How D3 Perceives Their Communication -- In Their Words

bk1234

Yesterday I took the time to echo repeated sentiments that I, and MANY other players have made about the issues plaguing this game. I wish that when I wrote "Why I'm So Tinykitty Angry" (https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=58314#p630577) I had done a bit of research first and found this article:

"One year on: D3 Go on the evolution of Magic: The Gathering Puzzle Quest"
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/interview/64817/magic-the-gathering-puzzle-quest-one-year-on/

One of the biggest takeaways I got from your responses to my post is that we are fed up with the lack of communication. In this article, Brian Etheridge, Senior Director of Digital Operation at D3 Go! basically hails their amazing strategy of communicating with the player base as the reason MTGPQ is successful.

I'd like to take the time to discuss and raise some questions on the finer points of this article and look forward to community feedback:

1. "we added features that the players wanted to see after getting a handle on the base game and saw what players craved."
Where is our story mode? The one thing players ask for over and over is more story mode. We have even settled and said, just give us the PVE events as story mode -- this is probably the most discussed and wanted feature in this game and we have seen no movement on it. Instead we get BROKEN events and our favorite events are screwed up with dumb objectives so many dread playing them.

2. "MTGPQ, as we love to refer to it, has a slightly fluid team of about 30 people working on it at two different companies: D3 Go! and Hibernum."
For whoever noted on my post mentioned above that it's a really small team -- it's not. I've run a multi-million dollar nonprofit that served thousands with a smaller staff.

3. "A well-informed and accessible customer support team is crucial for the success of any game. We have our support team available seven days a week to help assist players that compete in numerous in-game events that we run each week."
I'm laughing so hard I have tears which makes it hard for me to see the keyboard to type LIES.
This game has the worst support of any game I have played -- the absolute worst. Again -- for my take on that, see the post I mentioned above.

4. "This proximity also allows our support team to quickly communicate any bugs that may be found after release so QA can address and share with development for a quick fix."
Wait, what? QA?

5. "It’s also important to have the community and social team very involved with the support efforts, as customers tend to communicate in the channels that they are most active in. Assisting players in the channels that they are most active helps us to get to solutions quicker and hopefully prevents players from being redirected from channel to channel."
I'm going to take a queue from "Mockingjay" here and invite everyone to play a game of "Real or Not Real": Multiple channels for support -- Real or Not Real? Not Real

6. "We have a strong marketing and social media presence on all the usual channels"
Where is this strong social media presence? They must be talking about shteev's Facebook page -- or the player built communities in Slack and Discord.

7. "On the community side, we maintain an active dialogue with the players in our forums and on social media."
A. See #6
B. See my post "Why I'm So Tinykitty Angry" (link above)
C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5HkuhSEnPQ
**Exception -- Brigby is really amazing at answering emails -- but his hands are generally tied.

7. "We love that our lead designers at Hibernum give us a ton of material to take back to the public and give them the in-depth information they ask for."
When did this happen? Did I miss it? Real or Not Real? Not Real

8. "On average, our day one retention is over 40% with several groups of players well above that."
I'd like to know the month 1 retention rate because the new player experience is horrendous.

9. "if we had a better way to teach players the basics of the game when we first launched, I think we would have more casual fans enjoying the game today."
Lucky for you -- there are many alt communities and development and feeder coalitions -- your seasoned player base picks up the slack and works tirelessly to engage people to stay in the game.

10. "My personal favorite is a card called Exert Influence, which lets me take the other player’s creatures and use them against them."
Really? Of all the cards, you pick this one?


Despite my apparent distaste, this article really lifted me up -- because I know WHY this game has thrived for over a year (and of course it's not D3 or Hibernum no matter what Brian Etheridge says).

It's each of us. The alternative communities for this game are amazing. The players that I've come to know over the past year are interesting and dynamic and passionate. It is an honor to play with each of you every week.

If pocketgamer.biz wants to know why we come back and why this game is succeeding despite the cheating, neverending bugs, and lack of communication -- For many of us, it's because we like playing this game together -- even when (quite often) we don't necessarily like playing this game. It's really that simple.

So thank you, to every who makes this game worth playing -- who keeps it fun and interesting -- who we can vent with and joke with -- you make MTGPQ worth it.

