To Turtle Team: Communicate With Your Users!

[Jolikmc]

Has this ever happened to you? You're sitting there, happily playing your favorite emulated World of Warcraft server when suddenly…

"Server restarting in X seconds."

You finish up what you're doing and log out. Five minutes later, you try and log in, but…

"Unable to connect to server."
Or…
"Choose your preferred location / realm style" / "View realm list"

You wait for a bit longer. Nothing changes. You wait more. Still nothing. What's going on…?

Confused and hoping for answers, you click the "Community" button on the login page. It leads you to the forums. Hope fills your heart. Surely, if something big is going down, the administration has already posted a detailed report. When you get there, however, all you see is…

"Is the server down?"
"Can't login"
"Disconnected after restart"
And so forth, and so on, ad nauseum.

You click into the topics, hoping for answers. While it's a relief to see that you're not the only one who was unceremoniously punted offline… there are no official posts to be found. Worse still, there's this one person who keeps shouting: "Hey, join the Discord for updates". Yes, you could do that, but you'd rather just have a nice, quick answer from an official source.

Sometimes, silence is the best option for a major, multi-million-dollar company. But you know what? Turtle Team isn't a multi-million-dollar company. Also? Even Blizzard-Activision lets people know what's going on if there's a service disruption!!

I've said this before and I feel like I'll say it again and again: You people at Turtle Team need to communicate more. Communicate more, communicate better, and communicate everywhere possible. You opened multiple channels of interaction with your community: a forum, a Twitter, a Discord, and even an e-mail address.
No one likes being uninformed. Don't favor one over the other. If something's going on and you inform the masses on one channel, then you need to do the rest of us the same courtesy. Hire more people. Create a piece of software specifically for bulk notifications to multiple locations. Do something.

Thank you, good day.

[Orlymike]

Look and read the announcements tab in discord.

[Sinergy]

Yea, wish they would communicate more here, on forums. I just despise Discord and refuse to use it.

[Sylveria]

I just despise Discord and refuse to use it.

Which is not the Turtle Teams fault.

[Bigsmerf]

I just despise Discord and refuse to use it.

Which is not the Turtle Teams fault.

^^^

[Jolikmc]

Look and read the announcements tab in discord.

No.

[Sylveria]

Look and read the announcements tab in discord.

No.

Then it's your problem, not the problem of the Turtle Team.

[Jolikmc]

Oh, please. Do go on. How it is the end user's fault if Turtle Team selectively communicates with only a portion of their users despite offering several open avenues to do so?

[Bigsmerf]

Oh, please. Do go on. How it is the end user's fault if Turtle Team selectively communicates with only a portion of their users despite offering several open avenues to do so?

Chances are it's your fault because you for some reason decided to not open up discord, or whatever other platform they're posting announcements on. Would I also prefer if they posted on forums too? Surely, yes. But it's still your decision in the end that determines whether or not you get this information. It's much easier of a choice than it may seem.

[Ingameacc12345]

I just despise Discord and refuse to use it.

I would understand despising and refusing to use Facebook, hell even Twitter. But Discord? It's *the* way of communicating various stuff in gaming world now, whether you like it or not.

[Reptilewow]

There is currently 300 people online on the forums and 10.100 on the discord server

Edit: wording

[Bigsmerf]

There is currently 300 people online on the forums and 10.100 on the discord server

Edit: wording

Yeah. It'd make much more sense to always be in favour of the majority. More people use discord than the forums. By a HUGE amount. Sure, posting on the forums would be helping an extra like... Five people, I guess. But those five people could also *COUGH* *COUGH* just use discord as well instead of complaining about a problem that doesn't exist. If the turtle team posts important things somewhere..................................................................................... Just go there?

[Jolikmc]

You know what? This topic was a waste of time.

You win. Everyone, get with the times and go to Discord right away. Shut down the forums, shut down the bug tracker, turn off the e-mail. It's not like Turtle Team uses them anyway.

Thank you, good night. Close the topic.

[Sylveria]

The Thing about Discord and a forum just is, that those are two very different platforms that have different uses. Discord can be used kinda like twitter for quick messages and chatting, while a forum is used for long term discussions..

For Quick messages like those regarding the server status etc. is discord better used for, while for patchlogs and discussions the forum. People are better advised to use both platforms.

[Hello666]

You know what? This topic was a waste of time.

You win. Everyone, get with the times and go to Discord right away. Shut down the forums, shut down the bug tracker, turn off the e-mail. It's not like Turtle Team uses them anyway.

Thank you, good night. Close the topic.

Why do you waste your time being mad about a private world of warcraft server? There's a solution to every problem...

[Duque]

I 100% agree with the author of this topic.

Here is the Turtle WoW official site/forum. here's where I had my first contact with this game, created my account, and read about all the new world the developers created.
That's the logical place to post information, news, resets, server's downs, whatever.
Can you use other platforms to communicate quickly stuff as well? off course. use twitter, discord, etc. But don't forget your official website/forum.

[Hello666]

I 100% agree with the author of this topic.

Here is the Turtle WoW official site/forum. here's where I had my first contact with this game, created my account, and read about all the new world the developers created.
That's the logical place to post information, news, resets, server's downs, whatever.
Can you use other platforms to communicate quickly stuff as well? off course. use twitter, discord, etc. But don't forget your official website/forum.

They post information, news, updates, patch notes, and everything else on this forum. They haven't forgotten about it ffs. Use discord if you want other info about server downtime. Its. not. that. hard.

[Jolikmc]

"It's not that hard."

That is my exact argument. It's not that hard for the staff to bloody well post about server outages and the like over here. But, of course… nothing's going to change on this front – especially when an overwhelming majority of people don't even bother evaluating the pros and cons of the staff taking two minutes to let us know when there's a service interruption or unscheduled restart.

The takeaway from this is clearly "𝙶𝙴𝚃  𝙾𝙽  𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙳  𝙱𝙾𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚁  𝙻𝙾𝙻", which I already knew would be the case. As I said, this topic was a waste of time. I honestly don't know why I bothered.

[Rat2156]

"I refuse to read the news and announcements, why are there no news and announcements? "

[Ingameacc12345]

The takeaway from this is clearly "𝙶𝙴𝚃  𝙾𝙽  𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙳  𝙱𝙾𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚁  𝙻𝙾𝙻"

FWIW, I'm also a boomer (40+) so I'd wager that your takeaway is wrong. You must understand that forums main purpose are longer topics and discussions. For dynamic updates people use twitter and/or discord. You won't change that.

Also - I use Discord only for Turtle WoW, nothing else, so that's that.

[Chartreus]

I also don't like Discord so I avoid it as much as I can.

GMs can send server-wide announcements and change the MOTD (message that appears right after you log in). That would be an appropriate way of announcing an upcoming server restart.

[Hello666]

"It's not that hard."

That is my exact argument. It's not that hard for the staff to bloody well post about server outages and the like over here. But, of course… nothing's going to change on this front – especially when an overwhelming majority of people don't even bother evaluating the pros and cons of the staff taking two minutes to let us know when there's a service interruption or unscheduled restart.

The takeaway from this is clearly "𝙶𝙴𝚃  𝙾𝙽  𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙳  𝙱𝙾𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚁  𝙻𝙾𝙻", which I already knew would be the case. As I said, this topic was a waste of time. I honestly don't know why I bothered.

That was what I was thinking this whole time too. Why bother? If I have a problem I find a solution. We gave you the information you need to get your updates now use it.

[Chronoslicer]

Why don't you like discord? Is it a software/hardware issue or a matter of personal taste?