears. But then there's the chunk of the player community that are trolls and only insinuate insults for the sake of being mean, the bullies that think they can get away with making the experience of others worse. And a lot of the time, Ki thinks about those people more often than the players that care. It can't be helped. And now, there's sort of this atmosphere where the player base is now extremely biased and objective against Ki because of a nasty trend piled on update after update. That doesn't help. Imagine trying to do something like patching, but there's a crowd of people constantly protesting against you, that's not a healthy environment for change.

I really wish one day, the player community and the Ki staff could amend their relationship and start from square one, or something like that where Ki can trust their player base and the player base can trust Ki. But time and time again, we're reminded of how divided we are and the gap between this is so wide. This is only going to be a downward spiral.

[bluedreamer]

It's a difficult balance I'm sure. Ki has plans and an agenda of ideas but almost always the player community has problems with it. But then if Ki caters to their fanbase and their ideas of what they want, Ki loses their own sight of what they had originally wanted and the control of their own game. Which then generates the feeling that they should stick with their gut and if the player community doesn't like their ideas, they simply have to deal with it. But at the same time, the player community has legitimate criticism and ways they could improve their ideas because they care and Ki should listen to them instead of closing off their ears. But then there's the chunk of the player community that are trolls and only insinuate insults for the sake of being mean, the bullies that think they can get away with making the experience of others worse. And a lot of the time, Ki thinks about those people more often than the players that care. It can't be helped. And now, there's sort of this atmosphere where the player base is now extremely biased and objective against Ki because of a nasty trend piled on update after update. That doesn't help. Imagine trying to do something like patching, but there's a crowd of people constantly protesting against you, that's not a healthy environment for change.

I really wish one day, the player community and the Ki staff could amend their relationship and start from square one, or something like that where Ki can trust their player base and the player base can trust Ki. But time and time again, we're reminded of how divided we are and the gap between this is so wide. This is only going to be a downward spiral.

The problem is that there is no developer communication outside of certain niche groups, That being PVP and streamers. They have made it clear that this community for example means nothing to them. From my many years of observing and being part of the player fan base, never have we been so dismissed. Frankly and those who do pop in, aren't doing so in good faith. How many years since this forum had a legitimate voice?

I'd love things to change but it would require honesty from the developers, in which have been shown to be two-faced far too many times. The most recent "wooden and stone keys will be phased out" 2022, various gold key bosses will now become stone key bosses, 2022. That's just one example and I am not going to spend my time giving other examples. I personally, as I'm sure anyone reading knows I don't believe they ever intended to phase out, only intended to trick us the spending our stone keys. They have a history of telling us XYZ and then doing ABC in recent years. As the old saying goes fool me once shame on you, fool me twice… Current developers must be on fool me four or five times, not that I'd buy their lies. As an old childs song goes liar liar pants on fire.

- -

[Lightdragon]

I remember reading this some time ago, I can't remember if it was on this forum, or somewhere else.

Then want players to remember that they are "human too"

This has stuck with me for quite some time. I would like to remind the developers, when they treat us "players" instead of like humans but Cash Cows. I would remind them to treat us as how you would like to be treated. Do you think I want to, like a large proportion of the community that you don't even listen to, treats you like a "good guy"?

developers are trained to not get attached to a specific game. much more like a comic book artist is trained not to get used to a specific comic. they usually do not stay long and if the games dies they really couldn't care. well maybe for any developer friends that are suddenly out of a job.

The entire time subverting your messages, deceiving the players, lowering the drop rates, changing the core of the game, in essence acting against of the interests of your community.

this has been done since Coleman was still here. you just realized it now? now lowering drop rates. Mainly that is done with hoard packs. drop rates will vary upon how often players will do those runs and how are they want it. water works for example it can take a long time to get complete gear. for ice players in some cases it literally take hundreds of runs to get a complete set. two case where it took an ice player 238 times and couldn't get the ice robe. fortunately there is dropped gear for ice which is almost as good as the water works gear. actually in Avalon i usually ditch all water works gear for the crafted gear. I usually do not go back to drops until level 100.
when ever you change anything someone will always get upset. and will rant about it. take a look at when they removed the ability of a dead plant still retaining a pixie. never bothered with doing that but there are at least two people on this forum which got very upset when they removed it. fortunately they didn't ban anyone for using this glitch.

Do you honestly expect players to like and even respect you? I mean frankly, let's be perfectly honest, if it wasn't for community rules in certain forums etc, do the developers think they deserve politeness? Let's be honest, I'm sure we can make a list of all the lies.

probably and also for this thread is the very reason they really wouldn't want to post here.

I realise I am the outlier, But I am not getting anything financially to change my views. I'm not like a certain someone, Pretending to be neutral… Or like the multitude of streamers getting huge amounts of crowns and when I say that I'm not kidding, a relatively unknown streamer, thanked KI in his video, had something like 300,000 crowns.

they get the crowns in order for them to review specific products like bundles or packs. also they will of course choose someone who is very positive towards KI. and I don't think the streamer gets more than 200,000 crowns for reviews.

