First, let us take a moment to read this: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/customer?qsrc=2888 Then, read this: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/potential?qsrc=2888 After doing a little research and studying for yourself, you should now have the knowledge that a potential customer and customer are actually two different things. Having said that, people should now see why this poll is flawed. Furthermore, let's look at business in terms of this, because Aventurine is actually a business. If someone walked into McDonald's and bought a hamburger one day, came in the next day and tried to buy a hamburger again but couldn't because they didn't get served or the line was to long and the company ran out, they then leave and never come back again, McDonald's lost that customer and a potential sale. However, if they come back the next day and buy another hamburger (or ever again), McDonald's has only lost a potential sale. Now, if you bought the game and then decided to cancel your subscription, Darkfall has now lost a customer. You are not a customer until you actually bought the game. Until then you are a potential customer.
Should we let them pass this point ..and not make distinction between potential and actual customer ?
look what would we win on the other hand ..the claim DarkFall has min 356,135 (official forum number) customers would be then true ; ) I would use it in any number threads then ..
Well, I come to these forums to try and sift through information about the game that is real, not some fluff trolling/hate crap. Unfortunately, that is what I'm greeted by so I'll take a few minutes to point this out. I'm called a fanboi by many, even though I have my own criticism about the game, just because I call them out on their absurdity.
I lost interest when i realized that it wouldnt have a bunch of the features that originally sucked me into this forum. Hey, speaking of logic: Deth and Darth, what would be the logical explaination for having NPC hirelings, and setting up caravans as a merchant, on the home page as features in the game..? For at least 8 months, and still there a week after launch? Since you seem to be hardcore logical people...
Well, besides being something completely irrelevant to this subject, I'll have to say that Aventurine not updating their www.darkfallonline.com website is a negative thing about them. I agree 100% with the criticism people have of them because it's dated and hasn't changed for many years. From a business standpoint, it does yell unprofessional, but in terms of the gameplay and how fun it is, it has no bearing whatsoever. Note: I haven't played the game so I couldn't say if it's good or not.
However, even though I shouldn't have to argue that potential customer and customer are two different things, it's about comprehension and knowing the meaning of them. Honestly, this is really a result of our educational system deteriorating.
How is nitpicking the choice of words of the OP relevant, when you know very well what he meant?
Damn, I really thought you were a hardcore logical person, but it seems you didnt even come up with a logical theory to the home page issue, you just avoided the question entirely... ah well...
Nitpicking. Potential customer and customer are two entirely different things, even if indirectly related.
I avoided the question entirely? Wow. Maybe you should take another moment to read the first paragraph of my post in response to yours. Wow, has reading comprehension gone so bad people cannot even read the first paragraph of a post?
This thread is becoming EPIC in terms of stupidity.
Going back and forth over a "technicality" does not take away from the subject at hand.
The OP made a mistake in the Thread topic and the poll, it should say
"Has darkfall lost any of you as a customer or potential customer"
But that is still just a technicality.
They do stand for different things, but from a business standpoint of AV, I am sure all 5 of them or however many they have would agree that a customer and a potential customer are both important.
From a business standpoint, the "potential customer" is more important that the customer who has already purchased your product.
For a customer it is easy, you already have their money, nothing further needed to do. You got um hook line and sinker, wether they stick around or not doesn't matter, you got what you wanted from them, in this case the initial $50 bucks.
However you can't build on success without the potential customer.
Everyone who plays DF at this time was at one point a potential customer. What seperates you from the other is that you got in. You paid. Good for you. AV doesn't care about you anymore.
What AV SHOULD want, but by their track record over the last 2 weeks are incapable of getting, is the influx of potential customers to increase their dismal cash flow.
So the "potential customer" is paramount. It is the key to it all.
Many of the successful games in terms of money built their empire off of the potential customer tactic. They knew early on that to make obscene amounts of money, you have to treat the entire world as a potential customer, add incentives, give the people what they want and they will come.
AV hasn't caught on to this business practice it seems.
Anyway, enough bickering, I only suggest the OP change the topic and poll to say customer and potential customer.
Current players are customers, if you quit they lost a customer, and loss that monthly fee even though they got you for $50.
Potential customers are what companies want, if you can't provide them a service or what they need you lose them. Problem is you didn't get their $50, and you lost the potential to get it.
So in essence, the potential is more important than the customer. From the looks of it AV lost WAY MORE potential customers than they have paying customers, which doesn't look very good for the business model.
I lost interest when i realized that it wouldnt have a bunch of the features that originally sucked me into this forum. Hey, speaking of logic: Deth and Darth, what would be the logical explaination for having NPC hirelings, and setting up caravans as a merchant, on the home page as features in the game..? For at least 8 months, and still there a week after launch? Since you seem to be hardcore logical people...
