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Question: Mindark Community Manager

NoBion

NoBion

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NoBion Nob Andersen
As a visitor and follower of EF for several years, I had a good feeling when i heard Skam was hired as a community manager, And was expecting much more communication considering she knows how us players sometimes feels like, Discussing and wondering about different stuff that we discover is supposed to be there or not, Or supposed to work like we think.

First of all i know skam from Project Entropia years, and she is a beatifull person, But i still see multiple threads that i found to be about alarming "bugs" or non working stuff we thought worked, But she isent commenting on them at all. Isent this what the community manager is supposed to step in & clarify things as they are?. Or what exactly is they supposed to say?.

I hope Skam / Community manager will join this thread to clarify her exact roles on these forums. Because im kinda getting exhausted reading multiple threads about loosing skills when logging out, Scopes / lasers not adding anything, Discussions and confusion about nerfed skills/items or similiar. And its rare to see any Mindark officials stepping in and killing the rumour or clarify things. I / we feel kept in the dark, This is one of the big flaws of Mindark. and it always have been.

Am i alone on this observation?.

P.S i was made aware that Skam is a FPC community manager and not mindark. So maybe this post is directed at someone else? i dont know :)
 
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No..you are not alone.
We saw a bit of comm manager hype and a few posts from skam, but buggerall since. Maybe she's on holiday? :p

And i've not seen skam at swamp camp once..c'mon Skam show yaself! :)
 
NoBion said:
Skam was hired as a community manager,
Click to expand...

She is the community manager for FPC, not MindArk... Two different things.

Hellraizer said:
No..you are not alone.
We saw a bit of comm manager hype and a few posts from skam, but buggerall since. Maybe she's on holiday? :p
Click to expand...

Check the "search" and you will see she has posted 5 times today, and every now and then before that. She comes with the latest buzz every now and then, and I bet she reads more than we see, and communicates what the community wants to FPC, and in the long run to MindArk, without posting anything about it.
 
Community manager doesn't mean "answer all secrets about entropia or else"
 
Nighthawk said:
She is the community manager for FPC, not MindArk... Two different things.



Check the "search" and you will see she has posted 5 times today, and every now and then before that. She comes with the latest buzz every now and then, and I bet she reads more than we see, and communicates what the community wants to FPC, and in the long run to MindArk, without posting anything about it.
Click to expand...

Ahh yeah.. granted.

I do log into EF everday for a bit on and off but nothing from skam seems to stand out.. maybe i got the wrong idea of a community manager, but i'd expected less of the "buzz" hype and more of a public relations role. this is not an attack on Skam by the way, seems the deffinition of her role is being restricted on purpose.
 
Immortal said:
Community manager doesn't mean "answer all secrets about entropia or else"
Click to expand...

Well i find it rude when companies keeps their customers guessing and in the dark when they are in doubt about bugs and unexplained changed portions of the game that is incrasing the cost of playing.

Nowadays to be competitive as a company its important to keep your customers well informed and communicate with them to feel you have a connection to the providers of what your throwing your money at. And right now we have no idea if we are taken serious about our complaints. We hype different bugs and/or suspecious'es up to a level that makes worried customers... I dont really see how come to not start after 7 years now, And communicate with who pays your bills.

I forgot that skam is a FPC official and not a mindark... So im not sure if she has any informations about the things we are discussing sometimes
 
NoBion said:
I forgot that skam is a FPC official and not a mindark... So im not sure if she has any informations about the things we are discussing sometimes
Click to expand...

Probably not, as even Marco says he has to "check with MindArk" before posting sometimes :dunno:
 
NoBion said:
First of all i know skam from Project Entropia years, and she is a beatifull person, But i still see multiple threads that i found to be about alarming "bugs" or non working stuff we thought worked, But she isent commenting on them at all. Isent this what the community manager is supposed to step in & clarify things as they are?. Or what exactly is they supposed to say?.
Click to expand...

