Lets be real here for a second. Very few are buying these new mounts. I still haven't seen a Dusk Unicorn in the game. I am sure some people bought one, but it is not like the re-skinned mounts are keeping this game alive. What keeps this game afloat is people buying Zen to convert to AD so they can buy stuff on the AH and the pack sales (HoTN, Guardian, Feywild). The stone of allure and keys probably make up most of the Zen store purchases.
yes and that is why there is a zen store and why it is expanding with new items. that's why we've been told there will be new modules and new classes. so far, we've seen the drow made available, we've seen the launch of module 1 and we've had the addition of sun elves as well. now... maybe these things don't sum it up for you because of issues that some people see as game-breaking but not everyone took it as such because people still played the game. i know because i am one of them.
what it does boil down to is people buying zen... it doesn't matter what they buy with it. once they've converted real money into zen, pwe doesn't care what you do with it as long as it doesn't involve exploits. the in-game economy is created by the players. if the players stop buying zen for all fifteen of their games then i suppose they'll have to figure something else out. but i don't really see that happening any time soon.
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jn2002dk1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I see this quote being used again and again by the fanboi's as the main reason behind the huge length of time it takes to fix bugs.
Sorry but its absolute BS, every single bug or issue, exploit which as apeared in the past which as directly affected Zen sales or players being able to recieve large amounts of AD very easily, or valuable items ( nightmare mount and enchant bug) have been addressed and fixed near enough striaght away within an hour of being noticed.
While on the other hand , 100's of very well know issues bugs etc etc which only affect the players, as in non working feats, powers, gear bonuses not working plus all the 1000's of issues in the game in nearly every dungeon, all issues known about for months and months, are all just left and not fixed.
So forgot the excuse that bugs take time to fix we know thats BS in most case's
True but be prepared for the even more moronic excuse: Oh but it's f2p, just don't play it
I see this quote being used again and again by the fanboi's as the main reason behind the huge length of time it tales to fix bugs.
Sorry but its absolute BS, every single bug or issue, exsploit which as apeared in the past which as directly affected Zen sales or players being able to recieve large amounts of AD very easily, or valuable items ( nightmare mount and enchant bug) have been addressed and fixed near enough striaght away within an hour of being noticed.
While on the other hand , 100's of very well know issues bugs etc etc which only affect the players, as in non working feats, powers, gear bonuses not working plus all the 1000's of issues in the game in nearly every dungeon, all issues known about for months and months, are all just left and not fixed.
So forgot the excuse that bugs take time to fix we know thats BS in most case's
can you give me some real world examples of how simple an intermittent bug can be isolated and fixed from thousands of lines of code? or can you provide me with some data that proves cryptic developers are lazy or that pwe doesn't care if bugs get fixed in a timely manner? all you have is assumptions and conjecture. the nightmare bug had to be corrected immediately because if it had been left as it was, the entire game economy would have been completely trashed. it was noticed and the server was taken offline 36 minutes after it went live. and i think it was an one and a half hours later that it was back up. i would imagine, and this is just my assumption, that the drop rate is something that the developers know how to adjust and once that was done, the patch had to be tested and repackaged and sent to the file servers for launcher distribution. they didn't spend that time trying to figure it out. they already knew how to fix it. why or how that happened, who knows? and who really cares? fact is, that information will likely remain internal forever. you'll never know if a developer was fired because of it or if it was done on purpose.
now compare that bug with the unstoppable bug. this was an intermittent problem where the tab key would no longer function to trigger unstoppable. there might be one guy in the dev department that has a number of projects he's working on and he's the guy that's most familiar with this particular code. but since this problem occurs maybe 5-15% of the time and seemingly random, they need to examine key combinations or do whatever is necessary to isolate the problem. so maybe this is determined to be working at least 85% of the time and he works on it when he has time. maybe he never has time until it's #1 on his priority list. all this is information that all you can do is guess at... but instead of trying to listen to reason, you doom and gloomers just assume the worst.
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krisst0fMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
can you give me some real world examples of how simple an intermittent bug can be isolated and fixed from thousands of lines of code? ...
Here is an example: FIXING THE SORTING FUNCTION IN THE AUCTION HOUSE...
It takes a 11 year old programmer to learn how to program a sorting function in a table...
And yet, this bug has been there for a month... Actually it was first detected during beta, then was fixed and working fine, and then, introduced again by a patch. It is still there 3 patches/weeks later.
