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Please don't let this game die.
joncans
Member Posts: 158 Bounty Hunter
Disclaimer: I have worked in the game industry for 2 different studios (1 was the biggest FPS of last year exclusive to Xbox). I live in Austin, and have had drinks (talked shop) with many a Blizzard and NCSoft and Bioware employee. I knew people directly effected and laid off by the bombshell that was SWTOR. Now on to my post.
Last night was the 1st night of this new event, and I was shocked at how DEAD the entire server was at peak hours. I play on Beholder as a GF and have NEVER had to wait for queues. I went to the new zone, it was sparcely populated. I proceeded to wait in very long queues for the Hunt skirm, and even PVP during the event was taking longer than usual.
I think people who don't have money to spend are fed up. Dungeons are broken, everything is BOP (seriously the pig mount, come on people, let the grinders make some AD off these mount sales), AH is out of control expensive. How is any of that sounding fun? If you are a new player you are too busy leveling to realize any of this.
I support the game with my time and dollars. I enjoy PVP and the occasional Dungeon stomp. But honestly I have not even done one DD in over 2 weeks because, well they are just too hard for low geared people, and I don't have the patience to tank anymore.
PWE, please put aside the greed motives and get back to your playerbase. If any dev reads this, I can tell you that you will be laid off if this game continues to bomb. Look at what happened to Bioware Austin. They were dealing with a much more popular canon, and still got the axe. I love the game and don't want it to disappear like the fine folks at 38 studios who made Kingdoms of Amular.
Last night was the 1st night of this new event, and I was shocked at how DEAD the entire server was at peak hours. I play on Beholder as a GF and have NEVER had to wait for queues. I went to the new zone, it was sparcely populated. I proceeded to wait in very long queues for the Hunt skirm, and even PVP during the event was taking longer than usual.
I think people who don't have money to spend are fed up. Dungeons are broken, everything is BOP (seriously the pig mount, come on people, let the grinders make some AD off these mount sales), AH is out of control expensive. How is any of that sounding fun? If you are a new player you are too busy leveling to realize any of this.
I support the game with my time and dollars. I enjoy PVP and the occasional Dungeon stomp. But honestly I have not even done one DD in over 2 weeks because, well they are just too hard for low geared people, and I don't have the patience to tank anymore.
PWE, please put aside the greed motives and get back to your playerbase. If any dev reads this, I can tell you that you will be laid off if this game continues to bomb. Look at what happened to Bioware Austin. They were dealing with a much more popular canon, and still got the axe. I love the game and don't want it to disappear like the fine folks at 38 studios who made Kingdoms of Amular.
BladeRunner-Proud member of the BlackCloaks.
Post edited by joncans on
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Oddly enough, look what happened. When companies refuse to listen to their players and focus on the bottom line, their bottom lines dries up quickly than ever expected.
I do hope the game has a revival, but it would take a small miracle for that to happen.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
What I want to know is how any of the changes they made with feywild patch benefits zen sales? Less incentive to do dungeons means less incentive for people to want to spend $$$ to upgrade. Only able to make money doing CN and MC means more people quitting game out of boredom.
I would be a lot less insulted if they just put an item in a cash-only store that lets you upgrade each of your armor piece to reinforced or t2.5, charge $5 per and not allow it to be bought without cash. I didn't do a single dungeon delve since patch and I was bored out of my mind grinding cn and mc. And now that I'm banned, who is going to troll all the paying players in pvp with a broken almost unkillable cleric and make them cry and pay $$$ to upgrade their characters???
All respect due Sir/Madam,
If you have actually worked at a game studio (even remotely associated with development), you would know that the forums are not the place to put this plea. Those decisions are made WAAAAY above Development. Devs get orders to 'do this', and they do it, or they get fired. There *are* a few liasons between Dev and where these decisions get made, but they usually are just that... liasons. They can 'massage' some stuff, but the Game Producers usually call the shots on what goes where. You would have a better chance of getting heard by writing a white paper with provable facts and sending it to the producer than by posting on here.
That is not to say that these forums aren't useful. Its just the difference between writing your Congressman, or having lunch with him/her.
Some of your points could use a little polishing, as well. There are a lot of 'I thinks' in there, and anecdotal information (I'm pretty sure the Producer can get accurate server population counts on their own). Believe me, if a decision costs them money, they will reverse/change it. They are not ignorant when it comes to generating cash flow.
Changing the policy on unbinding Z-Store Companions and NOT converting them to account-bound items has done it for me.
The OP points that apply directly to me are: 1) I will not spend any more money on this title and 2) The Dungeon Delves are too ridiculously difficult for a non-min-maxer casual player like myself.
Yeah, I'll keep playing, but a lot more casually (and less often) than I have up to now.
Will the game "die" - yes, if you call Champions Online "dead" - in that respect. It'll chug along, but with it's best days behind it, I think.
At both studios I worked at, we had in house teams devoted to social media. They updated the FB, and certainly checked official community forums. We had MEETINGS about what was being said and needed addressing. We paid people to come in a test the game and ASKED for their feedback. I think this is the appropriate soap box to address these issues. I also replied to my own thread with this:
I am ok with difficulty. The first thing they need to do is to fix the frequent client crashes and/or disconnections. I barely complete any dungeon because we arrive with 4 or 3 players only, 1-2 have left the group feed up with glitches.
Jo Khon El, Potionholic Cleric of Torm.
Odalas, Shield on the run.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
About the OP topic, again I am not defending Cryptic, but the reality is that the devs, this game or others, most likely have no power on decision making. The top management wants A, they have to put A in no matter what. It is their job, unfortunately. Which dev will not want to see one's game bloom and flourish, and be loved and supported by fans?
