Magically Clueless
(?)Community Member
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- Posted: Sat, 31 Jan 2015 18:17:12 +0000
Since this will be a long feedback post, I'm going to use the same format that I used in my Bitter Slumber feedback thread (which I really hope staff read!) and there will be no Gengar to accompany me. ;o;
Before I begin, let me get this out of the way first: I am aware of what the staff has said about removing announcements on multiple occasions. While I wish they would let us remove them, I will be offering different suggestions that hopefully they will act out on. I am aware that they do not plan to work on the way they distribute announcements, but as I've stated in previous threads, I hope they change their minds because the announcements are a royal mess of steamy poop. Assuming the staff has open minds and would like to be able to work on announcements, I humbly request that they read and take my suggestions (as these are my opinions that not everybody may share) into thought and reserve these ideas for a near-future project.
*ahem*
Well. Announcements are obviously a problem, and staff cannot deny that. People have stopped reading announcements by the masses because there are so many and none of them have piqued their interest. Many just skim the announcements to remove the bubble next to the avatar, much like I do. There are many ways to remove these issues, but first we must identify what is done right and the issues that are actually at hand.
What You Do Right
- Involving more community related announcements. This is something that has been reappearing lately, and it's wonderful. I'm not interested in these 100% of the time, but what matters is that you're involving community for the most part and being light to features that users may have not known existed or ever used, such as the arenas. I hope you'll continue to interview hardworking users and show off their awesome avatars!
- Announcing your non-GC features, such as GoFusion, Loyal's Bazaar, and the gold shops. GoFusion has made more of an appearance in events and in standalone updates lately, which is wonderful! Not everyone checks up on the GCD, so these announcements are very helpful. There was a staff member that stated they try to update the gold shops twice a month... I really hope we'll start seeing two gold shop announcements a month (and no, Loyal's Bazaar does not count).
- Announcements about events with all the information needed. One thing that was terrible about Bitter Slumber, was that no one knew when it was going to end. The end date was posted on FACEBOOK out of all things, which was a horrible mistake. Gaia should be priority, and you know how it turned out when Gaia wasn't priority. *coughTentaclcough* Anyway, though, the recent kickstarter event announcement had an end date on it and all the things you could do, which is perfect! Thank you for keeping that in mind.
- Announcing when items are leaving, en-masse. I have something to say about GC related announcements in the first place, but I'll give you this one. It's very nice to know when the items are leaving, despite having the end date on the original announcements. It's a nice reminder, especially since you only remind them ONCE and not five million times.
What You Do Wrong
- Announcing one or two GC items at a time when you intend to have more items released that day. There is usually a big announcement recapping the first few items and bundles and etc. early in the day, but then you always have more to add on, usually RIGs and gold generators. If you planned to release them all in a day and in the same store, I really don't understand why we have to have 5 to 10 different announcements about them. La Victoire Digest was supposed to solve that, but then you ended up having like 3 of those in a day and it was such a mess that you stopped doing it, which was good on your part. Please just start compiling them all together in ONE announcement.
- Reminding users that hey, this is a thing that exists! Buy this thing! This is a very bad marketing tactic, IMO. Like what the title of this thread says, we do not have bad memory. If there is one announcement about it, that's all we need. People who were not here most likely check the GCD rather than these announcements because they are so spammy for THIS very reason. We KNOW you want us to buy this thing, but chances are, if we didn't want to buy it before, we still don't want to buy it and the announcement just comes off as very annoying. Especially when you do it in the same day. And then the day after. Stop doing this. I know if a staff member responds, they most likely thought of an answer that's akin to "we wanted to just remind users in case they missed it, so they have the opportunity to go back!" That's simply just not an answer I'll take. Again, we do not have bad memory and those who want to know will not go to the announcements for that information.
- Coupons!!! I'll admit, I thought the first coupon you guys sent out was cute. I thought it was a nice gesture... and then you sent out another coupon. And another coupon. And more and more and more, and now there is a flood of coupons with items attached that make a user think they're getting a good deal, when in actuality, you're probably just screwing them over in another one of your diabolical plans. This isn't about complaining with GC prices, so I'll stop there, but the coupons are RIDICULOUS. PLEASE STOP ANNOUNCING THEM. Put up reminders on the GC page, PLEASE. You don't exactly announce your "sales" anymore, so you should stop announcing coupons too. It will make the world a better place, and the people that want coupons can simply check that page to see if the 5000 coupons they can use 5+ times ~FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!~ are active. The same goes for Tier Spenders. Please just. Stop.
- Not having any sort of schedule for your announcements. Everything you release is completely random and the staff has stated several times that they do not run on a schedule. There needs to be a fix for that, because you're likely to forget things and make more mistakes if you don't have everything in front of you. This is more of a concern for staff rather than users, though having a schedule for both staff AND users would be great.
- Releasing items (particularly LQIs) BEFORE the announcement. Please release the announcement first, and THEN bring out the item. Maybe schedule them to release at the same time? I don't know how it works, but I just know that there are some items that sold out instantly before the announcement even came out. That strikes me as very unfair for people that would be willing to throw their money at your items.
What You Can Do to Improve
- Have a page dedicated to the schedule of items, announcements, and updates. You don't necessarily have to spoil items or anything that would be a nice surprise to users, but at least have a schedule out so we will know FOR SURE what to expect, or at least have this for the staff. I highly recommend this, so we can stop going to ATS and having answers that are similar to "soon, we're working on it!" We like to have exact answers, and a believable schedule would keep a lot of us from complaining. Projects are constantly being pushed back and brought up and pushed back again... you guys just... you guys really need a schedule.
- Remember that your users are becoming desensitized to announcements. At this point, announcements aren't really that much to write home about. Most of your users have become very used to this fact and no longer read them. Basically, what I'm saying is, the less announcements, the better. If there were less announcements, users are more likely to read (especially if they are not repetitive) and are more likely to become interested.
- Allow users to filter what they want to see in announcements. This is so they can focus on what they enjoy and want to see. For example, if I really love evolving items and LQIs but I don't want to hear about RIGS, gold generators, or coupons, I should be able to filter my announcements so I see only EI reports and LQI announcements in the bubble next to my avatar. This might require some sort of tagging system to filter the announcements, but no matter how much work it takes, it'd be very worth it so I really hope you guys consider this. Don't give me that "we have to make sure users get to see what they can get!" BS because we are able to disable STAFF NOTICES THAT ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN A NEW ITEM. So please. Consider adding filters with announcements.
That's about all I have for this, and I hope that staff will take some of these into consideration. I know I'm not alone in my thoughts about announcements, and I truly believe that the announcements system is messed up enough that they really need to work on improving it. Again, these are my opinions more than anything and another user may not share the same thoughts, but this comes from my experiences and discussions in other threads.