Maybe they need a Senior Director of Sorting Programming Strategy??? That's moronic...
if the negativity is unsubstantiated and conjecture and not backed by facts, i don't understand why it is necessary to whine or complain about it. i'm not saying that there aren't issues and bugs in this game. i report them all the time. but i'm not out here bad mouthing the devs or pwe talking about how the game is dying because they haven't fixed the things i've reported in a timely manner. i'm not running that company. i'm not the head of the dev department. i don't assume to know what happens there on a daily basis. but having an IT background, i can tell you that unless you're on the inside, you don't know what their priority list looks like, why it looks like that, who is working on what and what kind of deadlines these guys have.
there might be one guy in the dev department that has a number of projects he's working on and he's the guy that's most familiar with this particular code. but since this problem occurs maybe 5-15% of the time and seemingly random, they need to examine key combinations or do whatever is necessary to isolate the problem. so maybe this is determined to be working at least 85% of the time and he works on it when he has time. maybe he never has time until it's #1 on his priority list. all this is information that all you can do is guess at... but instead of trying to listen to reason, you doom and gloomers just assume the worst.
I dont matter how many are working or not working on a issue it is still a fact that anything that arrises that direcctly affects Zen sales or AD gain in the players favor is instantly fixed, this is not a coincidence, players are not stupid and issues like these are insta put #1 priority and nearly all are fixed within an hour.
"can you give me some real world examples of how simple an intermittent bug can be isolated and fixed from thousands of lines of code"
no i can not but i can say they manage to do it when it affects there income without any problems at all, that is fact
Who said i was a doom and gloomer, as with 99% of the negative feedback you see on the forums most is from players who openly admit they love the game and want the game to be succesfull, which i do too, they are all just frustrated at seeing how the game is slowly but surely being broken day by day. I have played this game every single day since beta weekends, have invested quit abit of real money into it hoping to help it develope beter and beter
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krisst0fMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
if the negativity is unsubstantiated and conjecture and not backed by facts, i don't understand why it is necessary to whine or complain about it. i'm not saying that there aren't issues and bugs in this game. i report them all the time. but i'm not out here bad mouthing the devs or pwe talking about how the game is dying because they haven't fixed the things i've reported in a timely manner. i'm not running that company. i'm not the head of the dev department. i don't assume to know what happens there on a daily basis. but having an IT background, i can tell you that unless you're on the inside, you don't know what their priority list looks like, why it looks like that, who is working on what and what kind of deadlines these guys have.
What a lame of an excuse that "we don't know what happens there..."
What is KNOWN is that a lots of BUGS have been reported by hundreds of players and some are so simple to fix, it is unimaginable to think they are still there months after being first reported.
What you do is prioritize the bugs and take into account how much time they are expected to be fixed... How hard is it to fix a SORTING function that clearly prevents the correct use of the AH. It works on gateway, why not in client...
The game is GREAT while leveling to level60 because clearly an investment was made there... After that, it is abysmal because of the bugs and exploits. Looks like they moved on the next game/expansion and stopped supporting what's released, or what doesn't directly increase their Zen sales...
Here is an example: FIXING THE SORTING FUNCTION IN THE AUCTION HOUSE...
It takes a 11 year old programmer to learn how to program a sorting function in a table...
And yet, this bug has been there for a month... Actually it was first detected during beta, then was fixed and working fine, and then, introduced again by a patch. It is still there 3 patches/weeks later.
Maybe they need a Senior Director of Sorting Programming Strategy??? That's moronic...
Is that example good enough for you? ^^
so your proof is that an 11 year old could fix the sorting function in the auction house? sorry, man. while it might be possible for an 11 year old to write simple code to program a sorting function, you can't look at the complexity of this game and tell me you see a few hundred lines of code. plus the sorting function had two work arounds. it worked fine on the gateway and you could sort the lowest buy out by sorting by name. taking that into consideration, if it were me, this would go on the priority list but it wouldn't be too high up. it's not what i'd consider to be "game breaking" because there are ways around it. plus there are less items on the auction house, so it's pretty easy to flip through the pages to find out what the lowest prices are.
one company i worked for, one of my jobs was to facilitate major incidents. if a number of clients couldn't get their orders in due to some technical issue, that was a major incident. if this wasn't the case, then it wasn't. people would freak out all the time about issues demanding that we declare a major but if there was a work around or if it wasn't determined by the on-call manager to be major, then it wasn't declared. of course, clients are never given this information. it is internal. it is proprietary. we gave vague explanations of what was happening or there was "an outage" and nothing more. this is the way most companies do business.
peopl should really stop defending Cryptic, we all know that they prioritize on other stuff, we all know that they have better things to do thzat fix some minor bugs, an dprobably some major bugs are not that easy to fix and they are currently working on them.
However why they continue releasing Pay Mounts almost every 2 patches, i know that there might be 2 teams working on different things, (content and bug fixes) but why they continue giving use monts that are bascially the same thing with different skin, companions that at the end are not much of it
a lot of us Feel that we are still playing Beta, there are not much things to do, and a lot of thing are still broken, if you need to hir more people why do not include an elite srervice in neverwinter with a monthly fee??
i am tired of waiting for more classes, for raids, for bigger parties, for more different content, sharandar was ok but it has become a grindfest in the end, and after i finish all my boons what is left?? once i have my fomorian set and armor set what else is left??
