An Open Note to GMs: Addendum
Hello.
My name is Reid "x0tek" Johnson. This thread is similar to my previous, but is different enough to warrant an entirely new discussion. The link to my former open note can be found here.
This thread is different because my first was a critique of our GM's handling of our competitive scene, a sort of general commentary on the major flaws with our competitive scene.
This is an angry complaint.
When's the last time any GM provided information publicly about the affairs of the CFNA competitive scene? When's the last time a competitive streamer was highlighted by the CFNA facebook group, or hosted by the CrossFire twitch.tv handle? When's the last time any GM provided ANY information about ANY aspect of the competitive scene to ANYONE publicly? Huh?
You can't answer, because the answer has been "months" and "months". For God's sake, I was the one who announced to the community the new CrossFireStars schedule that they put up on their website. Heck, I'd host my own events if I didn't want to compete in them too.
GMs, it has been three days since the initial thread was posted. No public acknowledgement has been given; however, given the fact that CrossFire is your full time job, it's difficult to imagine that none of you have seen it. Which leads me to believe that SEEING that thread belies COMPREHENDING that thread.
Communication is important. It is THE most important skill in event-hosting, management, and in-general interactions with people.
Yet...it has been days since a thread was posted outlining precisely why communication is the most important aspect to a healthy community, offering feedback and constructive criticism for the GMs to use as insight into the community you claim to help. However, no response has been given. The head moderator over the Competitive Section of CrossFire -- ZZXQ -- agreed with the entirety of my post. And yet...no response has been given.
Spammers should get no response; their content is meaningless. Neither should those who resort to vulgarity; crassness and offensiveness get you nowhere. But when I -- or any member of this community -- take the time to write a heartfelt plea, without vulgarity, with substance, it should be responded to. In what business -- catering, event management, sporting events, hospitals, gas stations -- is this not the case? In what business is that associated with anything other than utter laziness and apathy?
How can you honestly, genuinely tell the community you care? Because Z8 pays your bills, therefore you care about the community? Because you host events that you are contractually obligated to by Smilegate? Because you partner with EGL, when you give them no ZP no codes no cash no prize of any kind? Because over 3 years ago you partnered with ESG and have made no strides since?
I started writing this forum post at 3:20PM EST; at this moment (3:22PM), I've taken up about two minutes of my time to type this post. Most replies would require far less time than this, warranting less than a paragraph. Even if you were paid 30 dollars an hour, which I know none of you are, and even if every reply you made was as lengthy as this post, you would spend literally a dollar of your time a day to respond. One dollar! How can you pretend to care? How can you pretend to not be apathetic when we don't warrant less than a dollar of your time? Because, hey, you're getting paid, right? So of course you care, right? What are we being ungrateful for, right? You don't have to do anything, right?
Well guess what? You aren't doing anything. Why should we be grateful? Even all of the last competitive season, when you actually did at least SOMETHING, your communication was terrible. Events were announced the week they launched. Schedules were ironclad, with no community feedback accepted or allowed. GMs disqualified teams and players for literally no reason. Think I'm kidding? GM Grumpy at the time said "I could ban you for no reason, do you think I need proof?". It's saved forever in the Discord chat. And guess what? Most of that minimal effort you put in didn't come from your own volition; Smilegate required national qualifiers. The year before that, ESL took care of most of the work for you all.
You have done next to NOTHING. As far as I can see, the only reason you haven't is that you're too lazy to bother.
It's a shame. This game is a great game; the community are passionate. There's a reason this game is a billion dollar industry in of itself. But there's even more of a reason our management is too inept to capitalize on that. And the reasons all start with you.
I admire the work you do, when you bother to do it. GM Triton's apparent work to get the Ghost Mode community fired up is a tremendous step in the right direction. But that I know about it is the only reason I can give him any laurels or accolades. Even then, I only heard about it second hand in another thread. As optimistic as I am, as hungry as I am for progress and for competition, I am not hopeful, and I do NOT believe in any of you. You haven't shown me, or the community, that you want to try at all. Whether or not you DO want to try is irrelevant, because we have not seen it.
