Hi everyone,
As our community continues to grow, we just want to take some time to reflect, remind, and reaffirm what we are about and how you can expect us to serve you in and around this game. We’ve always looked at the game we created as not just a product, but also as a service. It is our goal to provide the best experience and service possible for you. Our support of this community is paramount to your enjoyment of the game.
It is our mission to make people feel welcome, respected, and happy. Without you, we don’t have a game to make. We are deeply humbled by the fact that you decided to spent your hard earned money on something we created and are passionate about. You make what we do possible and, therefore, we aim to provide you with service that is personal, fast, and attentive. And we will do everything possible to serve those who want to be part of a positive and fun community.
One of our goals as developers is to make sure we talk to you, listen to your feedback and complaints, and do what we can to follow up and resolve your issues. It’s frustrating when things don’t work as you expect—the least we can do is to try hard to always improve and to not make excuses. We answer everyone’s feedback, support emails, and social media posts as fast as we can ourselves. We don’t use any outside services to do this. It’s at times really stressful and overwhelming for a small team, but it’s worth it. Without outside help or a separate team, we can make sure you’re talking to us developers and getting real help. This way we can hold ourselves accountable, and to higher standards of service and support. We write down every piece of your feedback as you send them in and we try to answer as many posts as possible across all of our social media.
In order to foster and grow a community, we know we can’t do it alone. We need to be in constant contact with you. Something we are really proud of is the Community Ambassador program we started. In game, you see the yellow names with CA tags. Community Ambassadors are players who volunteer to help us welcome new users, answer questions, manage forums, and help with testing and community events. The program is really a testament to how great our players are. The CA program is also a player’s idea. We also host dev hours every Tuesday and Thursday at 1pm US eastern time, where the winners of the matches get a free item of choice. We realized that if we just listen, people will provide us with great ideas.
With all the wonderful things that we see from everyone, there are times when we need to take a firm stance to uphold our community standards and moderate discrimination, trolling, and toxicity from a very small minority of the community. We do this because we need to ensure that the community is fun for everyone in it. As a result, we have the obligation and burden to step in to varying degrees if someone’s actions are adversely affecting others. This is far from something we enjoy doing. If we take action, we make sure that it has been investigated thoroughly and that we have had a chance speak to involved parties beforehand for the possibility of a more amicable resolution. At the end of the day, we realize that the game is competitive. We aim to have playful banter, friendly rivalries, and intense battles go hand in hand, but not at the expense of one another.
As people play and compete in the game, we want to remind everyone that there is a person on the other end of the connection who wants to succeed and enjoy him or herself just as much as you do. Our hope and expectations as developers and the custodians of this community are for people to acknowledge that we are people, the players you play with are people, to treat each other with respect, and to be aware how actions and words— especially in a public setting like the forum—can have on others. To this end, let us note a few recommendations that people can observe when in game:
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In game, be respectful and be the one who shows sportsmanship.
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If you have an issue with another player, try to reach out and resolve the issue directly and privately. In a public forum, things tend to escalate and become unnecessarily heated. It also drags uninvolved parties into the issue. If someone bothers you, definitely let them know privately and constructively. If you need our help, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
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Event organizers are players who volunteer their time and they work hard in a thankless position to try to put everything together. Therefore, they really should be respected. If you are not enjoying an event for whatever reason, you can simply not participate. But if you want to be part of the event, you should respect the event organizer and his or her decisions.
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We’re here for you. If your best efforts at reaching out to a fellow player do not resolve a dispute or issue, please feel free to get us involved. You enjoying our game is our number one priority. A negative experience can easily spoil that even if it is neither player’s intent. Send us an email at feedback@musegames.com, and we’ll get in touch and try our best to mediate the issue.
Once again, we want provide the best service to whomever wishes it, and we want to make sure our passionate players get a chance to communicate, have fun, and get to know one another when they’re not staring down the other person through their gun sights. In addition to everything else, we’ll be hosting weekly player meet and greets over Skype or Steam where everyone can hang out, talk shop, or even discuss the latest movie we saw. This new initiative is a great chance for us as developers to talk to the players that make the game possible, and for great players to get to know their competition as great people as well. If you’d like to join us and get to know us, your fellow captains and crew better, please send an email to Keyvias@musegames.com.
Lastly, we just want to wish everyone Happy Holidays!
See you in the skies!
Howard for Team Muse