131 replies to this topic

[Solis Obscuri]

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.

So tl:dr version: the only Community Manager MWO has ever had was the worst Community Manager MWO has ever had.

[Rebas Kradd]

Roadbeer, on 19 February 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

Totally agree with the first part.

As to the second, I enjoyed Garth mocking the especially neckbeardy or nerdragey.

While half of me also enjoys seeing this and ALMOST wants to forgive PGI for their occasional bouts of working-man return snark, the other half admits that it's not professional and lumps a lot of genuinely frustrated customers in with the ragers.

I'm sure we'll have a new Community Manager soon, by the way. I hope that whoever that person is, he takes the bull by the horns - polls, community contests (beyond Cicada paint jobs), active role in the Vlog, etc. Stuff that will actually get the community playing the "community game", which is something that barely exists here.

[Roadbeer]

Chronojam, on 19 February 2014 - 05:22 PM, said:

Blah, blah, blah

Man, I can't even agree with you without you becoming douchy.

[Chronojam]

Roadbeer, on 19 February 2014 - 05:38 PM, said:

Man, I can't even agree with you without you becoming douchy.

I'm more of a fiefdom than a duchy. I come to bury PGI_TheGarth, not to praise him.

[Roadbeer]

Chronojam, on 19 February 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:

I'm more of a fiefdom than a duchy. I come to bury PGI_TheGarth, not to praise him.

Isn't that basically your stance about any minutia of MWO?
We could basically just take that as read without you posting by now.

Roadbeer, on 18 February 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

Wait?
There was a community manager?
I thought it was just some guy who only talked about Cicadas.

My thoughts on the topic.

[TheUncle]

not liking Garth is one thing, but being rude is another.

Unlike most of us, Garth's identity is known, everything he did he did under his real name.

I feel really sad if someone needs to really "shit" on someone, if I know that someone will probably read this thread. This is sad.

Apart from that - they are not hiring any community managers, so hopefully they already have a new one.

[Pando]

Chronojam, on 19 February 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:

I'm more of a fiefdom than a duchy. I come to bury PGI_TheGarth, not to praise him.

We should bury you instead.

[ProtoformX]

How about we don't bury anyone. Let's remember that business is business people. These things happen every day. MechWarrior is not going to die because Garth left.

[xRedEyex]

Garths last interview prolly went somthing like this...

https://i.imgflip.com/70hag.jpg

[ShinVector]

Let's move on and hope PGI hires a Community Manager that is interested in engaging the community.
Just glad to see that many people shared the same view of the former CM. (So wasn't just me after all !)

Edited by ShinVector, 20 February 2014 - 01:34 AM.

[Thorn Hallis]

How about you guys put your milk money together, buy some shares of Piranha Games and then let them explain to you what person does what in the company.

[merz]

ShinVector, on 20 February 2014 - 01:34 AM, said:

a Community Manager that is interested in engaging the community.

'engaging the community' is goon code for 'taking marching orders from a minority who gets off on socially-engineering the everliving f-ck out of anything they touch'

if anything, garth's problem was that he strayed from what is now an industry standard practice of treating you lot as human beings. and taking personally the stuff you meant very much personally against him, his co-workers and pretty much anyone who doesn't share your sociopathic tendencies.

Edited by merz, 20 February 2014 - 02:40 AM.

[Hastur Azargo]

Hey, Garth, if you're reading this, know that many of us will miss you. We'll miss dropping with you and getting lasered by you alike. Hell, I'll even go and outline the old laser marks on my Fang, and write "Garth was here" underneath. I'm in no position to evaluate your professional performance, but I know this much: MWO was more fun with you around, for me, and many more mechwarriors out there.

We wish you all the best.

[ShinVector]

merz, on 20 February 2014 - 02:37 AM, said:

'engaging the community' is goon code for 'taking marching orders from a minority who gets off on socially-engineering the everliving f-ck out of anything they touch'

if anything, garth's problem was that he strayed from what is now an industry standard practice of treating you lot as human beings. and taking personally the stuff you meant very much personally against him, his co-workers and pretty much anyone who doesn't share your sociopathic tendencies.

Are you calling me a goon for bearing the green flag ?
A bit uneducated on how diverse the community is aren't you ? Wake up dude.
The role playing section isn't here dude.

Edited: typos

Edited by ShinVector, 20 February 2014 - 04:29 AM.

[B0oN]

Bye Garth.
It´s nice Gendo and I were able to help a bit with some left open problems, after Gendo appraised Garth (and PGI through him) of them.

Have my best wishes for your way and keep Cicada´ing ^^

[Smokeyjedi]

Maybe He saw the purpose in long term player retention rather than quick schemes to get payed from.....Maybe he got the AXE! free thinking individuals are generally punished these days.. **BITEYFISHGAMES** clearly has outlined thier ideas for continuos revinue, How many of the original founders are still playing regularily in %..............Id love to know.

[Noesis]

Helmer, on 19 February 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:

The post from Russ states "Unfortunately Garth is no longer employed at PGI, it was simply a matter of his skill set no longer matching the evolving needs of the product and studio." It does not say PGI has grown beyond the need for a Community Manager, simply that Garth's particular skillset does not match PGI's needs.

Garth was an awesome guy and he will be missed greatly. Here's to hoping for a bright future for both Garth and PGI.


Cheers.

[MonkeyCheese]

Victor Morson, on 19 February 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

If you don't listen to NGNG or remmeber closed beta, you would not know he existed. For the "head of the community" that's pretty bad.

Just have to pop my head in and say that I was basically in this group 100%, been a member since July 2012, was somewhat active in discussions and feedback on the forums with my 1600+ forum posts but for various reasons I avoided twitter and ngng and acted like they didn't exist and Garth was and is meaningless to me, community manager outside of the games website isn't really much of a community manager in my eyes.

But I gave up all faith a while ago now

[Hammerhai]

I am very surprised at the deep divide evident in this thread. But then I shouldn't be. Just remember that when I wanted to contact him via PM - I couldn't. Ok, only human. I left it at that.
Fact is I stem from late October CB and only heard of him from other people as "a good guy". More to the point I wonder if as a community we may be more toxic than we think, what with Niko AND him leaving. All that really remains to be seen if these changes lead to something positive. For which I hope.

PS Whatever happened to teh secret squirrel club, I wonder. If they are part of QA. - weeelll kets just say I would wonder about their effective contribution, when all is said and done.

[ClaymoreReIIik]

I have at several occasions gotten responses to forum PMs. My team and I have been visited on our TS-Servers and he has always taken the time to listen to our concerns and ideas. After open beta, so I am not talking good old times here.

I have always felt like the CM was reachable. Sure he did not respond fast, but he always responded. I considered it given, that he gets a load of PMs, so I was never worried about speed.

Whatever the reasons for the change in staff, we will see if things turn around for the better or worse.