Player Council 2nd Term: Weekly Updates

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DeletedUser54775

Guest
As promised, here is the "Future of the GPC" Statement from the Lead Community Manager, Sieperka.

I do have some opinions of my own on parts of this statement, but I'll let you lot have the first crack at it. Enjoy!

Dear Kal,
Thank you for sharing the post from Anna. As a player and customer, I feel reassured by their response and actions on this matter.
We have to give them credit. They gave us a great platform, and we botched it.

My sense is that the various council members drained the staff with trifling issues and small details. In other words, they missed the forest for the trees. I read your various reports, and I really felt sorry for the staff members. I am sure that they felt that the time was being wasted. I least would have felt that way.

I also feel that the Grepolis Player Council became very partisan and their members pushed for agendas that would benefit a very specific group of players. It clearly lacked universality and representativeness.

I am actually very happy that the staff was able to see the shortcoming mentioned above and shut down the whole initiative.

I guess some of the agents of the "Empire" will have to look for other venues to try to impose their views and agendas.
As some of them have openly stated here, they are all about controlling and limiting other ways of playing and being within the game.

Three cheers for the staff of InnoGames!
 

Rachel.L

Phrourach
Per usual, futbol is pushing his agenda.

Kal, see TSF's post. I don't have his council experience but he said it all.
You all did great with the bad hand given and accomplished some great things. I appreciate the many hours you spent working with other markets and trying to work with inno staff. Your updates did a great job letting us know where we stood.
Thank you for making the community better.
 
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DeletedUser54192

Guest
Okay, time to address a few points, @FutbolTango:
  • The LCM and Lead Developer abandoned the GPC with no communication for periods as long as 3 months. You can't pin the blame for that on the GPC, when the same LCM has also effectively shut down the DevBlog, which isn't something that we were directly involved in.
  • We brought forward a lot of topics. While you may consider topics such as spam and event balance "trifling", a lot of the community don't. We also spent a fair amount of time discussing ideas from the Community Backlog (a sizeable list of ideas compiled by the InnoGames staff from community requests).
  • It's hard to waste someone's time when they barely give you any. From comparing notes with Term 1 Council, we seem to have received a lot less interaction. While I'm not saying it is entirely due to this, the drop in commitment to the GPC from InnoGames does seem to coincide with the new LCM taking over. The people who felt that their time was being wasted were the Council Members: we put in a lot of time and effort, and often this was "rewarded" with long silences, and rushed/half-hearted responses that intentionally avoided certain topics.
  • A lot of the topics we pushed were ones that a lot of the vocal community said were important. It just so happens that you personally disagree with several of those issues, which is why you claim that they aren't representative of the community.
  • We tried our best for universality. However that's always going to be hard when a sizeable proportion of the elected players disappear, or just don't contribute.
  • I appreciate them finally getting around to telling us that the GPC was being shut down. However even the way in which they did this wasn't great: our term should have ended sometime in November/December, yet they took until February to give us any details about the end of our term or the future of the GPC. And when they did finally announce their decision, they relied upon us to bring it to the public, despite the fact that our obligations technically ended a while back. At least they've had the honesty to shut it down, rather than waste the time of anyone who was thinking of applying for Term 3.
  • I'm not an "agent of the Empire". When I applied for (and was elected for) the GPC, I was not involved with those that you refer to as the "Empire". I wasn't involved with Invicta (and was still on rocky terms with a number of their players after disagreements on En97 Pagasae), and Victrix, which I did join, didn't start until months after I was elected.
 

