Life at an underground game company.
General
A frank talk from the bar.
71 month ago
We have more updates a comin’ about Emerald Kingdom. I believe you’ll either see something later this week, or perhaps early next week. It depends on how things come together. I did however, want to take a walk in another direction just as important: what it’s like running a fringe/underground game studio with a lot of people.
It’s not easy. It gets maddening sometimes. Not the people. Just the pace. It can get to you, cause everything from cold sweats to crises of confidence. I’ve encountered every kind of emotion you can think of over the course of Double Cluepon history.
I guess, in the past 24 hours with all the progress we’ve been showing lately, (and there is lots more coming, promise!) I feel as though in some ways I become a focal point for the company. I guess that is valid on some level. But, that’s entirely not how I see myself. I’ve been told by various people I am “The best boss ever”, but again: that’s not how I see myself.
How I see myself is this: I myself am not Double Cluepon. We are Double Cluepon. I steadfastly refuse to take credit for what is, and always will be a group effort. I trust the people in this company more than implicitly, I trust them in ways that really cannot be put into words. The hardest part of any creative effort is putting forth an idea. Surrendering it to the group.
That word: Surrender. Sounds cliche or maybe a bit dramatic doesn’t it? But there is no other word that fits. Emerald Kingdom may have originally been my idea…at one time. But, in order to make it a reality I had to accept the fact that I could not do it alone. In order to realize your vision, sometimes, you have to let someone else hold the baby. This is hard enough with an actual child. Two parents coming to terms with the fact that they may not see eye to eye on what ideas for parenting are valid, and which are not. In a group, working on a creative effort…it gets even more complex. Why?
Because when you surrender your idea to the group, you are allowing critique. You are opening yourself up to a process where parts of your idea may be shown to be not relevant, or changed. If you have the capacity to push past this, to accept group wisdom when it comes to this kind of design you’ll find something amazing: your idea becomes better, despite it not fitting for conforming to what you originally envisioned it as in your minds eye.
This magic can and does happen every day with creative groups. The magic flows best when the trust, respect and love for what’s being created is shared among that group. I can assure anyone who reads this: nobody wants to play Emerald Kingdom more than the people here. But, that trust between us here at Double Cluepon has done more to get Emerald Kingdom developed than any pen, or line of code. I can assure you of something else: What I envisioned Emerald Kingdom to be is a far cry from what it has become. It has not become something I did not want, it has become more of what I want. This is the power of listening, and trust in the creative group around you.
It’s also an idea many people in this industry have a problem understanding, let alone putting into practice.
Emerald Kingdom, as an idea, a concept…is no longer mine and mine alone. It belongs to everyone here at this strange little company. We’re loud, and obnoxious. We make inappropriate jokes sometimes on Twitter. But despite all of that, I would challenge anyone who told us we were not fully invested in our project. We love what we do. Having said that, if you love what you do you’ll never “work” a day in your life.
None of us work here at Double Cluepon. We enjoy the act of creation. We enjoy the fact we’re creating something new and innovative. We get immense satisfaction from our efforts.
The other big thing we have done is, in a lot of ways surrendered our group idea to a larger group: the players, the people, the ones who have continually been left out. This is often done under the guise of percentages, focus groups and mechanical dry thinking. As a company, one of our strongest feelings is very simple: as we started Double Cluepon because we were tired of being ignored by “the powers that be”, it makes no sense to shut out others. That’s why we have adopted the very open development model that we use. Again, I refuse to take credit for what has been a group effort: the players and people who speak to us have caused real and significant changes to some of the things we are designing. Don’t believe me? Ask Arislyn, or anyone else who has spoken to us.
But that’s the real point I want to drive home here: it’s not just me anymore. I may hold the reins, but I trust every single one of these people to tell me if I am steering us toward a cliff, or a waterfall. They trust me to do the same. It’s a special kind of working relationship. It’s hard to forge, and harder to maintain. But the best places on earth to work have it. When you trust like that, you have the freedom to imagine, without restraint. It frees you from inhibition. It’s a safe place to say, “We can do this” instead of saying “We can’t do this”.
