Arc FAQs -Updated 1.22.14

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just an update....

So far the poll shows that merely 7.17% of our readers are in love with ARC, and that an overwhelming 92.83% would prefer the three other classic methods.

I am even more amazed that we have gotten so little response to this from the GM's and even less from our Community Manager. (Who incidentally, is now leaving us.)

At least bring back the torrent method. That's the easiest and has the least amount of load on your distribution servers. Not to mention that it has a lower overhead cost than Pando.

We got a token response to this in a Quality Corner thread, but have not gotten anything definitive at all. Basically we just got the typical PWE cop-out response. IMHO, we deserve a better response than that. At a minimum, please explain exactly why you "cannot simply go back to [y]our previous distribution methods", and what your future plan is, with some kind of ETA to a viable alternative to ARC.

I still haven't gotten an answer.

synchroze wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We've created an FAQ answering many questions that all of you have about the new platform. Feel free to reference the FAQ here. If you have any questions that aren't answered in the FAQ, please ask them here and I'll try and get an answer for you.

Arc can suck the big one, honestly. The fact that your company has failed to address any player concerns over why this isn't optional, but now mandatory or GTFO, is pretty damn silly.

1.) It doesn't matter if it hogs 1GB of space at the minimum and/or 100MB of RAM or less at the minimum. It's another piece of proprietary garbage DRM, designed by the same people behind the infamous "Core Client" beta PoS.

2.) If the software is downloading directly from Perfect World Entertainment's servers, then why are the players being forced to download this application in order to get a direct download of the game?

3.) What sort of advantages are we exactly getting by downloading and installing a rip-off Steam for PWE's game collection? It provides no extra benefit. Auto-login? Lol, that's a joke. Super special prizes? Highly, highly, highly doubt it. When was the last time PWE gave out a single "good reward" or "thoughtful in-game goodie", that wasn't designed for sucking my wallet dry or a worthless item?

Lastly, stop ignoring your player base PWE. You've lost a lot of people already, and by making this DRM mandatory, you will surely loose many more people. If that's your plan, shut the servers down now to save us some free time we could have used for a better company's game.

synchroze wrote: »

We're not ignoring our players. In fact we're gathering information and feedback from the community. I plan to share any answers or updates I get from our development team but for now the only information I currently have is information addressed in the FAQ.

We are currently in the early development stages of the Arc platform. Arc is the next big thing for Perfect World Entertainment and we plan to continue to build on it. We want to provide everyone with the best user experience possible and any feedback that we can work with will help us greatly.

Please keep in mind that I want this thread to be constructive and not volatile. So please remember the forum rules of conduct when posting.

If you and your corporation are looking to provide the best user experience, you would have thousands of more players in the game and on these forums that didn't quit because of poor support, communication, and direction of your said company.

On the topic at hand; you state that this is a work in progress. How-so? This is the Core Client, without the "Beta", and a fancy re-name to "Arc". On top of this, you stated that not only your company, but you personally are looking to provide the best user experience. So, again (knowing the answer in the back of my mind), I ask - how-so? You are bundling a complementary RAM/CPU hog in order to play your games (DRM), and selling it as a complete product.

There has been no response to why the direct download option has been removed.
There has been no response to why the torrent option has been removed.
There has been no response to why the player(s) are forced to use Arc to play the game(s) by your company.

If you haven't ignored the players, why does it look like it? There have been threads under the technical support section since day one of the super-special Arc's release debut, that have absolutely 0 responses by anyone from (employed) at your company. The lengthy thread here has gotten a lot of support from your company?

Pot, meet kettle.

Just a thought I and my friends, do not, will not play or own any game that requires any form of DRM distribution that includes Steam. In fact we make it a point not to support such idiocy.
Wonder how you count our numbers in all your research.

Narcillatrix - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ok here's my question; Why will Arc be mandatory? If I already have the game downloaded, installed, and playable on my computer, will I seriously have to get this Arc thing still to eat space on my comp for no reason if I want to play? Seems a little pushy and redundant....


f:angry

I agree, Just seems like a pain too me.

synchroze wrote: »

We're not ignoring our players. In fact we're gathering information and feedback from the community. I plan to share any answers or updates I get from our development team but for now the only information I currently have is information addressed in the FAQ.

