It was announced AFTER the hotfix, NOT before. No warning, no nothing. Seriously, stop defending the HAMSTER move on cryptic's behalf, even if they needed a change for whatever reason, one should warn the player base and not HAMSTER everyone off with a sudden hotfix and no warning.
Um...so what. Nothing is different - you're existing guild is grandfathered in...
[/color][/i]
I don't know, maybe 20 pending people wanting to join the guild and couldn't all of a sudden? Alts forced to stay out because we're not overcapped? We would have changed rules, warn the guildies, prepare with another guild in mind. I personally pulled off a giant change in 24 hours and lost a couple of people because it was too sudden, no guild chat, 2 guilds, it's too much for some.
I was doing some research into other games and what their max guild sizes are. WoW is 1000, ESO is either 300 or 500, I saw conflicting things. GW2 has a paid scale - it starts small, and you can buy higher tiers to increase the limit with tier 1 starting at 50 and tier 6 is 500. 500 member limit with game called Guild Wars. Ironic that the newest module in Neverwinter is at least in large part about guild warfare and in doing so, causes Neverwinter to be the game with the smallest guilds max. Funny. ha. ha.
That doesn't mean they do it on purpose. I saw such things quite often in different companies i worked in and it is simply incompetence or misscommunication not like "we are evil, only want your money AND WANT YOU SEE TO SUFFER *evil laugh*"
It is still a company like any other. And now think on your workplace how many people do their work properly, how many coworker are there that do the job halfassed or are simply dumb (underqualified for the job). I don't want to offend, but HAMSTER happens. It can happens repeatly and i don't say i like, but to say: They do it on purpose to annoy us, is the same to say: They wanna stop us to play their game.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
But you know that it isn't that easy.
It is not a small company with 10 people. We talking about two companies. Cryptic which develop the and PWE that send E-Mails and stuff and if i understand it correctly dictates Cryptic which changes are made in the game in cooperation of Hasbro and Wizard of the Coast, so it is 4 Companies that have their hand in one software product.
Platypus wielding a giant hammer, your argument is invalild!
0
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
The more people you have working the more communication becomes an issue. And that's in house communication I am referring to.
Every supervisors meeting I attend at my job has a key theme of communication being the thing most needed to improve. I mean months ago I got told to do something by one of my bosses and followed the steps I was taught to do in the situation I was handed only to find out from my direct boss the policies had changed after I had been working on it for five hours. My boss' boss was furious and wanted me written up for wasting time and money until my boss calmed him down and explained that changes were not communicated to me and that I followed the procedures exactly as she would have expected me to a month earlier than the incident.
Teamwork is one thing but the telephone effect is a major issue. The more people there are the more is lost in translation and transmission. It's far easier to keep everybody on the same page and in the same loop when there are only 10 people compared to at my job where just my department alone has over one hundred.
When put into perspective it is easy to understand why something which has to go through so many people within two companies can be overlooked, forgotten or just be incomplete.
An actual time frame to adjust things would have been nice... I also, as yet, don't honestly see a reason this had to be 'immediate'. Either way, we will adapt, though this is pretty annoying.
An actual time frame to adjust things would have been nice... I also, as yet, don't honestly see a reason this had to be 'immediate'. Either way, we will adapt, though this is pretty annoying.
Probably because the underlying changes have to be already there for it to work when its launched. But then again, I also don't understand why people keep people on a roster that don't play anymore either. But that's me. Stronghold's seems to be close to launching.
Probably because the underlying changes have to be already there for it to work when its launched. But then again, I also don't understand why people keep people on a roster that don't play anymore either. But that's me. Stronghold's seems to be close to launching.
I give it a AT LEAST a month, maybe two. And even if what you said is true - fine - but the could have still given us some notice. Just tell us about it now, and say it will go into effect a two weeks before m7 launches, but we're not yet announcing a release date at this time. We might grouse an moan about it, but we wouldn't have been slapped in the face with frozen guilds.
