*shrugs* free to play, it always goes this way. go to make some cash somehow and power sellsOriginally Posted by LoisGriffin
there are other arguably better games for raiders, games that cater to multiple difficulty levels, have scaling raid sizes and more
yet you will continue to play Rift and Trion will continue to do what they do, slowly moving the goal posts a step at a time.
BTW Congratulations on getting people to pay $150 for your free to play game Trion. quite an achievement.
You really don't seem to understand something.
Everything you're saying is justifying the decision, as if it was made in a vacuum based only on the merits of the issue.
That's ignoring the fact that a statement was previously made, a commitment to a principle, that this action violates, and by so doing violates the 'trust' involved.
The issue isn't the wonderful case you can make why this was ok to do on the merits. The bottom line is, however much you make that case, the best you are doing is saying 'yes, we violated the standard we stated, but only in a limited way.' If you're going to do that, then at least explain that honestly and acknowledge why people are upset instead of continuing to simply argue the merits you weighed and ignoring the issue players are concerned about, the principle and the violation.
The basic issue on things like this is when a company has an interest in pleasing groups with conflicting interests - do they just tell each what they want to hear? At one point, it's to the company's advantage to tell existing players 'the best items will never be sold.' So they say that unequivocally and make that commitment. But then along comes a revenue opportunity with pressures to violate it, and so they tell those customers, 'hey, spend the money, we're giving you this extra great stuff'. And then not acknowledging the conflict.
I'm sure you are well meaning in defending it by pointing out that there actually is a commitment to follow that principle when it comes to more extreme violations. But that's not the issue, the issue is that this was a violation, even if a limited one, and you are just defending it with the merits of why you decided to do it.
(And by the way, you are not coming across honestly to me on that point. It seems to me that there is a revenue pressure to make the packages as attractive as possible to get more buyers, and in explaining the motive, in 'coming clean', you say not one word about that motive or interest - you only give the better sounding phrases like 'to help the players get ready'. [I first mistyped it as help the payers get ready, not sure I should have fixed it])
I could name any number of analogies of this sort of discussion between someone who commits a 'minor' violation of a commitment that upsets the people it was made to, and defend it by saying 'it wasn't this worse violation', and by giving reasons why it was violated. And that's missing the point of the issue.
I can say how I think some upset players are reading what you say now: "We'll tell you what you want to hear when it benefits us, and we'll break our statements when it benefits us."
I'm only being overly harsh in not qualifying the above to say "we'll break the statements we make when it benefits us, if it's not a big violation and we think we can justify it."
Now, there are times for 'extraordinary circumstances', but they should be communicated honestly. "We're going bankrupt if we continue the standard we set, and so we're changing our position" would be a legitimate and honest position, but it's not the case here. This is just trying to have it both ways, and not sounding very honest in explaining it.
I'm sure you are accurately depicting the concern you did have to respect the principle of 'not pay to win' in setting this policy, and I'm pretty sure you honestly feel that this was such a minor violation - a matter of weeks that won't help people get much advantage over others in the game, yet will have significant benefits to the game in increased revenue that will improve the game for everyone - that the benefits outweighed the problem, and you might have a great case for that.
But you should discuss it more honestly by acknowledging that it violates the statement made to players, and revise that statement to something like 'the best items will never be purchased, with rare exceptions such as in the period shortly before a new expansion for promotional purposes.' And why not admit the huge revenue pressure honestly? A lot of players understand the need for the game to have revenue and the benefits they receive from the paying players. But not being very honest about it and trying to have it both ways, well.
Congrats, now you're working for a company thats lying to its customers. Because thats the issue here, not the gear pieces themselves.
Daglar lied to us, plain and simple. It doesnt matter if its 5 weeks or 5 days, a lie is still a lie. You're right that the impact of that gear may be very small, but thats not the point. The point is he LIED about the fact that BiS gear would never be available.
Judging from his posts he even recognizes that he lied, painting the sad picture of a game lead and a company needing a little more money so desperatly that breaking their word seems to be a viable choice. So, with that move, not being able to hold that stuff for 5 weeks, you lost both your bread and your butter. Plain and simple. You're just another company lying to its customers.
And the fact that you try to weasel around this makes you look even more pathetic.