DeletedUser54775

Guest
Okay, time to address a few points, @FutbolTango:
  • The LCM and Lead Developer abandoned the GPC with no communication for periods as long as 3 months. You can't pin the blame for that on the GPC, when the same LCM has also effectively shut down the DevBlog, which isn't something that we were directly involved in.
  • We brought forward a lot of topics. While you may consider topics such as spam and event balance "trifling", a lot of the community don't. We also spent a fair amount of time discussing ideas from the Community Backlog (a sizeable list of ideas compiled by the InnoGames staff from community requests).
  • It's hard to waste someone's time when they barely give you any. From comparing notes with Term 1 Council, we seem to have received a lot less interaction. While I'm not saying it is entirely due to this, the drop in commitment to the GPC from InnoGames does seem to coincide with the new LCM taking over. The people who felt that their time was being wasted were the Council Members: we put in a lot of time and effort, and often this was "rewarded" with long silences, and rushed/half-hearted responses that intentionally avoided certain topics.
  • A lot of the topics we pushed were ones that a lot of the vocal community said were important. It just so happens that you personally disagree with several of those issues, which is why you claim that they aren't representative of the community.
  • We tried our best for universality. However that's always going to be hard when a sizeable proportion of the elected players disappear, or just don't contribute.
  • I appreciate them finally getting around to telling us that the GPC was being shut down. However even the way in which they did this wasn't great: our term should have ended sometime in November/December, yet they took until February to give us any details about the end of our term or the future of the GPC. And when they did finally announce their decision, they relied upon us to bring it to the public, despite the fact that our obligations technically ended a while back. At least they've had the honesty to shut it down, rather than waste the time of anyone who was thinking of applying for Term 3.
  • I'm not an "agent of the Empire". When I applied for (and was elected for) the GPC, I was not involved with those that you refer to as the "Empire". I wasn't involved with Invicta (and was still on rocky terms with a number of their players after disagreements on En97 Pagasae), and Victrix, which I did join, didn't start until months after I was elected.

My friend. You became an Agent of the Empire. It does matter if the Empire reached you or you reached the Empire. The relevant issue is that you voiced advocated for the agendas of the Empire. You have sold your soul my friend. You are no longer the lone rebel fighting for the little guys. The empire has corrupted you. I do not know how you can still reconcile that.

Kal, please, do self reflection and take some responsibility. If they went silent and then cut the council short it means that there is problem with the council itself. Is it possible that you made this about Kal and Kal's ambitions and agendas as supposed to the benefit of the community at large?

I see that this is where you are going wrong. When you monopolize dialogue and make it a one way street, then the LCM and Lead Developer have the rightful choice of end conversation.
 

DeletedUser41523

Guest
My sense is that the various council members drained the staff with trifling issues and small details. In other words, they missed the forest for the trees. I read your various reports, and I really felt sorry for the staff members. I am sure that they felt that the time was being wasted. I least would have felt that way.

I also feel that the Grepolis Player Council became very partisan and their members pushed for agendas that would benefit a very specific group of players. It clearly lacked universality and representativeness.

1) Having been there, no we/they didn't. The only thing that came close to that involved cosmetics. It was immediately shelved for the pressing issues such as the end game, cheating, events, etc. This pushed by my predecessors and myself and Phi.

The council most likely broke down because this continued on. But Inno hit an impasse and didn't want to listen to either end game complaints, removing events, or claims of cheating.

2) Okay. Pardon my no BS response to this one. What exactly was partisan and would only benefit a specific group of players? Your inner council members were:

Miknel & thewilsh- The guy who leads the best conquest team in EN and arguably just the game and a key player in that team. Strictly anti-cheating in anyway. It wasn't even a secret that they would go straight for this issue.

Myself & Phidippidies- Both us played every kind of setting and were end game focused. Also anti-cheating and in favor of nerfing the events.

I think Kal's stuff is well documented here. So I won't review it since if you haven't read it yet, you won't anyways.

I just want to know in which way the end game, gold/event abuse, and being anti-cheating only benefited a specific group of players? I can see how the latter might negatively affect a couple groups though. But luckily they're sitting in a dead 1 speed world waiting to win because everyone relevant realized they were being fleeced and bailed for a new world.

As for it being partisan the local I can't deny was partisan in term 1, again this is well documented, but some of this was also caused by nobody knowing what they could and couldn't share. But the inner wasn't partisan and it was full of people who actually worked to improve the game in big ways.
 

DeletedUser36697

Guest
I am completely sicked(morally) and personally outraged by the continued personal attacks carried by @FutbolTango, on anyone who dares to disagree with their omnipotent observations.