Well, besides being something completely irrelevant to this subject, I'll have to say that Aventurine not updating their www.darkfallonline.com website is a negative thing about them. I agree 100% with the criticism people have of them because it's dated and hasn't changed for many years. From a business standpoint, it does yell unprofessional, but in terms of the gameplay and how fun it is, it has no bearing whatsoever. Note: I haven't played the game so I couldn't say if it's good or not.
However, even though I shouldn't have to argue that potential customer and customer are two different things, it's about comprehension and knowing the meaning of them. Honestly, this is really a result of our educational system deteriorating.
How is nitpicking the choice of words of the OP relevant, when you know very well what he meant?
Damn, I really thought you were a hardcore logical person, but it seems you didnt even come up with a logical theory to the home page issue, you just avoided the question entirely... ah well...
Nitpicking. Potential customer and customer are two entirely different things, even if indirectly related.
I avoided the question entirely? Wow. Maybe you should take another moment to read the first paragraph of my post in response to yours. Wow, has reading comprehension gone so bad people cannot even read the first paragraph of a post?
So now youre dropping to trying to insult me. Good to know what kind of person you actually are, and funny that you should mention reading comprehension. Here, I'll help you along then:
"What would be the logical explaination for having NPC hirelings, and setting up caravans as a merchant, on the home page as features in the game..?"
That was the question in my post ; I asked for a logical explaination for it, and you didnt even come up with a theory. Instead you came up with something like "ye, thats not very good," and then went on ranting definitions when its pretty safe to assume that you understand what the OP meant. So youre practically trolling, good for you i guess...
This thread is becoming EPIC in terms of stupidity. Yes it is. Especially when you have to argue there is a difference between customer and potential customer. Going back and forth over a "technicality" does not take away from the subject at hand. The OP made a mistake in the Thread topic and the poll, it should say "Has darkfall lost any of you as a customer or potential customer" But that is still just a technicality. In this case, it's important to point out that technicality. The reason is people could easily assume that this poll reflects the opinions of people who have actually bought and 'played' the game. They do stand for different things, but from a business standpoint of AV, I am sure all 5 of them or however many they have would agree that a customer and a potential customer are both important. From a business standpoint, the "potential customer" is more important that the customer who has already purchased your product. Honestly, most of the potential money that an MMO can make is through subscription so I think you're wrong on this one. I think they are both equally important. For a customer it is easy, you already have their money, nothing further needed to do. You got um hook line and sinker, wether they stick around or not doesn't matter, you got what you wanted from them, in this case the initial $50 bucks. important. However you can't build on success without the potential customer. Everyone who plays DF at this time was at one point a potential customer. What seperates you from the other is that you got in. You paid. Good for you. AV doesn't care about you anymore. What AV SHOULD want, but by their track record over the last 2 weeks are incapable of getting, is the influx of potential customers to increase their dismal cash flow. So the "potential customer" is paramount. It is the key to it all. Many of the successful games in terms of money built their empire off of the potential customer tactic. They knew early on that to make obscene amounts of money, you have to treat the entire world as a potential customer, add incentives, give the people what they want and they will come. AV hasn't caught on to this business practice it seems.
Anyway, enough bickering, I only suggest the OP change the topic and poll to say customer and potential customer. Current players are customers, if you quit they lost a customer, and loss that monthly fee even though they got you for $50. Potential customers are what companies want, if you can't provide them a service or what they need you lose them. Problem is you didn't get their $50, and you lost the potential to get it. So in essence, the potential is more important than the customer. From the looks of it AV lost WAY MORE potential customers than they have paying customers, which doesn't look very good for the business model.
Technicality, or not, it can be very misleading if left as is. It implies that the poll reflects the opinion of people who have actually bought the game and now no longer play it, giving the impression to people (who haven't bought it yet but might want to) that it accurately reflects that.
This thread is becoming EPIC in terms of stupidity. Going back and forth over a "technicality" does not take away from the subject at hand. The OP made a mistake in the Thread topic and the poll, it should say "Has darkfall lost any of you as a customer or potential customer" But that is still just a technicality. They do stand for different things, but from a business standpoint of AV, I am sure all 5 of them or however many they have would agree that a customer and a potential customer are both important. From a business standpoint, the "potential customer" is more important that the customer who has already purchased your product. For a customer it is easy, you already have their money, nothing further needed to do. You got um hook line and sinker, wether they stick around or not doesn't matter, you got what you wanted from them, in this case the initial $50 bucks. However you can't build on success without the potential customer. Everyone who plays DF at this time was at one point a potential customer. What seperates you from the other is that you got in. You paid. Good for you. AV doesn't care about you anymore. What AV SHOULD want, but by their track record over the last 2 weeks are incapable of getting, is the influx of potential customers to increase their dismal cash flow. So the "potential customer" is paramount. It is the key to it all. Many of the successful games in terms of money built their empire off of the potential customer tactic. They knew early on that to make obscene amounts of money, you have to treat the entire world as a potential customer, add incentives, give the people what they want and they will come. AV hasn't caught on to this business practice it seems.