GG was fun as well but now that people do not run it is bored, only once in a while when you have the dailies, since due to BoP items people don't care.
we need more pvp maps, more maps to explore, more dungeons, more classes, more paragon path, more bug fixes.
it is weird that feeling that you are still playing a beta game T_T
so please stop releasing mounts T_T, i will not spend any more money on this game till i see that the Dev team is working to solve the problems, i iwll porbably only log in to do sharandar dailies for my boons and will go back to other Game and spend there cause they no longer have a beta game.
Everything works out in the end . If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end...
so your proof is that an 11 year old could fix the sorting function in the auction house? sorry, man. while it might be possible for an 11 year old to write simple code to program a sorting function, you can't look at the complexity of this game and tell me you see a few hundred lines of code. plus the sorting function had two work arounds. it worked fine on the gateway and you could sort the lowest buy out by sorting by name. taking that into consideration, if it were me, this would go on the priority list but it wouldn't be too high up. it's not what i'd consider to be "game breaking" because there are ways around it. plus there are less items on the auction house, so it's pretty easy to flip through the pages to find out what the lowest prices are.
So according to you "it's not what i'd consider to be "game breaking" because there are ways around it. plus there are less items on the auction house, so it's pretty easy to flip through the pages to find out what the lowest prices are"
True but it is still now broken and deffinatly NOT working as intended, it managed to work perfectly fine for the previous 5 months.
And just because you dont see a problem with it and have found a way around the issue it is still broken, fact
This atitude seems to be how the whole game is going these days playing the game and things not working as they should is being overlooked completely.
now it is the 'Norm' to not realy bother about bugs and issues but more to find ways around them. this atitude does not and will not fix anything that is obviously broken wether it be a big issue or not, it is still broken
It does not matter however you try to put a sugar coating on it, the game is more uncomplete and more not working as intended that it ever was Beta and Open Beta. in fact the game was 100% beter and more playable in open beta.
These days the only thing you can guarantee to happen in the future is there will be more new mounts and companions available to buy, wether the actual game will be playable or not is unpredictable.
But the stuff they are working on now is still zen fueled purchase items. And not bug fixes. It's the Cryptic protocol. As seen in their other two games.
So the complaint is as valid now as it was in 2010.
What? You mean the other 2 games where they've just released an entire (and relatively bug free) free expansion and the other where there's no new content for the next month that isn't bug fixes?
Yup and thats fine but i have to admit that im a bit puzzled as to why we are getting new mounts and a paid module when classes arent even complete. I would think redirecting sources to giving us the remaining paragon paths as well as fixing broken feats would rank higher than another mount
I realize they have to make money but it is a balancing act and lately i feel like they have been too focused on short term money making at the expense of actually finishing the game as it was at launch
Because environment artists and 3d modellers are always in demand by other gaming companies and PWE/Cryptic don't want to hire and fire them on a ad hoc basis in case they decide to take up a permanent job with another studio. The other alternative of course is to have them twiddling their thumbs whilst the programmers and that fix the bugs but if that's the case then they may as well fire them and burn the money, from the company's point of view it'd have the same effect.
This way they not only get to keep artists who are familiar with the tools and art style of the world, but also they get to earn their wage rather than sit around twiddling their thumbs.
Sorry but its absolute BS, every single bug or issue, exploit which as apeared in the past which as directly affected Zen sales or players being able to recieve large amounts of AD very easily, or valuable items ( nightmare mount and enchant bug) have been addressed and fixed near enough striaght away within an hour of being noticed.
While on the other hand , 100's of very well know issues bugs etc etc which only affect the players, as in non working feats, powers, gear bonuses not working plus all the 1000's of issues in the game in nearly every dungeon, all issues known about for months and months, are all just left and not fixed.
So forgot the excuse that bugs take time to fix we know thats BS in most case's
And? Are you saying that if an ATM started spitting $20 when people asked for $10 that the bank wouldn't shut it off as soon as they found out about it, or if a pump at a petrol station started charging 1 cent a litre that they wouldn't close it off?
Any bug that impacts the bottom line will be prioritized, that's not Cryptic's decision though it's PWE's, and it's a decision that would be made in any other F2P game out there, not just this one.
