Remember the issues between BC Soft Korea and NC Soft West when Aion came out?
Trion seems to be doing a little better in their dealings with XL Games.
Sure , with hindsight many things could have been done better; though the experiences of KR and RU releases plus a lengthy Alpha test should have highlighted many of the issues. In particular Client and server stability and the issues with Hackshield , which only seems to frustrate legit players and allow rampant hacks - teleports and land grabbers - and bots.
Have to agree with toljar overall. If you don't like the way things are going, don't play Korean games.
I claimed our castle, got my pretty new mount and armor, land is getting distributed to my guild members, made a HUGE chunk off of collecting taxes (50%, welcome to Calm lands), ran Serpentis, continue to dominate the East faction and business is as usual.
I would have to say, it was a pretty good week. Now for all of the things you posted above? Yes a lot of it sucks, but what do you expect from a FTP cash grab game? People are use to having everything handed to them on a golden platter, and when it actually happens, they complain about it? I hate to break it to EVERYONE but you are the reason this happens.
The average MMO players wants everything now, now, now and now and then when the devs finally give in, corners have been cut things overlooked and a piss poor product is released. Social media is everything now days, and when players blow up a companies social media demanding shit they are pressured to please them from shareholders and higher ups.
So, why the shitty release of Auroria? Why the terrible server stability? Because Trion has been rushed since Alpha/Beta to get people onto Auroria as soon as possible, and they have to get XL games to reverse engineer EVERYTHING to make this Korean MMO as Western as possible. Why the rush? Because we Western players need everything now, and we aren't willing to wait, oh god no, if you make us wait even 5 minutes more than promised, we will blow up every media outlet you have, cry wolf and even charge back the money we gave you, even though it is our fault that we rushed you and it is a shitty release.
The chests with the Tree's I'll admit ruined the economy pretty bad, that was something that should have never seen light. But, everything else, they did for the players to keep them happy and now it has blown up in their face, do I feel bad for the people quitting? No, honestly, a large chunk of them are the ones who wanted this to happen and now it was delivered poorly and they cannot handle it because they are your typical impatient Western MMO player.
The main problem for many mmo's isn't so much satisfying the playerbase but managing growth, profitability and long term game health. There are times where certain moves can ruin the economy and while this seems like a way of overcoming RMT's, lack of supplies and so on, they are looking at it through the lens of "I am a developer and this is what will happen" and less so as a "I am a player, this is what it WILL do to me".
That said there are developers and games that have made leaps by putting the right people in place and being honest such as as "this is what we are doing and we know that this issue is a problem and we are looking into it to make the best decision that doesn't cause mass upheaval".
Games like FF14 and Dust514, two games voted in the past by this website as being among THE WORSE they've reviewed have made overhauls in staff and while the verdict is out on FF14 being a successful overhaul Dust514 is heading in that direction too. At some level Trion and XL games need to take a page of seeing what players are concerned with and how they "Experience" the game.
I firmly believe caving into the playerbase is a bad idea but I also believe that ignoring them is equally as bad. They have to look at the situation at hand and honestly synthesize the best ideas from all sides to confront their biggest problems and how to best approach it.
Well, that's the difference between devs putting resources back into a game and milking their customers for what they can. Squeenix laid it on the line and rebuilt their MMO entirely and CCP's business plan has revolved around steadily improving their product to keep old subscribers while attracting new customers for a long time now, they just need to learn to focus a little.
Everyone looks for the next big release that'll be perfect and awesome and will hook them forever, but that's pretty unrealistic. Look for a good developer that'll put back into the product.
IDK what to say other than I was blown away, in the wrong direction, by Trion's handeling of this game. The technical issues, the lies, the pay-to-win features, etc. from a company who I used to trust. Their logo was "no tricks no traps" in Rift, holy hell have they fallen far.
I wasted my last cents on a Trion game here with a $150 version that I never received fully what I paid for, the 10% discount. The Alpha pre-1.1 was the best the game had to offer before the marketplace was added. I had planned to play every Rift expansion and go back to the game at least once a year, not anymore. I'm washing my hands of Trion for good.
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
IDK what to say other than I was blown away, in the wrong direction, by Trion's handeling of this game. The technical issues, the lies, ...
Yes, im a little shock with Trion tecchnicals issues because things are getting worse insted of getting better, i really dont understand what the hell they are doing. They excuse with XLGames in some stuff, but c'mmon, not even the website shop where players pay the patron or buy credits works correctly and left plenty of costumers without respond to tickets asking for suport.
"Hope is the last thing to die", so i still have a little hope that things get better in some patch/update... untill there trying to "survive" in ArcheAge.
Do not play this game unless you want to spend a few thousand euros in gear. There are a few good capable classes at PvP and that's it. The gear is a very big factor too.
My problem is with archeum crystals, lighting striked trees and labor point potions coming from the cash shop. Too much cash shop, sorry.
