I think Pinky did a great job of trying to get some answers but like most, I don't see the community running around with warm fuzzy feelings? The last VU was much better and they are working towards tweaking it, they are moving in the right direction.
I'd like to offer some CONSTRUCTIVE ideas/comments, they arent meant as flames or bashing. I love
EU and really want to see it be the best it can be:
1) Updating the client loader is the most effective way to communicate to the player base. 520,000 user and only 11,000 are members here(
EF). Several people struggled to find the latest support news when the servers were down for the auction fix. The current loader shows the latest information is from April 6th and there could be some real benefit by updating it with "Team loot changes are being considered click here for more"
2) Hosting an official forum (at
MA) seems like the logical thing to do. First time players have several options as far as forums go but an official forum might help to retain some of the new players that come in. Following others isnt always the best practice but I cant think of another mainstream game that doesnt have their own forum. This would allow Marco to deposit his comments in one place and the other forums can pull from there. You could even throw the developer blogs in.
3) Open the voting booths back up if you want a true representation of what the comunity would like to see? Again, not everyone comes to
EF to express their opinion. This could be a huge time saver for
MA, imagine having the results right there in game instead of digging through 4 or 5 different forums.
4) Maybe a thread about Marco's thoughts that would be updated once a week. Even if it was just "system is stable, no issues to report" or "Due to legal reasons, we can not discuss the bot situation". This gives the perception of some communication and most of us drool for any lil bits or pieces we can get.
5) Throwing up a page of known offenders, people that are banned for good would be another way to communicate that
MA is working to level the playing field and that going outside the EULA is being dealt with.
6) Support support support! Ok, maybe we will never get back to the point of just jumping on IRC to let
MA know a server is down but with the additional support staff it would be nice if there was a way to contact someone when major bugs or server issues happen. People exploiting could be stopped almost imediately instead of allowing the exploit to continue, making the log parsers job much more difficult.
Its good news that Marco and Frank will have more time for public relations, we are all hungry for news, roadmaps, changes and things like when the next LG will happen. We have come a long way and things are getting better but we arent to the point where everyone feels like we get to much information.
Keep moving forward!