Posted by seble on 5/29/2013 12:01:00 PM (view original):
Posted by ike1024 on 5/29/2013 11:53:00 AM (view original):
And let me say this to seble, although I can't imagine you're reading this:
as always I think you are admirably diplomatic in the face of angry customers. However, although I'm sure you aren't thinking about HD all day long, I think a lot of the dissatisfaction could be alleviated with a little addtional customer contact. We pay for this, it would be nice if we felt like WiS paid any attention to it.
I agree, it would be beneficial to have better communication. With all the things we have going on, that's one thing that tends to slip through the cracks unfortunately. I do try to scan the forums periodically to look for anything major, but it's hard to get into discussions without dedicating a lot time for the back and forth.
Me coming in and randomly making one post in a thread and then disappearing probably isn't beneficial in most cases. So unless I'm able to devote several hours of my day to discussion, I generally don't comment.
i can understand where you are coming from on this. that said, i used to read every thread and posted in a great deal of them, for over a year, and it was about an hour a day. i can see it being more time consuming for you because you have to be a lot more politically correct, think things through, and all that. but none of us are asking you to read every thread and answer a question in 25% of them.
like so many things in life, its all about the 80/20 rule. here, its more like a 95/5 rule. you can address 5% of the issues and get 95% of the benefit. for example, when a release comes out, you do a dev chat - that is a tremendously valuable use of your time, in the communication space. you could spend 10 times that on the forums and get far less accomplished. its all about the low hanging fruit, the high value low time stuff. when the rules of a game get changed, that is one of those things. even if it would have taken you half a day to address this then - how many days would that have saved you since!? i imagine youve had to spend at least 10 times more time and effort, experiencing maybe 100 times the stress, as a result of dealing with this issue in pieces as **** comes up, instead of nipping it in the bud and heading things off in the first place.
anyway, when you mention you didnt realize how many people had teams close together, i can understand that. but again, the answer is communication. a simple inquiry on the forums a year ago, before making the change, you'd have had a ton of guys step forward. we all would have wanted you to know we had multiple teams. at least, those of us using them responsibly would have.
a final note, you posted a response to an early question about where you gave people advice about how to handle the situation. your post from the fair play guidelines says, "in case of accidental..." - there was no accident for some people. we picked up teams and built resumes over a number of years. i didnt accidentally have two teams within 1000 miles when you changed the rule. it was intentional. this isnt about nitpicking the word, its a TOTALLY different situation. on one hand, ok if you didnt realize two teams were so close, send a ticket and we will move you. on the other hand, you've spent possibly 5 years building something up, thats a totally different case.
also, you asked what i meant by "start over". there are a few cases here, i think you may only be considering the simplest easiest case. that case is, i have 2 teams, and have to move one, and a similar opening exists over 1000 miles away. that happens sometimes, but its not the majority case. most of these guys with 2 teams in a world for several years play at a pretty high level. giving up an a+ prestige school to move somewhere else, 1000 miles away from illinois, which wipes out 75% of the big 6 schools (probably more than 75), isnt that simple. even though its not starting over, it can *easily* be a year long hit just to get back where i was - and its not just the year, or the 12 seasons one has to spend, its also having to give up the program you love, in the conference you love.
however, thats still an easy case. what about 3 teams in a world? what if there are no BCS openings and you have to start in a new world? to me, being excluded from playing in the big east, acc, sec, big ten, and big 12, because i have SIUE in d2 tark, doesnt leave me a lot of options. picking up a new team in a new world and starting from scratch is one of the only options left. but that is an incredibly long process, why should i have to spend 2 years and 20+ seasons to get back to high level d1? why should anyone?
a final note, its just not about teams. its also about resumes. having an a+ qualified d1 resume is something you cant easily reproduce. having to give that up (which is the case for me in tark) really sucks, because it takes forever to rebuild, and i have 0 interest in playing d3 and d2 and low d1 again somewhere else.
anyway, im glad you agree communication should be stepped up. but now that we are talking about it, and you recognize the impact of that rule change is way bigger than you originally thought (a lot more users, and maybe even, bigger impact to individual users than you anticipated), it begs the question... is there anything that can be done to facilitate the transition? there are still a lot of coaching with multiple teams within 1000 miles, they wont post here, but they are still being faced with a situation where they put a ton of time and effort into building both teams, both resumes, and basically if they keep playing them, the worst case is they lose a team - the same scenario as if they voluntarily give up the team themselves. its equally painful and these people have done nothing wrong to get into the situation in the first place. whether they have to move teams in a world, or move to a different world, its still a huge blow, and frankly, it doesnt seem genuine to say this is such an important issue we will make this rule, but its not important enough to do anything to help mediate and facilitate a transition for those found on the wrong side of the line in the sand. most of us, at least, i can say this for myself - if the rules had been clearly communicated and some direction had been given, i absolutely would have tried to get compliant under that system. if you really want to eliminate the multiple teams, you are going to either have to hunt people down, or give them a reasonable option to allow a graceful transition.
i just would finally like to make sure everyone is very aware that a coach who intentionally cheats has JUST as much power to do so with teams in alaska and florida, as he does within 1000 miles. if you are intentionally cheating, it doesnt matter how close your teams are. so i still cant understand how this whole debate rages without a clear definition of what is trying to be prevented - is it intentional abuse, or the unintentional advantage one might gain with two teams in the same world? or is it both? i think its important for the sake of clarity and understanding, to clearly express what the problem is that is trying to be solved. across the board, the better we can understand why you are making a rule, what problem you are trying to solve, and what our responsibilities/roles are in the plan, the better the transition will go. as ive mentioned a few times, i would be fine even with the extreme no multiple teams in a whole world PERIOD rule, but it would be an unmitigated disaster if it was just rolled out with no communication and no transition plan. give me a way to get compliant without totally ruining the fun of the game, undoing years of progress, and id be more than happy to comply on my own.
with so many of the coaches in violation right now being the traditionally most above board, some of the most respected coaches in the whole community, it seems obvious there is a problem with the system, not just the coaches. these are all guys who *want* to play fair, go to great lengths to do so. so when you find so many good quality people in violation of a rule, you really have to ask, whats wrong with the situation here? what is so severely setting these guys up for failure? if it wasnt a massive pain (in the scope of HD) to get compliant, if the communication wasnt non existent, we wouldnt be here.