By now most of you have noticed the new vendors by Santa in Renaissance Center. First, I want to make it clear that this implementation was in no means an attempt to "shaft" Mighty Pencil and his charity drive. The change was made by the design team, and I was the one who had been publicizing and supporting the charity event, so they weren't even aware of its existence.
While this does indeed give a use for the "trash" items from the Winter event, I believe it also gives new meaning to this charity drive. Before, by participating you were not actually sacrificing anything or choosing to give up something in order to help someone else. Now, you can actually donate your pens and pencils and know that you were choosing to do something for someone else this holiday season, rather than choosing to benefit yourself. In my eyes, this donation drive means a bit more now that there's a use for the items, rather than just being trash.
Personally, I'm willing to give up some Blue and Purple items to help out a worthy real-life cause. Are you?
By now most of you have noticed the new vendors by Santa in Renaissance Center. First, I want to make it clear that this implementation was in no means an attempt to "shaft" Mighty Pencil and his charity drive. The change was made by the design team, and I was the one who had been publicizing and supporting the charity event, so they weren't even aware of its existence.real-life cause.
Well thanks for your post, Daeke.
I've been catching a lot of flak in Clarence, Zone, Local, and LFG chats. There are a few people who are spreading the rumor that "He knew what would happen with the pencils, that's why he's collecting them." Quite a bit of other people are being influenced by those comments, and it's really bothersome.
On a positive note, this charity drive has shown me who I truly should be playing the game with in order to be at my friendliest. For every one troll/nay-sayer/grinch, a thousand more have just spammed my Inbox at that moment with more pencil sets.
By now most of you have noticed the new vendors by Santa in Renaissance Center. First, I want to make it clear that this implementation was in no means an attempt to "shaft" Mighty Pencil and his charity drive. The change was made by the design team, and I was the one who had been publicizing and supporting the charity event, so they weren't even aware of its existence.
While this does indeed give a use for the "trash" items from the Winter event, I believe it also gives new meaning to this charity drive. Before, by participating you were not actually sacrificing anything or choosing to give up something in order to help someone else. Now, you can actually donate your pens and pencils and know that you were choosing to do something for someone else this holiday season, rather than choosing to benefit yourself. In my eyes, this donation drive means a bit more now that there's a use for the items, rather than just being trash.
Personally, I'm willing to give up some Blue and Purple items to help out a worthy real-life cause. Are you?
Last line is noble but way off the issue. MP is now apparently taking flack with this late change because of accusations of hording. The counter to that accusation was "It's stuff you don't need." Now the accusations have reappeared because the counter before is now meaningless.
And since it was planned, why not let the fanbase know ahead of time about the vendors? Doing it now even without the charity drive, you all should have known people would be trashing or selling the other items they thought and were told was useless. Back to the old grind again? Nah. I am not "giving up any blues or purples". I will still send Pencil whatever pencil sets I have but screw grinding all over again to get the amounts of other items needed for the Blues and Purples when the globes, etc got sold or trashed because led to believe they were worthless and especially with the zero xp from having to grind those sold/destroyed items again.
Personally, I'm willing to give up some Blue and Purple items to help out a worthy real-life cause. Are you?
Apparently, I've already given up some Blue and Purple items, by vendoring/trashing the holiday "trash" prior to the addition of the new charity collectors. Why would I stop sending my Pen and Pencil sets to MP? At least he was upfront with what his plans were.
Seriously, are you folks ever going to get your act together and treat your subscribers (those left) with some respect? Why the delay in adding these new vendors? Sounds like you were promoting MP's charity thing while the design team was planning their own collection thing, but neither of you knew what the other was doing? No wonder things are still where they are with this game.
Personally, I'm willing to give up some Blue and Purple items to help out a worthy real-life cause. Are you?
Perhaps you should convince the people around your office to chip in and donate some money to a charity, because frankly I'm completely disgusted by this move.
This charity drive was the one good thing about this stupid winter event, and this NPC has completely blown it.
I know it's not your fault Daeke, but it's still rage inducing.
Both my wife and I are still planning on shipping both our Socks and Pencil sets to the respective players, but we've vendored many stacks of items that were otherwise worthless, until now - gotta say this was a pretty suck-tastic move. Next time either let us know these items are going to have vendors before the event starts or wait til next year to implement this sort of stuff.. anything else is rage-inducing.
On further reflection, this absolutely baffles me - I can't imagine this change was made with the willful intent of undercutting real-world charity. So, if that's not it - is the design team really so ignorant of what going on in-game that this didn't occur to them? Why wasn't the design changed? Who puts out a last-minute patch like this?
Who in their right mind puts out a patch the day before Christmas Eve that undercuts a charity? - This has got to be the most bone-headed move to date.
