Got accepted to Nexon focus group 2/21 <-- Note This Is In The Past

[Kaasoljoyyx]

No trolling in this thread please. We know Nexon has problems but if I tell them "fix your pomegranate, hackers are pineappleing up the game," they'll probably kick me out. Depending on how this goes, this could be a very good opportunity to address some issues or at best have an intellectual discussion. At least 1 person there will not be brain-dead or be a 13-15 year old idiot. This is what I know so far:

- Going to talk about MapleStory in a group discussion. It's a private event so only those invited are allowed to attend. Any friends/relatives that show up but were not invited will be asked to wait in the lobby. Discussion time is 2 hours.

- Compensation is $125 cash + 25k NX (this is one of the main reasons I'm going)

- I have to sign an NDA form that states "All information Nexon America discloses to you during this session is confidential. By signing this form you agree that you will not disclose any information or feedback discussed"

- Any media, notes, etc that take can be used for anything they want (excluding any private information e.g. name/address)

- They have offices in El Segundo (where this will take place), Tokyo, Seoul, and Europe.

- Their form has blockparty avatars all over it

I don't know how the discussion will carry out but if anyone's got ideas or wants to voice their own things they want to discuss, go for it. They contacted me by phone and verified some of the answers I gave (i can disclose this phone conversation if people are really interested).

All in all, I'm excited. This is the 3rd focus group I've applied for (I think they've only had 3 so far anyways) and finally I got picked.

[Takebacker]

"- I have to sign an NDA form that states "All information Nexon America discloses to you during this session is confidential. By signing this form you agree that you will not disclose any information or feedback discussed"

- Any media, notes, etc that take can be used for anything they want (excluding any private information e.g. name/address)"

Bring a tape recorder. Upload to youtube.

[DarkForgeJ]

Bring a tape recorder. Upload to youtube.

Spy camera

[Netto]

Since this is so new, I haven't had any real time to think of any questions that may not be answered with "NDA!", but I'm curious to if the hack-site court case is still active or if they know about the other hacking sites.

I'll need some time to think of more questions.

[Mazz]

Make sure you mention all the stuff that can be done with packet editing, and that it's causing the game to die a horrible death. Horntail disconnecting, GM Maple Police false bans (punch GM Kanison from me), accounts being compromised but most importantly MASTERIA STORYLINE BEING COMPLETELY ABANDONED.

Also,

Bring a tape recorder. Upload to youtube.

[Locked]

Bring a tape recorder. Upload to youtube.

That's illegal.

[Sarah]

Also because he signed an NDA they could sue him for it so...

[Locked]

Not to mention the NDA thing makes the whole thing really useless. We're not learning anything new from this, so in my point of view it's trash.

[lorx]

Not to mention the NDA thing makes the whole thing really useless. We're not learning anything new from this, so in my point of view it's trash.

Only trash if nexon chooses to learn nothing from the experience. We already know many, many things that are terribly wrong with the game. Stuff nexon has been ignoring because they don't view it as an issue people care about, or because they don't know about it in the first place. Bringing to the table that the problems exist, and people care, is great if nexon actually takes in the feedback and uses it.

Gigantic if there since nexon would have to act, but, you know, one can hope.

[Marksman Bryan]

Still, if anything good comes out of this discussion I'm sure everyone will know about it.
Matt, I jelly :( ask them to unban calmly lol~~

[Blades4hire]

How long do you think it'll take for some 13 year old kid who has no idea what a NDA is to leak the whole thing to basil?

[Leaves]

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but...

Since this is a focus group, you will not have much of an opprtunity to voice concerns about specific game issues. A focus group is an initiative run by the Marketing department, where they attempt to identify their strengths and weakness with their target audience (players). Most of what you'll be asked will include your playing habits, spending habits, rating your enjoyment/satisfaction with regards to specific MapleStory content that they've launched, etc., as opposed to in-depth game questions.

This is because you will be speaking with Marketing reps. (minimum-wage and/or very low salary) who do not have in-depth knowledge of MapleStory. Their job is to run through a series of "survey-style" questions and then compile this data in order to try and figure out their next marketing moves. Again, this is on a broad scale (should we play more TV ads during cartoon hours to attract that demographic?), not a specific one (let's make Secret Spell Scrolls untradeable to remedy the game economy).

Nevertheless, you should still go and enjoy the $150.

[Locked]

Only trash if nexon chooses to learn nothing from the experience. We already know many, many things that are terribly wrong with the game. Stuff nexon has been ignoring because they don't view it as an issue people care about, or because they don't know about it in the first place. Bringing to the table that the problems exist, and people care, is great if nexon actually takes in the feedback and uses it.

