quote:

Originally posted by the_Monk-:
I have UBI-published games on my bookshelves totalling several thousand dollars (going back years).

I called the Mtl UBI office a during the Vegas 1 debacle and left countless well-mannered voicemails with "managers" not one of which ever received a response.

I am the director of operations for an IT firm, and if we treated our clients with the flagrant disregard experienced by myself and so many others from UBI, we would be out of business.

I WANT UBI TO KNOW THEY'VE LOST ANOTHER ONE..I will not ever purchase another piece of software with the UBI name attached to it, ever! I will also make sure that each and every client of this firm, their friends and associates, and anyone else I or my staff come into contact with will hear about our bad experiences with UBI.
(not that anyone at UBI gives a rats-ass anyway....)


UBI, the fact that you are not out-of-business (yet) as a result of your piss-poor customer relationship handling is not indicative of something/anything which you are in fact doing RIGHT, but much more a result of the bottom-of-the-barrel customer service gamer-consumers have come to ACCEPT. One day that too will end, and with it your undeserved position as a game-software developer/publisher.

I for one will meet such news with resounding applause!

the Monk

Hear Hear and well said. But they do not care, they sit back and worry somewhat about all this bad feedback, but they do not care in the end, they all hope we go away and move onto something else.

I have some news for you UBiSOFT, My court action with you is entering the 1st stages, I want my money back for a game that does not work and you will be getting a little letter soon. I cannot wait to have my day in court with you.

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Hanky2005:

quote:

Originally posted by GhostDance.2000:
I do like how Ubi has brought in "Forum Managers" to furthur distance the Community Managers from the actual Community that they are supposed to be managing and reporting on.

Actually, Forum Managers are doing what the CMs always did. They are collecting all the feedback, and making weekly reports (if not more) and sending them to the Devs. The CMs can now do their job more effectively, because they have that weight off their shoulders.

Ghostdance as Hanky explains in his post staff like myself arent here to great a bigger distance but to ensure the forums, community opinion and feedback are covered in greater depth

@ Mr. Hanky2005 and ms-kleaneasy

I doesn't matter how you try to spin it, more often than not the following (a quote from one of my earlier posts) is true...

quote:

"I've seen more effort on these forums in the years I've been a UBI-sucker by forum "moderators" in defending themselves and/or UBI than in taking the community issues to the DEV's and DEMANDING support!"

The feeling of many that have visited these forums over the years is that UBI's forum representation isn't there to represent the customer/consumer but to enforce policy and that is bad business any way you look at it!

It is going to take a lot more than splitting responsibilites between two forum-monkey classes for UBI to turn around the bad community-relations image it has become known for.

the Monk

Well, it just seems to me that the CMs are even further distanced from us than they used to be.

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:

quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Hanky2005:

quote:

Originally posted by GhostDance.2000:
I do like how Ubi has brought in "Forum Managers" to furthur distance the Community Managers from the actual Community that they are supposed to be managing and reporting on.

Actually, Forum Managers are doing what the CMs always did. They are collecting all the feedback, and making weekly reports (if not more) and sending them to the Devs. The CMs can now do their job more effectively, because they have that weight off their shoulders.

Ghostdance as Hanky explains in his post staff like myself arent here to great a bigger distance but to ensure the forums, community opinion and feedback are covered in greater depth

Mr. Hanky and Ms-K, as you can clearly see as of late... this is not working!!!

You can lie to yourselves all you want but in the end, it is not going to work because you are making more excuses for UBI than you should, just as the Monk stated above.

Plenty of easy questions go unanswered, questions that if answered, would help persuade the customers to give UBI a few more days or weeks. I don't care who you are (Big or Small Company), it doesn't take away from your busy schedule to keep your customers informed, more so when you know you have sold a defective product.