By now most of you have noticed the new vendors by Santa in Renaissance Center.
Okay, I try to be on you guys' side, but this was just handled incredibly poorly. I can't count how many stacks I've vendored of the holiday stuff up to this point. I got the action figures, I'm done, I'm not grinding more just to get some items.
I'm really sorry to say this, but you just managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of an otherwise enjoyable holiday event. Whoever thought slipping this in after the event had already started - without, apparently, telling the community rep - owes the customers an apology.
ESPECIALLY the customer who volunteered to run a charity event and is now getting accused of running a profiteering scam.
Who in their right mind puts out a patch the day before Christmas Eve that undercuts a charity? - This has got to be the most bone-headed move to date.
I most vehemently concur.
Once again, I must ask if CO's staff is deliberately trying to torque off the players.
Yeah, add another player who had already gotten rid of all the "worthless" items and gone on to other things. Oh well, I'm not going to go collect any more now. :mad:
The change was made by the design team, and I was the one who had been publicizing and supporting the charity event, so they weren't even aware of its existence.
Daeke, I really like you and I really like this game, and I really think this game has a lot of potential, and I don't mean to derail this thread - but I find this statement just a little bit disturbing.
How could they not of known what was going on? The charity has been widely publicized on these forums and in zone chat.
Are the designers/developers not playing the live game?
Are the designers/developers not playing the live game?
It's pretty damn likely that at least some of them play the game. They probably just have the "global" zone channels disabled, those being the swirling, all-consuming vortices of pure elemental STUPID that they are.
Still, Daeke should have given them some kind of a heads up before this ended up happening.
It's pretty damn likely that at least some of them play the game. They probably just have the "global" zone channels disabled, those being the swirling, all-consuming vortices of pure elemental STUPID that they are.
Still, Daeke should have given them some kind of a heads up before this ended up happening.
Honesty, if they were really, truly, unaware of this, the implications of that ignorance has to be pretty far reaching. This topic has been brought up in virtually every forum, zone, local, and custom channel for the last two weeks. Heck, it's been on the front page as a news item. If the designers are that out of touch with the community - doesn't that say something.. rather awful in of itself?
Honesty, if they were really, truly, unaware of this, the implications of that ignorance has to be pretty far reaching. This topic has been brought up in virtually every forum, zone, local, and custom channel for the last two weeks. Heck, it's been on the front page as a news item. If the designers are that out of touch with the community - doesn't that say something.. rather awful in of itself?
This topic has been brought up in virtually every forum, zone, local, and custom channel for the last two weeks.
It's also been on a podcast and a radio station.
I respect what Daeke does, I respect what the entire team does. Usually what he says puts my mind at ease, because he's a rather intelligent person it seems.
What he said here today has not put my mind at ease, they could have just as easily left this NPC function out this year out of respect. But I sit here, staring at this NPC "Pen sets Included!" It seems.
I respect what Daeke does, I respect what the entire team does. Usually what he says puts my mind at ease, because he's a rather intelligent person it seems.
What he said here today has not put my mind at ease, they could have just as easily left this NPC function out this year out of respect. But I sit here, staring at this NPC "Pen sets Included!" It seems.
Is it entirely too late for you to swap to Coal, which has no other use?
I know, it's logical, and it isn't a Pencil, but it would work, and the event is new enough that we could re-educate everyone into sending you their coal instead.
Is it entirely too late for you to swap to Coal, which has no other use?
I know, it's logical, and it isn't a Pencil, but it would work, and the event is new enough that we could re-educate everyone into sending you their coal instead.
This event was centered around the pen and pencil set, it will be the pen and pencil set for the final two days.
If you want to submit your pen sets to the NPC for a long shot at a purple that will most likely be a Secondary Utility +6 STR and +5 CON, you're welcome to do so.
If the designers are that out of touch with the community - doesn't that say something.. rather awful in of itself?
Yep. Exactly what I was thinking. If they didn't know about the charity drive they're totally out of touch with the community. If they did and did this anyway, we're over to this web page, I think....
Yep. Exactly what I was thinking. If they didn't know about the charity drive they're totally out of touch with the community. If they did and did this anyway, we're over to this web page, I think....
That webpage contains malware ads, please remove it.
I had saved my drops, and will be trading them in for a blue. As for charity, rather than giving in-game items that would amount to about a buck in real-world value, I gave locally to both the toy drive and the food bank. So I'm not feeling too bad about hanging on to my pencils.
I am convinced that MP had no idea the sets would be tradable in advance, to suggest otherwise is ludicrous. Personally I do not know MP, haven't even chatted to him in game, but his motives seem sincere and frankly any ulterior motive cannot be anything to do with in game money, because it has little real value in the game anyhow. What exactly can you spend it on? I have loads banked and with all the free respecs, the only expensive thing in game, I struggle to spend it. I suppose the special unity missions are one thing, but still.