The most important thing anyone in a leadership role can do, is realizing that you are not the body of the company, but the soul of it. Leader, CEO, Director, Vice President…these are just titles we put on things for Visio charts. The reality is, none of these people work for me, if anything…I work for them. But I think the truth is actually much simpler: we’re for working for the common goal. Creatively, business wise, and for each of our own personal reasons.
TL;DR: I love all the people I work with. They are awesome. Being a boss is not about issuing commands and being a hard assed douchebag. It’s about working with people, hand in glove to realize a goal. Also, listen to the people you expect to use what you create. If you don’t, that’s on you.
Ja Mata!
New Artwork!
01 month ago
We released Starla today on DeviantArt. In the Run up to C2E2, we wanted to get some art out there you folks have not seen. Feel free to check her out. Starla is a major player in Magna, the world of Emerald Kingdom.
Updates, Animations and A Sprite Oh My!
01 month ago
Hey thar folks. Back again for another fun update.
Awhile ago, we spoke about The Sprites, why they were important, and what you could expect from them. Well, today for you I have a peek for you at a Sprite Model which is heading into the animation department soon.
Danu, with her wings uncased.
Meet Danu. She will be the first Sprite you see in Emerald Kingdom. Danu’s job is to welcome new players into Emerald Kingdom, get their bearings. The first thing she will do is give you the Mark of Birth, and show you a bit about how to get around, how to fight and to generally help you acclimate to life on Magna.
As a Sprite, Danu is one of the immortal residents of Magna, despite her youthful looks, she is incredibly long lived and incredibly old. Despite her years, and all she has seen…she’s incredibly peaceful and friendly. Determined, but at the same time, she very sensible.
All Sprites have wings. Some have 2, some have one. They have the ability to case or un-case their wings as well. Sometimes, you are not always going to be sure whether you’re talking to a townie NPC, or a Sprite.
This is definitely by design.
Now that Danu’s model is complete, it will now be passed to the animation department, so her animation sheets can be created. Danu needs to be ready for inclusion testing, so we can begin putting in the new character sequences, but also to test Sprite NPC Class functions as well. The Sprites are an integral part of the world of Emerald Kingdom, and making sure they function properly is going to be one of our major key target areas for testing.
This, and other models are and have been in process now for awhile. Animating takes some time, but now Sandalphon has help in the form of Serena who is our newest member of the Animation Department here. While Sandalphon has been working on both Player models and Monsters, whereas Serena has been working on Monsters mainly. While these processes are ongoing, I thought perhaps today would be a good time to show off some of the work currently in play.
A female player, hair and starter clothes.
One of the first things that Sandalphon started working on, Player models boiled down to a great deal of ground work. The original nude models were animated first, then using them as a base hairstyles and clothes were animated as a layer over the models, using the original nude models as a guide. It keeps us from having to do the same work over and over, and gives us a nicely integrated look for things.
In the model to the right, you can see a basic female player character. She has one of what will be many different hairstyles, and a set of starter clothing.
The clothing is grey, because it’s actually masked. We will be able to tint and allow for color selection in the client. All in all, it’s a really nice solid job. More clothing, shoes, etc will of course be made available over time as well. Hair colors will be available for selection as well.
Sandalphon really pours her heart and soul into her work, as you can see. She can also drink her weight in beer. She actually puts some of the rest of us to shame. But, she animates, and we love her.
Meanwhile, Serena has been working on Monsters. One of them being a wasp like monster, which has not been officially named yet. The Wasp has an interesting history: it was originally just a piece we created for testing prospective animators. Serena animated it so well, we elected to keep her work, and build on it. The result has been pretty awesome. Let’s take a look!
Wasp idling, this is a test loop, with a dummy for scale.
One of the first things Serena did, was work on the idle cycle. One of Serena’s strengths is that she is a fast perfectionist, and does not stop working on something until it looks smooth and awesome.
But she’s also quick about her work. She does not waste time, and she likes mathematical precision. The result is a really smooth, nice looking idle cycle. This is just one angle, as well. Remember, Emerald Kingdom is an isometric game, everything needs to be animated in multiple angles.
Wasp, attacking. It's a pretty nasty bug.
