[PC] Gateway Closing Down

theycallmetomu

@panderus Speaking of overhauling professions, anyone ever discuss the Contracts approach? Like maybe running a leadership task gives you the privilege to run a certain in-game quest with decent rewards. The item itself is gained through professions, but the reward is gained through play. Like, get a quest item, open the quest item, go to a place described in the contract, accept a quest, do some stuff, get a reward. Not sure if that's more difficult to bot or not, and it does reward gameplay.

The other thing is, as I've said before, making crafted gear actually useful would be great. It's probably the most sensible place to put companion gear, since companion gear doesn't compete with artifact weapons etc.

As someone who basically just does daily content and that's it, I'll say that I've long viewed professions as a chore. I wouldn't get rid of them per se (I mean, my crafting is my only source of income!) but my own sense is that it's more likely to drive that "can't catch up" aspect than it is to prevent players who are new from being able to catch up.

Anecdotes are anecdotes though.

murattti

After over 2 years of dealing on the leadership performance falls off not surprised he's never very good.

alphastream

Assuming everything the devs are saying is true (which I generally assume), I am okay with the Gateway leaving. Honestly, I would like to spend my time in Neverwinter NOT tending professions. BUT, right now with no Gateway it means LESS time playing the game and more time logging in just to tend professions. The current state is a big step back with fewer rewards, less engaging gameplay, less fun.

I would really like to see a rework of Professions so that I can just run them and they repeat. I don't want to have to waste my time micromanaging them constantly. Please change how professions work so that the loss of the gateway isn't a big deal.

tripsofthrymr

greyhawk#1973 said:

@panderus please DO NOT put the Gateway rewards into the Foundry!! Consoles do not have the Foundry and are in desperate need of good, inexpensive companion gear.

Or another thought... make the Foundry available on consoles. I understand that the Foundry authoring code may never be ported over, but that "infinite content" is the most important element of the game according to R.A. Salvatore in an interview with @strumslinger. Let console players experience all that content.

jaguarampage

i was extremely annoyed by this announcement so i refrained from speaking to avoid bad mouthing in the forums, so what the me now, more calm, will say is:

poorly handed, barely any explanation of the why besides "bots", it's like when people made fun of metal gear 4 answer to every bad thing or thing they didnt understand was "nanomachines", and i even laughed at the pure useless companion you guys gave being an augment since without SCA items augment champions are now 1/4 of what they where before, meaning people will HAVE to buy you guys lesser bonding stones and boxes that can randomly give them.

i saw the try of humour giving a robot as the end of gateway since it was bots that killed the website, but the most funny part is that every bot will get it and not everyone in game. because i stoped going to gateway for like a month cause i was focusing in geting a high enough rank team for SCA to get companion gear.

also as stated, gj giving the announcement when you guys leave the office, leave the forum moderators to deal with this and hope that the steam of hate goes down by the time you guys get back.


Extremely poorly handed. but it's your company. Your funeral with decisions like this.

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jamesbond007

I think a lot of the RP will be sold during dbl RP in beginning of October. We should get a good idea of pricing from there and going forward.

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jamesbond007

defiantone99 said:

jamesbond007#6020 said:

I think a lot of the RP will be sold during dbl RP in beginning of October. We should get a good idea of pricing from there and going forward.

If they follow the QM model, where the contents of the bags were made bound the day of 2x enchants, the RP could be bound on the next 2x RP.

That wouldn't be nice. In that case players would have to rank up enchantments then sell on AH.

diogene0

magenubbie said:

sm0ld3r said:

I hear they are adding the SCA awards as drops in the final chest for Epic Spellplague, Frozen Heart and Dread Vault.

Source?

It's a joke, these dungeons were removed entirely from the game (except FH).

diogene0

tripsofthrymr said:

greyhawk#1973 said:

@panderus please DO NOT put the Gateway rewards into the Foundry!! Consoles do not have the Foundry and are in desperate need of good, inexpensive companion gear.

Or another thought... make the Foundry available on consoles. I understand that the Foundry authoring code may never be ported over, but that "infinite content" is the most important element of the game according to R.A. Salvatore in an interview with @strumslinger. Let console players experience all that content.

The foundry sucks and should never ever be put in any meaningful way in relation with endgame at all. I'd rather get nothing at all instead of enduring someone's verbal diarrhea for 20 minutes. Most foundry authors forget this is an action game and not a "how long can i make this" simulator.

istarin

It's hard not to feel vitriolic when one of your favorite parts of the game is removed.