Circular arguments, fragmented facts, distortions of the truth and plagiarizing are the basis for their contemptible posts.. so why is@FutbolTango allowed to keep doing this?
smiley_emoticons_confusednew.gif


..."@FutbolTango -, please, do self reflection and take some responsibility..." your quote follow your own advice
smiley_emoticons_oh-no2.gif


the rest of your disjointed posts, you would file them in the applicable circular cone shapes receptacles located near desks

you stopped being funny along time ago.
smiley_emoticons_thumbs-down_new.gif
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
@FutbolTango:
  • And this is where you're wrong. I'm not an "agent of the Empire", as you love to throw around. That's a completely useless term anyways: you keep applying it to different groups of people, regardless of whether it's actually the same team or not. In general, I advocated issues put forward by the majority of the community, especially on these forums.
  • Victrix isn't what you say it is. The fact that you left Victrix to join a team infamous for mass-recruiting and mass-pacting shows how hypocritical you are. Nor is Victrix the only team I played for during my term in council.
  • If you read the LCM's statement properly, the reason they cite for shutting down the GPC is that they can't handle the time and effort required to keep it running. This is backed up by the fact that the DevBlog lost activity over the same time period. In addition, I believe I've apologised a lot about the fact that the GPC hasn't been able to achieve as much as it wanted, despite a few of us putting in a lot of time and effort.
  • Just because you personally disagree with particular choices, doesn't mean that the rest of the community feel the same way as you. Spam, for example, garnered a significant response in favour of finding a way to deal with it. The two obvious people who were against dealing with spam were those with a reputation for doing it just to irritate other players, which isn't something that should be encouraged. If you were so keen on getting your own very particular opinions across, perhaps you should have run for council, rather than continually criticising those who gave up their time to try and help the community.
  • Monopolising dialogue? First, I was not the only voice on council. As I mentioned in the "Thanks to" section of my post, we had active contributors from several markets. Second, there were plenty of opportunities for InnoGames staff to reply. They have the right to end the conversation, yes. They're the staff, after all. However that was not the reason that the GPC was shut down. While I disagree with some of the other aspects of their statements, and past comments, their reasoning of lack of time and effort on their part to make the GPC work is something that has been demonstrated significantly before this statement was even released.

You talked in another thread about grudges. I don't suppose that you'd consider admitting that the vast majority of your complaints stem from the fact that you've had a grudge against me since En94 because I refused to be muscled out of the forums by your endless streams of PnP threads and your aggressive and discriminatory commentary.
 

DeletedUser54775

Guest
I must say....I love winding you up....The Empire is not an alliance. It is a concept that refers to the group of people who are trying to impose a specific order in the Grepolis world. You are one of the most active agents in this particular Evil Empire.
 
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DeletedUser54192

Guest
I must say....I love winding you up....The Empire is not an alliance. It is a concept that refers to the group of people who are trying to impose a specific order in the Grepolis world. You are one of the most active agents in this particular Evil Empire.
  • So you've just admitting that your criticisms are at least partially due to an urge to cause irritation, rather than for any constructive purpose. Congratulations.
  • The "Empire" does not exist. You just cannot accept that others do not share your views, so you constantly criticise, insult and attack them. And you criticise them for attacking anyone who does not agree with you, which is exactly what you have a reputation for doing on these forums.
You've admitted that you do this just to cause trouble. So please, stop messing around on what is supposed to be a serious thread.
 

Silver Witch

Strategos
Ok well I think its sad that we will no longer have the GPC but well done to the representatives and especially to Kal for his efforts. Whatever anyones views I think its clear that Kal has put a lot of time and effort into trying to help players here.

As for Futbol's 'empire' - that makes some of his statements (spread all over the forum) clearer but really Futbol you cannot label everyone who disagrees with you as being part one group. I have never played with Kal or Rachel or Raydium - I dont always agree with everything they say but we respect each other's viewpoint. I respect your viewpoint too (albeit i disagree) but it is unreasonable to believe that is the only side and that all dissenters are part of an 'empire'!
 