Anyway, enough bickering, I only suggest the OP change the topic and poll to say customer and potential customer. Current players are customers, if you quit they lost a customer, and loss that monthly fee even though they got you for $50. Potential customers are what companies want, if you can't provide them a service or what they need you lose them. Problem is you didn't get their $50, and you lost the potential to get it. So in essence, the potential is more important than the customer. From the looks of it AV lost WAY MORE potential customers than they have paying customers, which doesn't look very good for the business model.
^^^^^^^^this i concur 100%.
MMORPG played in order played: Sims Online, WoW, CoX, EQ2, LinksRealm, LOTRO,TOR...and counting
No idea why you are arguing over a customer vs. potential customer anyway. This pole is in no way, shape, or form going to be accurate no matter what verbage is used.
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HhusskCity of Heroes CorrespondentMemberPosts: 219
Not that it would matter, but it seems that a lot of you would have been fine if Darkfall had just said "limited beta" starting February 25th and continued letting people in every week until everyone that wanted to play, was in the game.
And then they could have said "Release".
It's all a matter of perspective. And one fellow stated it correctly; there's a difference between a customer and a potential customer.
The fact that this poll is open to people who never intended to play Darkfall is ridiculous.
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This thread is becoming EPIC in terms of stupidity. Yes it is. Especially when you have to argue there is a difference between customer and potential customer. Going back and forth over a "technicality" does not take away from the subject at hand. The OP made a mistake in the Thread topic and the poll, it should say "Has darkfall lost any of you as a customer or potential customer" But that is still just a technicality. In this case, it's important to point out that technicality. The reason is people could easily assume that this poll reflects the opinions of people who have actually bought and 'played' the game. Like I said, it could stand to be changed, but most people took it for what it was and grouped customer with potential customer, not matter how you cut it, if you lose a paying customer or a potential customer it is bad either way.
They do stand for different things, but from a business standpoint of AV, I am sure all 5 of them or however many they have would agree that a customer and a potential customer are both important. From a business standpoint, the "potential customer" is more important that the customer who has already purchased your product. Honestly, most of the potential money that an MMO can make is through subscription so I think you're wrong on this one. I think they are both equally important. This I still have to disagree with you on this one. For this reason.
Sure if you were able to get 5000 people in game for 6 months, and each paid you the $50 retail price and $15 a month you made $700,000.00.
5000 x 50 = 250000
5000 x 15 x 6 = 450000
= 700,000.00
But
If you had 5000 players and lost 5000 more potential customers due to your poor business practices.
POTENTIAL MONEY
10000 x 50 = $500,000.00
10000 x 15 x 6 = $900,000.00
= $1,400,000.00
ACTUAL MONEY DUE TO LOSS OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMER
10000 x 50 = $500,000.00 10000 x 15 x 6 = $900,000.00 = $1,400,000.00 - $700,000.00 = $700,000.00
Don't know about you, but a loss of 700k potential profit would be enough to make me think the potential customer is more important.
For a customer it is easy, you already have their money, nothing further needed to do. You got um hook line and sinker, wether they stick around or not doesn't matter, you got what you wanted from them, in this case the initial $50 bucks. important. However you can't build on success without the potential customer. Everyone who plays DF at this time was at one point a potential customer. What seperates you from the other is that you got in. You paid. Good for you. AV doesn't care about you anymore. What AV SHOULD want, but by their track record over the last 2 weeks are incapable of getting, is the influx of potential customers to increase their dismal cash flow. So the "potential customer" is paramount. It is the key to it all. Many of the successful games in terms of money built their empire off of the potential customer tactic. They knew early on that to make obscene amounts of money, you have to treat the entire world as a potential customer, add incentives, give the people what they want and they will come. AV hasn't caught on to this business practice it seems.
Anyway, enough bickering, I only suggest the OP change the topic and poll to say customer and potential customer. Current players are customers, if you quit they lost a customer, and loss that monthly fee even though they got you for $50. Potential customers are what companies want, if you can't provide them a service or what they need you lose them. Problem is you didn't get their $50, and you lost the potential to get it. So in essence, the potential is more important than the customer. From the looks of it AV lost WAY MORE potential customers than they have paying customers, which doesn't look very good for the business model.
