Some VERY valid points. There ARE serious issues with some hardware/drivers, why else NO music?? Trykers are getting a bit of a beating, or why else the HUGE influx into other races space (which by the way, I was in Pyr the night they arrived, and we Fyros offically welcomed them to our town, which I thought was great!).
BUT remember what ever game/s you played before this one...Remember a patch or expansion that was RUSHED into game...Remember the patch for the patch of the patch for the patch of the patch? I remember patch days in EQ, the STATED server down time was TWO hours. Server went down at FOUR am Central time, went back up at *drum roll* 6 pm Central time. And had to come down 40 minutes later WITH a roll back due to pathing issue that was a HUGE exploit.
I would rather see this Dev team test the STUFFING out of a major patch...which is all you can CALL patch one (or they would NOT be calling it that), than to just SLAP the code together...call it a patch and watch us all lose gear...lose LEVELS...fall through the earth, have mobs fall through the earth and be able to kill us, without us being able to SEE them, let alone HIT them. (Yep had everyONE of those things happen to me in EQ).
I can't speak about the "for a year" part, that was before MY beta time started (I only LEARNED about it in the last month, or I woulda applied MUCH earlier). But I know that from concept to completion, things change. And things that are concidered a bug...like the way that root, stun, fear etc work is a "bug" to some players. Those are working as intended, but players don't understand HOW they work, so they just say BUG and be done with it.
YES, the Tyker mats issue, and a few others really REALLY need top priority attention. BUT I played a Tryker in beta, ONLY a Tryker, and would LOVE to play one again, so...I would rather them fix it RIGHT than see them goof it.
You HAVE to remember that the devs are French. They THINK like their culture thinks. Remember...fine wine, good cheese, GREAT art work and fashion...NONE of that is born in ONE day. They would rather take the time to do it right, or not do it at ALL. And I can't blaim them at all.
I am not saying this game is FINISHED, or perfect. All I am saying is, I can SEE it moving in the right direction. I have HOPE of it BECOMING as perfect as ANY game can be. And I SEE them listening, which is MUCH more than I can say for any game...including a the ones I betaed.
Nothing is more disheartening than betaing a game, and turning in bug report and "peculiar happenings, is this a bug?" reports and not EVEN getting a form letter stating that the email GOT to their box...much less a letter later in the week stating thank you for your report. Or stating a lag issue and the devs either NOT hearing you, or stating..."we have looked into the lag and found it to NOT be our troubles...please call your ISP to fix YOUR lag or defrag your hard drive" o.0 Yep I had a game that posted THAT on their forum (followed by the sound of player base STAMPEDING away).
This game, if you send in a ticket IN GAME. You normally...on average have LESS than a minute wait before a LIVE gm actually discusses the issue with you. If you need them present POOF, there they are. In Earth and Beyond...you got an IN game Email and after TWO tickets in ONE night. you got a WARNING not to send any more. If you had an issue that needed IN game help, you have to send an email and wait in game. Sometimes...you NEVER got a reply...to the email...in game or NOT.
Horizons is STARTING to improve, but it is about a year too late. I know of MANY players that hung their star on that game and stuck it out for a year or more with them. But they just could NOT take all the issues, some of which they are just NOW getting to, and some of which there is NO ETA...*cough* dragon lairs *cough*. I left when I got sick of being an over glorified cat form ROAD CONSTRUCTION WORKER. *vent over* (when I saw a bridge COMPLETED in the Pyr mainland area...I almost wept for joy).
I am not foolish enough, nor do I think ANY of us joy singers (fan boi IF you MUST) are foolish enough to think OR say that the game doesn't need a few things, or even MANY things...come to think of it...I would like a few more nodes, maybe closer together on the mainlands...ALL of them. And I would LOVE for the resource tracking to say something like Node is 50 m TO THE LEFT OR to the NORTH from your loc, etc.
BUT I will NOT be folding up camp and leaving this game...not this month...not next month...not the month after that or after that. I have seen HUGE improvements all around from the SHORT time I have betaed/played post release that have told me that ANY waiting I have to do will NOT be in vain. I honestly do NOT see these devs sitting in their office sipping French coffee and smoking and reading forums LAUGHING at us. I COULD SEE THE EQ devs doing that (and playing with their leather gear too, sadistic JERKS).