Sadly, I am no longer opening boxes as much, as farming Clarence for the last costume piece is my current obsession, but I will still send any more pens I get.
Despite this awful move of putting an NPC that takes pen and pencil sets rather than Coal, the count is in for the current number of Pen and Pencil sets I have graciously been given by all those who matter.
15,535 Pen and Pencil Sets
That's right, this isn't one of those white lies that you may tell your wife about her dress, or where babies come from to avoid awkward discussions. This is a real man's number.
However, you'll have to do better than that if you want to put me in the poor house, you shlubs. :cool:
Don't forget, the ending date is December 25th. Get out there and collect more sets! (not for the NPC)
This event was centered around the pen and pencil set, it will be the pen and pencil set for the final two days.
If you want to submit your pen sets to the NPC for a long shot at a purple that will most likely be a Secondary Utility +6 STR and +5 CON, you're welcome to do so.
Okay, I never said I wasn't going to participate, I am just saving up all mine across all my alts to make it easier on myself.
I was just trying to suggest an alternative that would work. Pardon me for trying to be a little helpful.
Okay, I never said I wasn't going to participate, I am just saving up all mine across all my alts to make it easier on myself.
I was just trying to suggest an alternative that would work. Pardon me for trying to be a little helpful.
There was too many people who were already aware the pencils were the things going to me.
Not to mention several podcasts and a radio station from the start was talking about the pen and pencil sets being what I was collecting. Several SGs that still had backed up slots of pencil stacks.
My point is, it would be easier not to bother with changing the item I was collecting. This is still a Dip $#!7 move that they could have held off on until next year.
They should have just left them out until next year is right. Then everyone would be like "sweet, the grind with no xp can mean something but I'd still support something like Pencil did last year." And probably if I knew in advance, I'd have still given you the pencils but I would have saved all the other items then after the 25th, I'd try to get enough pencils to cash in. Right now I am opening presents and thinking each time, "Pencil --- be a pencil. Oh *$%#! It's just a crappy globe/coal/some purple item/whatever." Yes, I look for getting pencils for this more than even those very rare colored items because this event has been a fail in fun other than hunting for pencils. The event is just that "hunting for pencils."
And just because it's on a radio station podcast or whatever, I can understand them missing that. Odd but understandable. Even the message board could be swept away in a stretch. But the friggin' home page?! Are you kidding?
And the devs can't be mad at me their event has been reduced to hunting for pencils in my eyes. Hell, I don't hold it against them that they find hunting for mohawk grenades in that other game more important than supporting the events in their own.
I just started playing yesterday and I see it's a good thing I haven't traded in any toys. I'll keep on gathering some more pencils and pens till tomorrow!
Well, sent off the pens and pencils that were given to me by members of the Storm Radio community. I know several other DJs also sent in stacks given to them by members of the community.
And honestly, even if I'd known about the turn-ins, wouldn't have changed a thing for me. I only opened the presents for the pens and pencils anyway.
And if you want to try and do this again next year, MP, let us know and we can do a real spot for airplay for you.
And if you want to try and do this again next year, MP, let us know and we can do a real spot for airplay for you.
There is no question.
I'd love to do it again next year, it wasn't as nearly a large undertaking as I thought it would be. Thank you all for donating what you can to this charity event.
A community-driven charity event like this must be the best PR an MMO could get and it could easily have made headlines in newspapers and on gaming sites if it had been handled better (Christmas and teddy bears, gamers donating to children in need), so it was unfortunate that the devs had this weird plan of introducing a barter NPC after a few days.
What they could have done to compensate, I think, would have been to make the toys drop nothing but pen and pencil sets for the last day of Mighty Pencil's event, i.e. today.
I actually believe Cryptic need to work harder in order to be competitive and since there is very little dialogue going on here, I have done what I can to show my scepticism. I have cancelled my STO pre-order.
A community-driven charity event like this must be the best PR an MMO could get and it could easily have made headlines in newspapers and on gaming sites if it had been handled better
I handled it with more care than I handle other things, LaLa.
I believe in another post I had told someone the same thing I'll say again; I don't need headlines in newspapers, and gaming sites. The event was heard and participated in by the people who trust me, and care enough to give up a few worthless game items to make the holidays of some worse off kid something to remember for a long time coming. I couldn't have asked for more than several podcasters broadcasting the event, as well as Storm Radio.
Not to mention front page news, sure I was a little ****ed off with thier jiblet-headed move of adding an NPC that takes the item I was collecting.