Technicality, or not, it can be very misleading if left as is. It implies that the poll reflects the opinion of people who have actually bought the game and now no longer play it, giving the impression to people (who haven't bought it yet but might want to) that it accurately reflects that.
Well I think he thought most people would understand the underlined meaning of his/her thread. When I read it, I took it as customer AND potential customers, because honestly they are just 2 forms of the same thing. They both = money in the end of things.
He/She could stand to make the change to the topic and poll, but I am pretty the OP ment both, did you buy it and quit and did you want to buy it and just said screw it.
All you haters need to chill out, the game is gonna be great. The only reason all these problems are arising is because they have TOO many orders going for their rather small company to handle. Just wait a few weeks and everyone will have a game. Or if you all dont wanna wait then ill gladly step in and take your copy. The game isnt going anywhere and we just need to throw them a bone here and quit bitching.
There was one response above who asked what folks would post if AV took peoples money and they then found that the servers couldn't cope but lets go with the burger joint analogy.
You enter the burger joint, pay your money to the cashier and the server then tells you to come back next week when they have another delivery of burgers. Oh wait it would be wah wah AV sold my money.
Or maybe they put up lots of servers, sold 800k copies and then when 70% left after the first c. month the posts would have been: wah, wah servers are dead AV isn't doing enough to consolidate them. (The approach that cost Funcom $1.9M in unused server fees in Q4 and another $1.9M this quarter).
Now some folks may prefer companies that take your money for an unfinished product. Some folks may prefer a company that sells as many copies as it can and then shuts down, consolidates, mergers nearly all of its server. Me I think AV is doing OK so far. They have sold (according to AV) thousands of keys each day that sales have been up. Sales are open again Monday. Chill.
Maybe its the few years I worked in retail when I was younger. But Everyone in your building, domain whatever is a customer.
Like someone said on page 2 or 3 I think, anyone you come in contact with is a customer. I think alot of people are confusing Customer with potential Buyer. A customer doesnt have to buy anything to be called and treated like a "customer" in retail.
AV and the game was in negative debt before the billing non sense. Now everytime I see the little rush in this little fake supply and demand excercise.. well a little more debt gets added.
Whatever redeeming features the game has... the billing is just stupid.
I only read the first and second post of this thread and all I have to say is:
How in the fucking world can you "not trust" the company because they only allow a few hundred~thousand people buy the game? If they really wanted to screw you out of all our money they could simply open up unlimited sales and let us all buy the game, let the server crash, and take a few weeks to fix the servers, if ever.
I only read the first and second post of this thread and all I have to say is: How in the fucking world can you "not trust" the company because they only allow a few hundred~thousand people buy the game? If they really wanted to screw you out of all our money they could simply open up unlimited sales and let us all buy the game, let the server crash, and take a few weeks to fix the servers, if ever. Logic <- it's good to have and use.
Logic would also say you would stress test your game on similar if not the SAME hardware you will go for the release. AV never did this. Though Tasos implied bots were doing the testing. What is his background in anyways ? Dentistry ? I know I need my teeth fixing after this joke of a launch.
Oh and Logic and aventurine also don't mix.
(Also they don't even have capacity for billing and doing a scam type load everyone in scernrio. There billing goes down after like 3 mins of it going up. )
3 pages of troll haters pretending to be potential customers, how pathetic and shows how desperate the trolls really are after everything they predicted was proven to be totally wrong.
Thousands are in game now, thousands more will be, your whining is irrelevant because we don't need you, Darkfall is allready a massive success without you and its only getting strounger each day.
If your not dedicated , patient and hardcore enough to manage to get your order then you are simply not worthy enough to play Darkfall because you are too weak and would not last 5 mins in game anyway.
I don't blame Aventurine because they are a small Indy company trying their best for us under totally exceptional and completely unpredictable circumstances, personally I blame all the troll haters overloading the order website pretending to buy the game but really trying to prevent the true fans from getting the game.
Stop whining and go back to your carebare games where you can pay your money and make an account in 5 mins and then just start playing straight away with no problems, instead of waiting hours, days and weeks entering your details and refreshing a website just for the chance that you might be able to pay them your money for the possibility of playing what surely must be the best game ever if the servers are up and they have finally managed to successfully charge your credit card and also found the time to authorize your account.
To the troll haters saying this is the worst release ever, I say you know nothing, all MMO's have problems at launch, you are just ignorant, I think this is the best launch ever because only the truly worthy fans are getting to play the game and all the troll hater whiners have been excluded because of Aventurines revolutionary ground breaking advanced exclusive secret pre order for early access stress test launch and limited staged availability pay for beta commercial release.
I'm italian so customer may be different from italian word in terms of meaning...