The next thing she took to task, was the attack cycle. On this, she went above the call of duty. She actually took the time to put in a really awesome looking double sting cycle. It looks amazing, smooth and really really fun. It’s going to be a fun monster to fight. That much is sure.
The Wasp death cycle. Keep in mind, this animation moves a bit faster than it would in the client.
The next cycle she worked on, was the death cycle for the wasp. Again, efficient and quick.
One of the things Serena did here, was to create a death cycle that seemed organic, and and flowed well using the shape and design of the creature to enhance the look and feel of the death cycle.
All in all, really excellent work on the part of the Animators here. Between Sandalphon, Serena and some additional contributions from Caelum, a lot has been done in terms of getting the world moving.
As Sandalphon and Serena keep plugging away at the animation queue, Raguel is putting some final touches on the animation tools within storyteller. Storyteller allows the animators to take their frames, export them to a linear sheet, and then upload that into StoryTeller, set the frame rate and boom. It’s in there.
Once that’s done, all we have to do from there is define the creature from a world and function standpoint.
This is exactly how MMORPG publishing should work. It’s one of the things we are striving for…to create tools, to create a world, so that artists and animators and story tellers can do what they do best, without necessarily needing to ask a developer for help.
That’s all for today. I think the next update will be about story, episodic content, and what is going on there. Emerald Kingdom is actually a game where we are doing some things differently, in terms of stories, and telling a story within a large persistent world.
Till next time.
Re-thinking the “one size fits all” Customer Service Model.
02 months ago
My recent interactions with Three Rings has led me to think about the way companies deal with customers. Let me start by changing up the dichotomy here a bit and say I think companies should not deal with customers. Companies should work with their customers when issues arise.
While it’s important to gauge customer feedback about their interaction with a customer service rep, it got me to thinking that perhaps in order to ditch the one size fits all model from the CS side of things, we should be gathering feedback from the company representative about the customer.
My recent poor interaction with Three Rings was, at least from my point of view, what you get when you treat every customer the same. When you treat every customer the same, you run the risk of alienating them when they may have isolated or singular issues. Treating every customer the same also leads you down the road of limiting your perspective and, in some cases using only a hammer to pound every problem to a simple solution. Unfortunately, while those solutions may work, they run the risk of completely putting off the customer, or forcing the customer to scream and shout in order to get the extra attention a situation may need in order to be resolved. It forces the customer into an adversarial relationship with the service provider: he has to fight to make sure he is listened to, when the very obvious has been ignored. Such is the almost always the case when you get burned out or otherwise swamped CS employees who respond with canned or form like responses.
When you turn it into an adversarial relationship, both parties suffer. Not all customers are right, but just because you hold all the keys, and cover all the doors does not, and should not lead you to think that you are right by default. Customer and Customer Service rep each put their pants on one leg at a time, and CS Reps should consider, always, that no two situations are always alike.
It’s this fundamental point that customer service reps lose sight of, I think. It leads the adversarial situation down a path where any CS Rep is then willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It leads them to think every customer is guilty until proven innocent, every customer is trying to game them. On some level, I suppose you could say “Who can blame them, have you seen how gamers act?”. But see, that immediately puts you on the road to assume all gamers are bad apples. It assumes that because there is a segment of bad actors, the easiest way to deal is to assume they are all bad, until one has the temerity to show they are not. But, it’s very difficult to overcome for that good user, because the CS Rep has fallen into a sort of tunnel vision. It can become an impossibly steep climb for the good user, and usually…they walk away. This then becomes a lose lose. The company loses, and the customer loses. But, the customer only loses once. If that customer is a good sneezer, the losses to the company can be ongoing. This is why we have to think about this problem differently. We have to move away from the “one size fits all” or “guilty until proven innocent” model of game customer service.
But, how do we solve this? How do we even things out. More importantly, how do we grade the customers, and the people who interact with them?
We’ve all had a company call or email us to “take a short survey” on their experience with their company, or their customer service. This is all well and good. We want to know if a customer has a positive or negative view of the company right? In this way, CS reps are reviewed, and build their reputation within the company itself.
