131 replies to this topic

[Livewyr]

Victor, I think you've got blinders on to some degree. I tracked Garth extensively (back when I cared more) and he had quite a bit of involvement.

I also sent him many write-ups in PMs (that was how he requested it, CMDS) and received personal responses that it was being sent up the chain.

I saw all this activity you seem to have missed.

(And in regards to NGNG interviews.. I think he wanted to talk about (address) the flaws with the game as much as we did, but when the president has declared those "on an island," that isn't feasible for him.)

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

My reaction to Garth not being employed


Meh

[JeepStuff]

Livewyr, on 19 February 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

I disagree that it isn't our business. While we don't have a controlling stake in the company such as a shareholder does, we are the continuing investors. (Well, I was.)

We don't have a controlling stake in anything, we are not shareholders, we are not investors. We are consumers of a product. You paid for content, and that content was delivered. Granted, you paid for that content HOPING that the game would progress in the direction you wanted it to, but nowhere was your cash directly tied to those promises. When you buy an iPod, you get what you bought. If later Apple decides to close iTunes forever, you don't have a say just because you bought an iPod. it just means the product you bought didn't have the shelf life you wanted it to, or the company didn't go the direction you wanted it to. But you aren't a shareholder or an investor just because you bought their product. The same applies here. Everything you were promised FOR CASH you were delivered, and those transactions are complete.

In any case, my spiel above is off topic. Sorry. As for Garth, I agree he added value here, but I also agree that it's an HR thing between Garth and PGI and it's not our business.


EDIT: READ MUCH, EJT?!! I read your quote way too fast and missed your point, which was to say we AREN'T shareholders. I apologize for misinterpreting your post. I need to read slower. Apparently we're in violent agreement. Sorry.

Edited by EJT, 19 February 2014 - 11:43 AM.

[Victor Morson]

I never expected the man to bad mouth decisions they've made, I understand that.

But the fact he didn't even know what we were complaining about - when the whole community was on fire - made me realize how horribly out of touch he had become. More than I thought at the time, even.

It's nice he answered your PMs and he was a decent guy to deal with when he actually dealt with us.

If this was the fault of people basically blocking him from doing his job and him giving up, I feel bad for Garth. When his NDA runs out he'll have one hell of an amusing story to tell Gamasutra or something. I look forward to reading it if this was, in fact, the case.

[FactorlanP]

Victor Morson, on 19 February 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

That's funny, the only thing I could think reading that announcement was "And nothing of value was lost." I've said repeatedly that Garth was on the short list of people at PGI who absolutely should not hold their position, or any position.

The man did nothing of value. All he ever did was chat with NGNG people and every time he got a real question thrown at him, he had no idea. He didn't even understand Ghost Heat could trigger under 4 launchers and thought only a "couple 'mechs could cause it so it wasn't a big deal" for example.

Again, this was the #1 hot button community issue at the time and it proved he was not paying attention to a damned thing anyone was saying, far more than I care about him not knowing technical issues. This wasn't some obscure dirty question, this was the thing that was filling the forums (and look around, it still is) with rage.

I liked the post of him being fired because PGI firing him was the most hope I've had for the company in a long time. If they're willing to start canning people who don't do their job, maybe something will get done. But Garth was the worst Community Manager we've ever had, evident by the fact he has been not working that position since November and nobody noticed.



As far as I'm concerned, we've always needed one.

The last time Garth contacted all the active units in the community was very very early into closed beta. After that, he entirely shut down, and wouldn't talk to units anymore. He wouldn't talk to people in forums, and he had the moderators here - many volunteer - doing all the Q&A setups and posts. And as I said, if he did get ask non-scripted hardball questions, it became immediately clear that he had absolutely no idea what was going on, despite the forums screaming the same thing in unison over and over. This indicates the community manager wasn't listening at all.

The man was doing absolutely nothing of value and his removal was well over a year overdue.

Russ & Paul best be glad that they own the company. Paul's departure in particular would likely cause an impromptu celebration across every unit in this game that still stands.

EDIT: Honestly his firing is the first glimmer of hope I have for this game, if ineffective employees that are proven failures are on the chopping block finally. If this happened sooner maybe we'd not had that year, year and a half where the core gameplay did not advance at all.

I totally agree.

Hanging out with the "yes men" at NGNG was worthless.

A real community manager should be spending every working hour among the actual player community. Asking questions, answering questions, and getting the answers for questions he doesn't have the answer.

What he was doing... Worthless...