In Italy a potential customer is not a customer, but someone that could buy my product... A customer is an owner of the product, so customer care is about who had bought the product, not the potential customer, maybe in USA is different and you have customer care if you are only a potential customer too...
So, the question is: Are you still a potential customer?
3 pages of troll haters pretending to be potential customers, how pathetic and shows how desperate the trolls really are after everything they predicted was proven to be totally wrong. Thousands are in game now, thousands more will be, your whining is irrelevant because we don't need you, Darkfall is allready a massive success without you and its only getting strounger each day. If your not dedicated , patient and hardcore enough to manage to get your order then you are simply not worthy enough to play Darkfall because you are too weak and would not last 5 mins in game anyway. I don't blame Aventurine because they are a small Indy company trying their best for us under totally exceptional and completely unpredictable circumstances, personally I blame all the troll haters overloading the order website pretending to buy the game but really trying to prevent the true fans from getting the game. Stop whining and go back to your carebare games where you can pay your money and make an account in 5 mins and then just start playing straight away with no problems, instead of waiting hours, days and weeks entering your details and refreshing a website just for the chance that you might be able to pay them your money for the possibility of playing what surely must be the best game ever if the servers are up and they have finally managed to successfully charge your credit card and also found the time to authorize your account. To the troll haters saying this is the worst release ever, I say you know nothing, all MMO's have problems at launch, you are just ignorant, I think this is the best launch ever because only the truly worthy fans are getting to play the game and all the troll hater whiners have been excluded because of Aventurines revolutionary ground breaking advanced exclusive secret pre order for early access stress test launch and limited staged availability pay for beta commercial release.
So what do you have voted ? The wall of text misses the point this topic was for ..
Has DarkFall and its Community now the piece of luck to finally lost you as customer ?
I had the feeling after you found out Aventurine is 100% BS'ing about the game weeks ago, had the same feeling after your review about your 5 minutes in game experience and then you continue to give me same feeling again now with your "5 minutes ready account" in the carebear game ..your posts become deja vu..it could be DarkFAll has even lost you 3 years ago as customer but that had not hold you back from voting in this poll ..right ?
Will it this time be true and Aventurine has the merry burden to miss you for good ? Or will it be again 100% BS 'ing on your part?
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3 pages of troll haters pretending to be potential customers, how pathetic and shows how desperate the trolls really are after everything they predicted was proven to be totally wrong. Thousands are in game now, thousands more will be, your whining is irrelevant because we don't need you, Darkfall is allready a massive success without you and its only getting strounger each day. If your not dedicated , patient and hardcore enough to manage to get your order then you are simply not worthy enough to play Darkfall because you are too weak and would not last 5 mins in game anyway. I don't blame Aventurine because they are a small Indy company trying their best for us under totally exceptional and completely unpredictable circumstances, personally I blame all the troll haters overloading the order website pretending to buy the game but really trying to prevent the true fans from getting the game. Stop whining and go back to your carebare games where you can pay your money and make an account in 5 mins and then just start playing straight away with no problems, instead of waiting hours, days and weeks entering your details and refreshing a website just for the chance that you might be able to pay them your money for the possibility of playing what surely must be the best game ever if the servers are up and they have finally managed to successfully charge your credit card and also found the time to authorize your account. To the troll haters saying this is the worst release ever, I say you know nothing, all MMO's have problems at launch, you are just ignorant, I think this is the best launch ever because only the truly worthy fans are getting to play the game and all the troll hater whiners have been excluded because of Aventurines revolutionary ground breaking advanced exclusive secret pre order for early access stress test launch and limited staged availability pay for beta commercial release.
Half of you think you have a valid opinion because you WANT to buy the game (you dont)and the other half know exactly what the OP is asking but choose to analyze his question like lawyers scrutinizing a multi million dollar contract.
Has Aventurine lost me as a customer? LOL they never had me as a potential customer. After I did some research on this game and company I knew how it was going to turn out. I sort of even predicted these billing and order problems people are having.
The only way Darkfall will gain me as a customer is if a credible company takes over. Although the way this "release" is going, I think that Darkfall Online will soon become a part of SOE's Station service.
Well, I did not vote because I had no plan on buying the game. But the wording of the question makes it clear he is speaking about people who tried to buy the game but could not. It specifically references the billing system. How could the billing system make people who had already successfully paid be lost? It is obvious the intent of the poll is "Did you try to buy the game and fail, so in frustration, give up?'
The game has not been out long enough to lose people through them not resubbing, so all this verbal dodging by fanboys to try to invalidate the poll based on one word is pointless. It could not possibly mean what you are saying it means.
Gameplay seems prehistoric and meaningless for me. I m a PVPer but PVP doesnt mean stupid games. Think about DAOC WWIIONLINE or Eve... I hate griefers and macro'ers, they ALWAYS kill servers and games/.
