Re: Free Trial Open to the Public
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 3:11 am
Finally! A soul who understands my pain! and consequent anger!
Hey don't get me wrong, I totally agree on alot of the issues at hand here and I think you make alot of valid points and I can also understand and sympathize with people being upset. What I don't agree with is some peoples need to jump all over something and ranting and raving about it before even giving a chance to fix it (yes yes I know the mistake shouldn't of happened to begin with). Treating others as beating posts does not do any good. It has been stated in some posts that complaining is a good thing, and I agree. Otherwise there may be things that get missed and potential good players/customers lost. But there's no need to be insulting and degrading as some people have been. And ok ok we all realize yes they should of waited to release the patch until it was at least alot closer to being right than it was, but look at how quickly they fixed it unlike EQ for example and yet they have more than 5 years of experience backing them. And just to clarify, I am not saying people should have to deal with undue stresses of a game, but they do want to keep us as customers and they do listen to us, so just keep that in mind. I am sure they learned a big lesson from this.drech wrote:First let me just say I'm hopeful for Ryzom in the future.
Just to clarify, there are bugs and then there are gameplay mechanics.
If the damage your weapon does gets partially displayed in the system window, it's a bug if the actual damage is still correctly calculated for the encounter.
Changing the way your weapon does damage during an enounter to something different than it was before, that's a modification to gameplay mechanics.
It is completely acceptable for a company to tweak and change the former. It is not acceptable for them to do the latter, post-release. It's their software and one could argue they can do anything they want. They can. So can players.
A company who adds new zones, armor, weapons, etc. to the game after release is adding content. This is expected (no, demanded) from the playerbase.
A company that negates the accomplishments of player-characters attained before adding content is modifying the gameplay mechanics. This is a no-no. You can see the result of such a situation right here (leveled crafting trees).
To the quote, I understand you like the game. So do I. But I have to say, the company is repeating the mistakes made by other companies in the past. Why? Does it really take first-hand failures to know what works and what doesn't?
If I look at the situation from the dev's perspective, I would say any arguments about this being their first MMO, etc. are indeed valid IF it takes first-hand failures to gain the necessary skills to run a game of this type. I just don't see how they can't know to stop a patch with far-reaching changes that negates the accomplishments of current players. How can they believe that it's ok? Look at the flame-fests on other games' boards. The information is out there. Ignorance on their part can't possibly be an excuse because the net is peppered with reviews, rantings, etc. And frankly, I think devs in general are pretty wicked smart people (the ones I know anyway).
From the players perspective, I see gamers who have paid good money time and time again for games that are buggy, have no content, don't work with popular hardware, etc. Given the craptastic titles offered to us these days, is it any wonder why we react the way we do? In large part, the negative environment is created by game companies that try to peddle crap so they can rake in your cash as fast as possible and bail.
I don't believe Nevrax is such a company. But I do believe gamers don't care that Nevrax isn't such a company.
All game companies are to blame, but none individually are to blame, if you catch my meaning. The only consistent entity in all this is the player.
The player takes the brunt everytime.
The player gets 300 hours of crafting flushed when they reset his desired outcome into a different skill tree.
The player has to deal with skills not affecting mobs in the world after he spent hundreds of hours attaining them.
The player has to work off the DP created by an environment that isn't working and is (was) unplayable.
Finally, it's up to the player to decide if it's still worth having his accomplishments washed away, his man-hours trivialized, his fun ground away working off DP, etc., even if you think the premise of the game is solid, as I do.
Not to Nevrax specifically, but I think gamers are tired of being milked by companies who seemingly believe it's ok to throw dung at us and charge for it. The ride is over. Gaming consumers expect results.