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12 pages in and still waiting for some news on a patron pass with these or some perk to a patron who pays for a longer period
what amuses me is people make fun of me for paying a sub for WoW and buying the $60 expac
if you buy the soul pack and the $150 NT pack you just spent more than I did on my next years worth of MMO and you are probably still going to shell out more on the in game store and get less actual content. add the cost of patrons on top of that if you want those perks
going back to WoW never looked better lol
^^^ I agree with this. The thing is Blizzard manipulates you in other ways. Endless time sinks designed to keep you subbing. The game quickly starts to feel like a chore just to keep up with everyone else.. And then if you stop subbing you lose access to the game completely.
For me its not really about the money per se. I just hate being manipulated into doing endless time sinks where there is an obvious motive to keep me paying a subscription. I also hate feeling like I HAVE to play a game because I am paying a sub for it. There are tons of other games (Skyrim, Starcraft II, Civ 5) that I would love to sink my teeth into but I never really have because I felt like I had to keep playing WoW since I was on a subscription.
I do ultimately agree with you that Rift is no cheaper, but you can theoretically unlock all the main components and then it becomes an MMO that you have access to without having to worry about maintaining a sub. it may not make sense in economic terms, but I still prefer it.
Not really, I paid $120 well over a year ago for Mechwarrior Online.
Retired from the forum community 12/19/2017
That is actually my real concern.
The simple fact that they are staying on the defensive trying to justify their choice with reasons we all knows arn't the real reasons.
If they could give their players an apology, the real reason behind this choice... that the company need to sell those collector editions to pay for their expense and make money.
Saying sorry for doing it would quite literally absolve them of all their sins for me and I'm sure it would for a lot of other players.
Like I said in another post, the players arn't robots. You can't talk to us like you would talk to a credit card. Players want trust and honesty from the devs. We want to know you arn't lying to us and we want you to see us as friends rather than walking dollar bills.
And if my friend was having a financial crisis, I'd do what I can to support him/her. If I cannot consider Trion as a friend, how can I even consider buying that 50$ collector edition I'm interested in? I don't want to support a company that isn't being honest with me.
Last edited by Snap; 09-04-2014 at 04:59 AM.
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Quote Originally Posted by Ocho View Post
This was highly discussed internally. If it had been 5 months it would not have happened. If the raid content had not been beaten it would not have happened. Period. This choice was made entirely given the context we are now in.
I'm not a dev, I'm a community guy. I have refused every offer in my career to go over to the dev side. I remember you from games I worked on 6 or 7 years ago. You may or may not remember me.Trust and truth are my bread and butter, because you can't lie to people over the long term. It doesn't work. I wouldn't want to work for a company that lies because lying is dumb.
Daglar, myself, others who were involved in this decision making process (and they did bounce it off me before making the final decision) all looked at exactly where we were when we decided to do this. He said directly to me "if the content wasn't clear, if we were 3 months out, we wouldn't have done this". And I agree with that. /quote
So how many guilds have actually fully cleared all t3 content and have it on farm?
Originally Posted by Daglar View Post
Well, if this is something that makes you not want to play RIFT any longer, I wish you the best in your future endeavors. There are many great choices out on the market - its a very competitive landscape which is really great for gamers. Of course, as RIFT is free to play, you can return at any time you like in the future, Telara will be here waiting for you.
We thought long and hard about pre-releasing the items that we did. I very much expected to see at least a few threads claiming that this is pay to win and yet another step on the slippery slope.
My thoughts are pretty straight forward on the matter: The expansion is weeks away. The raid tier has been defeated - the major race is over. While the only way to earn these items today is by purchasing a digital CE they are available by playing Nightmare Tide when it is released.
By allowing people to upgrade their existing gear early, we can further encourage people to keep playing the existing content for a bit longer - or in some cases - take an actual crack at it with slightly better gear than they had before.You may choose to disagree with my reasoning as is your right, but there it is.~Daglar
Should probably stop telling your customers to f off if they don't like something, it really isn't great business practice.
I think it's a great shame that Trion didn't seem to get any community or independent views on what should or shouldn't be in the upgrade packs. It's clear that fairly minor details, such as the 'P2W' upgrades, the confusion over loyalty, and the lack of any Patron status, were not set in stone and could have been done differently. Trion can say that they struggled with the decisions and weighed things up, but as has been said, the game doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Instead of most people excited about the expansion, most people seem let down and annoyed. I think all of this could so easily have been avoided, and that the general reactions have made it clear that some completely unnecessary mistakes have been made.
When you had to pay to play then that was reasonable .. times have changed.
You don't need more slots to play.
What effort does leveling 1-60 actually require .. at all .. ever?
Hint: you get no kudos for having one 60, let alone 9, it doesn't take 'effort', simply hours logged gets you there unless you sit in town all day.
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