Posted by kcsundevil on 11/8/2017 8:50:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zagsrulez on 11/8/2017 7:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/8/2017 6:32:00 PM (view original):
First, let's not assume "we all".

Second, that's not a productive use of time. I believe you either edit or run a newspaper. Would it be a productive use of time, or space, to put a half page/quarter page explanation of what you intend to do to make your paper better than the other guy, or the internet, once a week?

Status reports are very productive. It keeps whoever the audience updated in the current progress going on. In this case, it would make the customers feel more like they are apart of the enhancement process, even if very little to nothing has been accomplished. Because everyone feels more comfortable knowing that there is a set plan in place and what the goals for the future are. At this point, any status update would be better than the complete silence we are getting now. Hence this thread being created.

at my job, I have daily standup meetings with my development team, it’s great to hear about what others are working on and easy to provide assistance if any of us are struggling on a certain task. And we must also provide our coding plans for next work day. So I’m telling you from experience that it works pretty well if everyone is transparent.

Do you invite your customers to these stand up meetings?

Seble has bigger fish to fry than mollifying customers who are sad because the EE process is working as intended.

Of course not. But weekly reports are sent to shareholders who fund the projects. There are forms available for customers to submit their ideas for possible enhancements and cosmetic fixes. All submissions are reviewed with shareholders and execs. Small enhancements and fixes that have a low level of effort (less than 150 hours) are eligible to skip the shareholder approval process and moved to our BAU (business as usual) bucket where development begins immediately with no approvals.

Frankly there is no need for to update customers on project status when their software is consistently being improved and new software releases happen every TWO weeks.

Then again, it’s not good to compare a well running development team to one that is trying to get back on its feet.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/8/2017 6:32:00 PM (view original):
First, let's not assume "we all".

Second, that's not a productive use of time. I believe you either edit or run a newspaper. Would it be a productive use of time, or space, to put a half page/quarter page explanation of what you intend to do to make your paper better than the other guy, or the internet, once a week?

If I had a bunch of customers who were posting on a message board (or something like Facebook) that all of my customers could read, about how frustrated they were because my company seemed to them like they were disengaged, I think this would be the very best possible use of my time. Having customers publicly complain breeds more of it, and causes everyone's opinion of the product to go down. I would drop everything to do this right away without a second thought.

I would rather keep my existing customers happy and paying, and talking about my great customer service, as opposed to steadily losing customers who are frustrated with my product and talking about my company in a negative way. It's terrible for business to have unhappy customers that feel unimportant to the ownership. No business can survive long term with this kind of relationship with customers. And it is much easier to keep a customer than to gain a new one. Happy customers are much more likely to encourage others to use my product.

So, to answer your question, this would be my top priority - to try to regain the support of my customer base.

Plus, it's a great use of time to make slight improvements to my product, and to let customers know that improvements are coming by spending an hour or two, or even a day, outlining and planning what I am going to do and notifying my customers about it, being sure that I will live up to what I tell them, and then delivering on my promises.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/8/2017 8:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zagsrulez on 11/8/2017 7:51:00 PM (view original):
Warm and fuzzy would keep many of us paying and playing. But maybe they don’t care about user retention, maybe they are hoping Mike gets bored and frustrated then quits HD before they start improving the site.

Nobody is quitting now because of "lack of communication/attention". If so, they'd have been gone quite some time ago. How many times do I need to say this?

And you know this how?

Posted by Benis on 11/9/2017 6:46:00 AM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/8/2017 8:57:00 PM (view original):

Posted by zagsrulez on 11/8/2017 7:51:00 PM (view original):
Warm and fuzzy would keep many of us paying and playing. But maybe they don’t care about user retention, maybe they are hoping Mike gets bored and frustrated then quits HD before they start improving the site.

Nobody is quitting now because of "lack of communication/attention". If so, they'd have been gone quite some time ago. How many times do I need to say this?

And you know this how?

Oh wait, I should have said-

"First let's not assume NOBODY".

benis, mostly common sense. As I said previously, the lack of attention/communication began when FOX bought this site. That was 7-8 years ago, right? So.....has there been some terrible breaking point over the last 2 1/2 months that has caused users to say "GODDAMMIT!!! I'M SO SICK AND TIRED OF THIS LACK OF COMMUNICATION/ATTENTION!!! I'M DONE!!!"? I guess that could have happened but, to me, it seems someone with common sense would think "Well, SportsHub bought the site. I'm sure they didn't make the purchase to lose money and let the site die. Let's give them a little time to see what happens."

chapel, while that's a well thought out response, do you think a weekly "Hey guys, I know you're not seeing changes but, trust us, we're working behind the scenes to get things done in the near future" will stop the griping and complaining on THIS message board? I certainly do not. Every post by Site Staff is met with negativity. Some from people who know longer play the game but most from those who do.

I don't disagree that what you're saying is what most people would probably think. But. You know that we all can't even agree around here that the sun is hot.

But I could see some folks out there that are fence sitters and who are frustrated with some elements of the new game but have stuck around this whole time. They hear about sports hub and say okay I'll stick around a little longer. After awhile of hearing nothing they say "eff it" and hang it up.

Do I personally need to hear anything? No. But some people are teetering on the edge of sticking around so maybe a carrot dangling is enough.

I'm not sure the fence sitters are going to be happy with updates/changes anyway. It seems to me that most of the fence sitters simply don't like HD3. There aren't going to be any drastic changes that solves their problems.

I'd like to think a "We've finally assembled our team. There are several issues, with ALL of WifS' games, that we are examining. We hope to pinpoint the most troublesome in the very near future and get to work on resolving them. Thanks for your patience" post would placate those who long for attention and communication. But we know it wouldn't. Within a couple of weeks someone bumps that thread and says "It's been two weeks. Well?" Then this process starts again.

I forgot to address this in my initial post this AM: "If I had a bunch of customers who were posting on a message board...."

I don't really think there are "a bunch of customers" complaining. I think it's a handful. As I've said repeatedly, there are maybe 20-25 users who post regularly in this forum. Of those 20-25, less than half are whining for attention. So you have 10-12 out of 500(conservative) to 1000(maybe too high) who are complaining about a lack of communication. IOW, a tiny percentage.

Are people only complaining on the HD forums? What do the sim league, HBD, and GD look like?

No complaints in HBD. I don't play the other games so I don't know about their forums.

LOL. I checked SLB(used to be super whiny) and GD. No threads like this one on the front page.

HD: Whiniest Forum at WifS

Read through this thread

Most people commenting and asking for updates and communication are from non HD users.

"- You should definitely expect updates to all the games in the future. As I mentioned, I'll have my hands full in the short term with the transition and building a new staff. One of my main goals going forward is to become as transparent as what we're working on and what's coming in the future. I know it's frustrating to be in the dark, so I'll do my best to keep that from happening."

From Seble in August nearly 3 months ago.

I'm fine with being left in the dark, doesn't really bother me. But it seems to annoy others quite a bit.

Are you saying he's not doing his best? I don't think we know that.

As someone mentioned earlier, maybe he has bigger fish to fry right now. They did some kind of update to SLB. If I had to guess, that's the biggest moneymaker on this site.