If I recall correctly, the mail system was also limited to 500 items. There was and is still no way to increase that and no way to store the doffs that the game requires.
Thus a feature that was touted as "unlimited" in Cryptics own words is one of the following:
If you claim that something is unlimited, then it must be exactly that. Otherwise you are legally required to list it as large, and accompany that with a full and clear list of all the limitations.
Read again, then see my post above. But to summarize, Cryptic never said UNLIMITED SPACE. They said UNLIMITED ACCESS. Access means being able to enter it at will, meaning there are no restrictions on how many times you can USE the mail system. Its still is unlimited access. Unlike some other PWE games where you're limited to using the mail system to a few times a day unless you pay for more, STO gives you unlimited ACCESS.
So they never, ever false advertised. You just misread it.
Seventh fact... there is a mail system. Call it what you want, massage system, communication system, mail system. It is not a storage system. By definition, mail, messages, or communication systems are not designed to store items or messages, but to transport messages from one local to another.
I actually agree with your overall viewpoint on this matter, but you're being an extremely arrogant and pompous TRIBBLE about trying to make your point in this thread - and you don't sound clever in the slightest, you just sound like a huge ****.
Quote is wrong anyway, item storage was designed and built into the mail system, so it could hold unsold exchange items. That sort of means that the mail was designed both for messages and attachments. Personally I've used my regular e-mail in real life plenty of times for storage. I'll email myself a document I'm going to need at a later date. Same thing IMO.
I actually agree with your overall viewpoint on this matter, but you're being an extremely arrogant and pompous TRIBBLE about trying to make your point in this thread - and you don't sound clever in the slightest, you just sound like a huge ****.
Quote is wrong anyway, item storage was designed and built into the mail system, so it could hold unsold exchange items. That sort of means that the mail was designed both for messages and attachments. Personally I've used my regular e-mail in real life plenty of times for storage. I'll email myself a document I'm going to need at a later date. Same thing IMO.
Really honestly couldn't care less what you think of me and my posting, and whether I'm trying to be clever or not.
Next, my quote was not wrong. What you've used it for, and what it is designed to be, is two different things, especially in this case. The mail system was designed to send items from character "a" to character "b". It was designed to give people unlimited ACCESS to this e-mail system. At no point was it designed or intended to give you unlimited storage.
Call me an clever arrogant whatever all you want, but when people can't seem to get over that they were using something for unintended purposes, then can't get simple reading comprehension correct in the first place, well that's theirs, and your problem, not mine.
Lot of purple items that i couldn't sell on exchange are now gone because mails deleted my items and i didn't even get a chance to retrieve those. A lot of rares worth millions gone.
"Unlimited" and "infinite" have completely different meanings in the context of providing a service.
If you've lost items, open a support ticket (because the people who may be able to help you restore your items don't read this forum) and Customer Service will respond. There will be a significant delay currently, as they're receiving a large volume of tickets.
For those thinking of responding in this thread, please take a moment to refresh yourself on the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies, to avoid possible consequences for your account:
I had a different bug or I don't know if it's a bug.
On my main, in my mail I had exchange sales that expired. I had around 200 mails with 1 item each. Doff's, boff's and ground and space items. All kinds.
When I logged on after LoR released, exactly every other mail the attachment alone was gone.
The mail was still there but the item was gone. And it was always every 2nd mail top to buttom and it happened on all my characters.
Well, those are now "ghost" mails that I can't delete.
So basically I lost 100 items and have 100 maills I can't delete
Fine factual and reasonable evidence... I'll provide mine, where's yours. All I see is basically saying "I'm right, and you're not until you prove it..." so I'll prove it.
First fact... there is a bank system in the game designed to hold items. This is both a character and account wide banks.
Second fact... these banks are not infinite in space. They are restricted, and can only be expanded upon by spending zen or by getting a gold account.
Third fact... there is a DOff storage system in game, designed to hold DOffs.