I absolutely loved this game. It was great in design. The land-grabbing hackers were awful, and it was expensive to play. But I looked past those, figuring it would get better. But when they put in the Flashy Racing Kits I and A LOT of people left. They crossed the Pay to WIn barrier by letting us just buy TS trees & archeum.
not to say I told ya, but... this is not their first epic fail. prices go up, quality goes down or for the most part content goes stale and as a customer you get the impression that they are indifferent to your frustrations.
I notice that rather than address their outright fraud over the discount, Trion has simply closed the thread instead. They've decided, it seems, that founders aren't entitled to the 10% discount they advertised because they got other stuff in the pack.
Adding a cash shop chest with not only hourly archeum materials but a whopping huge chance for getting thunderstruck trees is just funny to me. I mean, this has to be the epitome of cash grab. What's even funnier is all these people defending this kind of unethical practice, saying how great it is to have easy access to several great money makers like fishing boats.
I'm looking forward to the day APEX hits 1000 gold in value due to the massive inflation inflicted by this cash shop item and possibly more like it to come in the near future.
There's a good reason why this game only has roughly 5000 active players left in Korea.
I'm, as a Patron, have been banned 2 days ago (wrongly)... i know the ticketing system (only way to contact them) is going to have me wait for weeks before a reply, and so my house and farms will be gone. Was worring about a way to contact someone for Trion (twitter, FB, or any other mean), but i think i'll pass.. and switch to another game....
Aside from nobody getting any answers from support, people are now reporting on the forums of being banned incorrectly, then unable to contact Trion and unable to cancel payments, and Trion's taking sub money anyway.
straight up with that... look, I work in netsec - lots of $$$ in that world and so I make a decent living. Money is not the issue but my time is. That's what I don't have a ton of [not crying, I like what I do]. but when I kick back and relax, I expect professionalism and quality for what I am willing to pay. This nickel and dime bs ... uh newsflash - F2P AINT... combined with the penny ante politics [play Eve if you REALLY wanna get your hands dirty] pfft... end of the day [there's an original statement], this is just another grinder - prettier than some, buggy and incomplete. And actually, unless you like being in a gang fight constantly, not much fun at all.
I have better things to do... read, take a walk, ride a bike, have wild sex
I'd have added a 4th fail to this article regarding Hasla weapons. Hasla weapons were never meant to be introduced to ArcheAge early on. Its was originally devised as a way of providing new players an easy way to get a few decent weapons down the road to compete with players in the top end gear. Releasing this content, and now its upgraded version, early on in the games life cycle has diminished the demand for weapon crafting and caused the already insanely high burst damage to become even higher versus players with quest and dungeon armor. Its completely thrown pvp and the economy out of balance.
Just a side note:
most people don't even realize how disgusting adding archeum to the marketplace really was because the game lacked archeum sources so badly, its actually stimulated the game economy and made everything seem more balanced. The problem is, its an artificial balance and one that requires players to spend more and more money on the game, placing more and more money and power into the hands of the big spenders and punishing the players who only pay for patron. Its not sustainable and its a stupid, short-sighted and unethical way of managing a game/business.
Thunderstruck and Archeum Deflation - This is actually much worse than you think, there was actually a duping exploit, which changed the 50% rumbling sapling drop rate to 100% basically:
Or just google it, so basically ts tree supply is double and prices are half what they should be at... If Trion can track down every exploiter, I don't know, but given their track record I think this damage will be irreparable
I'm actually sort of glad that this happened. For those of us that like to play the game at our own pace, and just have fun with it this was a huge boon. For a lot of us seeing other people in these high-end guilds that were often questionable in their nature constantly doing these extensive, and very privelaged trade runs was at times disheartening.
So guess what I see when I came back on Lucius after the fiasco: people riding in carts, people carrying trade packs, there was actual LIFE to the server.
Oh a lot of people certainly did leave, and I am glad for that as well, because someone was able to sell me and my friends some land for a good price. Even though we missed out on the initial land-grab, we made more than up for it when the chips fell into place.
A lot of people who were often griefers, or guilds that had a lot of griefers either left or disbanded, leaving behind guilds that are far more supportive to their faction. I've noticed, in the last 2 weeks since the incident, a lot more positive and friendly chat on the Faction and Nation chat, a lot more help from larger guilds being offered to smaller ones, and individual non-guild players, and over-all improvement to the community.
Comments
Remember the issues between BC Soft Korea and NC Soft West when Aion came out?
Trion seems to be doing a little better in their dealings with XL Games.
Sure , with hindsight many things could have been done better; though the experiences of KR and RU releases plus a lengthy Alpha test should have highlighted many of the issues. In particular Client and server stability and the issues with Hackshield , which only seems to frustrate legit players and allow rampant hacks - teleports and land grabbers - and bots.
Have to agree with toljar overall. If you don't like the way things are going, don't play Korean games.
Well, that's the difference between devs putting resources back into a game and milking their customers for what they can. Squeenix laid it on the line and rebuilt their MMO entirely and CCP's business plan has revolved around steadily improving their product to keep old subscribers while attracting new customers for a long time now, they just need to learn to focus a little.
Everyone looks for the next big release that'll be perfect and awesome and will hook them forever, but that's pretty unrealistic. Look for a good developer that'll put back into the product.