But the world seems huge and has an "explorer " i'd like to discover it
I can' t put my Mastercard N° on this crappy billing system, the worst i saw in my life. I play MMOs, I buy items, music, instruments, computers, etc by internet. NEVER SAW SUCH A THING
What's that ?
What's that ?
Can we call this a e-store ? really ?
This system is for CAREBEARS, I mean Real Carebears In Real Life, dreamers and fanboys.
They need something PROFESSIONAL like Paypal,if AV can pay Paypal fees...
I voted yes, was really looking forward to this game, but the way there handling this game now, dont think i'll bother. give it a few months till it shuts down.
lol they already said they can survive with 1 server
Comments
Should we let them pass this point ..and not make distinction between potential and actual customer ?
look what would we win on the other hand ..the claim DarkFall has min 356,135 (official forum number) customers would be then true ; ) I would use it in any number threads then ..
Well, I come to these forums to try and sift through information about the game that is real, not some fluff trolling/hate crap. Unfortunately, that is what I'm greeted by so I'll take a few minutes to point this out. I'm called a fanboi by many, even though I have my own criticism about the game, just because I call them out on their absurdity.
splat
Well, besides being something completely irrelevant to this subject, I'll have to say that Aventurine not updating their www.darkfallonline.com website is a negative thing about them. I agree 100% with the criticism people have of them because it's dated and hasn't changed for many years. From a business standpoint, it does yell unprofessional, but in terms of the gameplay and how fun it is, it has no bearing whatsoever. Note: I haven't played the game so I couldn't say if it's good or not.
However, even though I shouldn't have to argue that potential customer and customer are two different things, it's about comprehension and knowing the meaning of them. Honestly, this is really a result of our educational system deteriorating.
How is nitpicking the choice of words of the OP relevant, when you know very well what he meant?
Damn, I really thought you were a hardcore logical person, but it seems you didnt even come up with a logical theory to the home page issue, you just avoided the question entirely... ah well...
Nitpicking. Potential customer and customer are two entirely different things, even if indirectly related.
I avoided the question entirely? Wow. Maybe you should take another moment to read the first paragraph of my post in response to yours. Wow, has reading comprehension gone so bad people cannot even read the first paragraph of a post?
splat
This thread is becoming EPIC in terms of stupidity.
Going back and forth over a "technicality" does not take away from the subject at hand.
The OP made a mistake in the Thread topic and the poll, it should say
"Has darkfall lost any of you as a customer or potential customer"
But that is still just a technicality.
They do stand for different things, but from a business standpoint of AV, I am sure all 5 of them or however many they have would agree that a customer and a potential customer are both important.
From a business standpoint, the "potential customer" is more important that the customer who has already purchased your product.
For a customer it is easy, you already have their money, nothing further needed to do. You got um hook line and sinker, wether they stick around or not doesn't matter, you got what you wanted from them, in this case the initial $50 bucks.
However you can't build on success without the potential customer.
Everyone who plays DF at this time was at one point a potential customer. What seperates you from the other is that you got in. You paid. Good for you. AV doesn't care about you anymore.
What AV SHOULD want, but by their track record over the last 2 weeks are incapable of getting, is the influx of potential customers to increase their dismal cash flow.
So the "potential customer" is paramount. It is the key to it all.
Many of the successful games in terms of money built their empire off of the potential customer tactic. They knew early on that to make obscene amounts of money, you have to treat the entire world as a potential customer, add incentives, give the people what they want and they will come.
AV hasn't caught on to this business practice it seems.
Anyway, enough bickering, I only suggest the OP change the topic and poll to say customer and potential customer.
Current players are customers, if you quit they lost a customer, and loss that monthly fee even though they got you for $50.
Potential customers are what companies want, if you can't provide them a service or what they need you lose them. Problem is you didn't get their $50, and you lost the potential to get it.
So in essence, the potential is more important than the customer. From the looks of it AV lost WAY MORE potential customers than they have paying customers, which doesn't look very good for the business model.
Well, besides being something completely irrelevant to this subject, I'll have to say that Aventurine not updating their www.darkfallonline.com website is a negative thing about them. I agree 100% with the criticism people have of them because it's dated and hasn't changed for many years. From a business standpoint, it does yell unprofessional, but in terms of the gameplay and how fun it is, it has no bearing whatsoever. Note: I haven't played the game so I couldn't say if it's good or not.
However, even though I shouldn't have to argue that potential customer and customer are two different things, it's about comprehension and knowing the meaning of them. Honestly, this is really a result of our educational system deteriorating.
How is nitpicking the choice of words of the OP relevant, when you know very well what he meant?