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jn2002dk1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
So let those animators and modellers work on actual content instead of more mounts. At least it sends a signal that they care about more than a quick cash grab
I'm increasingly frustrated with Neverwinter - They have the foundation of a great game. The combat is fun, nice graphics and lots of lore to dip into but when i'm seeing the focus being on a paid module only a few months after release and store mounts while we have bugs dating back to the beta i start questioning their intentions. Now i paid for the guardian pack and i've bought zen too because i thought the game had lots of potential but at this rate i wont be buying anything else unless they fix what was broken at release and give us what was promised
Sadly, i have a feeling we'll see lots more zen items and paid modules before they get around to the important stuff which would be a shame since the game is really fun when it works
And? Are you saying that if an ATM started spitting $20 when people asked for $10 that the bank wouldn't shut it off as soon as they found out about it, or if a pump at a petrol station started charging 1 cent a litre that they wouldn't close it off?
Any bug that impacts the bottom line will be prioritized, that's not Cryptic's decision though it's PWE's, and it's a decision that would be made in any other F2P game out there, not just this one.
True but also the opposite applies, if a company has issues with services over charging customers due to a fault , That also would be highly prioitized, apart from a mass infulux of complaints to address they would also loose customers very very fast if they did not prioritize it, Plus a huge loss in potential new customers through referals and recomendations from existing customers.
so again they obviously highly prioritize anything that afects them first and formost irrelavent of what there players (customers) say, and then anything else even if its a huge issue for the players is put back down the priority list. Unhappy customers may stay with the company in hope of changes, but they will not spend anything until they see that are actualy cared about or even aknowlaged first.
A company with a product and no customers, is a dead company which ever way you want to look at it
Uh, no. Not a cent is required to play any portion of Neverwinter. The game is 100% free to play. Simply because there is an associated optional pack does not mean the module is a paid one. PWE doesn't do pay-gated content.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
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1 new Zen Store mount this week, and if not to add insult to injury for most the anouncement of a new event
The 'Charge Rewards' event, with yet another Mount !! and companion. Taking part is easy and involves a very easy process of getting your wallet out and buying Zen !!
At least with the usual new mounts and companions you can obtain them through working hard in the game and grinding AD and exchanging it for Zen to purchase. But the new event the ONLY way to take part is to charge Zen to your account.
Hey look, another mount! Fey Wolf mount. Spend 6000 zen AND transfer to neverwinter to get an uncommon mount, uncommon companion, and a rare fashion equipment.
Anybody see anything wrong with that? We have to spend $60 to get 6k zen to transfer to neverwinter to get an UNCOMMON mount and companion. Sure it's better than buying it if it were available but you give it to us free and then t-bag us by saying if you want an epic mount, spend 2.8+mil AD to upgrade it to epic. If we wanted an epic mount the cheapest available is 2500Zen right now.
Let's see here on mindflayer server you can sell 1 zen for 334AD, if you want it quicker you would need to sell it for 333AD. Even if sold for 334AD, it would take over 8000Zen just to get 2.8mil AD, or $20+ more.
Oh boy, we're not even finished yet, we don't even have the exact amounts to upgrade the companion from uncommon to rare to epic.
So basically we're getting 2 uncommon items for 60 bucks and then if we want ONE of them to epic we actually have to spend 80 bucks?
Hey the good thing out of this is that you only need to transfer zen, not buy. But in order to even raise that much you would need to buy that much anyway, or do endless surveys. So what's the point? Oh to get uncommon items. I see.
Ah yes, today's promotion! Before the thread lock, something I was trying to add in the other thread I started:
I think PWE would be better off with an approach that honors the value of past investments. Giving away more for the same investment without even partially crediting recent investors encourages a "wait-and-see" mentality for purchasers if they want to avoid buyer's remorse. They'd be better off with an approach that encouraged Zen purchasing at any time. If any past Zen purchasers got a little something out of future promotions I bet more people would be buying at least some Zen.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited September 2013
While I agree that this isn't great incentive to buy Zen if you're weren't already going to, you are not being charged 6000 Zen for these two items.
You are being given these two items (technically three), as a gift, if you transfer that much Zen to the game. That's a personal choice. You get a little something on top of having Zen to spend on anything you want.
Like any other mount or companion, neither is required to play the game.
And calling it an event is a bad joke. It's a Zen store-related promotion, like any other sale or limited offer they've ever had. Totally different from in-game events that anyone can play.
Yes because we want the artist to be fixing the programming bugs.
I think it's getting to be a tradition in games started by Cryptic. In CoH, whenever the animator released a new emote, people kept complaining that we got /randomemotehere rather than a bug fix to a power's mechanics or some other non-art department bug.
Come to think of it user created PvP maps seems like a **** good idea.
Reminds me of the old Descent2, Duke3d and Quake days. Why not have them? I'm sure most of us can make better maps than the current ones. Cryptic doesn't have to bother much and everyone is happy. Terrain bugs here and there I'm sure but eventually everyone will vote up their top 5 maps, New maps all the time. Sounds like a win/win to me.
