Courtesy?

Good post. I think the problem is that people do not understand how much work it actually takes to create, maintain, and alter a game such as this... as well as these Dev's working on other pieces of software. Sure I would like to see some things changed and fixed as well, but, for the most part, this game rocks as-is. I have seen far worse games. This game is just great!

What really amazes me, is that some companies such as EA realease very horrid games, but yet, people play a good one such as this and can still complain. Command and Conquer 3, I do believe, released and did not have a specified port that the game run on... so you could only connect and play with a DMZ enabled if you were running static IP's. AMAZING!!

Anyways, I am very impressed by Demigod and find it to be a blast. A great game for sure. People, learn some patience and give the dev's some time to fix things.

Good post, OP.

I completely agree. 

A simple fact that is sadly lost on many.  

Only a matter of time before someone jumps in with an exciting, had to be spoken, counterpoint... these counter point won't refute  the 2nd quote above in any way, shape or form, but...

The fact is that if you pay for something, you should get what you pay for. When the product is not working, people get upset.

Has nothing to do with age.

You can be upset and still post your complaints in a constructive and courteous manner.

Agree completely. As someone who works in the service industry, I can say that I want to help people who are rude so much more then those who calmy explain their problem...yea right. The simple fact is, you can be upset, but you don't have to be an ass about it.

Exactly. All complaints should be courteous, atleast somewhat. When I have to complain about something I always try to be a bit nice... You always get better help and reception then.

youre talking about a game, played over the internet, by gamers. enough said.

Ok attempted this route and got nothing from the devs.

Yes. there is alot of work that goes into the game, and *may* continue go into this game. And yes when I do a hostile post I actually got a response, Although the response from the dev was pretty much saying gtfo and go play another game, but at elast i got a response... ^^

Dwarf: Forum posting is a priviledge.  We understand you are unhappy with the game/service/whatever. Going from post to post complaining is not constructive.

My point being, when people get upset, they tend to get angry... and over the internet we all know what happens.

Getting constructive critique may be all fine and dandy if you are using your free time to work on something, but if you are just doing your job, you should really just take the pain if someone complains. Usually people have a reason when they are angry.

Not that I am using such harsh language as "flamers" or whatever.

Esuzu: so basically what you are saying is that you want people to be more like you nice one.

Dwarf, you've been through a number of threads already spreading your whining. Wouldn't the amount of time spent on the forums bitching have roughly added up to the amount of time it would take to buy a new game if you spent it working, instead of being a jerk? Just curious.

Honestly, I think the whiners on this forum and SD are both to blame. The whiners should be wording their posts in a more courteous manner. SD should be locking threads, temp banning, and perma banning offenders and keeping remarks aimed at an individual to pms rather than making posts telling offenders to "go somwhere else" or "find another game". I personally find that very unprofessional.

If only children acted acted irrationally, there wouldn't be any wars on the world.

People have the right to complain you know, and if you reach a breaking point, usually people act irrationally, can't deny our nature, we act like animals when we are angry.

In a perfect world, asking kindly would resolve any problems, with some chat, etc.

Thats not how things work, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT ENVOLVES MONEY.

You can't deny the fact the people are giving up playing the game because of several issues, i do not know many of them because i stopped reading the forums after the reduce in the Frogboy journal updates.

The fact is, you can't blame people for complaining, no matter what the tone they use, if theres a real reason to it.

In real life, most of the time courtesy don't work, in the internet, even less.

Complaining solves nothing, regardless how real the underlying issues may be.

Actually complaining solves alot, like my ISP not working from time to time... 

Complaining

Gets shit done

^

I am not sure in which world or country you live in but where I live courtesy helps you out a lot. And even if it doesn't help; will we go so far as Dwarf and just being rude just because we want something done?

Internet is a big problem when it comes to being nice, you can be anonymous quite easily if you want. And people tend to believe that just because you use another name than you normally do you leave your usual-self behind. And many of those who do that act like idiots on the internet.

