Even if they cant bring the darn thing back, can we get sword coast adventures seperate please.. the loyal gear is part of our economy and I would find it sad it was removed due to scripting on the gateway
Like Sockmunkey says, the console players have been deprived of that stuff all along.
I don't think they're super-likely to keep it offline forever, but even if they did, we could have the joyful excuse of bringing things closer to platform parity.
I have played a few MMORPGs prior to playing this and from my experience, bots and RMT spammers have always been there and as long as there is any way to draw monetary gain from the game, they always will be there.
Taking apart the game like this is mostly a battle against windmills and regular players are the ones who bear all the negative consequences.
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jaysun1977Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 177Arc User
Good grief selling stackable items is painful from in-game though. I hate not being able to specify quantities without manually splitting the stacks.
It's not just posting stackables, though. The entire IG auction client is garbage! The search function fails, if you don't fit the exact name of the object in question, adding filters leads to a lack of displayed auctions, leading to auctions not showin up on search, no partial search strings, the list goes on. I cannot fathom how anyone came up with that interface.
Same holds true for stronghold coffer activity overview, but that's an entirely different rant.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
Presumably the real issue is RMT farms running hundreds if not thousands of bots to generate currency/level characters that they can then turn around and sell, and nothing in your solution addresses that.
You will never, ever, ever stay ahead of bots created for commercial purposes (true for most any MMO). Make changes to put manual use of the gateway on equal footing with automated usage, and focus the limited development bandwidth you have for anti-bot measures on catching real money transactions and on stomping out zone advertising.
Presumably the real issue is RMT farms running hundreds if not thousands of bots to generate currency/level characters that they can then turn around and sell, and nothing in your solution addresses that.
You will never, ever, ever stay ahead of bots created for commercial purposes (true for most any MMO). Make changes to put manual use of the gateway on equal footing with automated usage, and focus the limited development bandwidth you have for anti-bot measures on catching real money transactions and on stomping out zone advertising.
Oh yes, please make us input a captcha every time we want to do something on the gateway, PLEASE!
Oh yes, please make us input a captcha every time we want to do something on the gateway, PLEASE!
While you're at it, implement an unique device pin code system with the memory of a goldfish so that folks who aren't logged in 100% of the time have to keep entering random pins each time they log on...
It's almost like all of these measures are amounting to something.
On a serious note, this Gateway fiasco is another perfect example of a missed opportunity to build good will with the community. It's really not that difficult to communicate with the community. Even messages along the lines of "we are seeing unusual activity and are investigating" followed by "we see abnormal bot activity and will be bringing down the gateway until we have time to find a solution" would buy a lot of good will. And they wouldn't really reveal anything I imagine the devs might want to keep quiet about.
It's a shame that this is just another missed opportunity, where the result is frustration, confusion, and erosion of trust. It could have been an opportunity to build rapport with the community despite a technical/logistical challenge. @strumslinger any chance you agree?
I religiously keep my leadership RP churning and between events, I did not have enough RP to bring a legendary artifact to mythic. Without leadership, the grind to upgrade gear will be so big that there can be no progress made for months. Just increase the duration of tasks to 24 hours and give us a button that will auto-reload the tasks. That would eliminate advantages of botting.
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,430Arc User
Bots - the excuse for another nerf. Well play and well plan, Cryptic. The AD invocation nerf was not told. The Gateway shutdown was not told. We more or less can say goodbye to Gateway now. It was planned all along.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
I don't think Gateway was taken down because bots were exploiting professions. It's probably something else, like AH. Bots will always find new ways and disabling the Gateway just makes them find a way to do it in-game, if they already don't. Bots don't care how many hundred times they need to switch character everyday all day long, but players do.
I miss Gateway a lot. When I play on an alt and need extra ad, I have to switch character, go on my main, put some Zen in the trades, switch back to the alt, withdraw, and lose all the queues in the process, instead of quickly alt-tabbing out. Oh man... Refined AD really should be an account-wide currency, but that's neither here or there.
