Melibellule a dit :

I’ve read a little and will bring a little more detail to the parts where I’m concerned:

I know I always say I’m sorry and I’ll try to do better, but I truly am, and failing to do so repeatedly is sending me into the depths of depression lately. I’m writing this while having the worst panic attack right now.
Yes I gave myself 500% to try and reignite social media and make a new event and training an external company for emails and doing furs and... it was during lockdown, I burnt myself out completely working hard while having to care for my baby full time. I completely collapsed. Days went by and I struggle to even eat properly, doing the bare minimum for tfm (items and planning) take me forever.
I know you need a proper community manager, and we can’t give you one. Advertising isn’t possible either, for 1$ invested players will only bring back 0.20cts, we tried with a lot of campaigns a few years ago. It’s not sustainable.
I have to stop here because of the panic attack but I’ll try to address the other points later.

Thank you for replying. Honestly, this is what we all wanted from you guys - communication with players to fix existing issues. I'm sorry for your panic attack and hope you feel better!

Glad to see you speaking up Mat, so here's a little side from me too..

There are a lot of valid points in my opinion; while favoring is somewhat of an issue, it can easily be dealt with and doesn't necessarily bug a person like me, as long as you're actually joining because you're willing to help the community not just join for the fame and glory. The main issue I would point out is the one where you mention 'some staff develop an opinion', its been like it for ages, as someone who has been affected by it I can say that this needs to be sorted asap or the team will just collapse on itself. There are also some lies and pathetic comments about people that get spread about that need to stop.

I'd also like to point out a very important thing about mutes and bans. There are many great people in the staff team that have been my friends even before they joined staff, but this doesn't mean that I should be immune to any valid mutes/bans that they may choose to ignore because we're friends. I've seen this to be the case with a couple of people that I am not willing to name shame.

There are a lot of flaws that go unnoticed and it sucks to know that more publicly after it being an issue for such a long time. I know the game can do better and I hope that the topic will be a turning point on behalf of the staff team. I fully appreciate all the work and effort that is done by the developers and I salute you, its more of an issue amongst the other sector that makes staff team what it is today.

I agree with everything in the text and me, as map maker, must add a observation: It's EXTREMALY NECESSARY add new things and change the Map Editor. Many map makers says that they can't do big things with the current situation, that is tecnically the same by 8 YEARS (the last BIG addition was colored grounds and joints). Map Editor needs more things and a good interface cause it's basically the HEART OF THE GAME: PLAYERS PLAYS MAPS! And variety in Map Editor is a big thing since Map Crew wants new concepts - and they aren't wrong bout that - but it's hard do something good with low things AND because more things means more new fun maps to play and more player retention, which can helps a or more than events. Players still making maps and need new things. The game needs too.

Please consider this and add things that affects the gameplay, and not just some decorations.

From a player who (still) loving the game.

♡

sorry bad english

Not to derail the topic, but I'd also like to add my view as an ex-staff member, if that's alright.
I am of a very mixed mind about this thread, as there are points that I wholeheartedly agree with and others that I truly do not. Please let me try to explain.

a dit :

Players will accuse staff members of not doing their job right and then staff members will say "deal with it" in a polite way.

a dit :

You must know the struggle of trying to contact a mod just to be told that you should contact someone else... and when you do, that person says "I saw you hacking, you aren't getting unbanned".

While I can only speak for my own behaviour, I believe that this has definitely been an issue in the past based on what players have told me during my time as staff. I am not every staff member, so who am I to tell a player that their experience with another member of staff is valid or not?
Considering this though, please take any grievances like this (with evidence if possible!) to another staff member, even if that means staff from a different community, because sour behaviour is not what A801 stands for, and letting it be dealt with internally is infinitely better than in public. Whether it's between different communities or within the same one, we hated stubborn and unhelpful behaviour as much as you, please believe me.

a dit :

We're at a point where if you aren't friends with a staff member, you cannot even get into any teams.

a dit :

If you break rules and behave in a certain way, you can try to change all you want, the staff will still think you're immature and childish even 5 years later.

a dit :

Voting on applications should be based on the application that you've received and the current behavior of the user, not their past behavior.

I truly disagree with this one, based on my own personal experiences. I was hired as staff in 2018, after joining the game in 2015. I was...not a well behaved rat when I first joined, nothing awful but definitely not mod material. I didn't play on E2 until a friend encouraged me to start using the cafe there, which is....you can imagine how that went. I definitely wasn't friends with mods, if anything I was too busy getting scolded by them lol. Anyway, I sent in a mod application every time they opened and understandably got rejected a lot, but over time I became a well behaved rat, a reformed rat if you will, and whoever reviewed my application could see that and gave me a chance to become staff and I never looked back. Please don't take an app rejection too personally, there's a lot of applicants and even the successful ones have often been rejected before for any number of reasons.

a dit :

You can see that staff members are always on the same page and no one dares to speak up against each other, most of the time they accept what their friends have to say and default to that mentality.