By the way - again - most big guilds DO NOT keep people around on their rosters who don't play anymore. My guild hit the 500 limit, for example, weekly before module 6 - we had between 475 and 500 ACTIVE players in the guild. Active. Anyone who had not logged into the game in the last 6 weeks or 42 days is considered inactive and I removed that character from the guild. I keep a list of all characters and their ranks at the time kicked and they were allowed back into the guild if they returned no questions asked.
And there is no problem. Your guild is not forced offline or anything you don't lose membership. And there is nothing wrong, if you were already at the cap, then this change really had no effect on you because you couldn't invite more anyways. You are not exempt from any of the stronghold stuff or PvP stuff.
Again what is the real issue? No feature was turned off, other than your ability to invite now, which, by your statement, was inactive anyways since you were at cap. So again, where does the actual problem lie, not the fundamental one where you feel slighted.
zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
edited June 2015
I feel that some just didn't realize there was already a cap in place and decided to use that article mention to fuel some forum rage. The only change is the cap to the number of different accounts. The 500 character cap has been in place since guilds were enabled back in testing, two years ago. I really do not think this account cap will impact the majority of players.
That doesn't mean they do it on purpose. I saw such things quite often in different companies i worked in and it is simply incompetence or misscommunication not like "we are evil, only want your money AND WANT YOU SEE TO SUFFER *evil laugh*"
It is still a company like any other. And now think on your workplace how many people do their work properly, how many coworker are there that do the job halfassed or are simply dumb (underqualified for the job). I don't want to offend, but HAMSTER happens. It can happens repeatly and i don't say i like, but to say: They do it on purpose to annoy us, is the same to say: They wanna stop us to play their game.
they have proven that do stuff on purpose and dont communicate them on purpose time and again. if you want a big example: Dragon. Hoard. Enchantments.
And there is no problem. Your guild is not forced offline or anything you don't lose membership. And there is nothing wrong, if you were already at the cap, then this change really had no effect on you because you couldn't invite more anyways. You are not exempt from any of the stronghold stuff or PvP stuff.
Again what is the real issue? No feature was turned off, other than your ability to invite now, which, by your statement, was inactive anyways since you were at cap. So again, where does the actual problem lie, not the fundamental one where you feel slighted.
You've failed to read the whole post. As I've said, Greycloaks traditionally was close to character cap, but after module 6 has declined a great deal. We still have hundreds of members across all 5 guilds, but Greycloaks itself had declined enough to where we could have combined most, if not all, members into it and still be under the 500 limit with the exception of our alt guild (that is, under the 1 character per account rule we have long had in Greycloaks). We are far from the 500 character limit now, but still well over the 150 account limit.
And regardless, you're logic is flawed. 500 characters is different than accounts. We had typically 400 to 450 active PLAYERS (not everyone followed the 1-character rule, and it wasn't that easy to police anyway). 400 is (follow me here... math is hard...) "greater than" 150. So, I would say even when we were at our peek membership, this limit would still have had a massive effect. Now, instead of 400 players we can only have 150.
And Zeb -- you're saying the many thousands of us (I don't use that number lightly -- many thousands of players is an accurate word use here, just as it's accurate to use the term ban with regards to guilds larger than 150 members is) are irrelevant? Keep in mind the largest guilds also include the most active players... who you just marginalized as irrelevant. I see. So, you're saying that Cryptic did the right thing in marginalizing thousands of players by driving a wedge down the middle of their communities and forcing them to splinter? You're saying it was appropriate for Cryptic do this without warning or notice? I don't mean to say it's outside their authority - it's their game, they can do whatever they want, when they want, without notice. I mean to say, you, Zeb, by your statement, are saying you think what they have done here is appropriate and there wasn't any better or more customer-friendly way of handling it? Have I about summed up your stance here?
An actual time frame to adjust things would have been nice... I also, as yet, don't honestly see a reason this had to be 'immediate'. Either way, we will adapt, though this is pretty annoying.