We are currently in the early development stages of the Arc platform. Arc is the next big thing for Perfect World Entertainment and we plan to continue to build on it. We want to provide everyone with the best user experience possible and any feedback that we can work with will help us greatly.

Please keep in mind that I want this thread to be constructive and not volatile. So please remember the forum rules of conduct when posting.

ARC should really not be the "next big thing." Whoever the heck is pushing this idea so hard needs a reality check at the overall consumer response to it.

How about leaving our game access/downloading the way it is and focusing instead on fixing bugs and balancing the game better?

This really just seems like a huge attempt by the management to get the players to play more of their games.

Personally, I will NEVER play another PWE game due to the horrible way I have seen this game run, and I am definitely considering whether I want to stay in this game due to them starting to force unnecessary programs upon the players.

Noone should be forced to download and use unnecessary programs that have no viable or helpful impact upon the gameplay itself.

We are here to play a game. We chose a specific game. You are ignoring the root of the problem and focusing on junk that just makes your player-base mad.

CroPsy - Heavens Tear wrote: »

...Having a launcher for game is more than enough, I can get automatic updates there...

I not use those launcher for updates often, because large patches better to download manually.

synchroze wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We've created an FAQ answering many questions that all of you have about the new platform. Feel free to reference the FAQ here. If you have any questions that aren't answered in the FAQ, please ask them here and I'll try and get an answer for you.

I first played PW in Feb 2009, even though I had to move a few times and was away for a couple months: I ALWAYS was able to load and play the game (even with a 486) until about 2011. Then for some reason I had problems successfully loading the game. So I checked out Jade Empire and enjoyed it until I got a new computer (hp quad core with WIN -8) ok so i think it should be renamed LOSER version 8 but that is no fault of PWI. XP-Pro was a much better version for useability. The START screen messes up with so many programs and ARC / STEAM are two of them.

I first tried STEAM following the suggestion of some of my fellow guild members when I was having problems with the update.exe FW client. It worked for a while but then apparently was not getting properly updated as it crashed.

Deleted it and followed another suggestion of running 'game.exe' which DID work. until the latest update which REQUIRES ARC. Now i can't get ARC to do anything but download/ install and freeze up. No console shows up. No download options to get FW to work.

Out of curiosity I went back and checked PW.Eureka! it still works!!!

But now you are saying I won't be able to play that either.

Marvelous, simply marvelous.

Oh and btw with your planned remodeling of the Core Account: wonderful job - I can't get anything accepted as a purchase for PW. I have seen others complain about the same problem.

My comment is PWI is working THIER folks on trying to get out a decent game * and in many ways they have* but ARC is not under their control so when there is a glitch or problem PWI is going to suffer: as they will with the loss of me and others as game players SOLELY because ARC is not working. Not a good idea overall.

so yeah another program to lower my fps even during TWs..

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

I still haven't gotten an answer.

bluestuffzzz wrote: »

If you and your corporation are looking to provide the best user experience, you would have thousands of more players in the game and on these forums that didn't quit because of poor support, communication, and direction of your said company.

On the topic at hand; you state that this is a work in progress. How-so? This is the Core Client, without the "Beta", and a fancy re-name to "Arc". On top of this, you stated that not only your company, but you personally are looking to provide the best user experience. So, again (knowing the answer in the back of my mind), I ask - how-so? You are bundling a complementary RAM/CPU hog in order to play your games (DRM), and selling it as a complete product.

There has been no response to why the direct download option has been removed.
There has been no response to why the torrent option has been removed.
There has been no response to why the player(s) are forced to use Arc to play the game(s) by your company.

If you haven't ignored the players, why does it look like it? There have been threads under the technical support section since day one of the super-special Arc's release debut, that have absolutely 0 responses by anyone from (employed) at your company. The lengthy thread here has gotten a lot of support from your company?