Also, we all know that CM's only come here when UBI is prepared to launch a new Game and needs to Hype it up. Even UBI_Level_up only came to here to stir the pot and didn't do half of the things he said he was going to do... where is he now?

the_Monk you refer to a feeling and opinion of the forums that has built up over a period of years. I'm under no illusions that situation and the feelings surrounding it exists, and understand why. It is changing however and that is what others here have referred to. Of course you don't have to agree with this but resorting to name calling really won't benefit anyone least of all this discussion and is quite unnecessary.

@ want2snipe, it's not a perfect science and by no means anywhere close to being right yet. We've never promised an overnight miracle, as nice as it would've been to give you that it was never practical and improvements take time.

How much time though? Ubi STILL haven't fixed vegas 1, how many times do people see weird glitches, how many times does the server crash for no apparent reason?

So before ubi have even managed to get the first instalment of vegas working properly, they release the second... It's just another cash cow these days, the quality of the game no longer matters... Unfortunately it's not just ubi that are guilty of this...

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:
the_Monk you refer to a feeling and opinion of the forums that has built up over a period of years. I'm under no illusions that situation and the feelings surrounding it exists, and understand why. It is changing however and that is what others here have referred to. Of course you don't have to agree with this but resorting to name calling really won't benefit anyone least of all this discussion and is quite unnecessary.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I referred to moderators as "forum-monkeys" (I've been one myself on many forums) and that's what you focus on? No responses to my previous posts, but I refer to a forum jockey as a "forum-monkey" and boom, I get a response....how telling.

Contrary to what many people believe, change does actually happen overnight! The EFFECTS of said change (although they may not be immediately discernable) will be measured over the long-term.

What I'm talking about is the fact that there have been no EFFECTS of said change. You say you are well aware of the sentiment (and the reasons for such) on these forums and claim things are changing.....how? Give me examples of how things have changed as measured by their effect (effects of change are always quantitatively visible)

I've signed a few NDA's in my time as well, and have only signed those and became a "forum-monkey" on those forums which allowed me to "go to bat for the consumer" and "keep the consumer informed" (feeling part of a community of customers and not like one is being "divided and conquered")

The overall supressive feeling surrounding UBI and these forums has NOT changed (a change that would be evident overnight!)

The secretive manner in which update issues are handled (no news.....no news....suddenly maybe a patch)

These things cause a community to feel supressed, ignored, dismissed.....not appreciated and included!

You want people to FEEL differently towards you? Then treat them with respect. A company which has already taken your money and through so many poor past decisions broken trust has one hell of an uphill road to walk in order to change that. All I've seen from UBI and these forums is arrogant, self-righteous indignation, not the apologetic self-humbling attitude it will actually take to repair customer relations over the long-term.

the Monk

quote:

Originally posted by the_Monk-:
This is exactly what I'm talking about. I referred to moderators as "forum-monkeys" (I've been one myself on many forums) and that's what you focus on? No responses to my previous posts, but I refer to a forum jockey as a "forum-monkey" and boom, I get a response....how telling.

Do you propose I ignore name calling and breaches of the TOU instead??

I am only one person, I can only respond to so many posts and this is not my only forum. I do cover as much as I possibly can not to mention the work done that no one here can see, so there may be occasions I dont answer questions but be assured its not because I cant be bothered.
None of this allows anyone here to call me or other staff/ moderators monkeys and yes I will address such when I see it and yes I do expect better from members like yourself.

quote:

Originally posted by the_Monk-:
Contrary to what many people believe, change does actually happen overnight! The EFFECTS of said change (although they may not be immediately discernable) will be measured over the long-term.

What I'm talking about is the fact that there have been no EFFECTS of said change. You say you are well aware of the sentiment (and the reasons for such) on these forums and claim things are changing.....how? Give me examples of how things have changed as measured by their effect (effects of change are always quantitatively visible)

I've signed a few NDA's in my time as well, and have only signed those and became a "forum-monkey" on those forums which allowed me to "go to bat for the consumer" and "keep the consumer informed" (feeling part of a community of customers and not like one is being "divided and conquered")

The overall supressive feeling surrounding UBI and these forums has NOT changed (a change that would be evident overnight!)