You can only pretend to be doing work and show no results for so long before people call you out for being lazy and unethical.
If you want the community to think you're hard-working, caring, devoted staff, then you don't just need to do work. You need to tell the community about the work you're doing.
I know there are a several of you, GMs, who are passionate about the game. I don't mean to lump those of you who do your all and put in extra time and work your hearts out with those who manage the competitive affairs and allow things to languish. When my team had VISA issues with WCA, several of you bent over backward to make things work for us, and I am forever grateful for that.
But, I want this community to thrive more than I want to keep the GMs happy.
You're going to be angry. You're going to want to ban me, delete my threads, want to say I was too rude, too unappreciative. Too...whatever choice of words you want to use. The fact is, when you don't tell anyone about your accomplishments or your plans or your efforts, they have no way of knowing about them. So whatever you want to feel about the situation, the fact remains. Until you learn how to communicate, the community is going to feel as though you are doing nothing.
You need consistent and open communication, and I don't know I can make that any clearer. These issues haven't gone away in spite of years of discussion, so I don't know what to expect either.
My name is Reid "x0tek" Johnson. This thread is similar to my previous, but is different enough to warrant an entirely new discussion. The link to my former open note can be found here.
This thread is different because my first was a critique of our GM's handling of our competitive scene, a sort of general commentary on the major flaws with our competitive scene.
This is an angry complaint.
When's the last time any GM provided information publicly about the affairs of the CFNA competitive scene? When's the last time a competitive streamer was highlighted by the CFNA facebook group, or hosted by the CrossFire twitch.tv handle? When's the last time any GM provided ANY information about ANY aspect of the competitive scene to ANYONE publicly? Huh?
You can't answer, because the answer has been "months" and "months". For God's sake, I was the one who announced to the community the new CrossFireStars schedule that they put up on their website. Heck, I'd host my own events if I didn't want to compete in them too.
GMs, it has been three days since the initial thread was posted. No public acknowledgement has been given; however, given the fact that CrossFire is your full time job, it's difficult to imagine that none of you have seen it. Which leads me to believe that SEEING that thread belies COMPREHENDING that thread.
Let me explain.
Communication is important. It is THE most important skill in event-hosting, management, and in-general interactions with people.
Yet...it has been days since a thread was posted outlining precisely why communication is the most important aspect to a healthy community, offering feedback and constructive criticism for the GMs to use as insight into the community you claim to help. However, no response has been given. The head moderator over the Competitive Section of CrossFire -- ZZXQ -- agreed with the entirety of my post. And yet...no response has been given.
Spammers should get no response; their content is meaningless. Neither should those who resort to vulgarity; crassness and offensiveness get you nowhere. But when I -- or any member of this community -- take the time to write a heartfelt plea, without vulgarity, with substance, it should be responded to. In what business -- catering, event management, sporting events, hospitals, gas stations -- is this not the case? In what business is that associated with anything other than utter laziness and apathy?
How can you honestly, genuinely tell the community you care? Because Z8 pays your bills, therefore you care about the community? Because you host events that you are contractually obligated to by Smilegate? Because you partner with EGL, when you give them no ZP no codes no cash no prize of any kind? Because over 3 years ago you partnered with ESG and have made no strides since?
I started writing this forum post at 3:20PM EST; at this moment (3:22PM), I've taken up about two minutes of my time to type this post. Most replies would require far less time than this, warranting less than a paragraph. Even if you were paid 30 dollars an hour, which I know none of you are, and even if every reply you made was as lengthy as this post, you would spend literally a dollar of your time a day to respond. One dollar! How can you pretend to care? How can you pretend to not be apathetic when we don't warrant less than a dollar of your time? Because, hey, you're getting paid, right? So of course you care, right? What are we being ungrateful for, right? You don't have to do anything, right?