So let those animators and modellers work on actual content instead of more mounts. At least it sends a signal that they care about more than a quick cash grab
And this is where I think all the mistakes lie. There isnt some Z-store department with folks working EXCLUSIVELY on Z-store items. The Z-store items come about by way of normal development.
As mentioned previously all the current Z-store stuff we are seeing now was done and finished months ago. It was done WHILE development of Module 1 was taking place. Someone makes a Quickling to use as a new mob type, and while that Quickling is being made it is also shuffled off to be made into a companion asset, it seems a no brainer. The hard stuff is already done, art, animations, ect. I expect the time needed to make assets into Z-store items has a minimal impact simply because they are basically using the left over parts from normal module development. Stuff that was going to happen anyway.
They know internally how many weeks they will need between module 1 and the next module so they know how many weeks of Z-store goodies they have to make in parallel with the module development. So when module one launches they have enough stuff ready to go in the pipe to carry them to the next module.
That reality is a far different image. Then the 5 or 6 drones slaving away in a dark room making new ponies for us to ride, to the exclusion of all else. That the angry mob seems to believe is the truth.
And this is where I think all the mistakes lie. There isnt some Z-store department with folks working EXCLUSIVELY on Z-store items. The Z-store items come about by way of normal development.
As mentioned previously all the current Z-store stuff we are seeing now was done and finished months ago. It was done WHILE development of Module 1 was taking place. Someone makes a Quickling to use as a new mob type, and while that Quickling is being made it is also shuffled off to be made into a companion asset, it seems a no brainer. The hard stuff is already done, art, animations, ect. I expect the time needed to make assets into Z-store items has a minimal impact simply because they are basically using the left over parts from normal module development. Stuff that was going to happen anyway.
They know internally how many weeks they will need between module 1 and the next module so they know how many weeks of Z-store goodies they have to make in parallel with the module development. So when module one launches they have enough stuff ready to go in the pipe to carry them to the next module.
That reality is a far different image. Then the 5 or 6 drones slaving away in a dark room making new ponies for us to ride, to the exclusion of all else. That the angry mob seems to believe is the truth.
You make a good point, but their approach to the Zen Market really sucks in general.
Take today's promotion as a prime example. When Best Buy has a sale coming up they let you know; advertisements explain that such and such will be discounted on a given date. They don't post signs the same morning of the sale, lol. If they did they'd see a crapload of customers who bought the sale items the prior day return those items and repurchase them at the new discounted price. PWE on the otherhand exploits the online marketplace in the worst possible way. No advanced warning, no retroactive benefits for loyal customers. Nope. I'm sorry, did you drop a bunch of cash on Zen yesterday? Well too bad, the sales on today, lol. People who spent the same amount of money you did yesterday now get additional stuff!!
I think anyone defending these practices really hasn't thought it through. It's a sure-fire way to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off otherwise loyal customers and make them second-guess future purchases.
You make a good point, but their approach to the Zen Market really sucks in general.
I agree, I think complaining about new z-store stuff is silly. But I sympathize with the frustration at how some it is released and managed.
A little heads up about an upcoming sale or a calender listing the next months z-store releases would go a long way to improving PR. It wouldn't hurt one bit to know, for example, that "Ohh look, last week in September is going to be the Owlbear mount. Ill save up for that!" Rather then the sudden surprise we normally get.
And that is the part that annoys me the most. They want folks to buy the Dusk Unicorn and next week go...."Dang an Owlbear, I wanted that more!" So, they feel compelled to buy both. Rather then looking at a calender and going..."Oh wow, this month has so many cool choices, what one do I want most!"
But that is a much different issue then this topic that is really just a rant about too many choices. Something I honestly find hard to see as a bad thing.
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dardoveMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
A little heads up about an upcoming sale or a calender listing the next months z-store releases would go a long way to improving PR. It wouldn't hurt one bit to know, for example, that "Ohh look, last week in September is going to be the Owlbear mount. Ill save up for that!" Rather then the sudden surprise we normally get.
I'm guessing this is something PW is against since this is something Cryptic used to do with both CO and STO. I would also like to see it return.
have to say this zen reward charge is alot smarter way to get people buying AD than the mounts they put out every week, giving items as a bonus to the original. Atleast there are some brains about. Just hope the design team think of better ideas when it comes to the game.
Comments
yes and that is why there is a zen store and why it is expanding with new items. that's why we've been told there will be new modules and new classes. so far, we've seen the drow made available, we've seen the launch of module 1 and we've had the addition of sun elves as well. now... maybe these things don't sum it up for you because of issues that some people see as game-breaking but not everyone took it as such because people still played the game. i know because i am one of them.
what it does boil down to is people buying zen... it doesn't matter what they buy with it. once they've converted real money into zen, pwe doesn't care what you do with it as long as it doesn't involve exploits. the in-game economy is created by the players. if the players stop buying zen for all fifteen of their games then i suppose they'll have to figure something else out. but i don't really see that happening any time soon.