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DeletedUser54775

Guest
  • So you've just admitting that your criticisms are at least partially due to an urge to cause irritation, rather than for any constructive purpose. Congratulations.
  • The "Empire" does not exist. You just cannot accept that others do not share your views, so you constantly criticise, insult and attack them. And you criticise them for attacking anyone who does not agree with you, which is exactly what you have a reputation for doing on these forums.
You've admitted that you do this just to cause trouble. So please, stop messing around on what is supposed to be a serious thread.
Whao! Kal, you really love to jump to concussions. This says more about you than me. The Empire exists and shows itself here. Nothing wrong win providing alternative points of view and in the process cause moral indignation among the Grepolis Oligarchical elites.

Seriously, dude, you should engage in self reflection and realize what is your part in botching the council.
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
@FutbolTango:
  • You started your post with a statement that you love winding me up. Given that it matches up perfectly with practically all of your posts on this thread, it's the logical conclusion.
  • If "The Empire" refers to anyone who disagrees with you and is therefore supposedly automatically evil and wrong, then I suppose it technically exists. If you're implying there's some sort of Grepolis Illuminati, then you're wrong.
  • You have come up with zero evidence of any sort that the council is what caused the GPC to collapse, rather than any issue on Inno's side. This is the issue with basically all your arguments: there's no evidence that truly backs up your claims. It either doesn't exist, is altered (or completely reversed) so that it supposedly supports your opinions, or doesn't actually prove what you claim that it proves. You have a long-standing grudge against me from En94, when we refused to be muscled out by your arrogant and aggressive posting style, and exposed some of your lies. If you want to continue your grudge, there's nothing I can do to stop you. But I would request that you stop intentionally messing up a serious forum thread.
 

DeletedUser23222

Guest
@Kal Gordon
I have enjoyed your long dissertations on the grim state of affairs that you find.
You write very well and your logic is quite good
I am sorry for the treatment you received and that the Council ended with a whimper, but it has been clear for some time that Inno is slowly turning out the lights. You are yet another candle in wind, my friend. But take heart, you are respected and appreciated by the small circle of players and ex players that still care enough about Grepolis to drop by. I wish you Godspeed and Fairwinds at your back.

@FutbolTango
I get a headache reading your posts. But when I get out my big shovel and dig through your ... stuff, I find some thoughts I agree with... and some that I wholeheartedly agree with. I cannot tell if you are some uber troll, English-challenged, or just under medicated. I wish you would practice more discipline and try to make your points more objective. Stop picking on Kal... he isn't Darth Vader.

Why did I drop by tonight? Inno just gave me a trophy for playing Grepolis for seven years. In fact It was longer but my first account is a dim memory that I had forgotten for good reason. I loved learning the game, meeting countless players from around the globe, assembling and training our squads, and watching them learn and grow and win.

But I do not deserve this trophy.

Grepolis has been dead to me for several years. When the Inno brothers cashed out and the bankers took over... the game became pay to win and a cheaters paradise. Dead to me and dead to the hundreds of vets, who have totally forgotten the fun and dont even bother drop in anymore to check out old memories.
 

DeletedUser35069

Guest
I dont play anymore, haven't for a good while. Dont like what became of the game in the last few years and voted with my feet. No intention of playing again. I have previously voted for Gpc players though in the hope that things significantly changed for the people I do know that still play. I do occasionally pop by the game to chat to people that never got Skype years ago nevermind discord now and have always checked this section out when on.

Have to say anyone that took the time to join the council and has put up with the way they're been ignored etc especially in the last term where such things have been posted in a clear and honest way has my total respect. You guys/gals have tried!

From reading since the whole gpc started its basically changed my opinion on the people behind the game.. I used to think they didnt really care about the players. Now I know not only do they not care but they're not afraid of milking the players that do care for information before dropping them. You guys practically got ghosted this last term, completely unacceptable behaviour to be ignored for any time scale when your help was requested.
 

DeletedUser43325

Guest
Dear Kal,
Thank you for sharing the post from Anna. As a player and customer, I feel reassured by their response and actions on this matter.
We have to give them credit. They gave us a great platform, and we botched it.

My sense is that the various council members drained the staff with trifling issues and small details. In other words, they missed the forest for the trees. I read your various reports, and I really felt sorry for the staff members. I am sure that they felt that the time was being wasted. I least would have felt that way.