Several real-life people said I should take it to local news and the local newspaper, but I refused. For the most part, I refused because the event didn't need any more PR than it was already getting. Also, I wasn't sure what kind of lawsuit Cryptic could pull on me, if I decided to name thier game on a newspaper or outside advertisement that can either hurt or help thier business. Daeke wouldn't give me a solid answer with the legalities of talking about the event with a newspaper company, so I chose not to bother with it this year.
what was so bad about putting a npc to collect the pencil sets? it takes all the white drops from what i understand
It completely changed the rules framework in which M_P first created the event. Kind of like if you get hired at a job for $50 an hour, and then a week later the government declares pesos the national currency and dollars are now worthless, but your job keeps paying you in dollars anyway. (NOT meant as a comprehensive analogy )
so now its the 26th (boxing day for us canadians) and does anyone have the final tally now that the event is officially over?
Unless you missed all the whining and threads, I can't get into the game right now. I have been trying to play all day. It's also not officially the 25th in america, as that's two hours away if you want to be official.
The due date for the pencils has been changed to the 26th in light of this stupid downtime.
Well I handed my pen sets to my SG last night so I sure hope they all were sent to you by now. TBH I can't believe you saved that many pen sets, I was expect the event to total somewhere around 4-5k or so.
Well I handed my pen sets to my SG last night so I sure hope they all were sent to you by now. TBH I can't believe you saved that many pen sets, I was expect the event to total somewhere around 4-5k or so.
*Your confidence in humanity has increased by 1*
There were a lot of people that gave me flak and were angry without reason to be. So it wasn't all smiles and sunshine when I went through the Inbox or got tells, or bothered to listen to Zone. I guess some people just don't like it when someone else wants to give something they have to someone who does not have it.
If someone could tell me how to take pictures of the UI, I'd appreciate it.
Whenever I try pressing that ol' Prt. Scrn it wants to take all the UI out of the picture.
On behalf of Cryptic, I want to apologize for how we at Cryptic dealt with this. There was a great community initiative, in the spirit of Christmas, and we did not handle things well on our end.
There's no excuse. A bunch of people who knew what was happening didn't communicate to those who didn't. Yes, devs play the game but sometimes there's simply not enough communication. This happens in a larger company; people assume that someone else is handling it.
I'm in Indianapolis now at my in-laws and I return to work on next Wednesday. I promise that I'll look into the why's here and make sure that this ge's fixed.
On behalf of Cryptic, I want to apologize for how we at Cryptic dealt with this. There was a great community initiative, in the spirit of Christmas, and we did not handle things well on our end.
There's no excuse. A bunch of people who knew what was happening didn't communicate to those who didn't. Yes, devs play the game but sometimes there's simply not enough communication. This happens in a larger company; people assume that someone else is handling it.
I'm in Indianapolis now at my in-laws and I return to work on next Wednesday. I promise that I'll look into the why's here and make sure that this ge's fixed.
I personally did not contibute to MPs drive. For me, it was a matter of convenience to just NPC this stuff as I got it. That and like many have said, I have trust issues. Nothing against you MP, but I take forums at face value. That doesn't by any means diminish this whole event mess. Few points stick out to me.
1. As others are pointing out, as a company bad form to support an initiative, and then undercut it with something right after. My personal opinions aside of the drive, you were about to make yourself look pretty damn good in the public eye and now you look like douchebags.
2. As an MMO, bad form to push out an event with a huge mechanic missing and decide to add it later. Heck, I even posted while this mess was on PTS suggesting something to do with the "junk". No mention was ever made of "this is what it is for", nor was it mentioned that there even may be a use. You have to know that many of your subscribers will beat this thing to death in the first 4 days and move away from it later on. You just screwed all the folks who pushed hard early. No, I do not want to keep unwrapping gifts when now the other 50% of contents are useless to me. I didn't want the filler at first, and now I don't want the damn AF parts. Would have been nice to do the event with 100% functionality.
At the point the event went live without the function to trade the junk that should have been it. Yes folks would have still been asking why all the junk was there. True to the sandbox nature, your players made up something to do with it. But to add in a use part way through the event, now you have the people that sucked it up and NPC'd the stuff crying foul. The people who gave stuff away now are ****ed they did. True, you can never please everyone but it would be nice if you tried to please someone.
3. Many folks are getting tired half baked content when it hits live. Especially when the testers are telling you on PTS there needs to be fixes. At some point you guys really need to start learning what your audience wants to see before you have 0 audience. Your testers are getting tired of giving you feedback to watch you ignore it. Yes, bugs will get through to live, but live shouldn't be considered an extension of test.
This bleeds over into everything you do as a company. I can't tell you how many folks have asked me, my units resident computer nerd, about STO and I have told them to leave it alone because of experiences here. To a person, they all respond, "That's what I thought." Your reputation is preceeding you now.