Here's my guess. Based on what they've said about other stuff, there's certain aspects of the game that have to be consistent on the test shard AND live shard. I'm going to guess that the guild size limit is one of those aspects.
So in order to start testing the Stronghold content, they needed to make the change. And it's very possible they didn't realize that until they tried to make the change, hence the "surprise" hotfix on Live.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see an official comment one way or another on this subject...or maybe they're just waiting until the first Stronghold update is on preview to take comments.
Either way, there's not much left to discuss until we get more direction from Cryptic. Or don't. Either way is essentially an answer, right?
Based on previous situations, they are pulling the "If we ignore the customer, maybe they'll go away" trick. That is, let us fume and rant over their mistreatment of us without comment until we get tired of ranting over it and either quit or just accept it and move on.
Now... that's a little unfair admittedly since most of the previous situations had different management and a different CM, both of which were traditionally much less communicative than the current folks are.
I'm curious if the "new guard' will end up handling tough situations like this in a new (and more constructive) way or if they'll fall back to the status quo of just ignoring upset customers. What's really upsetting to me, perhaps what's most frustrating of all in fact, is that at the end of the day the only choice I have here is to bend over and take it or walk away, and I've already said I enjoy Neverwinter as a game and don't want to simply quit. So... by not quitting I'm tacitly giving approval to their mistreatment and they don't have to do anything, don't have to make amends, don't have to offer any form of real explanation. Its sort of depressing, actually, since we really are absolutely powerless in this.
I agree the change shouldn't have caught many by surprise and a proper warning in advance would have been nice. Not really surprising however because that's how they roll. In this game you have to monitor the preview patch notes at all times as well to get the latest information, because they normally don't announce big changes or at least not until they are live.
I guess there are good reasons to limit guild sizes. Maybe Stronghold PVE takes place just in one instance for each guild and trust me that you don't want the lagfest that comes with it. Or they think progress would simply be too fast with too many members.
What I would do in a large guild is split up and distribute members/ALTs between multiple Strongholds wherever needed. This way you could also form kind of an "A"-Team for guild fights. Just cap your guild(s) at 120 members / 450 characters so you can move players at will. Or max out one Stronghold (if possible) first and take this one for fights while building up other ones. I know it's a bit of a hassle and needs organization, but how cool would it be not to have one, but two or three Strongholds?
All guild leaders need is one mule per guild on their account with admin rights to quickly response to requests. That way you can also move your own characters effectively. This can be done with multiple accounts as well, but don't forget multi-accounting is something PWE has always been vague about and logging in and out can be a pain.
Old guard.. new guard.. still the same poor management. Nothing really changes. Cryptic does as it pleases and the only 2 options we have is to either hold on tight for the next bump in the track or get off before you're thrown off because you weren't holding tightly enough at the next bump.
The new boss, same as the old boss.
I'm only 3rd rank in my guild, but I'm the only one that bothers with the forums these days. Our guild leader tries to be very positive, and reasonably supportive of Cryptic. We are only around 430 at the moment, but are considering having to form sub-guilds with alts to get out of our freeze. Do they really think this is such a good idea? I would like to hear their thought process on this in a more detailed fashion.
We have decided... between revjim and I... that this will be the font and color for sarcasm.
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Irony will have to be something different.
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0
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I think I should join a guild soon.. my old defunct ones dont need me.
On a serious note, you will have to start paring down on your guild.
In other games Ive had there was some simple rules.
Rule 1, you had to play every day or give a message to a leader if you cannot (IE vacation or something). If you look through your rosters, how many @ handles are active on a day to day basis?
Thats your first solution, people who are not playing every day in strongholds , probably will not be of much help next mod.
Comments
I don't know, maybe 20 pending people wanting to join the guild and couldn't all of a sudden? Alts forced to stay out because we're not overcapped? We would have changed rules, warn the guildies, prepare with another guild in mind. I personally pulled off a giant change in 24 hours and lost a couple of people because it was too sudden, no guild chat, 2 guilds, it's too much for some.