Damn, I really thought you were a hardcore logical person, but it seems you didnt even come up with a logical theory to the home page issue, you just avoided the question entirely... ah well...
Nitpicking. Potential customer and customer are two entirely different things, even if indirectly related.
I avoided the question entirely? Wow. Maybe you should take another moment to read the first paragraph of my post in response to yours. Wow, has reading comprehension gone so bad people cannot even read the first paragraph of a post?
So now youre dropping to trying to insult me. Good to know what kind of person you actually are, and funny that you should mention reading comprehension. Here, I'll help you along then:
"What would be the logical explaination for having NPC hirelings, and setting up caravans as a merchant, on the home page as features in the game..?"
That was the question in my post ; I asked for a logical explaination for it, and you didnt even come up with a theory. Instead you came up with something like "ye, thats not very good," and then went on ranting definitions when its pretty safe to assume that you understand what the OP meant. So youre practically trolling, good for you i guess...
Technicality, or not, it can be very misleading if left as is. It implies that the poll reflects the opinion of people who have actually bought the game and now no longer play it, giving the impression to people (who haven't bought it yet but might want to) that it accurately reflects that.
splat
^^^^^^^^this i concur 100%.
MMORPG played in order played: Sims Online, WoW, CoX, EQ2, LinksRealm, LOTRO,TOR...and counting
No idea why you are arguing over a customer vs. potential customer anyway. This pole is in no way, shape, or form going to be accurate no matter what verbage is used.
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You wouldn't understand
Not that it would matter, but it seems that a lot of you would have been fine if Darkfall had just said "limited beta" starting February 25th and continued letting people in every week until everyone that wanted to play, was in the game.
And then they could have said "Release".
It's all a matter of perspective. And one fellow stated it correctly; there's a difference between a customer and a potential customer.
The fact that this poll is open to people who never intended to play Darkfall is ridiculous.
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Blog -Transcendent''s Tomb - Reviews, Polls, and tortured opinions from the minions of MMORPGS
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Hhussk
You, sir, have just won this thread...
EDIT:
To the rest of you;
STOP USING 1000 DIFFERENT ANALOGIES! He's NOT going to get it! Give up!
The Wizard's Seventh Rule is why I don't like the concepts in Darkfall, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard's_Rule
Technicality, or not, it can be very misleading if left as is. It implies that the poll reflects the opinion of people who have actually bought the game and now no longer play it, giving the impression to people (who haven't bought it yet but might want to) that it accurately reflects that.
Well I think he thought most people would understand the underlined meaning of his/her thread. When I read it, I took it as customer AND potential customers, because honestly they are just 2 forms of the same thing. They both = money in the end of things.
He/She could stand to make the change to the topic and poll, but I am pretty the OP ment both, did you buy it and quit and did you want to buy it and just said screw it.
All you haters need to chill out, the game is gonna be great. The only reason all these problems are arising is because they have TOO many orders going for their rather small company to handle. Just wait a few weeks and everyone will have a game. Or if you all dont wanna wait then ill gladly step in and take your copy. The game isnt going anywhere and we just need to throw them a bone here and quit bitching.
There was one response above who asked what folks would post if AV took peoples money and they then found that the servers couldn't cope but lets go with the burger joint analogy.
You enter the burger joint, pay your money to the cashier and the server then tells you to come back next week when they have another delivery of burgers. Oh wait it would be wah wah AV sold my money.
Or maybe they put up lots of servers, sold 800k copies and then when 70% left after the first c. month the posts would have been: wah, wah servers are dead AV isn't doing enough to consolidate them. (The approach that cost Funcom $1.9M in unused server fees in Q4 and another $1.9M this quarter).
Now some folks may prefer companies that take your money for an unfinished product. Some folks may prefer a company that sells as many copies as it can and then shuts down, consolidates, mergers nearly all of its server. Me I think AV is doing OK so far. They have sold (according to AV) thousands of keys each day that sales have been up. Sales are open again Monday. Chill.
Maybe its the few years I worked in retail when I was younger. But Everyone in your building, domain whatever is a customer.
Like someone said on page 2 or 3 I think, anyone you come in contact with is a customer. I think alot of people are confusing Customer with potential Buyer. A customer doesnt have to buy anything to be called and treated like a "customer" in retail.
AV and the game was in negative debt before the billing non sense. Now everytime I see the little rush in this little fake supply and demand excercise.. well a little more debt gets added.
Whatever redeeming features the game has... the billing is just stupid.
I only read the first and second post of this thread and all I have to say is:
How in the fucking world can you "not trust" the company because they only allow a few hundred~thousand people buy the game? If they really wanted to screw you out of all our money they could simply open up unlimited sales and let us all buy the game, let the server crash, and take a few weeks to fix the servers, if ever.