[NRP]

Thanks Victor for crapping on this thread. Your quality is becoming more well known the more you post.

As for all the non-Victors out there, we should all drop in Cicadas for a night in tribute to "The Garth".

[TehSBGX]

Victor Morson, on 19 February 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

Paul's departure in particular would likely cause an impromptu celebration across every unit in this game that still stands.

QFT

Anyways, I'm a little dissapointed Garth is gone though since I remember him being respectful towards the community, or at least he tried to be.

[N a p e s]

Apart from asking users about his Cicadas paint scheme the thing that comes to mind was that alleged (and controversial) conversation he had with another member of the PGI team during the whole Unite and Drop movement. I don't know if that was ever proved to be real but if it was it shows a lot of contempt for the playerbase...

Anyways, I think PGI needs to hire a new community manager who will be much more present on the forums and who will really be able to relay the community's voice back to the development and design team.

[White Panther]

FactorlanP, on 19 February 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

I totally agree.

Hanging out with the "yes men" at NGNG was worthless.

A real community manager should be spending every working hour among the actual player community. Asking questions, answering questions, and getting the answers for questions he doesn't have the answer.

What he was doing... Worthless...

Exactly, whatever it is he was doing he sure didn't have community in mind. I think everyone here would agree he could have been doing so much more. And for that, I think it was time for him to move on and find something else to do.

Its a positive step, for a game already notorious for not engaging with their own community. I hope in the future if the community manager role is filled that we get someone who engages the community on a very regular basis.

[Sarsaparilla Kid]

Victor Morson, on 19 February 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

I liked the post of him being fired because PGI firing him was the most hope I've had for the company in a long time. If they're willing to start canning people who don't do their job, maybe something will get done. But Garth was the worst Community Manager we've ever had, evident by the fact he has been not working that position since November and nobody noticed.

As PGI was desperate for help in other areas of development, they pulled him from the Community Manager spot to work on elements of some of the new Hero mechs, like the Jester, as well as the new pilot Achievement System that has yet to be released. It will be hard to fully account for Garth's contribution to the game until we see that in place. The Jester is one of my favorite mechs, so I can thank Garth for that. It may not be competitive because of the prominent CT, but it's still fun to run and gun with.

[Rebas Kradd]

I'm not one to believe that PGI needs to be slaves to the community on everything. We can't even agree on what the game should be, and we don't have the technical knowledge to know whether our ideas can be implemented.

But...PGI's participation in the feedback threads would at least enhance PGI's claim that they were listening. Even if they were only answering a few of the questions, and even if they said "This sounds great, but unfortunately it can't/shouldn't be done for X and Y reason", it would at least make it look like they cared. Instead, the feedback threads have been marked with complete and utter silence. I have to think that's on the community manager.

[MoonUnitBeta]

Livewyr, on 19 February 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

I disagree that it isn't our business. While we don't have a controlling stake in the company such as a shareholder does, we are the continuing investors. (Well, I was.)
[snip]

No, we are customers. There is no investment in buying virtual mechs except for your own personal gain for fun or collecting. It's not even something you can claim when applying for a loan, or anything. It's a product we're buying. My investments are nicely locked up with my bank who make it grow every year.

All I'm saying is that why Garth left, the reason he left, really isn't something we need to know about. It could be because he had a quarrel with a co-worker, was caught smoking dope, came to work drunk, flipped off his boss, quality of health was declining and required a change of lifestyle and moved. I'm taking what Russ said very lightly and with about teaspoon of salt. His absence doesn't directly influence me. It influences the binding between PGI and the community; and that in-turn affects the game. If MWO ends up going belly up because they start doing things against the wishes of the community and the benefit of the game, we will leave. We will find other games to play. I hear star citizen is becomming pretty popular, I already sunk 800 dollars into ships. In that sense, I am investing in the game because it's not launched yet. I'm having fun with MWO, and I've already got my money's worth out of MWO from what I've put into it. Star Citizen seems promising so i'm not worried about pre-ordering/funding the game.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 19 February 2014 - 11:56 AM.

[Sandpit]

I'm willing to bet I know who the new Liason is going to be....
Modgate 2014
broken toes

[Livewyr]

MoonUnit, what are customers?
People who inject money into a company for a good or service.

What are repeat customers?
People who enjoy the product or service enough to inject *more* money over time.

If you alienate your customer-base, they cease injecting money. That's lost revenue.



