Author Topic: How To Properly End an MMO.  (Read 13238 times)

downix

  • Phoenix Project Technical Lead
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Re: How To Properly End an MMO.
« Reply #60 on: October 03, 2012, 02:05:28 PM »
You know, I can add something else to "How to Properly End an MMO."

Don't lie.

Especially don't lie to your customers.

Don't lie to your customers by forging resignation letters.

Don't lie to your customers, telling them how sorry you are that you are going to pave over their playground.

Don't lie to your customers, telling them how much you supported their game, when the evidence all points to the contrary.

Really.  Don't lie.  Because the Internet never forgets, the Internet has perfect memory, and it's all out there to expose your lies for what they are.
you forgot Wheatons Law: Don't be a jerk.

StarRanger4

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Re: How To Properly End an MMO.
« Reply #61 on: October 03, 2012, 02:53:24 PM »
Sadly, it looks like quite a bit of this can be explained as their trying to 'rebuild' Kibun.

Infodump Here:http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5449.0.html

Segev

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Re: How To Properly End an MMO.
« Reply #62 on: October 03, 2012, 03:11:07 PM »
Sadly, it looks like quite a bit of this can be explained as their trying to 'rebuild' Kibun.

Infodump Here:http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5449.0.html
Indeed.

Now, however, that we know this...they do not, if this is what they're doing, think they're being jerks. They think they're being polite, and they're fumbling for how to do so just as, if we were dealing with them and seeing them get madder and madder at us for telling them blunt truths and working our hardest to solve the problem directly, we would be at a loss as to how to make headway.

Yes, they probably know a bit about what makes us tick, culturally, and understand kibun isn't the "right" way, but they also feel kibun in their cultural bones and can't escape it any more than we can our own concepts of virtue and honesty above all else. And if we CAN try to meet them half-way, offering them our efforts to preserve their kibun in return for them recognizing that we are not affronted by truth, we will likely make more progress.

One never goes wrong, until fighting starts, by assuming the other people with whom one is dealing are not malign in their hearts.

I think we see at least a part of their attempts to reach out and acknowledge our cultural concerns in the "exhausted all options" phrase. That phrase is practically an admission of failure, something which would harm their own kibun, but is an attempt to recognize Western value placed on "never give up until it's over." They may or may not realize that the white lie that they've tried everything is actually even more insulting for its transparency; certainly, they likely do not recognize it on a visceral level, the same level that would make us shy away from saying such a thing in their position for the sheer gall it would seem to us to require.

It may be that we need to acknowledge that we hear them when they say they have tried everything, and not call them liars but instead accept that they are trying to preserve our feelings, our kibun. We then need to show them that it has had the opposite effect, but do so while showing that we do, in fact, respect theirs. If they are not insulting us deliberately, then deliberate insult (contrary to some of my other more scathing suggestions) is not the right way to respond.

Above all else, I think we may benefit most by demonstrating that our kibun is best preserved by the salvation and continued existence of CoH. That we value theirs, as well, and that we want to bolster theirs as strongly as possible if they will preserve ours in this fashion. That our ears are open to their needs, our nunchi is strained as hard as we can, and that we're begging for some quiet hints where none need see them as to what we're missing, because we are Westerners who do not have that skill as good as theirs. The best way for them to help us preserve kibun is to offer an aid to our nunchi so that we can, in turn, strive to better act as if we had it and thus preserve their honor/face/kibun.