Yes, but also no. Yes and no. When you're new to the team I can see that disagreeing with more experienced mods who have been there longer than you could be very daunting, but I believe the reason so many mods are on the same page is because issues are discussed privately first. An issue may be brought up between two individuals or a community team first, and so a common ground is found before the discussion ever reaches other communities. I remember there being disagreements all the time, and that's natural, but it's not something that should be put in front of hundreds of staff when it could be resolved quietly, y'know? Airing dirty laundry in public and all that.

a dit :

Stop saying "deal with it" and start saying "how can we help you even if you're not getting unbanned." You may ask now, what are we supposed to do with these players, how could we help them? For starters, explain why and how they were banned, send them a list of the rules, give them advice to help them grow as a person.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, but as someone who was a public mod for a decent while it was disheartening to devote my time to the unfortunate few who's only response was to unban them or to go drown myself. This does not take away from the players who were ever so kind to me, their gratitude was my favourite part of my time as a mod. Helping even one player have a better experience was so wonderful, but being told and accused of really awful things does cause burnout, and no one deserve to be spoken to like that. Please be nice to each other guys.

The rest is admin business, so until Tachiyukan#0001 I have nothing to contribute.
If you read this far, thank you, that's....actually very kind of you. Sorry for derailing.

TELL EM QUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN I ALWAYS SAID THIS GAME IS GOING DOWNHILL CAUSE OF THE SELFISH STAFF MEMBERS

The only point I like is that of the mods some do not do their job well :/

More in ES sever

Example: Lezzly :/.

Do you have any more constructive feedback that we can work with? "This mod doesn't do their job" is not really something we can have a discussion with them about. We definitely will contact a staff member if we feel a specific ban they applied was not correct.

If so, please send me or another staff a private message, because we would prefer not to discuss specific cases in public to avoid revealing players' sanctions.

Katburger a dit :

Do you have any more constructive feedback that we can work with? "This mod doesn't do their job" is not really something we can have a discussion with them about. We definitely will contact a staff member if we feel a specific ban they applied was not correct.

If so, please send me or another staff a private message, because we would prefer not to discuss specific cases in public to avoid revealing players' sanctions.

you will find plenty of constructive feedback, if any, in this post, the thread,
and also the first post in this thread.

yeah i know that you are aware of this, but butter has already mentioned about how "contacting" staff mostly works, and the ES players above are most likely using translator to express their message that lezzly isn't doing their duty well.

i know im stating the obvious but so are you (in the quote), have a good day/night.

The same story has been told several times in different versions, different targets and guilties, different languages and in different moments by different people; Staff, ex-staff and regular players. Nothing has changed, not even when they could have changed the company's fate. But now it is just struggling more and more to survive.

I haven't watched moderators recently but I'm very unmotivated to log in a glitched, weird game that once meant everything for me, most of my activity now is given by my bot now that is capable of reading and sending whispers and channel messages, so whenever something or someone shows up in a chat breaking a rule of the game, it's instinctive for me to look for a moderator.

Back in the past I would definitely say no staff - specially moderators - would take action, and that all of them are quite rude and unprofessional. But in these last months, more specifically when this pandemic began, I noticed a significant change on their work, for good! All my whispers were succesfully replied and by no means moderators used a rude tone towards me. That's what I - we - have always expected from them. Of course, there are some rotten tomatoes filling this pizza but I can feel things are slowly changing on how they use their powers and I'd like to publicly say thank you for all communities that are struggling to reach perfection - still far from it, yet better than yesterday.

I completly agree with you, and I think most of the players "into" Transformice will agree with you, specially about management issues from administrators. But there's a big issue that couldn't be ignored. Even if Meli herself failed as admin/manager when they had money enough to keep all other admins, it doesn't mean she's still the same - if that's a bad thing, that it's totally abandoned. As you said in one of the paragraphs, we shouldn't judge people based on their past behavior and attitudes. I have to admit I used to complain about Meli A LOT, but something changed when we got somewhat closer. I do see a significant change on her effort to make things right this time, most of the problem now is that she is overloaded with everything. She's just one person holding all duties from all (or most) past admins together. She can't be managing anything if she's busy trying to make the company survive. I dislike the fact they just add new items and recycled events, but that's necessary if we want the company to survive because there's no other income to appear. I can't deny these new games are just a waste of time and resources, though. Meli, wake up, no one is going to play them and no one but a dozens of people are excited about them. Keep updating Transformice, at least minimally, but focus on it. That's where good things happen, not in boring, already-dead unreleased games. As they mentioned, use who is willing to help for free.

But in general, I see a lot of improvements if you compare the same period last year; I see/have less complaints aboutthese new members than what we have/had about past (2+ years old) members. It means it's slowly changing for good.

I wish you the best of luck, Peanut. You were a decent sentinel, and you do deserve a better place that knows how to appreciate your effort and will to help and entertain the public. It's a loss for the company, indeed. And, again, I completly agree and support every single word in your holy bible - even though I'm 101% sure Meli is giving her best now to do things right.