She commented on this bug today:

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/bug-reports/188060-can-you-operate-mission-broker.html

I do like the "buzz" reports she made on a more or less weekly basis to let us know what is upcoming too. I think she's doing a good job. :)
 
NoBion said:
I hope Skam / Community manager will join this thread to clarify her exact roles on these forums. Because im kinda getting exhausted reading multiple threads about loosing skills when logging out, Scopes / lasers not adding anything, Discussions and confusion about nerfed skills/items or similiar. And its rare to see any Mindark officials stepping in and killing the rumour or clarify things. I / we feel kept in the dark, This is one of the big flaws of Mindark. and it always have been.
Click to expand...

write a support case
 
Nighthawk said:
She is the community manager for FPC, not MindArk... Two different things.
Click to expand...

it's unfortunate to be put in this position but seeing as MA don't seem to have a community manager (atleast one we've seen post recently) she gets the full brunt.

MA is the one that needs to work on the communication regarding bugs, it's their engine after all but as we've experienced in the past they like to keep us in the dark.
 
Clicking "Search" and then "MindArk/FPC Posts" gets posts from Hanne, Marco, etc. Let's see what we find.

Response to a network issue
Hanne|FPC said:
If there are any new developments with the network issues then support news will be updated, fyi.
Hopefully though, it'll be resolved quickly! :)
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Bug W/ Anna mission broker
Hanne|FPC said:
Hi Tim.
She's obviously giving you the silent treatment!

Jokes aside, this is a bug and will be fixed. Its supposed to give a "I have no more work for you right now" type of message. :)
Click to expand...

Explanation of wording on VU statements
Hanne|FPC said:
Its a standard phrase that MindArk is including in their release notes.

Rest assured if there is any content release from us there would be a news-item about it. :)
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TT ped value of skill bonuses from missions
Hanne|FPC said:
I believe the skill value is correct. :)

Good Work Mega, very impressive indeed!

:rocket:
Click to expand...

Answer in a mision Q&A thread she made.
Hanne|FPC said:
Yes, you can have several missions running at the same time :)

(Ill update the post with that)

Edit: Updated
Click to expand...

We also have the Buzz reports

I'm skipping the little "participate w/ the community" comments she makes.

I say she's doing fine and communicating. Can she do more? Maybe, but the community is never satisfied, so....
 
Simple answer is to put yourself in her position and imagine what it would be like working as a community manager. You know what you would like to say but you'll be told by FPC no can't tell them that, no can't tell them about that either , not that either, nope we can't fix that first, no no no etc etc etc...and so on

So you'd be pretty cheesed off with not being able to do what you would have liked to do.

Now on the other hand you know how people are like on the forums so you can't give them half answers either. For example take vehicles they told us they would come and now people will want more and make a laughing stock of MA dates etc etc So would it have been better if they had not mentioned vehicles at all, I think yes then they don't get any flack for it...

So the conclusion you'll arrive to is your going to be done in by both sides, FPC and us the player base.

I'm guessing but think about it, and then think about it some more as if you really were in that job and i'm sure you'll come to a similar conclusion (if you have a good imagination) :)
 
she's probably eating cupcakes t the coffee room and cheats on us at poltropia.pl !!!

Damn you Skanne!! it's over now, you keep the kids and Stoikov, i keep the house!!
 
I have noticed the Community Managers often have a lot in common with professors at Hogwarts that teach Defense against the Dark Arts and drummers from rock bands.

I think the position is cursed!
 
JohnCapital said:
I say she's doing fine and communicating. Can she do more? Maybe, but the community is never satisfied, so....
Click to expand...

GeorgeSkywalker said:
Simple answer is to put yourself in her position and imagine what it would be like working as a community manager.

So the conclusion you'll arrive to is your going to be done in by both sides, FPC and us the player base.

I'm guessing but think about it, and then think about it some more as if you really were in that job and i'm sure you'll come to a similar conclusion (if you have a good imagination) :)
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Working as the community manager is probably the worst job one can have at a company, but at the same time the best.

Hanne is a damn great girl and yes the communication has improved since they hired her. However in my eyes it's not enough, this i do belive is not hannes fault though.

But in my eyes a community manager would read and post on the forum several times a day. Even if it's not about anything special, it could be in a post about something just happening in eu etc. The key thing is to be SEEN so that the community understand that the community rep is around and browsing the forum. If this is to much for hanne to do with the rest of her jobdescription well then FPC has to hire a second community manager so they can both work together. The blog should also be updated ATLEAST once a week, preferably atleast twice. It could be about anything, could be bla bla today coder x spilled his coffe on his comp and everyone laughed at him, it could be about bugs being worked on with a short inverview with the coder telling us that hunting bugs in the eu code is pure hell. etc etc etc.