The secretive manner in which update issues are handled (no news.....no news....suddenly maybe a patch)

These things cause a community to feel supressed, ignored, dismissed.....not appreciated and included!

You want people to FEEL differently towards you? Then treat them with respect. A company which has already taken your money and through so many poor past decisions broken trust has one hell of an uphill road to walk in order to change that. All I've seen from UBI and these forums is arrogant, self-righteous indignation, not the apologetic self-humbling attitude it will actually take to repair customer relations over the long-term.

the Monk

Monk with respect you are contradicting yourself. On one hand you admit evidence of changes will not be immediately evident when you said.... ˜ (although they may not be immediately discernable) will be measured over the long-term., yet you then go on to say ...' Give me examples of how things have changed as measured by their effect (effects of change are always quantitatively visible).

Things are changing but as I've said before and you seem to understand from your own post such big change takes time. How I can demonstrate this to you right now? Not very easy because much of the changes are off the forum and while they influence the community demonstrating that isn't an easy task, all I can ask at this time is you continue to provide your opinions on the forums in a constructive manner so I continue to have the evidence base required to pass your opinions back and in time you will see the benefit.

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:

Ghostdance as Hanky explains in his post staff like myself arent here to great a bigger distance but to ensure the forums, community opinion and feedback are covered in greater depth

And it's working SO well....

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:
Do you propose I ignore name calling and breaches of the TOU instead??

Here you are, pointing at the TOU over the term "forum-monkey" and your consumers are not to see these forums as supressive?

quote:

I am only one person, I can only respond to so many posts and this is not my only forum. I do cover as much as I possibly can not to mention the work done that no one here can see, so there may be occasions I dont answer questions but be assured its not because I cant be bothered.
None of this allows anyone here to call me or other staff/ moderators monkeys and yes I will address such when I see it and yes I do expect better from members like yourself.

You're the only person responding to these forums? Well then isn't that a problem? Why aren't the DEVS themselves browsing/contributing to these forums? Because they haven't learned/changed.

quote:

quote:

Originally posted by the_Monk-:
Contrary to what many people believe, change does actually happen overnight! The EFFECTS of said change (although they may not be immediately discernable) will be measured over the long-term.

What I'm talking about is the fact that there have been no EFFECTS of said change. You say you are well aware of the sentiment (and the reasons for such) on these forums and claim things are changing.....how? Give me examples of how things have changed as measured by their effect (effects of change are always quantitatively visible)

I've signed a few NDA's in my time as well, and have only signed those and became a "forum-monkey" on those forums which allowed me to "go to bat for the consumer" and "keep the consumer informed" (feeling part of a community of customers and not like one is being "divided and conquered")

The overall supressive feeling surrounding UBI and these forums has NOT changed (a change that would be evident overnight!)

The secretive manner in which update issues are handled (no news.....no news....suddenly maybe a patch)

These things cause a community to feel supressed, ignored, dismissed.....not appreciated and included!

You want people to FEEL differently towards you? Then treat them with respect. A company which has already taken your money and through so many poor past decisions broken trust has one hell of an uphill road to walk in order to change that. All I've seen from UBI and these forums is arrogant, self-righteous indignation, not the apologetic self-humbling attitude it will actually take to repair customer relations over the long-term.

the Monk

Monk with respect you are contradicting yourself. On one hand you admit evidence of changes will not be immediately evident when you said.... ˜ (although they may not be immediately discernable) will be measured over the long-term., yet you then go on to say ...' Give me examples of how things have changed as measured by their effect (effects of change are always quantitatively visible).

Things are changing but as I've said before and you seem to understand from your own post such big change takes time. How I can demonstrate this to you right now? Not very easy because much of the changes are off the forum and while they influence the community demonstrating that isn't an easy task, all I can ask at this time is you continue to provide your opinions on the forums in a constructive manner so I continue to have the evidence base required to pass your opinions back and in time you will see the benefit.