Special shoutout to TeamReckless, BlackLotus, 0blivion, tinykitty and TinyPuppy.... for me, you make it all worthwhile.
(also you, shteev)

Mainloop25

It is true, of all the things they keep screwing up with, coalitions are one thing they got right. if it weren't for coalitions and the community that has grown around them, I would have gotten bored and put this game down a long time ago.

Steeme

bken1234 wrote:

2. "MTGPQ, as we love to refer to it, has a slightly fluid team of about 30 people working on it at two different companies: D3 Go! and Hibernum."
For whoever noted on my post mentioned above that it's a really small team -- it's not. I've run a multi-million dollar nonprofit that served thousands with a smaller staff.

Actually, 30 people is quite small. I work for a software company, and we have between 100-150 employees. Out of all of those employees, maybe half of them are dead weight (not joking). There are only 20 people actually doing any development work, the rest are QA, BA, Support, Client services, etc.. And out of those 20, maybe 5 of us are doing most of the work, the others show up late for work, take long lunches, take extra coffee breaks, etc.

When you boil everything down... it is actually quite a small team that is working on the actual software.

Nitymp

This post makes me angry for so many reasons!

1. "we added features that the players wanted to see after getting a handle on the base game and saw what players craved."

Really? Have you? The only big thing that we really wanted that you actually implemented was the longer node timers in events. What about new story mode? What about PW deck saving? What about matchmaking? What about stupid time based tiebreakers? What about actual PVP? What about having practice matches against coalition mate decks? What about being able to see secondary objectives on a node in-game BEFORE selecting a PW?
Oh, you did give us all that blue UI that we craved tho.

3. "A well-informed and accessible customer support team is crucial for the success of any game. We have our support team available seven days a week to help assist players that compete in numerous in-game events that we run each week."

Your support team is an absolute joke. For reference, see the many forum posts complaining about it. And all the discussions on facebook and slack about how notoriously bad your support is.

4. "This proximity also allows our support team to quickly communicate any bugs that may be found after release so QA can address and share with development for a quick fix."

Communicate? Really?

Also, maybe your QA "team" (if they exist?) should find bugs BEFORE they release things??

Also, a quick fix would be a hotfix, rather than waiting until the next update some few weeks away. Seriously, if you find a bug and you have fixed it, then IMPLEMENT THE FIX ASAP instead of making us the players suffer through the bug for another few weeks.

And while I'm on it, maybe when you fix a bug you don't introduce 2 or 3 new ones because you lacked foresight?

5. "It’s also important to have the community and social team very involved with the support efforts, as customers tend to communicate in the channels that they are most active in. Assisting players in the channels that they are most active helps us to get to solutions quicker and hopefully prevents players from being redirected from channel to channel."

6. "We have a strong marketing and social media presence on all the usual channels"

7. "On the community side, we maintain an active dialogue with the players in our forums and on social media."

Players are way more active on facebook, slack and discord than the forums. It used to be the case that the majority of things on the forums were swept under the rug and/or ignored, (thanks Hi-Fi). Maybe you should actually have more of a presence than you say you do.

(However, credit where credit is due: Brigby has been quite active and does respond to things and passes things on. Its just unfortunate that Brigby can't actually action or implement things.)

7. "We love that our lead designers at Hibernum give us a ton of material to take back to the public and give them the in-depth information they ask for."

Now, to be fair, there has been a bit more information coming out recently. But, the 'monthly' development thread lasted only 2 months and the recent update notes don't give any details about what the new event objectives will do. This feels like 1 step forwards but 2 steps back.

The real in-depth information we want is a forward schedule of what's coming out in terms of events/exclusive offers/event prize rewards. It doesn't matter if they change, but it would just be nice to be able to plan ahead. E.g. people not being able to get Saheeli or Dynavolt/Aetherworks because they planned to go away for that weekend and couldn't play.

However, I know that this goes against your psychological ploy of inducing scarcity and promoting impulsive spending, so you'll never do it.