Gigantic if there since nexon would have to act, but, you know, one can hope.

The NDA is basically Nexon's way of ignoring claims of what they said they'll do. Since there is no public knowledge of those statements, they don't have any reason to act upon them in comparison to if it were made public. Nexon can say all it wants in there, but it won't change a damn thing. Especially since this is the third one and we've rarely seen changes as it is.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but...

Since this is a focus group, you will not have much of an opprtunity to voice concerns about specific game issues. A focus group is an initiative run by the Marketing department, where they attempt to identify their strengths and weakness with their target audience (players). Most of what you'll be asked will include your playing habits, spending habits, rating your enjoyment/satisfaction with regards to specific MapleStory content that they've launched, etc., as opposed to in-depth game questions.

This is because you will be speaking with Marketing reps. (minimum-wage and/or very low salary) who do not have in-depth knowledge of MapleStory. Their job is to run through a series of "survey-style" questions and then compile this data in order to try and figure out their next marketing moves. Again, this is on a broad scale (should we play more TV ads during cartoon hours to attract that demographic?), not a specific one (let's make Secret Spell Scrolls untradeable to remedy the game economy).

Nevertheless, you should still go and enjoy the $150.

That too.

[Netto]

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but...

Since this is a focus group, you will not have much of an opprtunity to voice concerns about specific game issues. A focus group is an initiative run by the Marketing department, where they attempt to identify their strengths and weakness with their target audience (players). Most of what you'll be asked will include your playing habits, spending habits, rating your enjoyment/satisfaction with regards to specific MapleStory content that they've launched, etc., as opposed to in-depth game questions.

This is because you will be speaking with Marketing reps. (minimum-wage and/or very low salary) who do not have in-depth knowledge of MapleStory. Their job is to run through a series of "survey-style" questions and then compile this data in order to try and figure out their next marketing moves. Again, this is on a broad scale (should we play more TV ads during cartoon hours to attract that demographic?), not a specific one (let's make Secret Spell Scrolls untradeable to remedy the game economy).

Nevertheless, you should still go and enjoy the $150.

...

If this is the case then ._.
But if their plan is to see how to make the most amount of money...then
L> questions about Pink Bean pets being in sold individually.

[Razmos]

Ignore what the others are saying! Make sure they know that you have some ideas to help

[SaptaZapta]

While it's true that you can't voice specific in-game concerns such as SSS or Dark Metamorphosis and expect them to understand or forward them, you can voice the major issues that are driving players away:

- The game appears to be running unattended. No visible GM presence. Hackers doing whatever they want in broad daylight. When a new issue or exploit breaks out, especially if it's the weekend, there appears to be no way to bring it to Nexon's attention. Consequently, their reaction time is intolerably high, allowing massive damage to be done to the game, often only partially fixable by extremely painful measures.

- Account safety. People are being hacked on a large scale since last summer. Nexon occasionally puts out a notice admonishing us to keep our accounts safe, but even people who do everything written there are getting hacked, daily. Obviously the vulnerability is on Nexon's side, but they don't acknowledge it, don't appear to be doing anything about it, and won't give us even the minimum help - free item locks - not to mention anything that actually takes effort to implement, such as authenticators or using IP information to identify legit login attempts.

- Unresponsiveness. A player who has any kind of concern, from a bug in-game to getting his account hacked and NX stolen, is usually stranded. Tickets don't get replied to ("Unfortunately, we are still experiencing high ticket volume at this time" - "this time" lasting years) or get responses that are obviously generated by a machine looking for keywords instead of a human being who is actually able to understand the issue. Nexon's forum representatives respond to maybe one in 100 threads. There is no phone number or e-mail address to contact, and in-game broadcasting ("smega") is never seen (takes us back to point 1).

- Game instability. The game crashes often, and we are never told why. Just now we had a long run of absolutly horrible instability, which we were told was due to "hardware malfunction", but then we see Min Kim's letter and the quarterly report saying it was malicious attacks by hackers. Which is true? Nexon takes down the game at apparent random, often with no advance notice and nothing but a cryptic "server stability issue" by way of explanation. And sometimes, because of the extremely delayed response time (see first point above, again), the only solution is to "roll back", undoing people's hard work of days, making them feel extremely unsafe and unwilling to make any more efforts. What's the point of playing when your hard work can either be "rolled back" or stolen by hackers (see "account safety", above) at any time?