I loved doing SCA during random downtime.

tripsofthrymr

diogene0 said:

The foundry sucks and should never ever be put in any meaningful way in relation with endgame at all. I'd rather get nothing at all instead of enduring someone's verbal diarrhea for 20 minutes. Most foundry authors forget this is an action game and not a "how long can i make this" simulator.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, and yes there is quite a bit of junk (and abuse) in the Foundry. There is also a whole lot of exceptional content. It's hard to find and PWE never developed an adequate system to let the good stuff rise o the top.

Some amazing stories are told in the Foundry even with the limitations of the authoring environment.

kreatyve

tripsofthrymr said:

diogene0 said:

The foundry sucks and should never ever be put in any meaningful way in relation with endgame at all. I'd rather get nothing at all instead of enduring someone's verbal diarrhea for 20 minutes. Most foundry authors forget this is an action game and not a "how long can i make this" simulator.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, and yes there is quite a bit of junk (and abuse) in the Foundry. There is also a whole lot of exceptional content. It's hard to find and PWE never developed an adequate system to let the good stuff rise o the top.

Some amazing stories are told in the Foundry even with the limitations of the authoring environment.

I agree with this totally. While there was a LOT of bad and useless junk around the foundry, there were a lot of really great quests too. Mainly the people who actually devoted a lot of time and effort into making the good quests (I'm talking days of time, not just hours), usually those people made really great quests. There are quite a few quests that I wish would make it into the main part of the game. But this is getting off the topic.

I wouldn't mind them putting the loyal gear as rewards for foundry quests or achievements, plus putting them somewhere else on Xbox and PS4, so that all 3 platforms have it.

ontrix1

null
First you take away Ad from professions because of botters, then you take away the runes tones in the skill nodes because of botters, and now you are taking away the gateway because of botters.

Is anyone else here seeing a pattern? Can there really be that many botters on Neverwinter? I know when runestones were in the skill nodes, it was easy to catch them and kill the accounts but did Crypitic do that? Nope.

Now, those of us who use gateway on a daily basis to do professions and to play events when not in front of computer, can no longer do so.

When are you finally going to do something and stop punishing the good guys.

BTW, since shutting down gateway, lag has gotten much worse so I am finding this excuse to close yet another tool for players bullcrap.

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haozor96

please don't forget to remove the mail you send in-game talking about the gateway.. I just got it(Yes i'm new to the game) luckely already kknew about it..

ogarious

oldbaldyone said:

The only game that I have ever seen that consistently removes more content than it adds. Unbelievable.

The number of people surprised by this move: 0. SO many other options ignored, 40k+ views on the thread about it.....

Just sad guys.

Yeah, this is the only dev team I have ever seen that has done this. Old dungeons, gone. Gateway, gone. All under the disguise of combating botters.....We all know it's horse*insert your kitten here* The truth of the matter is that this is a cost cutting move. This will make the company a extra $8 over the next fiscal year. That's all. Nothing else. (And yeah, I hope is puts them more then $8 into the green, but with the ever dwindling numbers in Neverwinter, I doubt it)

Wait! I stand corrected. The development team for Star Wars Galaxies did that too. And it worked out gr.....oh, wait.

mysticmajier

So if this is to stop the botting on the Gateway then what is stopping the botting in Game? Are you goign to shut down the game because of the same reason? The gate way was a great innovative way to keep people interested in the game while not at home. Blizzard NOW just got this and I would think it is because of your innovative thinking. Botting will happen so just keep fighting it for the Players that need this Gateway to stay open.

I think closing this down rather then maintaining the same struggle every game has to go through is an easy way out of not fixing the issues when they arrive. I know I did a good dungeon and reset professions in the Gateway before bed, don't know about anyone else.

lewstelamon01

mysticmajier said:

So if this is to stop the botting on the Gateway then what is stopping the botting in Game? Are you goign to shut down the game because of the same reason? The gate way was a great innovative way to keep people interested in the game while not at home. Blizzard NOW just got this and I would think it is because of your innovative thinking. Botting will happen so just keep fighting it for the Players that need this Gateway to stay open.

I think closing this down rather then maintaining the same struggle every game has to go through is an easy way out of not fixing the issues when they arrive. I know I did a good dungeon and reset professions in the Gateway before bed, don't know about anyone else.

Yes, botting will happen even with the closure of the Gateway. Even the devs have said as much. Page 10 of this thread, by a dev.

Can botters try stuff like this in the real game? Sure, but it's a lot harder. And it's a lot easier for us to fight them in-client. And we can and will keep fighting them in-client (note we will never win completely, but we will -- in fact we must -- always keep fighting them). But having to fight them on TWO fronts was not good. Ultimately, we want more of our resources to go to making the game itself better. Having an additional front in the (never-ending) war vs botters meant fewer resources for the game itself.

(Note: Forum needs a way to directly link a post. This was bit cumbersome to find, and I only wished to quote the relevant portion, not the entire post.)