I think people have left the game also due to lack of class variety - without derailing the thread I believe the lack of some hybrid classes, and especially a traditional ranged (archer) class makes the game feel boring.
I do agree though with all points you've said about the dungeons and AH prices. I don't mind paying for ZEN here and there, but after trying this model I would much rather just have the pay to play so I don't have the hassel of going out of the game, putting in my card info, transferring zen, turning zen into astral diamonds. The process is a terrible user experience overall. I used to side on the idea that free to play wasn't a bad thing, but now after trying several of these games I just think I'd rather have less hassel and pay to play.
I'm exactly at the same point myself. After playing since early open beta, I've come to a place where this game is something I'll leave installed and probably hit once in a while when I'm (really) bored, but I'm now back to looking for a pay to play game. I actually like this game and am still secretly hoping it turns around, but I feel very ignored and 'used' after investing my time and some money over the last few months. Incenting devs to create quality content by paying them up front seems more palatable than ever, rather than having arrived here where devs are incented to make money at all costs even when that includes alienating its player base and putting out a substandard product and leaving it as such; very frustrating. NW devs seem to treat their entire player community as beta testers rather than end customers. Hopefully this game's demise will at least contribute to common knowledge about how not to execute (no pun intended) a F2P game.
Fidelis ad Mortem
Loyal to Death
http://loyaltodeath.enjin.com
This is my first F2p, and my expectations were exceeded. No one will beg for subscription based model. If you do not believe me go read the comments on IGN's announcement that Elder Scrolls online will require a $15 a month subscription.
A large amount of the problem results in the companies decision to plow forward without addressing what is already wrong. Content updates and patches break things further. If they slowed down and worked with what they have (Paragon paths anyone) then it would be a step in the right direction.
sadly I have to agree, this game is just floating deadwood, it looked good on paper in reality one of the worst I have ever played. With FFIV (ARC) just gone live and ESO coming in a few months time, by the end of the year there will be know one here.
As it is F2P though when they have more classes and paragon paths people will come back to check it out, I do not think many of them will start dropping Zen..
I will play PW/cryptic games again I will not though be giving them money for it:(:(
I disagree completely. If the NW committed to acting as you described (slowing down, fixing bugs, etc) I would agree to a subscription model. Directly addressing ESO you mentioned above, that happens to currently be my #1 choice already for my next P2P game (just have to wait a bit lol). I'm guessing those IGN flamers have not played a F2P game, or at least not NW. I enjoyed Skyrim a lot, and so I'll gladly give ESO their monthly fee if they can create and maintain a good user experience like that in an MMO.
Fidelis ad Mortem
Loyal to Death
http://loyaltodeath.enjin.com
NW is making money, a lot of it. In the three months I have been playing there have been patches every week (sometimes twice a week), numerous events: Tymora, Orc Skirm, FoTFW, Festival. That's a lot! Slow down, fix what is broken and listen to your players. And freaking unban those Euro players, that is just a bad move.
People are spoiled by the f2p model anymore. They look at sub games and think they are worthless because its p2p. Sorry but ill take a sub game over a f2p anyday, at least in a sub game the company has constant income and doesnt need to gouge players in a cash shop for there profit margin and can therefore spend more time on content/bug fixes instead of what overpriced item they can add to there cash shop to increase profits. Take a look at EQ1, been around since 1999 and only recently went f2p(within the last 2 years i think). EQ1 was also the best experience i ever had in a MMO to date.
Fair point. I was simply raising that NW has forced me to reexamine being a P2P hater after years of WoW, and Skyrim is the game I most recently enjoyed a lot so I'm going to give ESO a shot even though its P2P. I laid out the $60 founder bucks for this one plus some minor Zen investment along the way, so the least I can do is give ESO an equal shot when I already know I enjoyed a game in the same series.
I did the dance, too, and I thought it was a waste as well shortly after I quit. However, NW has changed the prescription on my hindsight glasses. With the NW-enabled perspective now, I ready to give P2P another shot. Speaking more broadly, WoW charged $15/mo and that game became a mega hit for a long time. They are on the decline now but its not specifically because they have a subscription model.
Fidelis ad Mortem
Loyal to Death
http://loyaltodeath.enjin.com
Decent points, but you are derailing the thread. I like the NW model, it gives you WAY more freedom then subscription based. To make your response relevant to the topic, NW could go with the GW2 model. Pay once, $39-$59 tops, get three slots, 1 mil AD, etc to get you going. However, it doesn't help to fix the issues running rampant as of today.
So their decisions HAVE cost them money, for sure from myself, and "I think" from quite a few others. I also "think" that most game companies do monitor their forums and "I think" on a regular basis use that information. Just because they don't answer back to every post does not mean they are not being monitored and reported to decision makers. You appear to be deluded in how powerful an effect one post can have on a community and these effects have been discussed and documented by professionals in various fields. One post in a forum does matter, it can affect the players, and it can affect a development studio. To the OP, keep on posting!
This is what really drove me away from the game, I come back occasionally to laugh and hope they make drastic changes(I love D&D to much) but you can only play your class 1 way if you find a different way to play usually they will nerf it, your char looks the same basically all the way till the end and the same as every other person of that class.
I would like to know the truth on how many people actaully play the game, not how many emails they have registered.
I see them doing a server merge by the end of the year or next spring. Maybe even sooner then that. And the devs will come up with some excuse to do it without making it sound like it has something to do with loosing population.
The game might never truely die until it cost them more money to keep it going then they bring in.
If I or any other mod has to prune this again, it will be closed. This is not a question of "speaking one's mind". It is, plain and simple, what is allowable under RoC and what is not.
Please take a moment to review RoC before you post and review what is appropriate discussion material for this board and what is not.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
The issue is the game needs to be merged to single shards.