Hanne is as i said earlier doing a good job, but i wonder what more she does since we dont see her that much on here. Yes she probably lurks daily but more posts would be nice :) And also a complete jobdescription so we know exactly what she is supposed to do so we dont blame her for not doing x or doing y :p
 
JohnCapital said:
We also have the Buzz reports

I'm skipping the little "participate w/ the community" comments she makes.

I say she's doing fine and communicating. Can she do more? Maybe, but the community is never satisfied, so....
Click to expand...

I would be satisfied, if there was some weekly communications both from FPC and MA. MA tries to not communicate to us, stating they are solely for the platform, but they should know that some implementation to the platform are also important to us.
Are vehicles, taming, MF or missions really FPC specific ? I think something planet specific is something that does not exist on another one.
Really not asking about definate release dates (I rather would not like to hear anything about the "when", only dissapoints when they can not hold that date), but some glimpses on what they are doing on the test server would be nice.

And FPC should do way more for the storyline.
The way the second batch of missions were implemented for example...
It was not like they wrote up the missions in a day and dumped them on us, they had a few months to make them and the story about them was written up in 5 minutes.
That's like serving a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild '65 as just a red wine :D
Maybe if all would get the waypointers to the missionbrokers including some background story would be good. Someway at least that one can get a mission started without even having to look something up on a forum first ?
 
WoenK said:
Are vehicles, taming, MF or missions really FPC specific ?
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the first three all need coding into the engine by MA's programmers but they won't talk about it and FPC can't.
 
Well she still hasn't told me where i can find a mining tower so she is doing a terrible job!

After all it would be great PR for them to me, if my loot was a lot better.

yes i am kidding, communication has been a lot better since Hanne joined FPC
 
WoenK said:
That's like serving a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild '65 as just a red wine :D
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:eyecrazy: OUCH!!!

More comunication with their customers would be greatly appreciated, but I have to agree with others here, that I think she is restricted in what she can respond with reguards to MA.... With FPC I think she is doing a good job.... So that leads me to believe that MA needs there own personal Com. Manager as well... :scratch2:
 
Shes lost to the dark side.
 
MA is a small company, FPC is a small company. I am happy it is that way cause you can see what happens to games from big publishers if things don't go as fast and smooth as the company wants - they just shut it down.

As much as i enjoy seeing Hanne being around on the forum, as a player i don't need a community manager holding my hand at my daily forum visits. I assume Hanne has other duties in FPC too beside communicating with us.

Legion, a second community manager, seriously? Payed from the 31 bombs you drop a month or from my cheap playstyle? Or from the people who already complain about costs to play?

Things might look different in a year or rather two i could imagine, assuming all planet partners invest in marketing as it was planned. Right now the customer base is still rather small. Quality issues like the ones who make potential new player download the game but then can't even start it should have the focus right now. And content of course.
 
Leona said:
MA is a small company, FPC is a small company. I am happy it is that way cause you can see what happens to games from big publishers if things don't go as fast and smooth as the company wants - they just shut it down.

As much as i enjoy seeing Hanne being around on the forum, as a player i don't need a community manager holding my hand at my daily forum visits. I assume Hanne has other duties in FPC too beside communicating with us.

Legion, a second community manager, seriously? Payed from the 31 bombs you drop a month or from my cheap playstyle? Or from the people who already complain about costs to play?

Things might look different in a year or rather two i could imagine, assuming all planet partners invest in marketing as it was planned. Right now the customer base is still rather small. Quality issues like the ones who make potential new player download the game but then can't even start it should have the focus right now. And content of course.
Click to expand...

Question is, you say the customer base is rather small? you meen in like potential new ones? or do you meen the playerbase is too small to do marketing?. Because if its the last it doesent make sence :p
 
2 cents

It's obvious that Hanne can't write what she wants, and her power to "influence" anything at FPC (let alone MA) is obviously near to zero. After all, she's young in her new job and position.

Sorry, but what Community Manager has communicated so far were just one-liners with few to none interest. What happened to land overhaul? Vehicles? Mindforce? And this is not a critic to Hanne herself, but to the role FPC gave her.

This is a game, yes, but we play with real money, there is supposed to be RCE, investors and the like. It's a nice mountain of money after all. We deserve at least a bit of public planning.