The thing is, they cannot continue to maintain the resource drain that the Gateway was creating by fighting the war on two fronts. By closing the Gateway, they can then focus their efforts on reducing (but not entirely eliminating, as that's not as possible as many would like to believe, and botters are a determined bunch) botting ingame.

Also, never was it said anywhere that the Gateway was the exclusive cause of lag and latency problems, merely that it was contributing to latency in an unusual fashion. Expecting lag to completely go away simply because the Gateway is closed down (never mind the fact that latency issues plague...nearly every MMO in existence) is unrealistic.

agrikaanus

morrowind69 said:

WAR ON BOTS :
1-old dungeons removed.
2-Refinement removed from nodes (resources small chance to get too).
3-wards removed from the tradebar store .
4-gateway closed ...done.
5-profesions (leadership) removed ....soon.

MAKE THE NEW PLAYERS MORE LAZY :
1-add packs for stronger race.
2-add packs for campaign completion.
3-add pack to become lvl70 in one min.

is the game dying or we just starting get bored ?!!

oh i forget to add removing AD from the invoking.

As with every recent change to the game, the reason for the change never really affected me. I never saw the problem. But could understand from a wider perspective. But still, every change hurt my personal gameplay. One chunk at a time.

I play (and pay for) 6 toons intermittently. I move to another game for a few months, have a vacation or a surge at work, then come back to experience new content - or start another toon from scratch. Because I like the game, but generally don't like to grind to much, and prefer to diversify in both my games and what I do inside them (multiple toons/classes).

So the Gateway during the "away months" offered me a good way to keep up.
I'm thinking perhaps it's time to call it now, say so long and thanks for all the fish.

If you're going to force use of the client, then at least adjust the rewards * 5, or have that as an option (with 5 * time of course). Far from everyone can log in every single day, those of us that work hard, perhaps only during the weekends.

hav0clol

diogene0 said:

magenubbie said:

sm0ld3r said:

I hear they are adding the SCA awards as drops in the final chest for Epic Spellplague, Frozen Heart and Dread Vault.

Source?

It's a joke, these dungeons were removed entirely from the game (except FH).

I recall this somewhat. Do you have a source though? They are definitely gone for good?

nightstalkor

ontrix1 said:

null

First you take away Ad from professions because of botters, then you take away the runes tones in the skill nodes because of botters, and now you are taking away the gateway because of botters.



Is anyone else here seeing a pattern? Can there really be that many botters on Neverwinter? I know when runestones were in the skill nodes, it was easy to catch them and kill the accounts but did Crypitic do that? Nope.



Now, those of us who use gateway on a daily basis to do professions and to play events when not in front of computer, can no longer do so.



When are you finally going to do something and stop punishing the good guys.



BTW, since shutting down gateway, lag has gotten much worse so I am finding this excuse to close yet another tool for players bullcrap.

It's like I said in an earlier post. The devs are quick and great when it comes to handing out pain to the common player, and they're poor on follow thru.

The devs obviously forgot basic physics... for every action, there is an opposite REACTION. In this case, the reaction is more complex than basic physics, since we're dealing w/ Real life and Real people, but the reactions can be boiled down to just a couple.

ONE) Former Gatewayers Ragequit. They're gone. Hasta la vista, baby.

TWO) Former Gatewayers spout and flame here on the forums, hoping that THIS TIME, the devs might actually have decency and reconsider their hasty and poorly thought out actions. While waiting, these Gaters STILL want to progress their toons, so they HAVE to log in to the game normally.

Which leads to THREE) Massive lag issues for EVERYONE, since the devs didn't do anything to ramp up servers, connectivity, or to deal w/ raw player load numbers. As is obvious from the VERY FACT THAT THE LAG EXISTS. Especially since in the last couple of months I've had no lag issues whatsoever.

Sigh. I love this game. But the devs seem bound and determined to kill it. Which is a shame, since it COULD be awesome.

blairre

I feel bad for newer players they won't be able to afford anything because of this great for people who are still manually crafting but not so much for those who aren't and zens going to be a joke who would waste the money on it

azyurion

strumslinger said:

It is with some regret that we are announcing the closing of Gateway for Neverwinter. This was not an easy call. I'd like to remind people to please keep all conversation respectful. Insults, flaming, and toxicity doesn't help anyone, especially in this situation. Thank you.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10161142-gateway-closing-down

So, you're closing the Gateway down because some players are regularly exploiting bugs, or botting ; then you're going to hand out a special item to those players who recently used the Gateway. Maybe it's just me, but doesn't it seem likely you're rewarding the very players who were exploiting and botting the Gateway, while disrespecting the less frequent, but non-exploiting and botting Gateway players? You should either award a special item to every player that has ever used the Gateway as a show of gratitude, or you should not issue a special reward to any players.