To add to this, all your tests about mechanics and what you think will be good/fun/competitive are all internal. I'm sorry, but whilst I don't deny that you guys do play the game, I don't think you play it to the same level as the majority of the vocal community on here.
I strongly advise and suggest that you get some beta testers from the public (make us sign NDAs if you are worried about leaks, which will lead to an account wipe or something) and you can get actual feedback about new releases and tweak things BEFORE they go live and cause a potential outcry on the forums.




To mirror what the people have said in this thread already - I would have quit this game a long time ago if it wasn't for the communities on facebook and slack and most definitely because of my coalition GoblinPile. I have tried to quit about 3 times due to my distrust and lack of faith in the game's direction, but those guys keep reeling me back in.

bk1234

Steeme wrote:

bken1234 wrote:

2. "MTGPQ, as we love to refer to it, has a slightly fluid team of about 30 people working on it at two different companies: D3 Go! and Hibernum."
For whoever noted on my post mentioned above that it's a really small team -- it's not. I've run a multi-million dollar nonprofit that served thousands with a smaller staff.

Actually, 30 people is quite small. I work for a software company, and we have between 100-150 employees. Out of all of those employees, maybe half of them are dead weight (not joking). There are only 20 people actually doing any development work, the rest are QA, BA, Support, Client services, etc.. And out of those 20, maybe 5 of us are doing most of the work, the others show up late for work, take long lunches, take extra coffee breaks, etc.

When you boil everything down... it is actually quite a small team that is working on the actual software.

This is referring to the MTGPQ development team. Not the employee base of D3 as a whole.

Fake Cards

Well... Alve tidied up the PlanesWalker forums. That was pretty sweet.

D3's main priority is to puke out new content so people will buy it. Now that they've caught up to paper MTG release dates, one can only hope they take the time to start implementing basic features that every other mobile game seems to have.

I love this game. It has an insane amount of potential. But now that I stopped playing, there has been absolutely no incentive for me to pick it up again.

majincob

bken1234 wrote:

Steeme wrote:

bken1234 wrote:

2. "MTGPQ, as we love to refer to it, has a slightly fluid team of about 30 people working on it at two different companies: D3 Go! and Hibernum."
For whoever noted on my post mentioned above that it's a really small team -- it's not. I've run a multi-million dollar nonprofit that served thousands with a smaller staff.

Actually, 30 people is quite small. I work for a software company, and we have between 100-150 employees. Out of all of those employees, maybe half of them are dead weight (not joking). There are only 20 people actually doing any development work, the rest are QA, BA, Support, Client services, etc.. And out of those 20, maybe 5 of us are doing most of the work, the others show up late for work, take long lunches, take extra coffee breaks, etc.

When you boil everything down... it is actually quite a small team that is working on the actual software.

This is referring to the MTGPQ development team. Not the employee base of D3 as a whole.

I interpreted it as referring to everyone involved with MTGPQ since I know there are no D3 employees actually working on development.

Mersicidal

bken1234 wrote:

3. "A well-informed and accessible customer support team is crucial for the success of any game. We have our support team available seven days a week to help assist players that compete in numerous in-game events that we run each week."

If this is true how come the support response email says customer service is only open Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM PST??

Lets hope i don't have to wait 2 months to get my ticket resolved

Sorin81

This Brian Etheridge interview is rubbish. I don't know if he believes what he is saying or if he's regurgitating this steaming load of information he's been fed for PR reasons.
Communication and customer support are a joke.
I have never used social media. I never had a need. That is until I needed the support team to restore my game. Their lack of communication brought me to the forums.
Almost immediately I found Reaganstorme's post "Waiting for Support responses..."
I was close to giving up on this game before joining the community and finding real support.

Astralwind

Hardly surprised. We can find all these **** lies everywhere in the world.

But say, if he was to be honest and said all the real stuffs, I bet no newcomer would ever want to join this game. Lest, it's for the love of MTG.

gruntface

Well, this was a great re-read given recent developments.

Babo21

Just my 2 cents .... I don't like the direction this game is taking. I'm not going to spend anymore money on this until things get back to what they were. The only reason I'm still here is the amazing comunity of players, and it is slowly tearing apart. So... Stop saying lies and do some actual listening to the comunity. I guess that this game will end in less then a couple of months of you dont get this huge mistake corrected.