I spent many hours giving support to this community (during the Vegas 1 debacle) while UBI remained silent. I never once received communication from the DEVS with regard to the questions I needed answered in order to provide even better support to the community. In fact I'm still waiting for even ONE of the many voicemails I left for various "managers" etc. to get acknowledged, nevermind returned.

When a company has made a habit of ignoring and dismissing their consumers (after taking their money) ANY effort made in changing that will be visible like the change from night to day!. The long-term changes I was refering to that "may not be immediately discernable" would be determining whether customers can be convinced of UBI's loyalty or not.

There is a fundamental difference between changes measured as to how they are affecting the consumer, and changes measured as to UBI's attitude towards said consumers. The latter very much being immediately discernable!

the Monk

Not to add fuel to the already considerable fire here, but just an observation: I think part of the problem is that Ubi is a French (well, French-Canadian at least) company.

And, well, the French have a certain well-deserved reputation in Europe and Canada for having an attitude of doing things their own way, to put it nicely; and sod everyone else.

@ Monk - it may surprise you but the term ˜monkey' when used in relation to a person is an insult so yes I refer to the TOU, that's not suppression, just everyone's right to discuss without insult.
The devs are not posting because they are working on the game. It's the job of the forum managers and community developers to communicate between the community and the developers and to ensure all detailed feedback goes through.
In regard to the evidence of changes and such I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree, some say they can already see the changes others say they cannot. Of course that perception is to be heavily coloured by personal experience both past and present and I do understand that.

@ Nomad - Any issues you have with the company are not because of their location or origin, bringing that into the debate is quite unnecessary not to mention pointless and no benefit to the discussion.

quote:

Originally posted by ms-kleaneasy:


@ Nomad - Any issues you have with the company are not because of their location or origin, bringing that into the debate is quite unnecessary not to mention pointless and no benefit to the discussion.

I disagree.

I think cultural differences in expectations in the customer/business relationship are a large part of the problems Ubi has with customer relations and communications.

If Ubi ignores the fact they have customers from many different cultures, with different values and expectations, of course it is going to lead to customer relation problems.

I would recommend Ubi check out this for assistance in improving business practices.

http://www.quality.nist.gov/

Monk

We try that before buddie and you know what we got from Ubisoft? this--->

Is not in UBIsoft policy .... and the "job" of the moderators it's kind of "reduced" or "limited " by Ubisoft you should know that


So all is ok, we understand your frustration towards this Company named Ubisoft .

But they just don't care, they don't read this forums ( The persons that should) as stated by the moderators of this forums, Moderators are the "messengers" passing as their own judgment what ever they consider important to the next step in the bureaucratic ladder of this company called Ubisoft and to just "moderate" .

So.... what can be done?

The "changes" in a situation like this, need to be address drastically, because it's already escalating over the edges, costumers are not getting what they paid for and Ubisoft it's getting a nice float of unsatisfied customers of different levels of education and ages.

So.. are they doing something about ?

You will never know, but they will feel that in their sales.

As our fellow gamers in Germany, they are really doing something about.

So is up to Ubisoft and employees to think about this very but very seriously , because the Storm it's coming DOWN under Ubisoft.

And other Companies, Studios and magazines are reading this forums and other reviews in another private forums and they are aware of this situation with Ubisoft and their Multimedia products and costumer service.

Well.... with that said good luck Monk, we understand you.

Hope Ubisoft take prompt resolution and start respecting and pay more attention into this community and the other ones from other multimedia products lately produced by this company called Ubisoft, because this communities are the ones that produce the salaries of their employees.

And build a bridge of communication between REAL employees of Ubisoft and costumers.
As another studios are doing "The Human touch" To build confidence and trust , so the costumer, of dif.ages, will feel part of contributing in improving a product "In all platforms" , so they will definitively buy it and support it, for years to come .

Seriously

But as always once again Ubisoft just... their costumers.

With all respects.
AnightMares
cheerios

quote:

Originally posted by ANightMares:
And build a bridge of communication between REAL employees of Ubisoft and costumers.

So what am I ??