Forth fact... this storage space is not infinite in space. It is restricted, and can only be expanded upon by spending zen.
Fifth fact... there is a BOff storage system in game, designed to hold BOffs.
Sixth fact... this system is not infinite in space. It is restricted, and can only be expanded upon by leveling up, or by spending zen.
Seventh fact... there is a mail system. Call it what you want, massage system, communication system, mail system. It is not a storage system. By definition, mail, messages, or communication systems are not designed to store items or messages, but to transport messages from one local to another.
Eighth fact... on game launch, no bank or bag was infinite in storage space. All cost something, even EC to expand upon reaching max level.
These are facts.
The next requires logic. Something that you seem to be in short supply of, regardless of your name.
PWE would not put in place an infinite account wide storage space, that cost zero anything to use, that all players have access too, regardless of subscription, when they have restricted all other storage spaces behind purchases of money or zen.
Okay so there's my proof... where's yours?
This is a reasoning by analogy logical fallacy.
For your reasoning to be correct, one would have to believe that nobody at Cryptic working on the mail system had the intelligence to foresee that players would use the mail system as an archive, despite the fact that many similar commercial programs, like Gmail, which would be well-known to the programmers, worked this way.
Even more absurdly, for your claim to be true, one would have to believe that in over three years of the mail system working as it was originally designed, none of the relevant employees ever discovered that players were using the mail system as an item archive, despite the fact that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Cryptic employees keep careful track of relevant statistics.
The bottom line is that Occam's razor clearly rules if favor of the mail system working as designed until Cryptic chose to change it.
Even more absurdly, for your claim to be true, one would have to believe that in over three years of the mail system working as it was originally designed, none of the relevant employees ever discovered that players were using the mail system as an item archive, despite the fact that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Cryptic employees keep careful track of relevant statistics.
Or, alternately, they tried various approaches to improve its performance short of restrictions, because they knew people would be upset if they restricted it; but then the performance degraded quickly in a short time due to two games have major increases in players simultaneously, and they were left with the unhappy choice of do nothing and let the database continue to degrade performance in other areas, or put in a limit quickly before things became completely, unrecoverably hosed.
And may have at that acted slightly too slowly.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
I store BOFFS and DOFFS in there. You cannot store these anywhere else.
BOFFS
Your roster is pathetically small, if you like to switch build regularly to keep things different, you need to keep very many CSV3, AUX2SIF3 etc etc BOFFS so that you can train and train again. The mail is the only way to do this.
so... you can have 32 active BOFFs, thus rendering your need to change out skills so much when you can just train said boffs in your skills so much that you dont need them? though if you dont want to buy boff slots for the char you plan on doing so many build changes.... you do know that when your BOff Candidate roster becomes full, they overflow into normal inventory meaning you CAN store BOff's in your bank, right?
Or, alternately, they tried various approaches to improve its performance short of restrictions, because they knew people would be upset if they restricted it; but then the performance degraded quickly in a short time due to two games have major increases in players simultaneously, and they were left with the unhappy choice of do nothing and let the database continue to degrade performance in other areas, or put in a limit quickly before things became completely, unrecoverably hosed.
And may have at that acted slightly too slowly.
Or tell us they have a problem.
Once Neverwinter added performance degradation issues, a dev could had posted that the 500 mail cap was being lowered to 100 when LOR was released. Yes, people would not be happy, but we would have had time to prepare.
Ex-CoH players, Please add the chat channel "CoX STO"
The next requires logic. Something that you seem to be in short supply of, regardless of your name.
PWE would not put in place an infinite account wide storage space, that cost zero anything to use, that all players have access too, regardless of subscription, when they have restricted all other storage spaces behind purchases of money or zen.
Okay so there's my proof... where's yours?
You forgot 1 more important facts, er actually 2:
1. The mail system has ALWAYS had a limit on the number of letters and items a player can keep in their mailboxes. ALWAYS, since the launch of the game.
