Moderation team update - July 2016

[Alena Rybik]

Hello fellow moderators,

Time for another short update from my corner of the world. For one, I’ve added you your em$ for June, did it last week already in case you haven’t noticed.

And here all the musings.

Game
After the last patch the situation with the game quality has become much, much better. Although I’ve pretty much given up on the hope that we one day will fix all the bugs, I still feel like it’s the beginning of a new era (or rather return to the old one, before WRR and crashes). Anyway, it feels much lighter both in the community and the team, with the majority of crashes gone, so we can actually focus on “normal” game development again and take a break from a constant fire-fighting, reactive and defensive mode. Thanks to those of you who contributed to this immensely and let’s hope it’ll last for a bit

Team
With Daniel and Danny leaving and shorty on parental leave, we are (again) looking for more people. The new lead programmer is starting very soon, and we are actively interviewing people for a game designer position, and we found a nice animator as well, no news on when he is joining us though. The team has changed a lot in the last year, and all of a sudden I am almost the one who has been here the longest (except for Emil), feels weird but it’s good too. New people with energy, new skills and a new way of thinking are great, although the game knowledge lost with people who are gone is of course tough.

Forum and moderation
I think that moderation-wise we have been doing pretty great recently, and I am super happy with how everything has been going, how active yet subtle you are on the forum, well, with everything. Keep up the good work! I hope you feel good about this as well.

Private stuff
Nothing new from the private area this time, alas. Things have been rather quiet, no vacations, only work and (almost) no play. We’ve found a new butcher’s shop we love next to the place we live, so I guess this is a highlight Hope your summer is going better than mine!

At least I saw a woman with two parrots on her shoulders the other day on the bus:

[Tanngnjostr]

Thanks for the update Alena and I agree with everything! Game and forum are much more fun again.

Sitting on a bench in the Tiergarten right now, doing a bit of tourist stuff and the weather in Berlin is great, so I hope you can all feel the love!!!

Regarding the parrot woman: I'm sure she's raising them for another dress.

[Alena Rybik]

Thanks for the update Alena and I agree with everything! Game and forum are much more fun again.

Sitting on a bench in the Tiergarten right now, doing a bit of tourist stuff and the weather in Berlin is great, so I hope you can all feel the love!!!

Regarding the parrot woman: I'm sure she's raising them for another dress.

Haha, I thought too that her dress was matching

All my love to Berlin. If you have a spare evening, have dinner at this place: http://www.poveracci.de/ One of our favourite restaurants in Berlin, and not far away from where you are

[caledonianblues]

Ah, Poveracci

They sell profiteroles to die for.

[TundraPuppy]

Thank you for the em$

I agree that it seems like the forums are a lot more palatable now with the crash fix in place. I think also, "culling some of the herd" that was more vociferous about the issues they felt slighted on has helped that too - there's less poking the smoldering fires to get them started up again going on. One of the interesting threads was about how quiet the forum has gotten lately, with a few people passive aggressively posting about how essentially "no one talks because if they say bad stuff, they get hammered", so it appears the moderation about how to approach discussion has finally gotten through.

Interesting parrots. My roommate says that in Salem, Massachusetts, where she used to live, there is a guy who has a macaw parrot and he will dress up like a pirate and walk around the city with the bird on his shoulder.

[Tod1d]

Game, yes much better. And the atmosphere in the forum. I'm absolutely certain there are many bugs that will never be fixed.
Unless the "good enough" philosophy from the leadership changes...
When customers have to jump in & help crush the most serious bugs, it just screams, "AMATEUR!"
Which I'm sure contributes to the attrition rate.

Mod team. I've noticed many examples of helping each other out, and we seem to be getting better on consistency.
Of course, we get a curve ball like JHBOAD every once in a while

Parrot lady = Urban Pirate

Personal. My boss was nagging me to take more vacation. As of July 1 I had only taken 1.5 days. So... I took every Friday off for the rest of summer.
Next real vacation will be November for Deer hunting.

Be Well

[Tanngnjostr]

Ah, Poveracci

They sell profiteroles to die for.

Then let's do this together when we meet in Berlin.
For tonight I saw a small Georgian restaurant in Kreuzberg that I want to try. Yummy for sure.

[killertut]

Glad that everybody is doing fine.
Alena, please teach the new people how to be an EW employee
and thanks for the em$

[Alena Rybik]

I am going to add you your July em$ today and we'll also have a new Steam moderator joining us here (will create a separate topic for that).

I agree that it seems like the forums are a lot more palatable now with the crash fix in place. I think also, "culling some of the herd" that was more vociferous about the issues they felt slighted on has helped that too - there's less poking the smoldering fires to get them started up again going on. One of the interesting threads was about how quiet the forum has gotten lately, with a few people passive aggressively posting about how essentially "no one talks because if they say bad stuff, they get hammered", so it appears the moderation about how to approach discussion has finally gotten through.

Yes, I was watching that thread too, especially when Oswald and m made their eloquent posts It's pretty interesting that it was Liam who started it, he seems to be very appreciative of the forums.

there is a guy who has a macaw parrot and he will dress up like a pirate and walk around the city with the bird on his shoulder.

Love people like that

Game, yes much better. And the atmosphere in the forum. I'm absolutely certain there are many bugs that will never be fixed.
Unless the "good enough" philosophy from the leadership changes...
When customers have to jump in & help crush the most serious bugs, it just screams, "AMATEUR!"
Which I'm sure contributes to the attrition rate.

Agree about the amateur part, but not sure at all that contributes to the attrition rate, at least not noticeably. Majority seems to be happy that they can play the game again and not care about the source of the fix. But the fact doesn't create much trust into EW's bug-fixing abilities, although it's not the lack of skills but lack of prioritization that caused this to go on for so long.

Personal. My boss was nagging me to take more vacation. As of July 1 I had only taken 1.5 days. So... I took every Friday off for the rest of summer.

Oh my, don't know whether I would be able to go on for half a year with 1.5 of vacation days. You probably don't have a community of theHunter player to manage on the everyday basis

Alena, please teach the new people how to be an EW employee

Yes sir! I'll do my best, but people seem to get dipped into the EW family like culture very quickly anyway.

[Tod1d]

I meant the attrition rate of EW employees, not players.