Any stupid game on internet has its own content manager, with forums, blogs, tutorial and guides, announcements about upcoming updates (not 1 hour before), maybe public buglists or wishlists and the like. THIS creates a community. All we have is this forum, that just represent a FRACTION of the users: many of them don't even read or know this forum.

I just want to remember you all that we're using a private forum. Online maps are generously provided by private socs (i.e. Miners Mafia). Entropedia is not MA affiliated. Neither Entropiabay. Official videos on youtube.

I cant and wont complain about the game itself, but FPC must understand that Community Manager is different from "sparsely reply on entropiaforum.com".

So show us improvements in communication!

Have you noticed that I haven't used the "loot" word? ;)
 
bass said:
It's obvious that Hanne can't write what she wants, and her power to "influence" anything at FPC (let alone MA) is obviously near to zero. After all, she's young in her new job and position.

Sorry, but what Community Manager has communicated so far were just one-liners with few to none interest. What happened to land overhaul? Vehicles? Mindforce? And this is not a critic to Hanne herself, but to the role FPC gave her.

This is a game, yes, but we play with real money, there is supposed to be RCE, investors and the like. It's a nice mountain of money after all. We deserve at least a bit of public planning.

Any stupid game on internet has its own content manager, with forums, blogs, tutorial and guides, announcements about upcoming updates (not 1 hour before), maybe public buglists or wishlists and the like. THIS creates a community. All we have is this forum, that just represent a FRACTION of the users: many of them don't even read or know this forum.

I just want to remember you all that we're using a private forum. Online maps are generously provided by private socs (i.e. Miners Mafia). Entropedia is not MA affiliated. Neither Entropiabay. Official videos on youtube.

I cant and wont complain about the game itself, but FPC must understand that Community Manager is different from "sparsely reply on entropiaforum.com".

So show us improvements in communication!

Have you noticed that I haven't used the "loot" word? ;)
Click to expand...

People have been asking for many years why there is no offical forum. i dont think we ever had a answer... Too much Moderator work lol?
 
NoBion said:
Question is, you say the customer base is rather small? you meen in like potential new ones? or do you meen the playerbase is too small to do marketing?. Because if its the last it doesent make sence :p
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I meant none of the two above.

Potential for marketing is huge. Was always obvious that MA delayed that part and we also know why.

What i meant is that it makes no sense at this point to spend too much on CR. The level of communication we get from hanne atm is fine imo.

And it is important to understand that Publisher to Customer communication always will be somehow limited in an RCE plattform.

Want to see the uproar in the forum if Hanne let's slip an information out that can be made to money if you are just under the first who reach the auction house?
In any other game you can tell people a lot about what is going on with developement and future features. In an RCE you must be very carefull.

Just today seen an experienced player complaining again why we don't get VU notes until the servers are up again. As if the reason would not be obvious enough. A lot of people still have not fully grasped the concept of an RCE.
 
NoBion said:
People have been asking for many years why there is no offical forum. i dont think we ever had a answer... Too much Moderator work lol?
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hmmm....who would want to pay for that forum ?
Like Leona already stated, _WE_ pay for it and seeing how many support cases are done almost out of fun, without the people even thinking that somebody has to pay the support stuff and that even those copy&paste answers cost worktime, do we really want a FPC/MA handled forum with a gazillion of 24/7 moderators ?
I would surely not want to spend any additional money, sometimes I even think that any useless support case should be charged.

A big part of the EU experience is, that the community has to solve some riddles MA makes for them. I really would not want that to change. Asking for more lore and story is something that is not too much to ask and should be provided in a great part by FPC.
 
With all due respect.. searching is fine for those that likely live their lives on EF but shouldn't it be the task of comm manager to target those that don't, and are likley to miss the breif comments within other peoples threads aswell as the short lived threads made by skamm?.. i remember when ..lets say..Marco made a small announcment like addressing a bug for example... his threads would live on the first page of today's posts for a week or more.