2. Players have always used the mail system within the limits designed into the system.
If Cyberghost is correct the STO mail system only became a problem when Cryptic launched a second game that shared servers with STO, but it in NO WAY excuses them from changing the system like they did, without any notice or explanation what-so-ever, and their refusal to answer questions from their customers about the issue.
Once Neverwinter added performance degradation issues, a dev could had posted that the 500 mail cap was being lowered to 100 when LOR was released. Yes, people would not be happy, but we would have had time to prepare.
Honestly, If I have any problem with this whole mail thing, it is this. While inconvenient, I understand Cryptic limiting mail. Heck another game I play did this recently too (made a previously unrestricted Mail system restricted), here is the thing though. They told the players they were doing it, and gave them ample notice to adjust accordingly.
Or, alternately, they tried various approaches to improve its performance short of restrictions, because they knew people would be upset if they restricted it; but then the performance degraded quickly in a short time due to two games have major increases in players simultaneously, and they were left with the unhappy choice of do nothing and let the database continue to degrade performance in other areas, or put in a limit quickly before things became completely, unrecoverably hosed.
And may have at that acted slightly too slowly.
I wonder if it is a performance issue or a pecuniary issue? Given the admitted performance issues with other types of slots (ships, characters, et cetera), it would not surprise me if there were some fundamental flaw in the backend program that caused severe slowdown and perhaps even a handful of players that were grossly abusing the mail system to hold tens of thousands of messages for some exploitative reason.
Of course, it also would not surprise me if they simply changed it because they thought it would lead to more sales, although I suspect that is less probable than the performance issue.
Now that accounts are free, I wonder how many players will just make dozens of new accounts to get around the mail restrictions? I wonder if they might consider a compromise, such as 5000 message limit for gold members and 50 message limit for silvers, or allow gold members to move old messages into an archive that is stored on a backup (like inactive accounts) and has to be accessed separate of the normal mail system.
3rd ?
Their last quarter earning report indicates they could afford a computer for dedicated STO mail service.
<facepalm>
You are assuming that simply adding more servers to their distributed system will significantly reduce the problem. It is very possible that the problem is a fundamentally poor choice of design within the base code itself that could take thousands of man hours to resolve.
Say, for instance, you design a program with a feature that is causing a memory leak. You could:
A) Buy a better computer and perhaps increase the amount of time the program runs before crashing.
Spend thousands of man hours searching for the cause of the memory leak.
C) Disable the feature that is causing the memory leak.
In many cases, economics dictates that, at least in the short term, you choose option C.
3rd ?
Their last quarter earning report indicates they could afford a computer for dedicated STO mail service.
<facepalm>
Whilst I am annoyed at the lack of notice given by PWE/Cryptic regarding these changes, what you say is not entirely true. Yes they probably could afford to purchase new hardware, but then what? Where does the extra money come from to run and maintain that new hardware?
Now here's the solution. Buy that new hardware, then triple or even quadruple the number of DOFF/Bank/Inventory/BOFF/Ship slots we can buy coupled with a small increase in price. This gives people an opportunity that has thus far been denied them; A way for us to have our storage and maintain our current game-play styles without causing hassle for Cryptic/PWE. It also provides a way for Cryptic/PWE to offset the cost of new hardware and its running costs.
It is pretty damn clear that there would be a demand for these extra slot upgrades after all, and by following the above steps everyone goes home happy.
Yeah, cuz it's not like the devs were swamped with dozens of other issues all at the same time that had them so overworked they didn't have time to keep us updated with every little detail of what they were doing.
Nope emails were the ONLY problem they had to deal with.
How long does it take to make an announcement a couple weeks in advance that this change is coming so players can access their mail before the change and make adjustments? Those involved in the doff system could have then had a chance to raise our concerns so a solution could be worked on to minimize the disruption. Information prior to the change is always desireable and preferable to surprise changes.
In many cases, economics dictates that, at least in the short term, you choose option C.