I also feel that the Grepolis Player Council became very partisan and their members pushed for agendas that would benefit a very specific group of players. It clearly lacked universality and representativeness.

I am actually very happy that the staff was able to see the shortcoming mentioned above and shut down the whole initiative.

I guess some of the agents of the "Empire" will have to look for other venues to try to impose their views and agendas.
As some of them have openly stated here, they are all about controlling and limiting other ways of playing and being within the game.

Three cheers for the staff of InnoGames!

This is some of the most asinine stuff I've ever read on the externals. Which honestly is really saying something. Just stop talking. Every word you say screams of some kind of jealousy likely fueled by either 1) not being on the council yourself (allow me to clear this part up for you, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be) or 2) getting wrecked in game by a council member and now trying to take out some sort of misguided vendetta because of it. If you actually had any considered thoughts, supported with actual evidence or even sound rationale, perhaps you would be taken seriously. But all you do is froth at the mouth and word vomit whenever a handful of people post in a vain attempt to shame those that are by in large far more respected than you'll ever be. The only thing you are actually accomplishing here is putting yourself on a fast track to another "apology thread" that means nothing to anyone.
 

DeletedUser41523

Guest
Bandwagoning off it not being all its cracked up to be. Let me make it clear. The job largely sucked.

When we weren't getting any useful information out of Inno through communication channels, we were getting badgered by a frustrated community for information that we didn't have or did didn't know if we could share due to a very broad NDA that offered no real specifics and that Bernard couldn't always answer.

And since we're just airing out things here. When you didn't have either of those happening, you had Baudin (and in my case Medic911 as well). Pretty much interfering by either suddenly knowing everything about the a legal document that the council, Bernard, or for that matter Inno couldn't figure out and clarify. Delaying removing inactive council members and promoting the back ups. Or in the US case, not promoting the winners of the US council elections in the first place and then attempting to cover it up by saying she was never reached out to. Deleting forum posts asking for feedback on an idea. Making a community announcement about said feedback threat not being something Inno is pushing. Making an alliance name that wasn't a breach of the rules a primary sticking point for removing players off the council. That is all when the US Coma wasn't too busy knowingly playing with a team of known botters or trying to guilt trip people for attacking her. For the record, calling the botting part out is was another removal sticking point. She also got to decide on the removal. Strangely enough the removal also came at a time when my premade had dropped into a world where Baudin was playing with another team (that also took botting accusations while he was on it).
 

DeletedUser54192

Guest
Following the closing statement on the GPC by the LCM on the hidden forum on Beta, there were a number of comments made by members of the Player Council. I will share her responses to them here (as she gave permission to do so).

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There were a few posts by council members (including myself) following her last response, however these were not addressed before the council was ended and all of us removed from the hidden forum.

I made my summary of the term in a previous post, and there's nothing I believe I need to change or add to it. So I'm going to say a big thank you to everyone who has gotten involved with the GPC, and leave it at that. Best wishes to all of you!

Kal Gordon
Former GPC Member (EN Inner Council, Term 2)
 

DeletedUser41523

Guest
Lol what a joke.

1) I don't get the community manager thing. Assuming you don't get screwed and end up with a Medic911 like the US did. Your Coma sends feedback that Inno then disregards but doesn't explain why they're disregarding it. At least in council, players could get an idea of why Inno didn't want to change something or why an update took so long. Inno does a very poor job at direct communications and the Comas often fail to communicate what Inno is attempting to say...Or rather fail to receive the necessary info from Inno to properly communicate at all. Mostly just saying "just try it" on a bad update and running off to do Coma things. Also, most Comas/Mods I've met haven't touched Grepo in a serious manner for years, can't really expect them to be in touch at this point.

2) Who cares about the LCM's feelings and why is she playing the victim? Imagine any person completely blowing off their co-workers/employees for weeks at time. After asking these people to give up their own time to help their company out of a mess that they've obviously created for themselves.Then trying to make you sound like the bad guy for being annoyed by it.


3) Domination must be killing it outside of EN. Because inside of it, its a train wreck so far, World Wonders actually won a world poll. Closing the valid island distances won't address the problems based on what I've heard about the problems. It just devalues the rim.
 
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