Laughable
can you give me some real world examples of how simple an intermittent bug can be isolated and fixed from thousands of lines of code? or can you provide me with some data that proves cryptic developers are lazy or that pwe doesn't care if bugs get fixed in a timely manner? all you have is assumptions and conjecture. the nightmare bug had to be corrected immediately because if it had been left as it was, the entire game economy would have been completely trashed. it was noticed and the server was taken offline 36 minutes after it went live. and i think it was an one and a half hours later that it was back up. i would imagine, and this is just my assumption, that the drop rate is something that the developers know how to adjust and once that was done, the patch had to be tested and repackaged and sent to the file servers for launcher distribution. they didn't spend that time trying to figure it out. they already knew how to fix it. why or how that happened, who knows? and who really cares? fact is, that information will likely remain internal forever. you'll never know if a developer was fired because of it or if it was done on purpose.
now compare that bug with the unstoppable bug. this was an intermittent problem where the tab key would no longer function to trigger unstoppable. there might be one guy in the dev department that has a number of projects he's working on and he's the guy that's most familiar with this particular code. but since this problem occurs maybe 5-15% of the time and seemingly random, they need to examine key combinations or do whatever is necessary to isolate the problem. so maybe this is determined to be working at least 85% of the time and he works on it when he has time. maybe he never has time until it's #1 on his priority list. all this is information that all you can do is guess at... but instead of trying to listen to reason, you doom and gloomers just assume the worst.
Here is an example: FIXING THE SORTING FUNCTION IN THE AUCTION HOUSE...
It takes a 11 year old programmer to learn how to program a sorting function in a table...
And yet, this bug has been there for a month... Actually it was first detected during beta, then was fixed and working fine, and then, introduced again by a patch. It is still there 3 patches/weeks later.
Maybe they need a Senior Director of Sorting Programming Strategy??? That's moronic...
Is that example good enough for you? ^^
I dont matter how many are working or not working on a issue it is still a fact that anything that arrises that direcctly affects Zen sales or AD gain in the players favor is instantly fixed, this is not a coincidence, players are not stupid and issues like these are insta put #1 priority and nearly all are fixed within an hour.
"can you give me some real world examples of how simple an intermittent bug can be isolated and fixed from thousands of lines of code"
no i can not but i can say they manage to do it when it affects there income without any problems at all, that is fact
Who said i was a doom and gloomer, as with 99% of the negative feedback you see on the forums most is from players who openly admit they love the game and want the game to be succesfull, which i do too, they are all just frustrated at seeing how the game is slowly but surely being broken day by day. I have played this game every single day since beta weekends, have invested quit abit of real money into it hoping to help it develope beter and beter
What a lame of an excuse that "we don't know what happens there..."
What is KNOWN is that a lots of BUGS have been reported by hundreds of players and some are so simple to fix, it is unimaginable to think they are still there months after being first reported.
What you do is prioritize the bugs and take into account how much time they are expected to be fixed... How hard is it to fix a SORTING function that clearly prevents the correct use of the AH. It works on gateway, why not in client...
The game is GREAT while leveling to level60 because clearly an investment was made there... After that, it is abysmal because of the bugs and exploits. Looks like they moved on the next game/expansion and stopped supporting what's released, or what doesn't directly increase their Zen sales...
so your proof is that an 11 year old could fix the sorting function in the auction house? sorry, man. while it might be possible for an 11 year old to write simple code to program a sorting function, you can't look at the complexity of this game and tell me you see a few hundred lines of code. plus the sorting function had two work arounds. it worked fine on the gateway and you could sort the lowest buy out by sorting by name. taking that into consideration, if it were me, this would go on the priority list but it wouldn't be too high up. it's not what i'd consider to be "game breaking" because there are ways around it. plus there are less items on the auction house, so it's pretty easy to flip through the pages to find out what the lowest prices are.
one company i worked for, one of my jobs was to facilitate major incidents. if a number of clients couldn't get their orders in due to some technical issue, that was a major incident. if this wasn't the case, then it wasn't. people would freak out all the time about issues demanding that we declare a major but if there was a work around or if it wasn't determined by the on-call manager to be major, then it wasn't declared. of course, clients are never given this information. it is internal. it is proprietary. we gave vague explanations of what was happening or there was "an outage" and nothing more. this is the way most companies do business.
However why they continue releasing Pay Mounts almost every 2 patches, i know that there might be 2 teams working on different things, (content and bug fixes) but why they continue giving use monts that are bascially the same thing with different skin, companions that at the end are not much of it
a lot of us Feel that we are still playing Beta, there are not much things to do, and a lot of thing are still broken, if you need to hir more people why do not include an elite srervice in neverwinter with a monthly fee??
i am tired of waiting for more classes, for raids, for bigger parties, for more different content, sharandar was ok but it has become a grindfest in the end, and after i finish all my boons what is left?? once i have my fomorian set and armor set what else is left??