Shortsightedness and a lack of business acumen is the only thing that would dictate choosing option C. Any company that expects to see year on year growth and an expanding customer base would fix the problem, not sweep it under the rug.
For a really good example of what happens when you ignore issues, please perform a Google search on CCP Games, specifically the period from around mid to late 2010, up until mid to late 2011.
They ignored serious code and hardware issues, ignored player requests for help and information regarding the product that they paid for and ended up losing a large chunk of those paying customers. Eventually the CEO had to make a public apology and begin correcting those errors. Just search for "CCP Greed is Good" or "Monoclegate".
as for the doff thing.....you didn't have to open all those packs and could have stored them via the packs....but go figure....if you are greedy and decide to risk things and then complain because you knew it was a risk and decided to gamble it.
Greedy? decided to risk? You obviously don't understand the reason people have excess doffs. Most of these are purchased with the intent to complete starbase projects, and doesn't have anything to do with 'greed'. And I for one do not open those doff packs. Instead, I buy the individual ones from the starbase. The problem is that the projects require a specific type of doff (like medical). And purchasing them from the starbase gives an unequal drop rate. You end up with something like 5 science doffs for every 1 medical.
But you do realize that star bases are designed for a fleet of players.....not a single player?
LOL. This doesn't change the fact that people still get stuck with a large number of doffs. Even in a large fleet where each member had to donate just 2 doffs per day (keep in mind that each of these projects require 100 medical doffs at T4), that's still 5-10 extra science doffs that each member is stuck with each day. Eventually, you still have the same problem. And if you are in a small fleet, well this is just another thing for the small fleets to complain about because each person will have more doffs to store.
If the limits placed on the mail system is for server stability or what not, they should have an alternative solution for the starbase/doff problem. Borticus did hint about changing the requirements on the projects so that it didn't need so many 'specialist' doffs. That would go a long way to quell the 'OMG Y U NERF MAIL??!?' threads.
_____________________
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Oh so you believe that the devs knew in advance that the launching of Never Winter and LoR were going to cause the email feature to fail the way it did.
And just where did they get that information? Hogwarts?
Considering the amount of "Server Stability" patches and other work they were doing prior to the release of Legacy of Romulus, coupled with the fact that they knew they were altering the coding behind the mail system, I'd say that unless a ninja coder snuck in one night and changed the code behind their backs they had a pretty damn good idea what the changes would do.
They also knew that they should have informed the player-base beforehand. They didn't do that though, maybe because they didn't want to deal with the inevitable complaints, or because PWE told them not to. Either way, do not be so foolish as to think that they A: Had no idea what their own changes would do, or B: That they did not have ample time to let their customers know what was going to happen.
You are assuming that simply adding more servers to their distributed system will significantly reduce the problem. It is very possible that the problem is a fundamentally poor choice of design within the base code itself that could take thousands of man hours to resolve.
Say, for instance, you design a program with a feature that is causing a memory leak. You could:
A) Buy a better computer and perhaps increase the amount of time the program runs before crashing.
Spend thousands of man hours searching for the cause of the memory leak.
C) Disable the feature that is causing the memory leak.
In many cases, economics dictates that, at least in the short term, you choose option C.
I AM assuming Cryptics coding is good else they wouldn't have incorporated it into 2 additional games, but as the mail system in STO has been buggy for many, many months and if they knew it had programming issues and still chose to add it to other games it would indicate some negligence or outright incompetence. I would tend to rule out faulty programming as the mail problems haven't ever been this bad, at least not that I can remember. So I can only think that the common mail server is most likely the culprit, and adding a dedicated mail server for this game would be a logical fix for STO's problem as well as easing the other 2 games mail issues that are server related.