Your testers are getting tired of giving you feedback to watch you ignore it.
Bingo.
I stopped testing altogether. Not sure when the last time was that I even bothered logging onto test. And the fact that if I go to the PTS forum right now and see the same 12 or so posters and the same 12 or so threads on the front page speaks volumes to me.
This project has MASSIVE communication issues. It has since Beta and even though we've been promised time and time again (even by Roper himself) that they would try better, its still the same. The left hand has no friggin clue wtf the right hand is doing.
And Testers like me just said screw it. I'm tired of wasting my time testing a patch that's going to go through as is no matter what is found or suggested.
I stopped testing altogether. Not sure when the last time was that I even bothered logging onto test. And the fact that if I go to the PTS forum right now and see the same 12 or so posters and the same 12 or so threads on the front page speaks volumes to me.
This project has MASSIVE communication issues. It has since Beta and even though we've been promised time and time again (even by Roper himself) that they would try better, its still the same. The left hand has no friggin clue wtf the right hand is doing.
And Testers like me just said screw it. I'm tired of wasting my time testing a patch that's going to go through as is no matter what is found or suggested.
I put the blame squarely on Q&A's shoulders.
No. It's a management issue. Ultimately it goes straight to Roper.
I don't post bugs on the forums ... I put them in the tracker system, because I (probably foolishly) believe that this guarantees they won't get lost in the spam, and that someone's compensation is based on how well they do against formally tracked bugs.
But I also have very little impetus to playtest this stuff any more, for reasons mentioned: CRITICAL bugs are identified, not by Cryptic QA, but by players, and they still get pushed out to the live servers.
This should never happen. When you push a patch, you should have a list of known bugs in the patch notes. If Paragon can do that, you certainly can.
I'm kinda confused as to how you could have 'trust issues' with something like this? MP started the collecting well before any of us (including MP himself) knew about the NPC's. So worst case scenario? MP got tons of P&P's which he sold for peanuts. And what would we have lost if he went that route? Err... peanuts. It might sound crazy, but I solo'd the 1000 misfits, and during that time I got a total of 78 sets.
So let's say I have trust issues. 'Oh no, I'm not going to send those 78 vendor items to MP because he can get some in-game cash that I'll miss out on.' Seriously? Or am I missing something here? Because it all seems to me that the nay-sayers are afraid that their 'trust' will be abused and they'll be a few in-game bucks poorer for it. (Or a possible blue/purple item now with the NPC's.)
It'd be different if you have to actually spend money and give it to some stranger, but what do you have to lose with this? Are you really weighing your options between donating to charity this way or keeping these valueless items so you won't get 'scammed' out of them?' You know, for people who actually think this way... I think you're playing the wrong game if you can't understand the concept of doing something nice just for the good of it. I mean, isn't that what your in-game hero characters are doing?
At least, that's my view on things. I donated my sets to MP because a) I wanted to add to the charity, b) couldn't care less about the money I could have made by just selling them to the vendor. So even if he decides to go evil on us and not donate to charity (which I have no reason to believe he will), at least my heart was in the right place. And so were the hearts of all the heroes who donated in this way.
Happy holidays!
Edit: corrected the amount of P&P sets I collected... forgot they stacked to 40 instead of 20.
I'm kinda confused as to how you could have 'trust issues' with something like this?
A lot of the trust issues come from the back that we don't trust him to follow through because A) he is only doing this for the attention and Has stated he doesn't have the money to follow through.
This wouldn't have happened at all if MP didn't feel the need to one up another people. Another player suggested sending socks to Mr.Funsocks as a joke, and when asked about MP, said it wouldn't be right due to other people's issues with MP's general attitude so it would be out of spite and not a joke to respected player. So MP made a thread offering prizes in exchange for all pencils sent to him. This turned into a discussion by other players of possibility turning the socks thing into a charity with all items. In turn MP turned his bribery into a "charity".
Comments
By now most of you have noticed the new vendors by Santa in Renaissance Center. First, I want to make it clear that this implementation was in no means an attempt to "shaft" Mighty Pencil and his charity drive. The change was made by the design team, and I was the one who had been publicizing and supporting the charity event, so they weren't even aware of its existence.
While this does indeed give a use for the "trash" items from the Winter event, I believe it also gives new meaning to this charity drive. Before, by participating you were not actually sacrificing anything or choosing to give up something in order to help someone else. Now, you can actually donate your pens and pencils and know that you were choosing to do something for someone else this holiday season, rather than choosing to benefit yourself. In my eyes, this donation drive means a bit more now that there's a use for the items, rather than just being trash.
