Linden Labs is Very Approachable

it's amazing (to me at least) what ll will answer if you just ask.

i've noticed some threads go around and around on speculation, that simply asking ll would end the debate.

admittedly somethings ll doesn't like to answer, and ll seems to tap dance around those.

but if you look at the hotline forum, or talk to a linden, you'll see that ll is much more forthcoming than some threads would indicate.

not only approachable about questions, but ll just begs the residents for input. look at the hotline forum, the voting, the liasons, the feedback features forums, and such. and if they aren't horribly busy in world, the lindens are very willing to listen.

and considering some of the things said to and about lindens, they are remarkably restrained and patient, which might be the same a professional, but i think it's more a statement about the cool people who work at ll.

and ll lets you visit them at work.

The cook?

Maybe its a Zen thing.

I think it was Bub that told me that he once caught Phillip doing the dishes in the breakroom.....that should mean something.

Linden Lab isn't all THAT approachable. I got past the barbed wire okay, but the heat and motion detectors got me in the end. And one of the guard dogs got me there too. Big hole iin my diaper THAT time.

LL is only approachable by the FIC!

Their guide book is called "To Serve Man".

*twilight zone music*

They didn't answer the question about what percentage of the people own land. Still waiting!

Also got a laugh out of Robin's answer to Aylah -- a kiss-off to another thread where Robin claims that 2/3 of the forum posters opposed telehubs in the Northern Continent, implying the Lindens would be swayed by this.

But it was a fake number, based just the usual skewed forum posts.

And in fact the Lindens proceeded to put another telehub up north in Hyles. LOL.

Yes..you've convinced me. They are not only conspiring to not provide individualized customer service, but they also never communicate with the community, (the townhalls and announcement forums as well as the hotline are all fake, and set up by the FIC to fool new users), but they are also just darn mean! I once said hello to a Linden and you know what he did??? He said, "Hi David", like I wasn't important or something. I think his AV may have sneered when he turned away, but I couldn't really see his face.

I sent Ben linden a request to remove a guardrail in front of my driveway once and he never answered me. So I know they are all against me and don't care about anyone!

Other online companies will actually send representatives out to fluff your pillows and make hot chocolate and tuck you in and tell you bedtime stories. They obviously care far more about their cuntomers than LL!!!!

Yeah and if I had known about that I would have bought some telehub land. lol
As it is my Parthenon is close enough. Maybe some traffic in the area will get me dwell when it is done.

cool

it wasn't a heat or motion detector... it smelled your diaper

I agree with every word Stoneself wrote.

Remember, I had two years of experience trying to get through to the people who run TSO.

It was an exercise in masochism. They tended to view all the people who played the game as adolescent idiots who needed discipline. They thought we shouldn't know any information, and we didn't DESERVE any information. That was basically said out loud. And seconded by a whole bunch of ass-kissers.

The first web site was one they hosted, and the rules were STRICT. This site began during beta. You couldn't say anything against the game or against EA. If they shut down your thread, you were throttled. I know this place says "don't repost or ask why your thread was closed," but in reality, they police that very leniently and with common sense.

On the first site TSO had, if you were banned or suspended from the forums, you were also banned or suspended from the game.

It required Herculian efforts for me to actually post any kind of criticism or analysis that wouldn't get me in hot water. Me! Who's 98% of the time very diplomatic!

Then the forums were moved to Stratics, and you were no longer at the risk of losing your ability to play the game if you said something on the forums they didn't like. You could much more easily criticize a game design.

But the distance between us and the game designers became even greater. We had one and only one game representative. That one didn't know half of what was going on, and would claim she was going to get an answer, but it would never come. We would wait months, being almost a PARODY of polite. Then, after months went by - I kid you not - people would start asking a little harder. Then it would come down to, well they are never going to answer us. And that was the way it was.

Whenever we did get an answer, it was always followed by:

The new forums were modded by volunteer players. At one point, one of them got so "hurt" by the fact that people even disagreed on anything, that we weren't playing nice like little kindergarten kiddies (and believe me, everyone was nice to the point of being a parody, like I said earlier), that she quit and they brought in the big Stratics guns - guys from another forum who portrayed themselves as "riding in" to control the unruly masses.

That same first game representative was the only one who ever actually came into the game, to check out bugs, and so forth. Griefers and similar problems were dealt with by appealing to customer service, which was, I believe, in India. One always got a nonsensical report back when one pressed the button in game. (I never reported people, but others did.) Some people did get banned or suspended, but that was generally for exploits. We were basically on our own.