I do not understand why the limitations that Cryptic has on STO has not been specifically published on the site or made accessible to the players. I never knew about a 500 email limit. I never knew about the 30+ limit to starships a character can have. I still don't know the total BOFFs one can have have. Why are these figures not made accessible to the gamers? If I at least know there is a limit, I can play accordingly. Not knowing allows me to set unrealistic expectations on Cryptic's STO, which frustrates and angers me when I hit those restriction walls. This issues NEEDS to be addressed by Cryptic, and the information needs to be readily available so that there is no ambiguity.
As for making a notice about the change, I agree with other posters that this should have been done. STO gamers should be made aware of such changes. Yes, there were big changes happening in LoR and Cryptic was busy with fixing bugs and getting the content out. However, they had enough time and received enough feedback to have planned better for the release as well as notifications, including nerfs and other significant changes.
I don't think there is a viable solution to this change, especially when it comes to DOFF storage. I guess we will have to play around to see what alternatives there are. I know that I will not be using the email system as much as I once did.
If someone knows how to back up the emails, I would appreciate their voice and information. Regardless of attachments, I do have messages that I would like to keep.
I don't think there is a viable solution to this change, especially when it comes to DOFF storage. I guess we will have to play around to see what alternatives there are.
Oh but there is. Change the project requirements on starbases so you don't need so many 'specialist' doffs. Basically, reduced to 'need' to store doffs in the first place.
_____________________
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I had an email with a purple MK XII Bat'leth in it that just kinda disappeared somewhere. Not a huge deal, but it kinda sucks. I would've liked to try and sell that on the exchange again.
The issue has been addressed by Cryptic. It's just an unpopular decision with people that were using emails as extra storage.
It actually hasn't been addressed. The only acknowledgement from any developer was via a 3rd party communication on twitter that the change has occurred. It has not been addressed the consequences of this change and verified that they are aware of the issue, looking into potential avenues to address the consequences of this change, or if no change is forthcoming. We don't have a post from any developer in any of these numerous threads surrounding the mail issues regarding the 100 attachment limit and the in game problems it has created.
The issue has been addressed as in they made a decision and implemented it. I don't see anything posted anywhere that states they are under any obligation to run their decisions by the player base for debate and approval.
The change was not in the patch notes. It was not explicitly tested which is somewhat shown by the horrible mail performance since the patch. It appears more related to the implimentation in Neverwinter rather than related to STO so they may not be aware of the issues. Just because your not affected, doesn't mean the decision is meaningless or doesn't have an impact.
Their change was profoundly disrespectful to the player base. Major changes to the way things function can and should have been announced to minimize many of the issues. This wasn't a new item added, it was an alteration of a long standing function in the game. Of course players don't have a veto, but there is certainly a dialog and information sharing as they may not be aware of specific impacts as they have ideas and concerns on the bigger picture.
The issue has been addressed as in they made a decision and implemented it. I don't see anything posted anywhere that states they are under any obligation to run their decisions by the player base for debate and approval.
Like most software companies, Cryptic generally releases patch notes or makes some kind of acknowledgment that the software their customers pay for has been altered. In fact, there is probably legal precedent for requiring companies offering services to make such an announcement to their paying customers when such a service is being altered.
I doubt Cryptic is attempting to deceive anyone, but there clearly has been a breakdown in communication. I can only speculate that they so far have refrained from responding as they are currently working on the issue and do not want to discuss it until they have made a final determination as to how to resolve it.
Comments
Read again, then see my post above. But to summarize, Cryptic never said UNLIMITED SPACE. They said UNLIMITED ACCESS. Access means being able to enter it at will, meaning there are no restrictions on how many times you can USE the mail system. Its still is unlimited access. Unlike some other PWE games where you're limited to using the mail system to a few times a day unless you pay for more, STO gives you unlimited ACCESS.
So they never, ever false advertised. You just misread it.
I actually agree with your overall viewpoint on this matter, but you're being an extremely arrogant and pompous TRIBBLE about trying to make your point in this thread - and you don't sound clever in the slightest, you just sound like a huge ****.