I propose we start thinking about doing the same for the customers. We should be letting customer service reps grade the customer interactions. Both customer and customer service grades would need to be peer reviewed. i.e: karma assigned, but meta moderated.
In this way, if we get a customer who sends tickets that are hostile, full of swearing or threats/intimidation…we can tailor our response in the future. If we get a customer who is polite, and has a good history of working with customer service when there are issues, we know that we should take some extra care with them.
Such a system for game customer service would allow us to scale our response with granularity, for good customers, and customers we should think about firing. Applying working features of the big and small city models, the Slashdot meta mod system…and perhaps using a good curve to weight things once the customer count is big enough…we can categorize and tailor our approach to our most valued commodity: the people who patronize our service.
Such a system has to be expedient on the CS Rep side, as well as the customer side. We need to rate these quickly, but also allow for detailed feedback. Customer analysis should be a part of the equation, and it would appear not many people in the games industry, and especially those who provide online, multiplayer games are doing enough of this. Perhaps they are, but I’ve not seen much evidence of it. I see a lot of this “one size fits all” approach, which I do not think we would see if there was a significant amount of customer analysis going on.
That said, we are thinking about this. We’re thinking about this right now. Why? Because as everyone at Double Cluepon is a player of games we believe our expectations are similar to those of other people who play games. We also know that customer service is a multifaceted thing, but still ostensibly boils down to one key idea: treat others how you would want to be treated.
Coda: Three Rings headed down an all too familiar path.
12 months ago
(TL;DR Preface: I had secretly hoped that the recent acquisition by Sega would not degrade the performance of Three Rings, as is the case of so many innovative companies acquired by large companies. Sadly, it would seem that like many acquisition situations, this case bears out a disturbing trend: good customer service is the first thing to go as the new owners go about absorbing their new meal. My main Puzzle Pirates account has been banned, because of a miscommunication between Steam Wallet and Three Rings. After review, it's clear that due to an earlier hiccup,The Ringers seem to think they are short 19.95. Having looked at my purchase, and my Doubloon history as provided to all customers, I have been able to see from my end that this is a miscommunication, and an error on their part. They take days to reply to even a response asking for more information. I remain banned despite trying to work with them. They also seem to have banned me based solely on what appears to be an automated notice from Steam. After giving them several days to resolve the issue, to no avail I have given up being a player of Three Rings games. I have also filed a complaint & ticket with Steam. I don't think it's entirely their problem, however I at least want it on record.)
UPDATE: Three Rings apologized after a few days of silence:
I have done some further digging into your accounts, and they are now
unbanned. I’m very sorry about this issue, but it was caused by
miscommunication between Steam and our system. We had a chargeback
notification that your purchase had been refunded, which is why the associated
accounts were banned. There was no indication that the refund was caused by
a bug in the Steam wallet and you had not received your doubloons.What happened with your account is a rare occurrence, which only affected a handful of accounts. I have left notes on the other accounts, to be sure they
are not banned for these chargeback notices.I’m sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If you have any further
questions or concerns, please let me know. — Aphrodite, 3-20-2012
While I am willing to accept their apology for this debacle, it does not excuse the very real causes of it. I have included their resolution in the interest of fairness, and to update the story to be up to date.
Original Post Follows:
Sometimes, the griefer is the company that provides the game…
Ahoy, Aye, Steam did refund the purchase. They did some changes to the Steam wallet which caused communications failure between them and us. It has been fixed now, and hopefully won’t occur again.
–Aphrodite, 2/7/2012.
If you would like to have your account unbanned, you will need to explain the reason for the refund…
–Aphrodite, 3/17/2012
I have been a very long time customer of Three Rings. I am also a production manager and CEO of start-up company which is producing an MMO. Creating MMO’s is hard work. Staffing them is even harder. I know and understand this. I really do.
But you have made a number of serious, and in some ways, unforgivable gross customer service missteps, which I fully intend to enumerate here for your benefit, but also as a lesson to the people I work with. You may think some of these points an exaggeration. Thinking that does not negate how I personally regard our recent interactions. You should listen here: listening to your customer is important and in some ways more important than collecting their money.
1) You assumed your customers are criminals.