Personally, I'm willing to give up some Blue and Purple items to help out a worthy real-life cause. Are you?
I've been catching a lot of flak in Clarence, Zone, Local, and LFG chats. There are a few people who are spreading the rumor that "He knew what would happen with the pencils, that's why he's collecting them." Quite a bit of other people are being influenced by those comments, and it's really bothersome.
On a positive note, this charity drive has shown me who I truly should be playing the game with in order to be at my friendliest. For every one troll/nay-sayer/grinch, a thousand more have just spammed my Inbox at that moment with more pencil sets.
Last line is noble but way off the issue. MP is now apparently taking flack with this late change because of accusations of hording. The counter to that accusation was "It's stuff you don't need." Now the accusations have reappeared because the counter before is now meaningless.
And since it was planned, why not let the fanbase know ahead of time about the vendors? Doing it now even without the charity drive, you all should have known people would be trashing or selling the other items they thought and were told was useless. Back to the old grind again? Nah. I am not "giving up any blues or purples". I will still send Pencil whatever pencil sets I have but screw grinding all over again to get the amounts of other items needed for the Blues and Purples when the globes, etc got sold or trashed because led to believe they were worthless and especially with the zero xp from having to grind those sold/destroyed items again.
But nice glossover on the oversight by Cryptic.
Apparently, I've already given up some Blue and Purple items, by vendoring/trashing the holiday "trash" prior to the addition of the new charity collectors.
Seriously, are you folks ever going to get your act together and treat your subscribers (those left) with some respect? Why the delay in adding these new vendors? Sounds like you were promoting MP's charity thing while the design team was planning their own collection thing, but neither of you knew what the other was doing? No wonder things are still where they are with this game.
Perhaps you should convince the people around your office to chip in and donate some money to a charity, because frankly I'm completely disgusted by this move.
This charity drive was the one good thing about this stupid winter event, and this NPC has completely blown it.
I know it's not your fault Daeke, but it's still rage inducing.
Both my wife and I are still planning on shipping both our Socks and Pencil sets to the respective players, but we've vendored many stacks of items that were otherwise worthless, until now - gotta say this was a pretty suck-tastic move. Next time either let us know these items are going to have vendors before the event starts or wait til next year to implement this sort of stuff.. anything else is rage-inducing.
On further reflection, this absolutely baffles me - I can't imagine this change was made with the willful intent of undercutting real-world charity. So, if that's not it - is the design team really so ignorant of what going on in-game that this didn't occur to them? Why wasn't the design changed? Who puts out a last-minute patch like this?
Who in their right mind puts out a patch the day before Christmas Eve that undercuts a charity? - This has got to be the most bone-headed move to date.
~I
Okay, I try to be on you guys' side, but this was just handled incredibly poorly. I can't count how many stacks I've vendored of the holiday stuff up to this point. I got the action figures, I'm done, I'm not grinding more just to get some items.
I'm really sorry to say this, but you just managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of an otherwise enjoyable holiday event. Whoever thought slipping this in after the event had already started - without, apparently, telling the community rep - owes the customers an apology.
ESPECIALLY the customer who volunteered to run a charity event and is now getting accused of running a profiteering scam.
Bravo, sir or madam, bravo. :-(
I most vehemently concur.
Once again, I must ask if CO's staff is deliberately trying to torque off the players.
Daeke, I really like you and I really like this game, and I really think this game has a lot of potential, and I don't mean to derail this thread - but I find this statement just a little bit disturbing.
How could they not of known what was going on? The charity has been widely publicized on these forums and in zone chat.
Are the designers/developers not playing the live game?
It's pretty damn likely that at least some of them play the game. They probably just have the "global" zone channels disabled, those being the swirling, all-consuming vortices of pure elemental STUPID that they are.
Still, Daeke should have given them some kind of a heads up before this ended up happening.
Honesty, if they were really, truly, unaware of this, the implications of that ignorance has to be pretty far reaching. This topic has been brought up in virtually every forum, zone, local, and custom channel for the last two weeks. Heck, it's been on the front page as a news item. If the designers are that out of touch with the community - doesn't that say something.. rather awful in of itself?
~I
I can't really disagree with that.
I respect what Daeke does, I respect what the entire team does. Usually what he says puts my mind at ease, because he's a rather intelligent person it seems.
What he said here today has not put my mind at ease, they could have just as easily left this NPC function out this year out of respect. But I sit here, staring at this NPC "Pen sets Included!" It seems.
Is it entirely too late for you to swap to Coal, which has no other use?
I know, it's logical, and it isn't a Pencil, but it would work, and the event is new enough that we could re-educate everyone into sending you their coal instead.
Hopefully people will continue to send you items instead of turning them in for random rewards.