RIP another QoL thing in NW. Bots won this battle, too.
I just hope this comes back. Ban the bots, if you can see that bots are being used, ban those accounts. Legit players really enjoy and use the gateway in non exploit ways. Also it's the only way we can get companion gears.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
If you guys plan on keeping Gateway down for good and killing off the companion gear market.
I think it's time to make SH drops unbound. Let's be honest here. Almost no one wears the Faded Walkers or even the Band of Loathing anymore. Let alone the abysmal drop rates for THAT companion gear and it's not even on par with the loyal avenger loot, and you'll likely NOT get what you want anyway. No one wants to grind SH HEs for an eternity for the faint hope of decking out a companion. The HAMSTER usually gets sent to the coffer, at least give people the option to sell it on the AH so someone can be spared the pain.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,430Arc User
This has nothing to do with bots. It is a well planned move. A move managed by high level manager. It was a long weekend. No low level tech will make this drastic move to spoil their long week end. If they did, they would have to get high level approval. They would not dare not saying anything if it was not planned ahead. They would not dare to create a PR nightmare themselves without covering their own back end. High level ordered them not to say anything.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
Presumably the real issue is RMT farms running hundreds if not thousands of bots to generate currency/level characters that they can then turn around and sell, and nothing in your solution addresses that.
You will never, ever, ever stay ahead of bots created for commercial purposes (true for most any MMO). Make changes to put manual use of the gateway on equal footing with automated usage, and focus the limited development bandwidth you have for anti-bot measures on catching real money transactions and on stomping out zone advertising.
You seemed to have missed my point. Adding a queue system to make manual use of the gateway on equal footing with automated usage, while a nice QOL feature as far as WE are concerned, is likely completely superfluous as far as Cryptic is concerned.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
You seemed to have missed my point. Adding a queue system to make manual use of the gateway on equal footing with automated usage, while a nice QOL feature as far as WE are concerned, is likely completely superfluous as far as Cryptic is concerned.
That's just speculation. The original designer of the gateway isn't with them anymore. They have a bot problem, and they want to encourage legitimate players to spend more time playing Neverwinter. QoL is important to retaining players. VIP has a number of QoL features, so clearly there is some awareness that it is important.
Whether that might become a development priority in the face of all the other things they have on their plate remains to be seen.
@stretch611 said (since quotes don't seem to be working for me) Expect the price of RP to be a lot higher. I am not in game right now, but I expect it is already 2 or 3 times as high as it was a week ago.
The week before 2x RP, R5s were selling around 320AD each - on Thursday when 2x RP started, they bottomed out down under 200. This afternoon they were still selling around 190 each. R4s dropped from 75 last week to 49 this week. It's because on Thursday, everyone and their mommas dumped all the saved up Enchanted Coffers at the same time and flooded the market. I sold off my Res stones early last week, made 4.5m - would have made closer to 2m had I waited until the weekend. It's backwards, usually the price spikes on the 2x weekend, but not this time. I nearly broke my dang mouse opening those up, but as has been seen on this thread from people admitting to using certain cheat features (no wonder they're upset the gateway is gone!), a lot of people opened boxes via the gateway which, if done legit, is a raging pain in the rear vs the game client spam-clicking. So - very well could be the massive rapid open phenomenon that tipped the balance.
No idea, but I do know that RP prices went into the toilet as soon as 2x RP started because there was a massive flood of supply.
Here is a suggestion, if non-legitimate players can somehow open coffers via gateway in an easy and hassle free way, why not implement it? If it was a legit way, I would do it. Instead, I'm stuck spam clicking my mouse like you, shortening its already short life. Can I bill cryptic for a new mouse when this one breaks from this abuse?