Pot, meet kettle.

Titoto - Raging Tide wrote: »

@synchroze, not replying to this (and we know u prbly check this thread more than 1 time a day) will be ignoring the player base and srry for the angry set of people here but after seeing 3 CM"s come and go (thts how much i know, dont know if there's more) with the last one making some good progress then vanishing leaving us with a **** load of problems still lingering u cant blame us, in fact if i were you and was told to come here even as a temporary CM i would have told my superior to shove it. b:bye

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

I have the same questions as the other posters in this thread.

-Why were the alternative download methods/torrents removed?
-Why is ARC the only way to download the game right now?
-Why there has been no actual response to SylenThunder's post?
-Why is the company forcing the customers to use ARC even though they don't want it all? Can't it be optional?

Se we're asking the questions, and we're being ignored...

You say that we're not, but look at the facts...

synchroze wrote: »

We're not ignoring our players. In fact we're gathering information and feedback from the community. I plan to share any answers or updates I get from our development team but for now the only information I currently have is information addressed in the FAQ.

The information has already been gathered. If you don't have the information to answer these questions we've been asking for a long time now, then you aren't doing a very good job and finding out answers.

synchroze wrote: »

We are currently in the early development stages of the Arc platform. Arc is the next big thing for Perfect World Entertainment and we plan to continue to build on it. We want to provide everyone with the best user experience possible and any feedback that we can work with will help us greatly.

If it's in such early stages, then why wasn't it an option?

synchroze wrote: »

Please keep in mind that I want this thread to be constructive and not volatile. So please remember the forum rules of conduct when posting.

I've been entirely constructive, and completely civil. We're just fed up with not being answered. It's not like it's even hard to answer. I can understand that the management may not want to release a lot of details about their descisions, but this is such a simple question to answer we don't need anything and involved.

So again I post...

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

...
So far the poll shows that merely 5.98% of our readers are in love with ARC, and that an overwhelming 94.03% would prefer one of the three other classic methods.

I am even more amazed that we have gotten so little response to this from the GM's and even less from our Community Manager. (Who incidentally, is now leaving us.)

At least bring back the torrent method. That's the easiest and has the least amount of load on your distribution servers. Not to mention that it has a lower overhead cost than Pando.

We got a token response to this in a Quality Corner thread, but have not gotten anything definitive at all. Basically we just got the typical PWE cop-out response. IMHO, we deserve a better response than that. At a minimum, please explain exactly why you "cannot simply go back to [y]our previous distribution methods", and what your future plan is, with some kind of ETA to a viable alternative to ARC.

Edited to update the data.

Mr CM...

I'll say this kindly.. if you do not know the answers to these questions just say so, or respond with "im finding out from my boss" but if you not doing the latter just do the former. A "I don't know" will end the rage or at least some of it thats growing towards you. Then we too understand that you do not know the answers to our questions.

But this community has a lot of rage, especially cause the majority of the things are not being answered or addressed. So unfortunately you are the poor guy who has to handle the rage that the previous CM's got no information to. (Except val, he was awesome) Its the same thing as a product you buy. "Why's my car's windshield wipers not working?" If you are getting ignored you will feel extremely angry. But a "I don't know" would ease your anger a bit.

synchroze wrote: »

Arc is the next big thing for Perfect World Entertainment and we plan to continue to build on it...

I wish the next big thing for PWE was improving PWI b:surrender

1) Is the usage of ARC going to be mandatory? If so, WHY and WHEN.
2) Is this ARC software owned by another organization? How are you guaranteeing my account information is safe by using a 3rd party service provider? How are you guaranteeing the security of financial information for those who cash shop? (Assuming ARC is not proprietary to PWI)
3) Does this program work 100% as intended to before mandatory rollout (I'm assuming it's mandatory)-- or is this another Core Connect debacle-- where it works half assed and we are promised fixes that never come?
4) Why does PWI ignore their community when they clearly are against using this platform?

Can we get those questions answered? Any reply will be fine, even if its no.