If you want to submit your pen sets to the NPC for a long shot at a purple that will most likely be a Secondary Utility +6 STR and +5 CON, you're welcome to do so.
Yep. Exactly what I was thinking. If they didn't know about the charity drive they're totally out of touch with the community. If they did and did this anyway, we're over to this web page, I think....
It's a right nice thing that you're doing MP, it really is and you should be applauded for it.
/applauds
Pad.
Sadly, I am no longer opening boxes as much, as farming Clarence for the last costume piece is my current obsession, but I will still send any more pens I get.
Good on ya Pencil
Merry Xmas to you all
Despite this awful move of putting an NPC that takes pen and pencil sets rather than Coal, the count is in for the current number of Pen and Pencil sets I have graciously been given by all those who matter.
15,535 Pen and Pencil Sets
That's right, this isn't one of those white lies that you may tell your wife about her dress, or where babies come from to avoid awkward discussions. This is a real man's number.
However, you'll have to do better than that if you want to put me in the poor house, you shlubs. :cool:
Don't forget, the ending date is December 25th. Get out there and collect more sets! (not for the NPC)
Okay, I never said I wasn't going to participate, I am just saving up all mine across all my alts to make it easier on myself.
I was just trying to suggest an alternative that would work. Pardon me for trying to be a little helpful.
Not to mention several podcasts and a radio station from the start was talking about the pen and pencil sets being what I was collecting. Several SGs that still had backed up slots of pencil stacks.
My point is, it would be easier not to bother with changing the item I was collecting. This is still a Dip $#!7 move that they could have held off on until next year.
And just because it's on a radio station podcast or whatever, I can understand them missing that. Odd but understandable. Even the message board could be swept away in a stretch. But the friggin' home page?! Are you kidding?
And the devs can't be mad at me their event has been reduced to hunting for pencils in my eyes. Hell, I don't hold it against them that they find hunting for mohawk grenades in that other game more important than supporting the events in their own.
Very nice. This is an awesome achievement for a MMO community. Especially one that had so much trolling on the forum till recently.
Makes me sad that Illumisar is MIA and we didnt manage to get the other charity on its feet.
Ah well, next time
Great work everyone!
And honestly, even if I'd known about the turn-ins, wouldn't have changed a thing for me. I only opened the presents for the pens and pencils anyway.
And if you want to try and do this again next year, MP, let us know and we can do a real spot for airplay for you.
I'd love to do it again next year, it wasn't as nearly a large undertaking as I thought it would be. Thank you all for donating what you can to this charity event.
What they could have done to compensate, I think, would have been to make the toys drop nothing but pen and pencil sets for the last day of Mighty Pencil's event, i.e. today.
I actually believe Cryptic need to work harder in order to be competitive and since there is very little dialogue going on here, I have done what I can to show my scepticism. I have cancelled my STO pre-order.
I believe in another post I had told someone the same thing I'll say again; I don't need headlines in newspapers, and gaming sites. The event was heard and participated in by the people who trust me, and care enough to give up a few worthless game items to make the holidays of some worse off kid something to remember for a long time coming. I couldn't have asked for more than several podcasters broadcasting the event, as well as Storm Radio.
Not to mention front page news, sure I was a little ****ed off with thier jiblet-headed move of adding an NPC that takes the item I was collecting.
Several real-life people said I should take it to local news and the local newspaper, but I refused. For the most part, I refused because the event didn't need any more PR than it was already getting. Also, I wasn't sure what kind of lawsuit Cryptic could pull on me, if I decided to name thier game on a newspaper or outside advertisement that can either hurt or help thier business. Daeke wouldn't give me a solid answer with the legalities of talking about the event with a newspaper company, so I chose not to bother with it this year.
The due date for the pencils has been changed to the 26th in light of this stupid downtime.
Cryptic isn't making me any more satisfied.
*Your confidence in humanity has increased by 1*
If someone could tell me how to take pictures of the UI, I'd appreciate it.
Whenever I try pressing that ol' Prt. Scrn it wants to take all the UI out of the picture.
Now if the game could just provide access for a second.
There's no excuse. A bunch of people who knew what was happening didn't communicate to those who didn't. Yes, devs play the game but sometimes there's simply not enough communication. This happens in a larger company; people assume that someone else is handling it.
I'm in Indianapolis now at my in-laws and I return to work on next Wednesday. I promise that I'll look into the why's here and make sure that this ge's fixed.
I personally did not contibute to MPs drive. For me, it was a matter of convenience to just NPC this stuff as I got it. That and like many have said, I have trust issues. Nothing against you MP, but I take forums at face value. That doesn't by any means diminish this whole event mess. Few points stick out to me.