While it's true that marketing people are more concerned with acquiring new players than retaining existing ones, the current cash shop model does require veteran players.
Once, a player would create an account, get some pretty clothes and a pet, and from that point Nexon no longer cares if he plays or quits.
However, for a player to get into heavy cubing - the major source of income - they have to learn a bit more about the game and reach a certain level in it. If players are driven off early by lack of safety, stability, and attention, they won't be spending the hundreds of dollars they could have.

[Leaves]

While it's true that you can't voice specific in-game concerns such as SSS or Dark Metamorphosis and expect them to understand or forward them, you can voice the major issues that are driving players away:

- The game appears to be running unattended. No visible GM presence. Hackers doing whatever they want in broad daylight. When a new issue or exploit breaks out, especially if it's the weekend, there appears to be no way to bring it to Nexon's attention. Consequently, their reaction time is intolerably high, allowing massive damage to be done to the game, often only partially fixable by extremely painful measures.

- Account safety. People are being hacked on a large scale since last summer. Nexon occasionally puts out a notice admonishing us to keep our accounts safe, but even people who do everything written there are getting hacked, daily. Obviously the vulnerability is on Nexon's side, but they don't acknowledge it, don't appear to be doing anything about it, and won't give us even the minimum help - free item locks - not to mention anything that actually takes effort to implement, such as authenticators or using IP information to identify legit login attempts.

- Unresponsiveness. A player who has any kind of concern, from a bug in-game to getting his account hacked and NX stolen, is usually stranded. Tickets don't get replied to ("Unfortunately, we are still experiencing high ticket volume at this time" - "this time" lasting years) or get responses that are obviously generated by a machine looking for keywords instead of a human being who is actually able to understand the issue. Nexon's forum representatives respond to maybe one in 100 threads. There is no phone number or e-mail address to contact, and in-game broadcasting ("smega") is never seen (takes us back to point 1).

- Game instability. The game crashes often, and we are never told why. Just now we had a long run of absolutly horrible instability, which we were told was due to "hardware malfunction", but then we see Min Kim's letter and the quarterly report saying it was malicious attacks by hackers. Which is true? Nexon takes down the game at apparent random, often with no advance notice and nothing but a cryptic "server stability issue" by way of explanation. And sometimes, because of the extremely delayed response time (see first point above, again), the only solution is to "roll back", undoing people's hard work of days, making them feel extremely unsafe and unwilling to make any more efforts. What's the point of playing when your hard work can either be "rolled back" or stolen by hackers (see "account safety", above) at any time?

Should the OP even have the chance to speak outside of the focus group's pre-determined format, the Marketing rep's repsonse would be:

*jots down info* Thank you very much for your input. I will pass your feedback along to the appropriate departments. *throws paper in recycling bin*

You simply cannot (and should not) expect a minimum-wage employee to go above and beyond their job duties, because:

1) It would be difficult for them to do so (ex. they cannot actually get in touch with the Dev and/or live gaming departments)
2) Their job duties/instructions are clear. Run the focus group (pre-determined questions), collect the info, type it up on the computer, go home.
3) Once again - they have a very limited knowledge of what Nexon's business runs like. They are often temporary employees that are mostly there for data collection/entry. They are basically robots.

As an aside... I hope you all realize that Nexon is *fully* aware of their flaws. They are not dumb. They know they do not have enough Customer Service Reps to handle the volume of tickets, nor do they have enough GMs to handle the amount of hackers/reports. They knowingly choose to continue operating this way, mainly because it does not seem to hurt their bottom line profit (or so they think). In reality, this is how *most* businesses run. The difference is that major companies usually do put more value in customer service, because it has been proven to create additional revenue (at least in the North American market).

Without going into too much detail here, I will say that Nexon is not exactly the typical North American service business, and this is mainly because it originated in (and still mainly operates from) Asia.

Do not expect Nexon to change.

[Coogi]

Nothing even matters with the NDA...Should just lock this...I mean it's not like he can report anything back. -_-

[SNAAAAKEE]

I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine an NDA holding up in court since you're essentially signing away constitutional rights. If he did post what happened in the focus testing I doubt anything would come of it, still if he didn't feel comfortable letting us know I would understand.

[Leaves]

I'm not a lawyer, but I can't imagine an NDA holding up in court since you're essentially signing away constitutional rights. If he did post what happened in the focus testing I doubt anything would come of it, still if he didn't feel comfortable letting us know I would understand.

It very well could be help up in court, so I am not sure what you are basing your conclusion on.

That begin said, it's very unlikely that Nexon will divulge any sort of "secret" information to the the participants of a focus group. The NDA is used more-so as a scare tactic.