Well guess what? You aren't doing anything. Why should we be grateful? Even all of the last competitive season, when you actually did at least SOMETHING, your communication was terrible. Events were announced the week they launched. Schedules were ironclad, with no community feedback accepted or allowed. GMs disqualified teams and players for literally no reason. Think I'm kidding? GM Grumpy at the time said "I could ban you for no reason, do you think I need proof?". It's saved forever in the Discord chat. And guess what? Most of that minimal effort you put in didn't come from your own volition; Smilegate required national qualifiers. The year before that, ESL took care of most of the work for you all.
You have done next to NOTHING. As far as I can see, the only reason you haven't is that you're too lazy to bother.
It's a shame. This game is a great game; the community are passionate. There's a reason this game is a billion dollar industry in of itself. But there's even more of a reason our management is too inept to capitalize on that. And the reasons all start with you.
I admire the work you do, when you bother to do it. GM Triton's apparent work to get the Ghost Mode community fired up is a tremendous step in the right direction. But that I know about it is the only reason I can give him any laurels or accolades. Even then, I only heard about it second hand in another thread. As optimistic as I am, as hungry as I am for progress and for competition, I am not hopeful, and I do NOT believe in any of you. You haven't shown me, or the community, that you want to try at all. Whether or not you DO want to try is irrelevant, because we have not seen it.
You can only pretend to be doing work and show no results for so long before people call you out for being lazy and unethical.
If you want the community to think you're hard-working, caring, devoted staff, then you don't just need to do work. You need to tell the community about the work you're doing.
Conclusion
I know there are a several of you, GMs, who are passionate about the game. I don't mean to lump those of you who do your all and put in extra time and work your hearts out with those who manage the competitive affairs and allow things to languish. When my team had VISA issues with WCA, several of you bent over backward to make things work for us, and I am forever grateful for that.
But, I want this community to thrive more than I want to keep the GMs happy.
You're going to be angry. You're going to want to ban me, delete my threads, want to say I was too rude, too unappreciative. Too...whatever choice of words you want to use. The fact is, when you don't tell anyone about your accomplishments or your plans or your efforts, they have no way of knowing about them. So whatever you want to feel about the situation, the fact remains. Until you learn how to communicate, the community is going to feel as though you are doing nothing.
You need consistent and open communication, and I don't know I can make that any clearer. These issues haven't gone away in spite of years of discussion, so I don't know what to expect either.
Comments
-
The lack of communication between players and the GM's has been labored upon by the players for years with only slight improvement recently and this isn't the first, nor will it be the last thread about this issue. I agree that we need better communication with the GM's, or rather they need to communicate better and more often with the players. We all want the game to succeed and we are a direct tap into the overall playerbase, listen to us!
-
"Just wait! Its going to be bigger and better" - GMs/MODs
I don't need it to be that much better in real honesty. All we need is a GOOD anti-cheat and have GREAT admins then we should be fine. Plus wtf are you guys doing for 6+ months that is going to be better? I'm pretty sure everyone in the community could careless about how much better YOU guys want it to be. At the end of the day, do you really think we give a middle finger about what is better BESIDES the ANTI-CHEAT and ADMINS hosting the god damn tournament?
EDIT:typo -
Like x0tek would be the type of guy to post on his own thread from 2 different accounts..
Literally every person knows both of my forum accounts. I use one from my phone, one from my PC.
It's in my signature you imbecile.
@GMs, THAT is an insult / attack. -
Ellustrial wrote: »Literally every person knows both of my forum accounts. I use one from my phone, one from my PC.
It's in my signature you imbecile.
@GMs, THAT is an insult / attack.
That's not what I meant lmfao!!
Sheesh, ego so high gotta make 2 forum accounts because
I'm x0tek™ -
Ellustrial wrote: »
GM Triton's apparent work to get the Ghost Mode community fired up is a tremendous step in the right direction. But that I know about it is the only reason I can give him any laurels or accolades. Even then, I only heard about it second hand in another thread..