The Holy Crusaders guild leader ♚ Mod 10 PVE Destroyer GWF guide ♚ Founding member of the Relentless Alliance
Check for Lineage 2 :]
I think you interpret a bit too much in a simple change of the guild system. You start to sound like one of these doom preacher from the streets.
It is still a company like any other. And now think on your workplace how many people do their work properly, how many coworker are there that do the job halfassed or are simply dumb (underqualified for the job). I don't want to offend, but HAMSTER happens. It can happens repeatly and i don't say i like, but to say: They do it on purpose to annoy us, is the same to say: They wanna stop us to play their game.
It is not a small company with 10 people. We talking about two companies. Cryptic which develop the and PWE that send E-Mails and stuff and if i understand it correctly dictates Cryptic which changes are made in the game in cooperation of Hasbro and Wizard of the Coast, so it is 4 Companies that have their hand in one software product.
Every supervisors meeting I attend at my job has a key theme of communication being the thing most needed to improve. I mean months ago I got told to do something by one of my bosses and followed the steps I was taught to do in the situation I was handed only to find out from my direct boss the policies had changed after I had been working on it for five hours. My boss' boss was furious and wanted me written up for wasting time and money until my boss calmed him down and explained that changes were not communicated to me and that I followed the procedures exactly as she would have expected me to a month earlier than the incident.
Teamwork is one thing but the telephone effect is a major issue. The more people there are the more is lost in translation and transmission. It's far easier to keep everybody on the same page and in the same loop when there are only 10 people compared to at my job where just my department alone has over one hundred.
When put into perspective it is easy to understand why something which has to go through so many people within two companies can be overlooked, forgotten or just be incomplete.
Pandora's Misfits Guild Leader
Probably because the underlying changes have to be already there for it to work when its launched. But then again, I also don't understand why people keep people on a roster that don't play anymore either. But that's me. Stronghold's seems to be close to launching.
I give it a AT LEAST a month, maybe two. And even if what you said is true - fine - but the could have still given us some notice. Just tell us about it now, and say it will go into effect a two weeks before m7 launches, but we're not yet announcing a release date at this time. We might grouse an moan about it, but we wouldn't have been slapped in the face with frozen guilds.
By the way - again - most big guilds DO NOT keep people around on their rosters who don't play anymore. My guild hit the 500 limit, for example, weekly before module 6 - we had between 475 and 500 ACTIVE players in the guild. Active. Anyone who had not logged into the game in the last 6 weeks or 42 days is considered inactive and I removed that character from the guild. I keep a list of all characters and their ranks at the time kicked and they were allowed back into the guild if they returned no questions asked.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Again what is the real issue? No feature was turned off, other than your ability to invite now, which, by your statement, was inactive anyways since you were at cap. So again, where does the actual problem lie, not the fundamental one where you feel slighted.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
they have proven that do stuff on purpose and dont communicate them on purpose time and again. if you want a big example: Dragon. Hoard. Enchantments.
You've failed to read the whole post. As I've said, Greycloaks traditionally was close to character cap, but after module 6 has declined a great deal. We still have hundreds of members across all 5 guilds, but Greycloaks itself had declined enough to where we could have combined most, if not all, members into it and still be under the 500 limit with the exception of our alt guild (that is, under the 1 character per account rule we have long had in Greycloaks). We are far from the 500 character limit now, but still well over the 150 account limit.
And regardless, you're logic is flawed. 500 characters is different than accounts. We had typically 400 to 450 active PLAYERS (not everyone followed the 1-character rule, and it wasn't that easy to police anyway). 400 is (follow me here... math is hard...) "greater than" 150. So, I would say even when we were at our peek membership, this limit would still have had a massive effect. Now, instead of 400 players we can only have 150.