I think if Garth left for personal reasons, they'd have said "personal reasons" and it wouldn't have concerned me at all regarding the company. (I wish Garth the best either way.) What bothers me as that they did the nice-sounding way of getting fired or let go.. 'you're no longer required here...' or 'the company has evolved beyond you.'

I think if they could've been truthful in "personal reasons," they'd have said that because it's so much more pleasant and doesn't reflect on them.

[C E Dwyer]

For what ever reason is there any point in this speculation, is it going to help Garth at all, and is his leaving going to impact on the active community.

Does anyone actually know what his 'skill set' is and arguing and guessing isn't doing anyone any good, for those that do want to talk to the guy he has his own twitter feed, and, isn't saying a word about what happend, and rightly to, as even if he is the agreived party, shooting off about it, wouldn't help his chances of employment.

[Ngamok]

FactorlanP, on 19 February 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

I totally agree.

Hanging out with the "yes men" at NGNG was worthless.

A real community manager should be spending every working hour among the actual player community. Asking questions, answering questions, and getting the answers for questions he doesn't have the answer.

What he was doing... Worthless...

Why is it whenever I look at IGP's twitch stream it's always NGNG, usually Phil.

[Kushko]

This is a post i made a couple months ago and i think it reflects my opinion on this matter perfectly:

I am aware Garth is a cool guy and i honestly do like him as a person but he's just a horrible community manager. The few posts he does make are mostly just "one of the guys/players" type of posts. Dont get me wrong, i love that he enjoys the game and plays it regularly, but i dont think thats really his job. Now, some people might have a different idea about what a CM should do, but i think their primary job is to be a link of communication between the devs and the community. To pass on devs thought processes and ideas to us and to pass ours to them (maybe he does this second part but he sure hides it well). To keep us up to date on the going ons, to avoid all the fires and community outbursts (yah we all know this isnt being done propperly) instead of trying to put them out after they have already started (which from what i can tell is being done by Russ not Garth). So in conclusion; Garth if you enjoy playing the game and being one of the guys AND are getting payed for it, well thats just awesome for you, but we as a community need more from you or from someone else if playing the game and being a cool dude is a full time job for you.

[Alex Warden]

Livewyr, on 19 February 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

I disagree that it isn't our business. While we don't have a controlling stake in the company such as a shareholder does, we are the continuing investors. (Well, I was.)

we are customers... it´s every companies own decision how - if at all - they communicate with the customers audience... most companies basically do little more than advertising with pretty words, and honestly, PGI can do that without Garth being "nice to us"...

while i appreciate the communications Garth shared with us (mostly in the early days, CBT and all), we are not at all in any position to DEMAND them...

btw, as i read more of your posts: you seem to have a very romantic understanding of buisness communication

i wish Garth good luck where ever his next job might be
cheers

Edited by Alex Warden, 19 February 2014 - 12:41 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Sarsaparilla Kid, on 19 February 2014 - 11:49 AM, said:

The Jester is one of my favorite mechs, so I can thank Garth for that. It may not be competitive because of the prominent CT, but it's still fun to run and gun with.

I actually felt a little bad when me telling him flat out why it's actually an awful 'mech seemed to hurt his feelings, rather than strengthen his resolve to not repeat the same mistakes.

[Deathlike]

Garth didn't deserved to be fired. It didn't seem to me that PGI needed/wanted him anymore for whatever reason. It's PGI's decision so you have to take it for what it's worth.

I did not like Garth. If you ever had to question his understanding of this game or its mechanics, he was an abyss/black hole. I've cited things in the past (Garth did not know how 2 ERPPCs at the height of the PPC meta could be cooled with both Coolant modules). He has to play more than a Cicada to understand what's wrong with the game.

For the most part, what he least on the surface "tried" to do, I'm sure went deaf on the PGI upper management ears. I do believe he tried to get some changes or stuff passed upwards (to Paul, Russ, Bryan, and all) but let's be honest... very minimal to my knowledge got changed. Even the Raven engine buff that he "claimed" was in the pipeline came AFTER the debut of the Locust... and that buff was still NOT ENOUGH to make the Raven-2X an OK mech (it's still an inferior Jenner-K).

In sum, he wasn't really the problem @ PGI, nor the solution to figure out PGI's problems with its community. He wasn't a bad person, but he also wasn't helpful for the game (seriously, Cicadas are generally eaten alive by Jenners and he couldn't quite understand why). On the surface, his departure is more or less inconsequential, because the problems @ PGI are at the top, and not with Garth. Garth is simply a symptom of said problem.

Edited by Deathlike, 19 February 2014 - 12:44 PM.