There was no such thing as any community meetings, or any face-to-face talk with the game developers. The one representative was something of a celebrity, and on the one or two occasions when I ran into her I basically kept my mouth shut, and certainly wouldn't have bothered her with anything.

Then she quit and we got Kyle. Kyle was a developer who took over her job. Because he was dealing with us directly, instead of giving the brush-off to her questions for us, we got consistent, direct, detailed, and well-written answers for the first time. This was the first time in two years we were treated as adults, and it was quite the relief for me, having been long since an adult.

By this time, the game was foundering, and had been for months. At this point, they started making an active effort to listen to the players and what they wanted. At this point they stopped outright insulting the players. Too little, and far too late.

Pretty soon Kyle faded back into the background and another representative was hired to keep a vague eye on the forums and ferry questions back and forth, this one just another player like us. Like the first representative, her job consisted more of bug-solving and the like than actually providing any answers to us. Shortly thereafter, Kyle quit completely, apparently leaving the whole job to Randy, the other of their two remaining known (and apparently part-time) developers.

When I got cable and started playing SL and involving myself in these forums, I left off in those, so I'm not sure what all has happened since the new representative was hired. However, it is fairly certain that she will have even less privy to answers than did the first representative. And as of when I left, it seemed that we were pretty much back to where we were before Kyle actually came out of the Wizard of Oz scene, from behind the curtain where he and the others manipulated the levers, and spoke to us directly.

I had two years to learn of the disdain with which EA holds its players. I wasn't the only one turned off to the entire EA corporation by this treatment. I saw others go through the same phases I did - excitement during beta, gradually turning to total disillusionment and a vow never to buy another EA product by the end. I stuck through it because I enjoyed and cared about the game. I applauded Kyle's finally communicating with us. I grieved when he went back behind the curtain.

I come here and lo and behold, the developers aren't hiding! They hold group meetings! They come and help with griefers! They TALK about future plans, rather than keep it all a state secret! They give their reasoning for what they do, as if we were actually capable of understanding! They figure out a voting-on-new-features thingie which has to be the smartest thing any online game ever did!

They not only LISTEN to what we say, they implement it! They realize, unlike EA, that we ARE the game, and without us - if they run us off by treating us like idiotic children who don't count - they won't have a game anymore. Which is what happened to TSO.

And, like Stoneself said, they are unfailingly nice throughout! Remarkably patient and even-tempered all the while, while still not being doormats. I think this proves they are - adult.

Phillip doing dishes in the office? I love it! Yes, I do believe these are really cool people.

And so I settle in, for a long-running love affair with SL, despite my dislikes about it, secure in the knowledge that they will utilize the suggestions and advice of those of us who care about the game - not that they will do every little thing anyone says, like puppets, of course - but that they will intelligently incorporate the data. They don't lose sight of the fact that without the players, without happy players, without players who feel they are being heard about game problems and those problems will eventually be solved, to the best of human and computer ability, there is no game. EA never had sight of that.

Secure that they realize that we all have the best interests of the game at heart. Secure that they respect us.

After suffering at the hands of backwards-thinking EA for so long, of enduring their insults and dismissive, insulting treatment for so long, I can't tell you what a relief this is. I can really settle in here and do some good with my own contributions.

coco

I admit, LL rocks on service. They could likely create another revenue stream doing seminars for Sony Online Entertainment, Mythic, and a host of others.

I KNOW that one.

"It's a COOKBOOK!"

Ditto StoneSelf. An important thing to keep in mind is that Lindens are actually real people, with all those human flaws and limitations. I think they do a pretty good job at communicating with their customers, and I'm impressed at how few of them respond in a negative manner to all the vitriol spewed in their direction. I don't always agree with their decisions, but I can't fault their approachability. Considering there are on the order of 1000 of us for each one of them, it's a wonder any of them can remember any of us by name, let alone maintain some semblance of personal relationship.

not to be trite, but i think it's because they really care.

They BETTER care! That's the way I scripted them.

On the whole LL seems to care about their users... But when seen through the looking glass, it can be a very different story.

Henry Ford would let you have a model T in any color as long as it was black.

Linden Lab will listen to anything you have to say as long as they agree.



Apart from that... There have been a few LL employees that have been just great... The developers (*pokes Vektor*) and a small number of liasons (Adam too if I don't get him on a friday hehehe)... I hear Robin is a also a good one.

- Yashu Vindaloo... still silenced, but not silent.

i haven't found that to be a problem.

i disagree with ll all the time. i've critized them quite harshly at times.

they still listen; they just don't always agree.

Yeah, some of the wacky things I've sent up their way... LOL...

could you rescript some of the residents for me?