Quote is wrong anyway, item storage was designed and built into the mail system, so it could hold unsold exchange items. That sort of means that the mail was designed both for messages and attachments. Personally I've used my regular e-mail in real life plenty of times for storage. I'll email myself a document I'm going to need at a later date. Same thing IMO.
Kirk's Protege.
Really honestly couldn't care less what you think of me and my posting, and whether I'm trying to be clever or not.
Next, my quote was not wrong. What you've used it for, and what it is designed to be, is two different things, especially in this case. The mail system was designed to send items from character "a" to character "b". It was designed to give people unlimited ACCESS to this e-mail system. At no point was it designed or intended to give you unlimited storage.
Call me an clever arrogant whatever all you want, but when people can't seem to get over that they were using something for unintended purposes, then can't get simple reading comprehension correct in the first place, well that's theirs, and your problem, not mine.
If you've lost items, open a support ticket (because the people who may be able to help you restore your items don't read this forum) and Customer Service will respond. There will be a significant delay currently, as they're receiving a large volume of tickets.
For those thinking of responding in this thread, please take a moment to refresh yourself on the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies, to avoid possible consequences for your account:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/announcement.php?f=128&a=51
Please continue, but play nice.
Thanks,
syberghost,
Volunteer Community Moderator
On my main, in my mail I had exchange sales that expired. I had around 200 mails with 1 item each. Doff's, boff's and ground and space items. All kinds.
When I logged on after LoR released, exactly every other mail the attachment alone was gone.
The mail was still there but the item was gone. And it was always every 2nd mail top to buttom and it happened on all my characters.
Well, those are now "ghost" mails that I can't delete.
So basically I lost 100 items and have 100 maills I can't delete
:cool:
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
This is a reasoning by analogy logical fallacy.
For your reasoning to be correct, one would have to believe that nobody at Cryptic working on the mail system had the intelligence to foresee that players would use the mail system as an archive, despite the fact that many similar commercial programs, like Gmail, which would be well-known to the programmers, worked this way.
Even more absurdly, for your claim to be true, one would have to believe that in over three years of the mail system working as it was originally designed, none of the relevant employees ever discovered that players were using the mail system as an item archive, despite the fact that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Cryptic employees keep careful track of relevant statistics.
The bottom line is that Occam's razor clearly rules if favor of the mail system working as designed until Cryptic chose to change it.
Q.E.D.
Or, alternately, they tried various approaches to improve its performance short of restrictions, because they knew people would be upset if they restricted it; but then the performance degraded quickly in a short time due to two games have major increases in players simultaneously, and they were left with the unhappy choice of do nothing and let the database continue to degrade performance in other areas, or put in a limit quickly before things became completely, unrecoverably hosed.
And may have at that acted slightly too slowly.
so... you can have 32 active BOFFs, thus rendering your need to change out skills so much when you can just train said boffs in your skills so much that you dont need them? though if you dont want to buy boff slots for the char you plan on doing so many build changes.... you do know that when your BOff Candidate roster becomes full, they overflow into normal inventory meaning you CAN store BOff's in your bank, right?
Or tell us they have a problem.
Once Neverwinter added performance degradation issues, a dev could had posted that the 500 mail cap was being lowered to 100 when LOR was released. Yes, people would not be happy, but we would have had time to prepare.
Ex-CoH players, Please add the chat channel "CoX STO"
You forgot 1 more important facts, er actually 2:
1. The mail system has ALWAYS had a limit on the number of letters and items a player can keep in their mailboxes. ALWAYS, since the launch of the game.
2. Players have always used the mail system within the limits designed into the system.
If Cyberghost is correct the STO mail system only became a problem when Cryptic launched a second game that shared servers with STO, but it in NO WAY excuses them from changing the system like they did, without any notice or explanation what-so-ever, and their refusal to answer questions from their customers about the issue.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Honestly, If I have any problem with this whole mail thing, it is this. While inconvenient, I understand Cryptic limiting mail. Heck another game I play did this recently too (made a previously unrestricted Mail system restricted), here is the thing though. They told the players they were doing it, and gave them ample notice to adjust accordingly.