Day to day i log to EF and check recent post/threads and notice next to nothing and whenever i used the search option in the past i got a load irrelavent crap :p

Edit:.,...for example.. i jst searched for posts/threads about the ridiculous innacuracy of tp chips as i have just wasted 4 jumps coz i was sent completly the wrong direction(sent a support case about this btw).. got threads related to players hof's! LOL
 
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WoenK said:
hmmm....who would want to pay for that forum ?
Like Leona already stated, _WE_ pay for it and seeing how many support cases are done almost out of fun, without the people even thinking that somebody has to pay the support stuff and that even those copy&paste answers cost worktime, do we really want a FPC/MA handled forum with a gazillion of 24/7 moderators ?
I would surely not want to spend any additional money, sometimes I even think that any useless support case should be charged.

A big part of the EU experience is, that the community has to solve some riddles MA makes for them. I really would not want that to change. Asking for more lore and story is something that is not too much to ask and should be provided in a great part by FPC.
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Its the company's Job to provide grounds for the community to develop and remain strong. its not the players job to fund and run a big forum like this. If you think the loots should be lowered for a forum, your thinking it wrong. A company's Budget dont work like "okay now we put on a TV ad.. Remember to cut of 20% of general lot to fund it". Everytime they hire a new staff, They dont lower the loot pool by 2%?. Making a forum and running it is something that you add and run outside of the games economy. Its not like they withdraw money in/out of the games economy to fund different things. If they did it like that, it would be too obvious when they do any bigger investments...

The closest thing you can come to that is they are using the money that is "stuck" inside the economy to fund their investments, but basicly the money is never removed or the loot is never lowered. Like in a bank. The bank lends your money out, Or invests your money, But they are still aviable / inside your account. It doesent meen that because your bank makes a charity donation, you just lost 100$ in your bank account. As you seen happening in many countries where people had alot of money saved up. and the bank gone bankcrupt. They lost the money since the bank lost the money. if mindark closes tommorrow your money is gone because the money you put in that was sitting on their bank account has been put into staff / servers /forum / cryengine 2 or similiar.
 
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I think Hanne's doing ok tbh, the latest buzz reports are a good thing and she is present on the forum fairly often. People have to remember that she is an employee so can only answer or comment on things ok'd by her bosses.
 
NoBion said:
Its the company's Job to provide grounds for the community to develop and remain strong. its not the players job to fund and run a big forum like this. If you think the loots should be lowered for a forum, your thinking it wrong. A company's Budget dont work like "okay now we put on a TV ad.. Remember to cut of 20% of general lot to fund it". Everytime they hire a new staff, They dont lower the loot pool by 2%?. Making a forum and running it is something that you add and run outside of the games economy. Its not like they withdraw money in/out of the games economy to fund different things. If they did it like that, it would be too obvious when they do any bigger investments...

The closest thing you can come to that is they are using the money that is "stuck" inside the economy to fund their investments, but basicly the money is never removed or the loot is never lowered. Like in a bank. The bank lends your money out, Or invests your money, But they are still aviable / inside your account. It doesent meen that because your bank makes a charity donation, you just lost 100$ in your bank account. As you seen happening in many countries where people had alot of money saved up. and the bank gone bankcrupt. They lost the money since the bank lost the money. if mindark closes tommorrow your money is gone because the money you put in that was sitting on their bank account has been put into staff / servers /forum / cryengine 2 or similiar.
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I was not implying, that the loot is lowered or that they draw PEDs out of the economy. But their budget is tied to the decay we produce and they must keep within that budget. If you cycle a lots of PEDs you pay more for that budget than someone that cycles less. Would you be willing have your part of the budget be used for senseless support issues because someone was to lazy to search on his own ?
One I will allways remember is https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/general-discussion/111101-my-apartment-stolen.html .
I think with an official forum this support case would have been more expensive, because you would have moderators also working on it.
And in which language should the offcial forum be ?
You must cover all translated languages which once more raises the costs because either you have a few higher paid multilingual moderators or more lesser paid specialists. I would rather have that money invested in the evolution of the client and platform.
But I also would like a bit more entertainment for the 200 bucks I pay every month. Not much, would be satisfied even with some weekly trivia like "Marco farted and everybody did like they did not notice". Sounds silly, but gives you the feeling they are around, are humans and want to share a laugh.
Every week that passes and I do not read something except some "planned paysafe maintenance" makes me feel uneasy. That gives me the feeling like they do not care that much.
And a few offical lines every week are surely cheaper than having a support guy searching for over an hour for a "stolen" appartement :D
 
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