Personally I beleive that everything we do, even on the internet, adds up to who we are. So if you are a jerk on the web. Well, then you are a jerk. As simple as that.

Thanks for saying this.  I have been feeling the same way.  I have mostly stopped posting due to the negativity on here.  It just get's old and Ican spend my time doing something better than reding negativity.

You're right it does get shit done.  Complaining isn't necessarily the problem but rather the way it is done.  I spent many a time trying to fix issues with my ip to play just this game and L4D, and sometime I get upset.  Complaining is okay, being upset is okay.  Doing nothing but posting hate all the time is too much.

The difference is you have an ongoing monthly contract with your ISP, they have to fix your problem or next month they aren't providing a service.  SD and GPG made a game which you purchased, and they could be like other companies and screw you by making abondonware.  SD and GPG is trying there best to support this game, but treating them like crap is not really going to get them to give us more or give it to us faster, in fact it is the reason the CEO never comes on here anymore.  If you ask me, that one fact means we lost more than we could have ever gained by being rude.

Actually most ISPs where I live have contracts ranging from 3 months to a year.

In any case, I have played alot of games in my time. And not many is close to being so broken and having so much problems as demigod has. With the launch, everyone was saying that sure, all games have a rought launch. But it has been what 5 months now? I can understand people getting upset for buying a broken product.

Saying people are not allowed to express themselves how they want even on the internet (the free forum) is the beginning down a scary path of censorship. We don't need another nazi germany (or a post 9/11 USA for that matter)

Nothing is free on the internet, this is the companies website.  If you want to express hate consider a blog that no one will read.  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should or that everyone will care to hear it on a continual basis.

This game is far from the worst I have seen.  I could be wrong but the real problem with this game is the clear ability for it to be great, I know that is what frustrates me about demigod.

While I certainly agree that many posters could be a good deal more respectful, SD has also done a poor job on these forums.

Listen, its the internet.  There are going to be some people who are rude and obnoxious.  Its a fact of life.  Starting all these threads whining and whiners (ironic, no?) and having SD employees throw hissy fits about that kind of stuff is just amateur stuff.  Frogboy himself was pretty much starting flamewars with people until he burned out.

There are right and wrong ways to moderate forums.  SD is making consistently poor decisions in moderating this one IMO.  For example, pacov started a thread asking for community questions.  In this thread a few (meaning 2-3) people asked jackass questions (as had to be expected - as I said, its the internet).  They were immediately shouted down by a good number of pro SD people.  Yet the entire thread, which was mostly positive content, was locked down because of the inevitable few acting like jerks.

This is completley the wrong way to do things.  If you must eliminate whiners, DELETE/EDIT their posts.  Locking down whole threads that are mostly positive and contained a good deal of work from a nice, positive community member (pacov) is just horrible horrible horrible moderating.

Another problem is letting people vent.  In a game which unfortunately still has some problems, people are going to get frustrated.  Letting them vent is a good way to defuse things.  A company just cutting people off when they point out legitimate problems is a terrible idea since it just makes things worse IMO.  There needs to be a few threads allowed where people can do their complaining and moaning.  Yeah, you cant let it take over the forums, but you also should give frustrated customers some room to vent their emotions.  It really does help I think.  You can move excessive threads to one or two giant whine threads if you want.

This way your whiners can whine and get it off their chests without polluting the whole forum.  And they also wont get really mad because the perceive that SD is ignoring them.

You also have to differentiate between repeat complainers and first time complainers.  Some people whine non stop and therefore need to be handled.  But a lot of people just come on the forums, point out a legitimate issues that has been discussed to death (but dont realize it because they dont use the forums that much).  Posts like that should be moved to some kind of master whine thread sure, but locking them down and generally acting like jerks to some people is terrible.