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callofkutuluMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 56Arc User
Here is a suggestion, if non-legitimate players can somehow open coffers via gateway in an easy and hassle free way, why not implement it? If it was a legit way, I would do it. Instead, I'm stuck spam clicking my mouse like you, shortening its already short life. Can I bill cryptic for a new mouse when this one breaks from this abuse?
The best way to open boxes is to have a gaming mouse/keyboard then setup a key to repeat the click. I have it setup as a toggle so that I can open one box, put the mouse over open another and toggle my click key = superfast open, no wear n tear on your mouse.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
No idea, but I do know that RP prices went into the toilet as soon as 2x RP started because there was a massive flood of supply.
Honestly, I've noticed that prices on certain items now skew higher when it's not 2xRP, possibly because people hoard those things to post during 2xRP, erroneously thinking they'll still get more. But if everyone does it....
And FFS, NW or Gateway needs a built-in "open all" function for the blinged blanged boxes. Significant QoL right there.
you know what...I think I have finally had it....until the gateway comes back up, I am going to log in and get my vip key every day, since i paid for the 6 month membership (to my current displeasure) and I might play for a few minutes, but I am not going to give this company another penny of my very hard-earned money. I am sick and tired of being punished for the behavior of a few. I feel like we are not being treated like valuable customers. We are being treated like freeloaders for whom this company is doing a favor.
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tripsofthrymrMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,624Community Moderator
And FFS, NW or Gateway needs a built-in "open all" function for the blinged blanged boxes. Significant QoL right there.
VIP Rank 13
While we're adding to the VIP wish list, how about access to the chat server too!
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jason0parkerMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4Arc User
I get two brakes a day at work plus lunch while im not working i jump on the "GATEWAY" to run my professions. im losing a lot by the "GATEWAY" being down. i got 22 toons and only play three at any given time. The rest are for professions and if the "GATEWAY" is down or to NOT RE-OPEN what do i do with the rest of my toons delete them. cuz if thats the case i want my AD back. no need to have 19 extra toons... all so why am i rubber-banding so much now too?
I religiously keep my leadership RP churning and between events, I did not have enough RP to bring a legendary artifact to mythic. Without leadership, the grind to upgrade gear will be so big that there can be no progress made for months. Just increase the duration of tasks to 24 hours and give us a button that will auto-reload the tasks. That would eliminate advantages of botting.
You have a point but 24 hours would be way too big of a time window. I think the longest leadership tasks take 18 hours and that is already long enough. I know there are some alchemy tasks that take several days but those aren't as profitable as the leadership tasks. There has to be some remaining managing requirement in professions or else they could just be turned into a button that you click daily to get some stuff, boring.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
edited September 2016
I am betting it won't be long till people botting start running scripts in game rather than on the gateway. I am also betting that it will be much worse for the servers but hey, you never know.
Also, @strumslinger I am more interested in the eu2 proxy, is there any word on when that will come back?
I am betting it won't be long till people botting start running scripts in game rather than on the gateway. I am also betting that it will be much worse for the servers but hey, you never know.
They already exist. A year ago they removed leadership from the gateway because of "bots" running tasks for AD. roughly a month later they removed all AD from leadership because the bots still were running leadership tasks for AD.
Back then we all know the bots moved from the gateway to in-game. The same will happen again. It probably has already.
I am betting it won't be long till people botting start running scripts in game rather than on the gateway. I am also betting that it will be much worse for the servers but hey, you never know.
It's already happening, haven't you noticed the increase in lag / rubber-banding? Since the gateway went down, the game turned into a lagfest, sometimes it's barely playable, while before i had pretty much 0 lag. The boters won't just sit and wait till the gateway is back, they'll just switch to an in-game profession bot. Disabling the gateway permanently or removing the leadership from the gateway once again will do nothing to combat boters running RMT businesses, it'll just annoy real players, just like most of the anti-botting measures implemented so far.