Maybe there ARE a few rosey pathed peeps that see this game as perfect, but they will bump into a bug or two that they can't ignore(like my daughter getting ported from Fyros noobland to Matis noobland, but the DEAR child thought COOOL, now I can learn THEIR armor. Just like her to take a lemon and open a lemonaid stand). And prolly like me, report it and realize...it isn't ruining my FUN.
And as far as learning curve...why do you think that my Fryos stayed in NOOB land until level 57 forager??? I helped as MANY noobies as I possibly could. But there just comes a time when you just HAVE to step out of the kiddie pool and turn your life guard whistle over to the younger...but still experienced players and move ON. I see it as my duty to help others...kind of helping Karma since I was helped. And I would HOPE that those that HAD a clue would be willing to share it with others. (heck I even FREELY give out choice mat node locations, even if others are a tad STINGY with that info)
And did you EVER read the EQ manual?? I did...for COMIC relief. That MAP that they put in the Kunark release...the fabric one...had areas on it that were NOT in game(and STILL aren't in game, as of a year ago when I left, more than FOUR years after the shipping of that map). I spent a WEEK looking for one that was noted on Faydwer, when I told my guild (which I joined that game due to them moving to EQ) they LAUGHED at me. From then on, EVERY expanision, I read the manual, and then used it for FIRE KINDLING. (most of the EQ manual was their storyline...which eventually you learned in game was NOT the same as in the manual OR the manual was just plain WRONG from the game. The Pima guide...was WORSE...since I paid 20 BUCKS for the blinking thing, and it was JUST as much MISinformation.)
I think we NA players have a "looking for Mr. Good Game" syndrome going on here. And I am NOT innocent of this condition. We pick and chose what we LIKE from each game and throw them all together into a blender...hit FRAPE and come up with "THE GAME" and see it...nice and neat in our immaginations, COMPLETE and FINISHED...from the box. Only thing NEEDED to patch in would lightly be called tweeks, hardly noticable in our rose colored glasses game time. We forget that even in a FANTASY...reality sticks its nose in, in other words...Mr Good Game is like Mr. Right. Eventually you have to realize that Mr. Not So Bad is just GOING to HAVE to do. And what you THINK is Mr Right could be Mr. Got a GOOD Mask On.
Short version...as I have posted before...She aint perfect...but concidering ALL that is out there...and ALL that will BE out there in the next year's time. I am home. I won't be moving to WOW (too cartoony for me, MATTE colors like a comic book, and how can you take a game with DANCING ORCS seriously???!!! And EQ2, well Sony can CRAWL up the three flights of stairs to my door with a FREE copy and four YEARS of free game time and I wouldn't open the door to take it. Sony has a LONG history of giving NOT one Iota of concern about what players WANT in a game. They only care about ONE thing...keep them hooked and pump them DRY.
usinuk wrote:There are definitely two sides to this.
There are players who just like to complain. They pay their $14.95 a month and are just malajusted...so be it. I tend not to read the 'goodbye' posts on any MMORPG, or the 'I can't level fast enough so the game must be broken' ones. Waaah.
There are also players who cannot acknowledge there is anything wrong with the game. Those I have equal problems with. We've seen hardcore forum policing (a number of locked and deleted threads on rude customer service), a plethora of bugs and play issues that have been around for the better part of a year with no ETA to be fixed, arguably the worst marketing launch in MMORPG history (just love the fact I took effort to get the game early and as a reward I can't use an Elder of Atys title that I could have gotten if I waited a week), zero communication from the real powers that be (if you claim to know what the game will look like in 6 months and have a direct line to senior devs rather than their mouthpieces, raise your hand. Yep, thought so), along with a learning curve that is simply vicious with little effort by Nevrax to help newbies (yep, there are 5 basic sources of skill points per the manual!) - and there's nothing wrong?
This is a great game, and I've spent way too many hours playing it so far. And I'm happy to be here.
But there are some really legit concerns that many of us have, and ducking one's head in the sand isn't constructive either. Many of the latter 'the game is wonderful' types would love to censor everyone else - and if not, just flame them until they get tired of posting, which is effectively the same thing - and that's not good. The tone taken by the OP and many of the original responders felt to me at least like that kind of censorship in large degree is good, and that's just plain wrong.
