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With our Imperators, for the most part, I sometimes have, I guess, run-ins in emails. My thing is I am not treating them as customers, I am treating them more like friends where I can be frank and we can get somewhere. But, since they are paying to play like everyone else, they sometimes feel I should treat them more like paying customers than friends.
After serving three gigs as CFO for companies, I was done being an employee. And I thought my style of engaging people could work more effectively than doing the corporate route of how to communicate with "customers". So, if I am too abrasive, I can more easily give those static responses you get from every other company, rather than what is on my mind. Is that what I should do?
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Definitions:
Friend: A person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. A person who gives assistance; patron; supporter. A person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile.
Customer: A person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business. A person or thing of a specified kind that one has to deal with.
Player: A person taking part in a sport or game.
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By these definitions, most of us could possibly be considered your Friend, but I would say that all of us are your Customers as well as Players of this superb game that is Alamaze.
But the Customer is the one you should mainly be concerned with, because they are the only ones that pay ($$) for the awesome services you provide (Players & Friends do not necessarily pay).
The Frost Lord,
Centurion in the Military War College
Pioneer of Alamaze
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Some people deserve to be friends, while others don't deserve that status and deserve customer status. I wouldn't try to strictly define your role. As the manager of a large firm with many employees and customers, I always have to walk this line and you just have to follow your instincts.
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Friendship does not equal a pass for rudeness.
Honesty is not mutually exclusive with common courtesy.
Hope this helps.
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I haven't always gotten my way but I don't really have any complaints. The time investment is the most salient concern for me but I find the financial cost to benefit ratio quite acceptable. Imperators invest a lot of time and energy in the game and Alamaze is a smallish community so I can see that the lines can blur a bit.
The business needs another 'Dragon Magazine' type hit. I don't know what exactly that could be but if anyone has any ideas share them Rick! We don't want him pulled away to boardgame land exclusively 
The most time involving and least fun part of the game for me is the maintenance of the updating maps each turn and so I think the Parser will help attract a broader audience. I don't even use it myself yet because I find the powerpoint more aesthetically pleasing (and I am used to to it) but I would love not having to center the little 'No PC' dots in the powerpoint maps for every area my groups move over.
-This Khal Drogo, it's said he has a hundred thousand men in his horde
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(09-02-2015, 04:09 PM)Drogo Wrote: I haven't always gotten my way but I don't really have any complaints. The time investment is the most salient concern for me but I find the financial cost to benefit ratio quite acceptable. Imperators invest a lot of time and energy in the game and Alamaze is a smallish community so I can see that the lines can blur a bit.
The business needs another 'Dragon Magazine' type hit. I don't know what exactly that could be but if anyone has any ideas share them Rick! We don't want him pulled away to boardgame land exclusively
The most time involving and least fun part of the game for me is the maintenance of the updating maps each turn and so I think the Parser will help attract a broader audience. I don't even use it myself yet because I find the powerpoint more aesthetically pleasing (and I am used to to it) but I would love not having to center the little 'No PC' dots in the powerpoint maps for every area my groups move over.
I wondered if The Gray Mouser was the only one that cursed about having to put those tiny red dots on a PowerPoint map.
I'm really hoping the 4 players in the new Warlords game will all use the Bananas Splitter to facilitate map update and have history at your fingertips, and report on the forum anything you wish about its utility and ease (or not) of use. I'm hoping it can really streamline map keeping and eliminate having to search old turns. On that note, I assume players have seen in the artifact section we now show how to use the artifacts you possess.
On the initial topic, I am not going to change who I am or why I am in this space. Some might leave if they find offense, I suppose. I am not well suited personality-wise to a customer service role, I am in this for the design and creative outlet, the rest just takes its necessary place. And again I must say, its been great having Mike who if anything, pushes me forward, as opposed to my past experience where I had to cultivate patience.
The board game may or may not ever become reality. I am completely in Alamaze 3rd Cycle. We still have a lot of ground to cover, and I still haven't done much on the marketing front to both recover Resurgent players and previous players that still haven't found us, let alone spanking new Alamaze converts. As always, please introduce your intelligent friends to Alamaze.
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As for the map, I still use the Power Point. I tried the parser and while it is a great tool, I couldn't warm up to it. I do look forward to the GUI, but I will use PP in the meantime.
To your original question, I don't see those things as mutually exclusive. As long as I am paying you money, I am a customer and I believe I should be treated as such when the discussion at hand concerns what I pay for. If I were to complain about a turn being a week late, for example, I would expect my concerns to be addressed in a professional and appropriate matter.
The lines get blurry when my concerns are as a player. For example, I might argue that a certain spell is overpowered or that there needs to be a new rule. For that, I would expect a more vigorous discussion and it would be perfectly acceptable to get a bit heated so long as we stuck to the subject at hand. I rather enjoy those debates and have, occasionally, experienced the great joy of having my suggestions implemented or at least adequately addressed. I don't have to win, but I like to be considered.
If our relationship was purely as friends, then I wouldn't have to pay for my games. In that case, you could talk to me however you liked so long as you didn't go too far and ruin the friendship. I do consider you a friend, or at least a friendly acquaintance since we have never even spoken, and we have had the major disagreements that mark any long-term association.
I think it comes down to common sense. We usually have a good grasp of who our friends are. Treat those people as you would expect to be treated by them. For everyone else, treat them as the customers they are. If you don't know anything about them other than they enjoy playing Alamaze and don't mind sending you money every week, they probably should be treated as customers.
Lord Diamond
Please do not take any of my comments as a personal insult or as a criticism of the game 'Alamaze', which I very much enjoy. Rather, I hope that my personal insight and unique perspective may, in some way, help make 'Alamaze' more fun, a more successful financial venture, or simply more sustainable as a long-term project. Anyone who reads this post should feel completely free to ignore, disregard, scorn, implement, improve, dispute, or otherwise comment upon its content.
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I was kind of shocked when I first found these forums at how frank and/or heated the exchanges could be between players and owner. But it is not a total flame-fest. I think the difference is that, due to the game's nature, the forum is not populated by a bunch of whiny kids and trolls (OK, maybe a few TRolls). With that knowledge, every post takes on a different look and feel. I think I prefer it this way.
bananas (on the forums)
Arch-Mage of Entropy (in games)
- Wanderer of Alamaze
Player nominated -
157 - TR : Chancellor
161 - AN : Chancellor & Iron Willed
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I agree with Bananas. I don't really have a line between friends and customers, and I kind of expect players here to accept my personality, and to know as I have said, I am not here to say the customer is always right. So players that don't accept that might leave, and I am OK. My deal is to make the most innovative, engrossing game my widdle bwain can come up with, and that Uncle Mike can interpret.
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I'm used to your personality and it doesn't put me off. I don't take things very seriously; I'm here to have fun. Fwiw, I have a system I used in Photoshop to keep track of my maps, with my own codes and symbols. Though I no longer bother to put coloured flags over cities to indicate who owns them.
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