Here it is for you first hand. Only takes a single GM's interest to revive something.
Hope you guys get what you want soon
-
knskater95 wrote: »It really doesn't look good for the competetive scene when you insult the only people which can bring the competetive scene to you. Toxicity aside, I advise you to read up on publisher and developer relationships.
We answered this thread 2 days ago: https://forum.eslgaming.com/discussion/35465/help-na-out-please-retweet#latest
Skater is right; this thread is not a clarion call to those who want to generally attack the GMs. It's a critique -- albeit an aggressive and direct one -- of their total lack of communication with the community at large. -
Ellustrial wrote: »GM Triton's apparent work to get the Ghost Mode community fired up is a tremendous step in the right direction. But that I know about it is the only reason I can give him any laurels or accolades. Even then, I only heard about it second hand in another thread. As optimistic as I am, as hungry as I am for progress and for competition, I am not hopeful, and I do NOT believe in any of you. You haven't shown me, or the community, that you want to try at all. Whether or not you DO want to try is irrelevant, because we have not seen it.
Ghost Mode's been pretty dead and has been a mode the staff hasn't cared about for years now. Motg 2015 and 2016 had 10 and 8 teams sign up respectively. Motg 2016 especially was a disaster, the prizes were not announced until a week AFTER the tournament ended(which explains the lack of sign ups).
In 2017, Triton took over MoTG and communicated with the players, posted regularly on the thread with updates, took player suggestions into consideration right away and even announced prizes well in advance. Because of that we had 75 teams sign up, of which only the first 48 were allowed to play. Within a year the sign ups went from 8 teams for MoTG 2016 to 75 in MoTG 2017 because of the open communication between players and GMs.
I hope they realize that by keeping stuff a "surprise" instead of keeping the players in the loop is only gonna hurt the community because players will lose their patience. -
-
CFCL will start in July it will be like CFS Q that it
idk why is so hard that GMs say that
i think it is sad when Kanadian say Janauary or when someone from ex team cursive write cfcl will not start before may (it was start of april) Jessie write wanna bet that will start faster....
lets dont expect much from this version again NA will be last in CFS i dont say that team w0w is less skilled then other teams but other team got cups almost whole year and team w0w (NA) got 3m on yearq -
knskater95 wrote: »Where is "face of the game" coming from, does a long forum post really scare you that much?
I see a genuine letter to the GM's, adressing the various problems. Support the idea, even if you don't like the person who made it.
He is literally saying he is the face of the game when he decided to go on a talk about another player and tell them they are not the face of the game. Like x0tek stfu and think before you talk! You are so out of place to even mention others as the face of the game or not. I don't see you as one and no one else does too. -
I don't think he ever said he considered himself the face of the game. He mentioned others and their actions as examples of who isn't though. This is counter productive, the point is that the GMS should listen to the community as a whole and not only Brando from Carbon or Ayrin etc.
-
Britishjosh wrote: »I don't think he ever said he considered himself the face of the game. He mentioned others and their actions as examples of who isn't though. This is counter productive, the point is that the GMS should listen to the community as a whole and not only Brando from Carbon or Ayrin etc.
He really did imply it in that one paragraph though.
Categories
- All Categories
- Z8Games
- 1 Z8 Forum Discussion & Suggestions
- 15 Z8Games Announcements
- Rules & Conduct
- 2.5K CrossFire
- 709 CrossFire Announcements
- 712 Previous Announcements
- 2 Previous Patch Notes
- 320 Community
- 12 Modes
- 392 Suggestions
- 16 Clan Discussion and Recruitment
- 73 CF Competitive Forum
- 1 CFCL
- 16 Looking for a Team?
- 522 CrossFire Support
- 7 Suggestion
- 15 CrossFire Guides
- 35 CrossFire Off Topic