KI is manipulating the game wit so called (paid) influencers. Why do you think they only post and engage with social media sites? When did KI give away the Lady Cat memorial mounts here? How often does anyone of importance show Central they mean a thing? NEVER?[/QUOTE]

[Willowdreamer]

It's true - game developers and designers are human beings, too. It's easy to let our anger and disappointment get the better of us when changes to the game either lead where we don't want to go or result in changes to something about the game we enjoy. Here on Central we do have rules about posting negatively. We don't allow flaming or name-calling. We ask that our members take the time to cool down and think about what they are saying, and how they are saying it. We've all done our angry venting in the moment, but this format allows us to edit and tone our thoughts more respectfully in the long run. As the saying goes, "You'll catch more flies with honey..."

I'm an older player, and I've seen so many changes in the game that we all thought were going to be the death of it. NO ONE who was around at the creation of this game expected it to be so long-lived, and very few of the original employees of Kingsisle are still there. New designers have new ideas. As @Lightdragon said, to them it's a job - they aren't as emotionally invested as we players are - for many it's just a stepping stone, and they work on their little chunk of a world, possibly never seeing the entire Spiral. Also, for many of them, fan sites like Central are as foreign as social media is to us. They grew up with social media, and they don't mind the spam and clutter scrolling by that drives me crazy. I don't know how much time they are allowed to browse online instead of working on their to do list, but if it's like my job, it's not a lot.

I'm hoping that this update, like all of the ones before, comes to the Live Realm and we all learn to deal with it, and find the parts of it that actually make our game better. I'm hoping that those of us who are frustrated or disappointed will be patient and find ways to adapt. I may just work on lower level wizards instead of trying to keep up with max level - after all, the first arc is where I fell in love with the game.

[Ravino.]

I'm an older player, and I've seen so many changes in the game that we all thought were going to be the death of it.

This is something I wish more players understood. I've been in this community since 2009 and I remember doomsayers all along the way - in 2009 it was because of the removal of old crown gear, then of the option of buying them with gold, then the release of a side world, Grizzheleim... surely that means no more real worlds and KI was only gonna milk players from there onwards, right?

Wrong. Ironically, what the 2009 doomsayers said was the end of Wizard101 is what most people remember now as its golden age.

But whatever out of hubris or ignorance, there continues to be people saying "oh, NOW the game is gonna die" never mind the thousands of people saying this before you were all wrong.

~R

[sparkyflamefire]

It seems to me that a lot of the time, if there is something that the players like, the 'developers' mess with it just to make it more difficult. Lower drop rates is just an example.

Promises made, promises broken: Remember when Karamelle first came out, how 'the most commonly used AOE spells' were just supposed to be the 'first ones' to be updated? Have they updated any others since?

What they consider 'good enough' is what I consider 'shoddy product': Bugs not fixed, even after 2 YEARS (Karamelle and Mayhem Badge Bugs), because they don't have a big enough effect on game play.

Edit:

The beginning of the end, for me, was July of last year. The top reward for the Beastmoon Hunt was '25 lore spellements,' just like it had been the month before. I busted my behind to make sure all 6 of my wizards would be able to claim that reward. Only, unlike June, what we got was 5 Non-lore spellements. And KI's response was "It had been decided in a meeting that the Lore spellement reward wasn't supposed to start until the Fall update went live." Ignoring the fact that we had received the 25 lore spellements in June. To add insult to injury, in the Mayhem event 2 weeks later, they once again had the top reward as '25 lore spellements,' but once again only gave 5 non-lore spellements. Despite all the complaints during the Hunt, they couldn't be bothered to correct the reward table. Was does that tell you about how much KI really cares about we players? And it seems like just about every month since then, they have had similar problems just having the actual reward match the reward table, and match what they said would be the reward in the quarterly update notes.

"Regain my trust"? Not gonna happen. As long as people keep spending real-world money on their game, they see no reason to change their ways. See me in Novus? That's not gonna happen, either.

[Sierra SeaSong]

To be fair, most of what we accuse hem of probably comes from higher up in the food chain.

Having said that I do not see them being treated poorly or as less then human, so idk.

[Pegasus Unbound]

As @Willowdreamer said, when they first started this game, I also don't think anyone had a clue it would last this long.

The people and KI staff that made the game so special to us are 99% long gone, and what has replaced them is not people creating something they loved, but more a business venture; and that has been the biggest thing to change the entire game (In my opinion).

The issue with the Developers and the players is one that could be so easily solved IF the egos and hostility on BOTH sides was set aside. What is needed is some form of accountable and steady communication between them. Not just on the W101 site, but on Central and other Fansites as well.

I know some will say that is what @Sparck is there for, but he can't be in all the places all the time, and to expect him to have the technical knowledge that the Developers have is, to be honest, absurd.

I would like to see, at least on Central, a special new thread dedicated to nothing but a full scale, 2-way discussion between the Central Family and a member of the Developers team (Maybe @Eric Stormbringer?). The catch is that "The Powers That Be" at KI and the Developers team must respect and answer issues and suggestions from the players in order to regain our trust and support. Once we start seeing the signs of trust and support, then you will find the players will also give credit its due.

Every thing has to have a starting point, and that starting point is for The Developers to gain our trust enough that we don't even feel the need to get angry or depressed.

[Sierra SeaSong]

Except Sparck is not a dev and communication is like his main job, hiim I can totally blame for lack of info and feedback.

If you are not a streamer he could care less what you have to say.