Comments
I don't think they're super-likely to keep it offline forever, but even if they did, we could have the joyful excuse of bringing things closer to platform parity.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Taking apart the game like this is mostly a battle against windmills and regular players are the ones who bear all the negative consequences.
Same holds true for stronghold coffer activity overview, but that's an entirely different rant.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
It's almost like all of these measures are amounting to something.
On a serious note, this Gateway fiasco is another perfect example of a missed opportunity to build good will with the community. It's really not that difficult to communicate with the community. Even messages along the lines of "we are seeing unusual activity and are investigating" followed by "we see abnormal bot activity and will be bringing down the gateway until we have time to find a solution" would buy a lot of good will. And they wouldn't really reveal anything I imagine the devs might want to keep quiet about.
It's a shame that this is just another missed opportunity, where the result is frustration, confusion, and erosion of trust. It could have been an opportunity to build rapport with the community despite a technical/logistical challenge. @strumslinger any chance you agree?
Murphster - SS CW | Jennsen Rahl - MoF CW
Taarna - GWF
Eowyn - Protector OP | Leela - Devoted OP
Mara Jade - TR
Leeloo - Tempt SW | Kahlan Amnell - Fury SW | Galadriel - Damnation SW
Sturm Nightblade - GF
Are you having a Relapse?
The AD invocation nerf was not told. The Gateway shutdown was not told. We more or less can say goodbye to Gateway now. It was planned all along.
I miss Gateway a lot. When I play on an alt and need extra ad, I have to switch character, go on my main, put some Zen in the trades, switch back to the alt, withdraw, and lose all the queues in the process, instead of quickly alt-tabbing out. Oh man... Refined AD really should be an account-wide currency, but that's neither here or there.
RIP another QoL thing in NW. Bots won this battle, too.
I think it's time to make SH drops unbound. Let's be honest here. Almost no one wears the Faded Walkers or even the Band of Loathing anymore. Let alone the abysmal drop rates for THAT companion gear and it's not even on par with the loyal avenger loot, and you'll likely NOT get what you want anyway. No one wants to grind SH HEs for an eternity for the faint hope of decking out a companion. The HAMSTER usually gets sent to the coffer, at least give people the option to sell it on the AH so someone can be spared the pain.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Whether that might become a development priority in the face of all the other things they have on their plate remains to be seen.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Expect the price of RP to be a lot higher. I am not in game right now, but I expect it is already 2 or 3 times as high as it was a week ago.
The week before 2x RP, R5s were selling around 320AD each - on Thursday when 2x RP started, they bottomed out down under 200. This afternoon they were still selling around 190 each. R4s dropped from 75 last week to 49 this week. It's because on Thursday, everyone and their mommas dumped all the saved up Enchanted Coffers at the same time and flooded the market. I sold off my Res stones early last week, made 4.5m - would have made closer to 2m had I waited until the weekend. It's backwards, usually the price spikes on the 2x weekend, but not this time. I nearly broke my dang mouse opening those up, but as has been seen on this thread from people admitting to using certain cheat features (no wonder they're upset the gateway is gone!), a lot of people opened boxes via the gateway which, if done legit, is a raging pain in the rear vs the game client spam-clicking. So - very well could be the massive rapid open phenomenon that tipped the balance.
No idea, but I do know that RP prices went into the toilet as soon as 2x RP started because there was a massive flood of supply.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
And FFS, NW or Gateway needs a built-in "open all" function for the blinged blanged boxes. Significant QoL right there.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Also, @strumslinger I am more interested in the eu2 proxy, is there any word on when that will come back?
Back then we all know the bots moved from the gateway to in-game. The same will happen again. It probably has already.
Murphster - SS CW | Jennsen Rahl - MoF CW
Taarna - GWF
Eowyn - Protector OP | Leela - Devoted OP
Mara Jade - TR
Leeloo - Tempt SW | Kahlan Amnell - Fury SW | Galadriel - Damnation SW
Sturm Nightblade - GF