1. As others are pointing out, as a company bad form to support an initiative, and then undercut it with something right after. My personal opinions aside of the drive, you were about to make yourself look pretty damn good in the public eye and now you look like douchebags.
2. As an MMO, bad form to push out an event with a huge mechanic missing and decide to add it later. Heck, I even posted while this mess was on PTS suggesting something to do with the "junk". No mention was ever made of "this is what it is for", nor was it mentioned that there even may be a use. You have to know that many of your subscribers will beat this thing to death in the first 4 days and move away from it later on. You just screwed all the folks who pushed hard early. No, I do not want to keep unwrapping gifts when now the other 50% of contents are useless to me. I didn't want the filler at first, and now I don't want the damn AF parts. Would have been nice to do the event with 100% functionality.
At the point the event went live without the function to trade the junk that should have been it. Yes folks would have still been asking why all the junk was there. True to the sandbox nature, your players made up something to do with it. But to add in a use part way through the event, now you have the people that sucked it up and NPC'd the stuff crying foul. The people who gave stuff away now are ****ed they did. True, you can never please everyone but it would be nice if you tried to please someone.
3. Many folks are getting tired half baked content when it hits live. Especially when the testers are telling you on PTS there needs to be fixes. At some point you guys really need to start learning what your audience wants to see before you have 0 audience. Your testers are getting tired of giving you feedback to watch you ignore it. Yes, bugs will get through to live, but live shouldn't be considered an extension of test.
This bleeds over into everything you do as a company. I can't tell you how many folks have asked me, my units resident computer nerd, about STO and I have told them to leave it alone because of experiences here. To a person, they all respond, "That's what I thought." Your reputation is preceeding you now.
1) Keep the 50 pen and pencil sets to get a blue item that may or may not help my character
2) Give the Pen and Pencils to someone who will help those who need help. It's guaranteed that they get something they can use.
I am a support based toon.
So...I choose to support.
Ill email you my stuff when Im home Pencil Man
Bingo.
I stopped testing altogether. Not sure when the last time was that I even bothered logging onto test. And the fact that if I go to the PTS forum right now and see the same 12 or so posters and the same 12 or so threads on the front page speaks volumes to me.
This project has MASSIVE communication issues. It has since Beta and even though we've been promised time and time again (even by Roper himself) that they would try better, its still the same. The left hand has no friggin clue wtf the right hand is doing.
And Testers like me just said screw it. I'm tired of wasting my time testing a patch that's going to go through as is no matter what is found or suggested.
I put the blame squarely on Q&A's shoulders.
No. It's a management issue. Ultimately it goes straight to Roper.
I don't post bugs on the forums ... I put them in the tracker system, because I (probably foolishly) believe that this guarantees they won't get lost in the spam, and that someone's compensation is based on how well they do against formally tracked bugs.
But I also have very little impetus to playtest this stuff any more, for reasons mentioned: CRITICAL bugs are identified, not by Cryptic QA, but by players, and they still get pushed out to the live servers.
This should never happen. When you push a patch, you should have a list of known bugs in the patch notes. If Paragon can do that, you certainly can.
So let's say I have trust issues. 'Oh no, I'm not going to send those 78 vendor items to MP because he can get some in-game cash that I'll miss out on.' Seriously? Or am I missing something here? Because it all seems to me that the nay-sayers are afraid that their 'trust' will be abused and they'll be a few in-game bucks poorer for it. (Or a possible blue/purple item now with the NPC's.)
It'd be different if you have to actually spend money and give it to some stranger, but what do you have to lose with this? Are you really weighing your options between donating to charity this way or keeping these valueless items so you won't get 'scammed' out of them?' You know, for people who actually think this way... I think you're playing the wrong game if you can't understand the concept of doing something nice just for the good of it. I mean, isn't that what your in-game hero characters are doing?
At least, that's my view on things. I donated my sets to MP because a) I wanted to add to the charity, b) couldn't care less about the money I could have made by just selling them to the vendor. So even if he decides to go evil on us and not donate to charity (which I have no reason to believe he will), at least my heart was in the right place. And so were the hearts of all the heroes who donated in this way.
Happy holidays!
Edit: corrected the amount of P&P sets I collected... forgot they stacked to 40 instead of 20.
A lot of the trust issues come from the back that we don't trust him to follow through because A) he is only doing this for the attention and
This wouldn't have happened at all if MP didn't feel the need to one up another people. Another player suggested sending socks to Mr.Funsocks as a joke, and when asked about MP, said it wouldn't be right due to other people's issues with MP's general attitude so it would be out of spite and not a joke to respected player. So MP made a thread offering prizes in exchange for all pencils sent to him. This turned into a discussion by other players of possibility turning the socks thing into a charity with all items. In turn MP turned his bribery into a "charity".