The example I'm thinking of here is when Phire came on (and he wasnt a big forum user), pointed out that DG wasnt working correctly on his machine (a common issue at the time), and Frogboy personally ripped him a new one for bringing up a known issue again.  Come on, stop acting like amateurs.  He had hardly posted at all and was pointing out a legitimate issue.  He wasnt aware of the fact that it had been discussed to death, and so you have to rip him a new one?  Stuff like that is really bad.

Really SD/Frogboy's own behavior has lead to a small part of the acrimony that is sometimes on these boards.  Frankly ruining a perfectly good thread (like pacov's community input thread) due to the amateur (IMO) modding of a few bad apples makes me upset and lose faith in SD, and I'm sure that it upsets others too.

Given the amount of bugs and problems in DG still (this isnt meant as a dig - I'm just pointing out the fact that there are a lot more bugs still in the game than I think most people still expected and I bet that even SD/GPG expected fewer bugs at this point in the game's lifespan) I think that the community is pretty saintly.  I've been in games like this before, and the complaining and whining was MUCH MUCH MUCH worse.  If anybody thinks that DG's community is tainted or excessively mean, well, I can only think that they have played extremely few multiplayer games because this community is EXTREMELY mild.

I agree with a lot of what Krazikarl has to say (and because I'm a nobody, this should matter, right?). I was disappointed that Istari locked pacov's thread for the same reasons, it seems the offending comments should have been removed. However, I'm not a forum moderator, nor aware of SD's moderation policies. My stance will always try to be respective of our hosts.

However, I also disagree in part with Krazikarl. Games focused on the teenage demographic, like FPSs and many RTSs tend to have a larger proportion of immature users, who do tend to sometimes get out of hand. This is however, not acceptable behavior, regardless if it is the internet or not. People are accountable for their own behavior, regardless of what medium it is displayed through. SD seems to have taken the approach of respecting our right to monitor ourselves, by typically not editting or removing posts, however this stance has also seem to be taken not as personal respect for the customer, but as neglect by our hosts.

As an example of a behaved community, let me direct you to a complaint post & the starting quote from the official Europa Universalis 3 forum (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=423555).

too many pirates

---

it was insane. over the course of a month pirates popped up along every single one of my North American holdings. it really broke the game for me. im asking for one of 2 things 1) can someone show me how to take out the pirates? with code or something like that? be very detailed please. or 2) tell me how to patrol. i dont understand exactly how to do it. the first one would be preferable. thank you

My point is that you cannot control how people act on the internet.  For better or for worse (and probably for worse), a large segment of the internet population is going to act like a jerk if things dont go their way.

What SD can control is how they respond to such things.  This means being ready for the inevitable immature behavior, having thick skin, and not responding emotionally or foolishly to it.

I do not believe that alienating the rather large segment of the internet that will act like a jerk at times is a wise course of action for any company.  SD seems to be of the opinion that alienating such people is better than just not letting that kind of stuff get to you.  I disagree with this approach.

It doesnt make any sense to compare the communities of primarily single player games to almost exclusively multiplayer games IMO.  They are just two completely different beasts.  Its like comparing Sudoku players to basketball players.  Plus, SD certainly doesnt need my input on running successful mostly single player games given their past success with such things.

For a multiplayer game with a few flaws, DG's community is remarkably tame.  In fact, it is one the best behaved multiplayer communities I have ever seen all things considered.  I really think that the immature behavior that you associate with FPS and RTS games actually is in almost all primarily multiplayer games.  For example, look at the community in pretty much any MMORPG also.

I'd challenge you to find a moderately popular primarily multiplayer game whose community is substantially better behaved than DGs.

Oh, I absolutely understand why they are frustrated.  But part of being a professional at something is not letting that kind of stuff effect how you act toward others.  SD clearly and consistently takes out their sometimes deserved frustration on relatively innocent bystanders IMO.

Godwin strikes again!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law

P.S.  Nice post OP.

i laughed.