Logic <- it's good to have and use.
Logic would also say you would stress test your game on similar if not the SAME hardware you will go for the release. AV never did this. Though Tasos implied bots were doing the testing. What is his background in anyways ? Dentistry ? I know I need my teeth fixing after this joke of a launch.
Oh and Logic and aventurine also don't mix.
(Also they don't even have capacity for billing and doing a scam type load everyone in scernrio. There billing goes down after like 3 mins of it going up. )
3 pages of troll haters pretending to be potential customers, how pathetic and shows how desperate the trolls really are after everything they predicted was proven to be totally wrong.
Thousands are in game now, thousands more will be, your whining is irrelevant because we don't need you, Darkfall is allready a massive success without you and its only getting strounger each day.
If your not dedicated , patient and hardcore enough to manage to get your order then you are simply not worthy enough to play Darkfall because you are too weak and would not last 5 mins in game anyway.
I don't blame Aventurine because they are a small Indy company trying their best for us under totally exceptional and completely unpredictable circumstances, personally I blame all the troll haters overloading the order website pretending to buy the game but really trying to prevent the true fans from getting the game.
Stop whining and go back to your carebare games where you can pay your money and make an account in 5 mins and then just start playing straight away with no problems, instead of waiting hours, days and weeks entering your details and refreshing a website just for the chance that you might be able to pay them your money for the possibility of playing what surely must be the best game ever if the servers are up and they have finally managed to successfully charge your credit card and also found the time to authorize your account.
To the troll haters saying this is the worst release ever, I say you know nothing, all MMO's have problems at launch, you are just ignorant, I think this is the best launch ever because only the truly worthy fans are getting to play the game and all the troll hater whiners have been excluded because of Aventurines revolutionary ground breaking advanced exclusive secret pre order for early access stress test launch and limited staged availability pay for beta commercial release.
I'm italian so customer may be different from italian word in terms of meaning...
In Italy a potential customer is not a customer, but someone that could buy my product... A customer is an owner of the product, so customer care is about who had bought the product, not the potential customer, maybe in USA is different and you have customer care if you are only a potential customer too...
So, the question is: Are you still a potential customer?
In my case is yes...
So what do you have voted ? The wall of text misses the point this topic was for ..
Has DarkFall and its Community now the piece of luck to finally lost you as customer ?
I had the feeling after you found out Aventurine is 100% BS'ing about the game weeks ago, had the same feeling after your review about your 5 minutes in game experience and then you continue to give me same feeling again now with your "5 minutes ready account" in the carebear game ..your posts become deja vu..it could be DarkFAll has even lost you 3 years ago as customer but that had not hold you back from voting in this poll ..right ?
Will it this time be true and Aventurine has the merry burden to miss you for good ? Or will it be again 100% BS 'ing on your part?
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$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!
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Iiii-iiiiiit's.... me!!! *Hooray*
You guys are really full of shit.
Half of you think you have a valid opinion because you WANT to buy the game (you dont)and the other half know exactly what the OP is asking but choose to analyze his question like lawyers scrutinizing a multi million dollar contract.
Has Aventurine lost me as a customer? LOL they never had me as a potential customer. After I did some research on this game and company I knew how it was going to turn out. I sort of even predicted these billing and order problems people are having.
The only way Darkfall will gain me as a customer is if a credible company takes over. Although the way this "release" is going, I think that Darkfall Online will soon become a part of SOE's Station service.
Well, I did not vote because I had no plan on buying the game. But the wording of the question makes it clear he is speaking about people who tried to buy the game but could not. It specifically references the billing system. How could the billing system make people who had already successfully paid be lost? It is obvious the intent of the poll is "Did you try to buy the game and fail, so in frustration, give up?'
The game has not been out long enough to lose people through them not resubbing, so all this verbal dodging by fanboys to try to invalidate the poll based on one word is pointless. It could not possibly mean what you are saying it means.
Yes.
Gameplay seems prehistoric and meaningless for me. I m a PVPer but PVP doesnt mean stupid games. Think about DAOC WWIIONLINE or Eve... I hate griefers and macro'ers, they ALWAYS kill servers and games/.
But the world seems huge and has an "explorer " i'd like to discover it
I can' t put my Mastercard N° on this crappy billing system, the worst i saw in my life. I play MMOs, I buy items, music, instruments, computers, etc by internet. NEVER SAW SUCH A THING
What's that ?
What's that ?
Can we call this a e-store ? really ?
This system is for CAREBEARS, I mean Real Carebears In Real Life, dreamers and fanboys.
They need something PROFESSIONAL like Paypal,if AV can pay Paypal fees...
lol they already said they can survive with 1 server