Lizthegrey once boasted that every poe in the system could be tracked, from the very beginning. Doubloons are, to some effect your bread and butter when it comes to Puzzle Pirates these days. I think it’s reasonable to surmise you would more than likely have better tracking for your bread and butter than you do for your base currency in game. After all, Doubloons must enter the system in one way, and one way only for them to be effective: they must be purchased with real currency. But the fact remains, you assumed you were cheated and banned a customer in good standing for no reason other than a third party gave you some information which you then did not verify with your own due diligence. A simple search would have shown you some interesting facts and patterns, namely:
* That I have purchased a lot of Doubloons over the course of the last year. That I purchased Doubloons in large amounts as far back as 2006/2007. I’m not a “whale”, I don’t spend that much on your games. But I have made a significant number of purchases over the course of my patronization of Three Rings.
* That I am a customer who has utilized your customer service system with great success in the past.
* That I am a regular purchaser, who can always be counted on to add to the coffers of Three Rings.
* That I had a ticket just over a month ago, regarding the very issue we are dealing with here.
In short, your boast of metrics means nothing, if you’re unwilling to use them; to then go on and simply ban someone based on a third party notification. The boast is further minimized by your utter failure to verify the totality of the situation using your own systems which I would hope you would trust more than that of a third party. A search would have shown you that I had attempted a doubloon purchase, it failed within the Puzzle Pirates client itself. It would have shown that you acknowledged not only the problem, but that Steam had in fact reimbursed me for Doubloons which were never in fact delivered to me in the game itself. Had you taken an extra step, and audited my transaction history with my accounts… It would have shown you that immediately after the situation was resolved, I went ahead and purchased via the steam wallet AGAIN. Why? Simple, I have always trusted Three Rings. I never felt or thought they were out to disadvantage or harm me. That was the trust you had with me. You destroyed that trust by making assumptions, with incomplete information, when more complete information was readily available to you.
I am sure your response here is, you have a lot of customers, so assuming bad faith has to be done to protect yourselves. To which I say: how far you have fallen from the company I knew, who had a handle on everything. You had elegant systems, detail oriented customer service. Lizthegrey’s boast back then showed me, as a customer one thing: to Three Rings, it was not enough to suspect..you wanted to be able to show if someone was cheating, or acting with ill intent.
Your actions these days show me a disturbingly different picture: that the customer is the enemy, that the customer is a burden.
If this is how you think now, then Cleaver should do the game industry a favor and get out. We have enough bad actors in this industry without adding to the total. What’s more, I will count the days until Sega dismantles you.
2) You assumed your customers are innumerate.
I think this speaks for itself. You assumed that I somehow cannot add, subtract or keep account of what I spend.
3) You assumed that every customer issue is routine.
There is nothing routine about a customer. Whether it be games, or a purchase at a store. Customer loyalty is about building trust. It can take weeks or years to build and seconds to lose. Your customers are your number one commodity. But you have shown me (in this situation, and a few others I have been witness to in the last 12 months) that you now see your customers as a burden. You have shown that you no longer relish the act of serving your customers.
This makes me sad in many ways. I have, in the past always admired Three Rings. I have often looked up to you. I studied and pointed to you as an example of how things can work great. But, as with all emotions that could in any way be described as “hero worship”, eventually the truth you knew becomes a memory and the truth you now know sickens you.
But take heart! Because through this experience, I have instituted some policy drafts for my own people. Your bad example will not go unheeded!
1) Any employee of Double Cluepon who bans a player from the game itself for a charge-back (Especially a SINGLE SOLITARY charge-back) will be asked to box their things, and head to the unemployment line. Why? Because we will not suffer one day with anyone who would treat our customers as criminals. If they cannot be bothered to do a reasonable search of the customer identity, history, and correlate it with IP, and connection and purchase history…then we will not be bothered to continue employing him or her. We will expect the highest diligence. We have everything we need to service the customer properly, but anyone unwilling to take an extra step is unfit to work for us, or any other game developer. We will not kill flies with elephant guns. We will use the history we gather, we will remember glitches in the system. We will not make assumptions, we will work with facts and we will not consider supposition as a tool to be used in place of them.