silasmarner

@panderus, I have a question for the development team. What is the expectation, from the developers' viewpoint, of the amount of time spent playing the game for a new character on a new account to unlock the new content (Storm King's Thunder) as an Free-to-Play player (no cash purchases), playing through all the story content on the way? How much of that time would be spent on content does not directly progress toward that goal (i.e., repeating dungeons, professions, auction house)?

urabask

clonkyo1 said:

urabask said:

1 - the price will probably continue to drop until supply dries up.
2 - God knows when that will happen though

1 - Economy 1.0: as an really useful item (on this case, RP) becomes more and more uncommon/rare, it's price usually rises up, not drops down.

2 - Because bots moved into the game already, we will likely not see this unless devs remove ALL RP sources from leadership, which will be game killer due players not allowed to progress at all.

1-And your elementary English teacher would've told you to use context to understand a sentence if you're unsure of what it means.

2-The thing is there isn't even enough RP on the AH to say this. The amounts being posted just don't support this idea. Not to say that they won't move in game but even if they are they haven't started posting much of anything to the AH. It's entirely possible that there aren't all that many of the in the game yet.

eugeniccleansing

I've been an avid player of DDO for years now. Since it first released actually. But, I had been thinking about switching over to Nverwinter due to the lack of support for DDO. They don't even mention the game anymore. It's like there support has dwindled to just a handful of employees being assigned to a minimal and disgusting task that no one else wants. It finally got a graphical re-haul just recently. Which is just insane in my opinion. So, I decided to start reading the Neverwinter forums today, to help boost the want I HAD to play this game. Sadly, just by reading the opinion of the player base and the apparent neglect of your clients, I, will personally have to stop supporting ARC and Cryptic completely. Never again will I even run an ARC or Cryptic based game. I guess it's back to old pen and paper for me(Which has never disappointed by the way.). Seriously guys... Botters... how HAMSTER pathetic of your team to throw around HAMSTER lies and reasons to constantly take away what makes the games fun for us, just so you can coincide with consoles and put more money in your pockets. Resources? You have millions of dollars at your disposal and you can't even incorporate a modernized captcha system? Just pathetic in my opinion. It seems as if this company thrives on making great games and then slowly stripping away the core aspects that have been promised to us players. The people that put food on your table by paying for monthly subscriptions and Zen/DDO points. For Christ sake, you make us pay with real money for mana potions. And it doesn't even give us a set amount of mana back. I can pay $2.50 for a mana potion and it only gives me back 200 out of my 2,000 point mana pool. If that isn't HAMSTER I don't know what is. It is US... THE PLAYER... that pays your bills and keeps your children and pockets fat. But yet, you don't care and just make it harder for us to support you. This is what I call corporate America at it's finest. Let me guess... Y'all also have Trump support posters in your offices? Wouldn't HAMSTER surprise me. Good God people... get your HAMSTER together. Want to ban me from the Forums now? Good... cause your business practices are outright HAMSTER in in a rotting bag of HAMSTER. Just gives me more reason to tell people or for me to never support your Indian giving company ever again. First DLC from companies 2 days after a games release and now HAMSTER like this. the gaming industry has become a plague... A blight... A blood sucking tick of the people. HAMSTER the modern gaming industry.

nameexpired

Every MMO I played so far (even old Ultima Online) had access to their characters via the web. Makes you think PWE's product managers have been botted back to the stone age.

krailov

I have used the gateway ever since it came out, and have enjoyed both the management (professions), plus SCA (although I have not played it heavily lately). Do not forget, with SCA you could also participate in the events (like Summer Festival), so there are extra losses there for those that could not participate in-game during those events.

My suggestions:

1. Have the loyal gear available for both crafting AND the Foundry (the world does not have to be mutually exclusive, ya know ). It would boost the Foundry for those that cannot craft or are unwilling, and would likely stop the botters from exploiting the Foundry just to get the gear - it can be crafted, so easier for them to bot that? (I am guessing). Would also allow Loyal gear onto the platforms via crafting.
   
2. Please turn professions into something that can be set up for minimum once a day (20 hour), with better stuff once a week (5 days)
   
3. Please consider a group professions capability (all resources and assets available to all toons, like the bank). You must make managing things in-game better and more streamlined - at least with the gateway I could see what toon had what item, and shuffle as appropriate when I logged in - now I will need to keep a list, and that is too much work and effort = takes away from enjoying game play. Also allows for additional revenue streams if done right.
   

I am sad to see the gateway go as the game currently stands, but all things change - can you make it a change for the better?