GG was fun as well but now that people do not run it is bored, only once in a while when you have the dailies, since due to BoP items people don't care.
we need more pvp maps, more maps to explore, more dungeons, more classes, more paragon path, more bug fixes.
it is weird that feeling that you are still playing a beta game T_T
so please stop releasing mounts T_T, i will not spend any more money on this game till i see that the Dev team is working to solve the problems, i iwll porbably only log in to do sharandar dailies for my boons and will go back to other Game and spend there cause they no longer have a beta game.
So according to you "it's not what i'd consider to be "game breaking" because there are ways around it. plus there are less items on the auction house, so it's pretty easy to flip through the pages to find out what the lowest prices are"
True but it is still now broken and deffinatly NOT working as intended, it managed to work perfectly fine for the previous 5 months.
And just because you dont see a problem with it and have found a way around the issue it is still broken, fact
This atitude seems to be how the whole game is going these days playing the game and things not working as they should is being overlooked completely.
now it is the 'Norm' to not realy bother about bugs and issues but more to find ways around them. this atitude does not and will not fix anything that is obviously broken wether it be a big issue or not, it is still broken
These days the only thing you can guarantee to happen in the future is there will be more new mounts and companions available to buy, wether the actual game will be playable or not is unpredictable.
What? You mean the other 2 games where they've just released an entire (and relatively bug free) free expansion and the other where there's no new content for the next month that isn't bug fixes?
Are those the two games you're talking about?
Because environment artists and 3d modellers are always in demand by other gaming companies and PWE/Cryptic don't want to hire and fire them on a ad hoc basis in case they decide to take up a permanent job with another studio. The other alternative of course is to have them twiddling their thumbs whilst the programmers and that fix the bugs but if that's the case then they may as well fire them and burn the money, from the company's point of view it'd have the same effect.
This way they not only get to keep artists who are familiar with the tools and art style of the world, but also they get to earn their wage rather than sit around twiddling their thumbs.
And? Are you saying that if an ATM started spitting $20 when people asked for $10 that the bank wouldn't shut it off as soon as they found out about it, or if a pump at a petrol station started charging 1 cent a litre that they wouldn't close it off?
Any bug that impacts the bottom line will be prioritized, that's not Cryptic's decision though it's PWE's, and it's a decision that would be made in any other F2P game out there, not just this one.
I'm increasingly frustrated with Neverwinter - They have the foundation of a great game. The combat is fun, nice graphics and lots of lore to dip into but when i'm seeing the focus being on a paid module only a few months after release and store mounts while we have bugs dating back to the beta i start questioning their intentions. Now i paid for the guardian pack and i've bought zen too because i thought the game had lots of potential but at this rate i wont be buying anything else unless they fix what was broken at release and give us what was promised
Sadly, i have a feeling we'll see lots more zen items and paid modules before they get around to the important stuff which would be a shame since the game is really fun when it works
Sorry, but what exactly are you referring to as a 'paid module'? Surely not the Feywild module? You know that that content is completely free, right?
True but also the opposite applies, if a company has issues with services over charging customers due to a fault , That also would be highly prioitized, apart from a mass infulux of complaints to address they would also loose customers very very fast if they did not prioritize it, Plus a huge loss in potential new customers through referals and recomendations from existing customers.
so again they obviously highly prioritize anything that afects them first and formost irrelavent of what there players (customers) say, and then anything else even if its a huge issue for the players is put back down the priority list. Unhappy customers may stay with the company in hope of changes, but they will not spend anything until they see that are actualy cared about or even aknowlaged first.
A company with a product and no customers, is a dead company which ever way you want to look at it
Uh, no. Not a cent is required to play any portion of Neverwinter. The game is 100% free to play. Simply because there is an associated optional pack does not mean the module is a paid one. PWE doesn't do pay-gated content.
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Oh and dare I say it... a different game to play in PvP? You could even fix bugs and useless talents that have been in place since release.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
The 'Charge Rewards' event, with yet another Mount !! and companion. Taking part is easy and involves a very easy process of getting your wallet out and buying Zen !!
At least with the usual new mounts and companions you can obtain them through working hard in the game and grinding AD and exchanging it for Zen to purchase. But the new event the ONLY way to take part is to charge Zen to your account.
Anybody see anything wrong with that? We have to spend $60 to get 6k zen to transfer to neverwinter to get an UNCOMMON mount and companion. Sure it's better than buying it if it were available but you give it to us free and then t-bag us by saying if you want an epic mount, spend 2.8+mil AD to upgrade it to epic. If we wanted an epic mount the cheapest available is 2500Zen right now.