And Zeb -- you're saying the many thousands of us (I don't use that number lightly -- many thousands of players is an accurate word use here, just as it's accurate to use the term ban with regards to guilds larger than 150 members is) are irrelevant? Keep in mind the largest guilds also include the most active players... who you just marginalized as irrelevant. I see. So, you're saying that Cryptic did the right thing in marginalizing thousands of players by driving a wedge down the middle of their communities and forcing them to splinter? You're saying it was appropriate for Cryptic do this without warning or notice? I don't mean to say it's outside their authority - it's their game, they can do whatever they want, when they want, without notice. I mean to say, you, Zeb, by your statement, are saying you think what they have done here is appropriate and there wasn't any better or more customer-friendly way of handling it? Have I about summed up your stance here?
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Here's my guess. Based on what they've said about other stuff, there's certain aspects of the game that have to be consistent on the test shard AND live shard. I'm going to guess that the guild size limit is one of those aspects.
So in order to start testing the Stronghold content, they needed to make the change. And it's very possible they didn't realize that until they tried to make the change, hence the "surprise" hotfix on Live.
Anyway, it'd be nice to see an official comment one way or another on this subject...or maybe they're just waiting until the first Stronghold update is on preview to take comments.
Either way, there's not much left to discuss until we get more direction from Cryptic. Or don't. Either way is essentially an answer, right?
Now... that's a little unfair admittedly since most of the previous situations had different management and a different CM, both of which were traditionally much less communicative than the current folks are.
I'm curious if the "new guard' will end up handling tough situations like this in a new (and more constructive) way or if they'll fall back to the status quo of just ignoring upset customers. What's really upsetting to me, perhaps what's most frustrating of all in fact, is that at the end of the day the only choice I have here is to bend over and take it or walk away, and I've already said I enjoy Neverwinter as a game and don't want to simply quit. So... by not quitting I'm tacitly giving approval to their mistreatment and they don't have to do anything, don't have to make amends, don't have to offer any form of real explanation. Its sort of depressing, actually, since we really are absolutely powerless in this.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
I guess there are good reasons to limit guild sizes. Maybe Stronghold PVE takes place just in one instance for each guild and trust me that you don't want the lagfest that comes with it. Or they think progress would simply be too fast with too many members.
What I would do in a large guild is split up and distribute members/ALTs between multiple Strongholds wherever needed. This way you could also form kind of an "A"-Team for guild fights. Just cap your guild(s) at 120 members / 450 characters so you can move players at will. Or max out one Stronghold (if possible) first and take this one for fights while building up other ones. I know it's a bit of a hassle and needs organization, but how cool would it be not to have one, but two or three Strongholds?
All guild leaders need is one mule per guild on their account with admin rights to quickly response to requests. That way you can also move your own characters effectively. This can be done with multiple accounts as well, but don't forget multi-accounting is something PWE has always been vague about and logging in and out can be a pain.
Ok... Now I am confused. Is this a sarcastic comment? It is written in the sarcasm font and in the sarcasm color... lol.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
The new boss, same as the old boss.
I'm only 3rd rank in my guild, but I'm the only one that bothers with the forums these days. Our guild leader tries to be very positive, and reasonably supportive of Cryptic. We are only around 430 at the moment, but are considering having to form sub-guilds with alts to get out of our freeze. Do they really think this is such a good idea? I would like to hear their thought process on this in a more detailed fashion.
glassdoor.com - Cryptic Studios Review
We have decided... between revjim and I... that this will be the font and color for sarcasm.
[ font="Trebuchet MS"][ color=#FF61F4]
Irony will have to be something different.
On a serious note, you will have to start paring down on your guild.
In other games Ive had there was some simple rules.
Rule 1, you had to play every day or give a message to a leader if you cannot (IE vacation or something). If you look through your rosters, how many @ handles are active on a day to day basis?
Thats your first solution, people who are not playing every day in strongholds , probably will not be of much help next mod.