I have a couple of old email messages I am keeping for posterity, and I didn't lose any of them. Oldest email dated 4/20/2010 is still intact.
I wonder if it is a performance issue or a pecuniary issue? Given the admitted performance issues with other types of slots (ships, characters, et cetera), it would not surprise me if there were some fundamental flaw in the backend program that caused severe slowdown and perhaps even a handful of players that were grossly abusing the mail system to hold tens of thousands of messages for some exploitative reason.
Of course, it also would not surprise me if they simply changed it because they thought it would lead to more sales, although I suspect that is less probable than the performance issue.
Now that accounts are free, I wonder how many players will just make dozens of new accounts to get around the mail restrictions? I wonder if they might consider a compromise, such as 5000 message limit for gold members and 50 message limit for silvers, or allow gold members to move old messages into an archive that is stored on a backup (like inactive accounts) and has to be accessed separate of the normal mail system.
Third.
And spell my name right.
3rd ?
Their last quarter earning report indicates they could afford a computer for dedicated STO mail service.
<facepalm>
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
You are assuming that simply adding more servers to their distributed system will significantly reduce the problem. It is very possible that the problem is a fundamentally poor choice of design within the base code itself that could take thousands of man hours to resolve.
Say, for instance, you design a program with a feature that is causing a memory leak. You could:
A) Buy a better computer and perhaps increase the amount of time the program runs before crashing.
C) Disable the feature that is causing the memory leak.
In many cases, economics dictates that, at least in the short term, you choose option C.
Whilst I am annoyed at the lack of notice given by PWE/Cryptic regarding these changes, what you say is not entirely true. Yes they probably could afford to purchase new hardware, but then what? Where does the extra money come from to run and maintain that new hardware?
Now here's the solution. Buy that new hardware, then triple or even quadruple the number of DOFF/Bank/Inventory/BOFF/Ship slots we can buy coupled with a small increase in price. This gives people an opportunity that has thus far been denied them; A way for us to have our storage and maintain our current game-play styles without causing hassle for Cryptic/PWE. It also provides a way for Cryptic/PWE to offset the cost of new hardware and its running costs.
It is pretty damn clear that there would be a demand for these extra slot upgrades after all, and by following the above steps everyone goes home happy.
Sig by my better half.
How long does it take to make an announcement a couple weeks in advance that this change is coming so players can access their mail before the change and make adjustments? Those involved in the doff system could have then had a chance to raise our concerns so a solution could be worked on to minimize the disruption. Information prior to the change is always desireable and preferable to surprise changes.
Shortsightedness and a lack of business acumen is the only thing that would dictate choosing option C. Any company that expects to see year on year growth and an expanding customer base would fix the problem, not sweep it under the rug.
For a really good example of what happens when you ignore issues, please perform a Google search on CCP Games, specifically the period from around mid to late 2010, up until mid to late 2011.
They ignored serious code and hardware issues, ignored player requests for help and information regarding the product that they paid for and ended up losing a large chunk of those paying customers. Eventually the CEO had to make a public apology and begin correcting those errors. Just search for "CCP Greed is Good" or "Monoclegate".
Sig by my better half.
Show me another way to store doffs. Maximum storage right now is 400. Can't increase that even if willing to pay for it.
Greedy? decided to risk? You obviously don't understand the reason people have excess doffs. Most of these are purchased with the intent to complete starbase projects, and doesn't have anything to do with 'greed'. And I for one do not open those doff packs. Instead, I buy the individual ones from the starbase. The problem is that the projects require a specific type of doff (like medical). And purchasing them from the starbase gives an unequal drop rate. You end up with something like 5 science doffs for every 1 medical.