Let's see here on mindflayer server you can sell 1 zen for 334AD, if you want it quicker you would need to sell it for 333AD. Even if sold for 334AD, it would take over 8000Zen just to get 2.8mil AD, or $20+ more.
Oh boy, we're not even finished yet, we don't even have the exact amounts to upgrade the companion from uncommon to rare to epic.
So basically we're getting 2 uncommon items for 60 bucks and then if we want ONE of them to epic we actually have to spend 80 bucks?
Hey the good thing out of this is that you only need to transfer zen, not buy. But in order to even raise that much you would need to buy that much anyway, or do endless surveys. So what's the point? Oh to get uncommon items. I see.
I think PWE would be better off with an approach that honors the value of past investments. Giving away more for the same investment without even partially crediting recent investors encourages a "wait-and-see" mentality for purchasers if they want to avoid buyer's remorse. They'd be better off with an approach that encouraged Zen purchasing at any time. If any past Zen purchasers got a little something out of future promotions I bet more people would be buying at least some Zen.
You are being given these two items (technically three), as a gift, if you transfer that much Zen to the game. That's a personal choice. You get a little something on top of having Zen to spend on anything you want.
Like any other mount or companion, neither is required to play the game.
And calling it an event is a bad joke. It's a Zen store-related promotion, like any other sale or limited offer they've ever had. Totally different from in-game events that anyone can play.
Neverwinter Census 2017
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Actually this same problem happened with a patch back in July i think it was. Took them a couple of weeks to fix it that time.
I think it's getting to be a tradition in games started by Cryptic. In CoH, whenever the animator released a new emote, people kept complaining that we got /randomemotehere rather than a bug fix to a power's mechanics or some other non-art department bug.
Come to think of it user created PvP maps seems like a **** good idea.
Reminds me of the old Descent2, Duke3d and Quake days. Why not have them? I'm sure most of us can make better maps than the current ones. Cryptic doesn't have to bother much and everyone is happy. Terrain bugs here and there I'm sure but eventually everyone will vote up their top 5 maps, New maps all the time. Sounds like a win/win to me.
And this is where I think all the mistakes lie. There isnt some Z-store department with folks working EXCLUSIVELY on Z-store items. The Z-store items come about by way of normal development.
As mentioned previously all the current Z-store stuff we are seeing now was done and finished months ago. It was done WHILE development of Module 1 was taking place. Someone makes a Quickling to use as a new mob type, and while that Quickling is being made it is also shuffled off to be made into a companion asset, it seems a no brainer. The hard stuff is already done, art, animations, ect. I expect the time needed to make assets into Z-store items has a minimal impact simply because they are basically using the left over parts from normal module development. Stuff that was going to happen anyway.
They know internally how many weeks they will need between module 1 and the next module so they know how many weeks of Z-store goodies they have to make in parallel with the module development. So when module one launches they have enough stuff ready to go in the pipe to carry them to the next module.
That reality is a far different image. Then the 5 or 6 drones slaving away in a dark room making new ponies for us to ride, to the exclusion of all else. That the angry mob seems to believe is the truth.
You make a good point, but their approach to the Zen Market really sucks in general.
Take today's promotion as a prime example. When Best Buy has a sale coming up they let you know; advertisements explain that such and such will be discounted on a given date. They don't post signs the same morning of the sale, lol. If they did they'd see a crapload of customers who bought the sale items the prior day return those items and repurchase them at the new discounted price. PWE on the otherhand exploits the online marketplace in the worst possible way. No advanced warning, no retroactive benefits for loyal customers. Nope. I'm sorry, did you drop a bunch of cash on Zen yesterday? Well too bad, the sales on today, lol. People who spent the same amount of money you did yesterday now get additional stuff!!
I think anyone defending these practices really hasn't thought it through. It's a sure-fire way to <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> off otherwise loyal customers and make them second-guess future purchases.
I agree, I think complaining about new z-store stuff is silly. But I sympathize with the frustration at how some it is released and managed.
A little heads up about an upcoming sale or a calender listing the next months z-store releases would go a long way to improving PR. It wouldn't hurt one bit to know, for example, that "Ohh look, last week in September is going to be the Owlbear mount. Ill save up for that!" Rather then the sudden surprise we normally get.
And that is the part that annoys me the most. They want folks to buy the Dusk Unicorn and next week go...."Dang an Owlbear, I wanted that more!" So, they feel compelled to buy both. Rather then looking at a calender and going..."Oh wow, this month has so many cool choices, what one do I want most!"
But that is a much different issue then this topic that is really just a rant about too many choices. Something I honestly find hard to see as a bad thing.
I'm guessing this is something PW is against since this is something Cryptic used to do with both CO and STO. I would also like to see it return.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".