2) We are drafting a spec for a system that will cut off a person from the purchasing system should a single charge-back occur. This gives us the freedom to deal with the issue, without disrupting the customer or making assumptions for the sake of expedience. We could still ban an account if we noticed a widespread pattern. Something any game company would do. As with any consequence, it should scale with the offense. Three Rings used to understand this. I assure you, we will never forget it.
3) As we can track IP, and taint systems much like Three Rings does, we can cut off clients who are clearly abusing the billing system. Despite doing so, we can *still* make the effort to reach out to them, to resolve the situation. After all, the resolution could wind up helping us even more, by letting us improve our process. Especially if there are convoluted or complex errors or problems. If something buggy could be happening, I want to know as soon as possible. Cooperation is a key factor in getting to the bottom of something that could blow up in our face. Like a customer who’s been treated poorly and is willing to tell their story calmly, and with articulation. Without resorting to blind rage in a forum post.
4) People cut off from our billing system because of a simple (and especially a SINGLE SOLITARY and isolated) chargeback would get an email giving them a few days to explain and deal with the issue. That is, after all, why we collect their email address for billing purposes. Again, if you have a tool, and do not use it then that is on you. We will not approach things with one tool, and one tool only. We will bear in mind that when you limit yourself to using only a (ban)hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
5) When dealing with third party payment systems, we will at least check our own systems, which we have built ourselves, and trust implicitly before we take the word of a third party who has only the most basic of information as to how our system works. Of course, trust in our own systems must be met with temperance as well. That temperance will be applied by seeing the forest for the trees. We will try to look at the totality of a situation, and act. We will not allow ourselves to be beguiled into ignoring the larger picture, and shooting from the hip will simply never be an option.
In short, your wrongheaded and ignorant approach to the basics of good customer service has led us to re-think what it means to provide a billable service to people, without losing our hats OR our customers of good standing. It may cost us a bit more in time and overhead, but you know what the difference will be between you and us? We consider that cost an investment in keeping that paying customer. The investment may not always pan out. That’s the nature of investment. But I am willing to bet if we can at least take one step forward in the situation and come to the table and deal fairly, a majority of customers would see that and respond favorably.
Why? Simple human nature: Nobody likes to be called a thief.
It’s especially insulting to be called a thief by proxy. It’s humiliating and insulting to be called a thief when someone actually does not even make a basic attempt at ascertaining the veracity of the accusation. You can relegate this to the hyperbole bin if you like. You can laugh it off, ignore it, but you do so at the peril of exacerbating the issue. At the end of the day, customers expect better. You know it, I know it. Casting aside feedback is dodging your responsibility, to the customer and thus, to your company. Failure to be responsible to your company in this way shows the lack of morale, pride and initiative that leads any company, no matter how good their products are…to abject failure.
You called me a thief, but you did not base your accusation on facts. You made no attempt to verify the accusation. For that, shame on you. You don’t deserve to be in this business anymore if you’re going to make the worst assumption of all: that the customer is your enemy. When you make that assumption, then in reality you have become your own worst enemy. I’ll be even more blunt: I expect this kind of attitude and behavior from a public utility, or a government agency. I never expected it from Three Rings. You had set a high bar for good customer service. Again, I am saddened by how far down you have now positioned that bar.
You have lost me as a customer. You have lost me as a player. You have lost me as a sneezer. You have lost me as a loyal patron of your service. My goal now is to warn people as to the nature of your customer service, and the lack of attention to customers and details. I will relay these things to all who ask, and I will go the extra mile of making sure people know of my experiences so they can make intelligent, rational decisions as to whether or not dealing with your company, it’s service, and its employees is worth the risk over the long term. I feel I have been poorly treated. I will take this lesson and apply it, personally, professionally, and to fellow customers, both old and prospective.
In closing, please understand: It does not matter to me if I cause the loss of 1 customer, 1000 customers, or 0 customers. My goal is not to increase or decrease your customer base, or your ARPU. What matters to me is the fairness in the telling; that people have all available information on which to base a decision. If I do that, then I fulfill my responsibility as a consumer for the benefit of other consumers.
Good Day to you.