LOL. This doesn't change the fact that people still get stuck with a large number of doffs. Even in a large fleet where each member had to donate just 2 doffs per day (keep in mind that each of these projects require 100 medical doffs at T4), that's still 5-10 extra science doffs that each member is stuck with each day. Eventually, you still have the same problem. And if you are in a small fleet, well this is just another thing for the small fleets to complain about because each person will have more doffs to store.
If the limits placed on the mail system is for server stability or what not, they should have an alternative solution for the starbase/doff problem. Borticus did hint about changing the requirements on the projects so that it didn't need so many 'specialist' doffs. That would go a long way to quell the 'OMG Y U NERF MAIL??!?' threads.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Considering the amount of "Server Stability" patches and other work they were doing prior to the release of Legacy of Romulus, coupled with the fact that they knew they were altering the coding behind the mail system, I'd say that unless a ninja coder snuck in one night and changed the code behind their backs they had a pretty damn good idea what the changes would do.
They also knew that they should have informed the player-base beforehand. They didn't do that though, maybe because they didn't want to deal with the inevitable complaints, or because PWE told them not to. Either way, do not be so foolish as to think that they A: Had no idea what their own changes would do, or B: That they did not have ample time to let their customers know what was going to happen.
Sig by my better half.
I AM assuming Cryptics coding is good else they wouldn't have incorporated it into 2 additional games, but as the mail system in STO has been buggy for many, many months and if they knew it had programming issues and still chose to add it to other games it would indicate some negligence or outright incompetence. I would tend to rule out faulty programming as the mail problems haven't ever been this bad, at least not that I can remember. So I can only think that the common mail server is most likely the culprit, and adding a dedicated mail server for this game would be a logical fix for STO's problem as well as easing the other 2 games mail issues that are server related.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
As for making a notice about the change, I agree with other posters that this should have been done. STO gamers should be made aware of such changes. Yes, there were big changes happening in LoR and Cryptic was busy with fixing bugs and getting the content out. However, they had enough time and received enough feedback to have planned better for the release as well as notifications, including nerfs and other significant changes.
I don't think there is a viable solution to this change, especially when it comes to DOFF storage. I guess we will have to play around to see what alternatives there are. I know that I will not be using the email system as much as I once did.
If someone knows how to back up the emails, I would appreciate their voice and information. Regardless of attachments, I do have messages that I would like to keep.
Oh but there is. Change the project requirements on starbases so you don't need so many 'specialist' doffs. Basically, reduced to 'need' to store doffs in the first place.
Come join the 44th Fleet.
startrek.44thfleet.com[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
It actually hasn't been addressed. The only acknowledgement from any developer was via a 3rd party communication on twitter that the change has occurred. It has not been addressed the consequences of this change and verified that they are aware of the issue, looking into potential avenues to address the consequences of this change, or if no change is forthcoming. We don't have a post from any developer in any of these numerous threads surrounding the mail issues regarding the 100 attachment limit and the in game problems it has created.
The change was not in the patch notes. It was not explicitly tested which is somewhat shown by the horrible mail performance since the patch. It appears more related to the implimentation in Neverwinter rather than related to STO so they may not be aware of the issues. Just because your not affected, doesn't mean the decision is meaningless or doesn't have an impact.
Their change was profoundly disrespectful to the player base. Major changes to the way things function can and should have been announced to minimize many of the issues. This wasn't a new item added, it was an alteration of a long standing function in the game. Of course players don't have a veto, but there is certainly a dialog and information sharing as they may not be aware of specific impacts as they have ideas and concerns on the bigger picture.
Like most software companies, Cryptic generally releases patch notes or makes some kind of acknowledgment that the software their customers pay for has been altered. In fact, there is probably legal precedent for requiring companies offering services to make such an announcement to their paying customers when such a service is being altered.
I doubt Cryptic is attempting to deceive anyone, but there clearly has been a breakdown in communication. I can only speculate that they so far have refrained from responding as they are currently working on the issue and do not want to discuss it until they have made a final determination as to how to resolve it.