IDK what to say other than I was blown away, in the wrong direction, by Trion's handeling of this game. The technical issues, the lies, the pay-to-win features, etc. from a company who I used to trust. Their logo was "no tricks no traps" in Rift, holy hell have they fallen far.
I wasted my last cents on a Trion game here with a $150 version that I never received fully what I paid for, the 10% discount. The Alpha pre-1.1 was the best the game had to offer before the marketplace was added. I had planned to play every Rift expansion and go back to the game at least once a year, not anymore. I'm washing my hands of Trion for good.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
Yes, im a little shock with Trion tecchnicals issues because things are getting worse insted of getting better, i really dont understand what the hell they are doing. They excuse with XLGames in some stuff, but c'mmon, not even the website shop where players pay the patron or buy credits works correctly and left plenty of costumers without respond to tickets asking for suport.
"Hope is the last thing to die", so i still have a little hope that things get better in some patch/update... untill there trying to "survive" in ArcheAge.
Only thing wrong with this game is labor point and cash shop workers compensation.
There are many way to slow player down but labor point and workers compensation is worst.
Even i am patron , i can't enjoy playing the game without at lest 1 extra worker compensation pots per day,
and with the price of pots raise to 25g now , i think about quit AA . This game become too expensive now .
Too bad , AA have potential , but bad done .
Do not play this game unless you want to spend a few thousand euros in gear. There are a few good capable classes at PvP and that's it. The gear is a very big factor too.
My problem is with archeum crystals, lighting striked trees and labor point potions coming from the cash shop. Too much cash shop, sorry.
this is not their first epic fail.
prices go up, quality goes down or for the most part content goes stale and as a customer you get the impression that they are indifferent to your frustrations.
Adding a cash shop chest with not only hourly archeum materials but a whopping huge chance for getting thunderstruck trees is just funny to me. I mean, this has to be the epitome of cash grab. What's even funnier is all these people defending this kind of unethical practice, saying how great it is to have easy access to several great money makers like fishing boats.
I'm looking forward to the day APEX hits 1000 gold in value due to the massive inflation inflicted by this cash shop item and possibly more like it to come in the near future.
There's a good reason why this game only has roughly 5000 active players left in Korea.
I'm, as a Patron, have been banned 2 days ago (wrongly)... i know the ticketing system (only way to contact them) is going to have me wait for weeks before a reply, and so my house and farms will be gone. Was worring about a way to contact someone for Trion (twitter, FB, or any other mean), but i think i'll pass.. and switch to another game....
i did just check Dragon Age Inquisition...
want 7 free days of playing? Try this
http://www.swtor.com/r/ZptVnY
Aside from nobody getting any answers from support, people are now reporting on the forums of being banned incorrectly, then unable to contact Trion and unable to cancel payments, and Trion's taking sub money anyway.
I tried beta - I game the way I want to game but Trion sez they know better. You wanna play Archeage, you play it THEIR way.
Idea: 10
Graphics: 8
Community: 2 - bots and farmers - some fun folk but mostly hardcore PVPers now
Gameplay: 3 - not much fun after a while
They got my $150 but they won't get my time...
Whyspre
My gaming blog
straight up with that... look, I work in netsec - lots of $$$ in that world and so I make a decent living. Money is not the issue but my time is. That's what I don't have a ton of [not crying, I like what I do]. but when I kick back and relax, I expect professionalism and quality for what I am willing to pay. This nickel and dime bs ... uh newsflash - F2P AINT... combined with the penny ante politics [play Eve if you REALLY wanna get your hands dirty] pfft... end of the day [there's an original statement], this is just another grinder - prettier than some, buggy and incomplete. And actually, unless you like being in a gang fight constantly, not much fun at all.
I have better things to do... read, take a walk, ride a bike, have wild sex
Whyspre
Apex dupe
Getting the items you want out of market place boxes.
This is just the problems they found today.
I bet the people knew these at launch are a bit ahead of everyone else.
Thunderstruck and Archeum Deflation - This is actually much worse than you think, there was actually a duping exploit, which changed the 50% rumbling sapling drop rate to 100% basically:
http://www.elitepvpers.com/forum/archeage-hacks-bots-cheats-exploits/3497468-get-what-you-want-racing-kits.html
Or just google it, so basically ts tree supply is double and prices are half what they should be at... If Trion can track down every exploiter, I don't know, but given their track record I think this damage will be irreparable
I'm actually sort of glad that this happened. For those of us that like to play the game at our own pace, and just have fun with it this was a huge boon. For a lot of us seeing other people in these high-end guilds that were often questionable in their nature constantly doing these extensive, and very privelaged trade runs was at times disheartening.
So guess what I see when I came back on Lucius after the fiasco: people riding in carts, people carrying trade packs, there was actual LIFE to the server.
Oh a lot of people certainly did leave, and I am glad for that as well, because someone was able to sell me and my friends some land for a good price. Even though we missed out on the initial land-grab, we made more than up for it when the chips fell into place.
A lot of people who were often griefers, or guilds that had a lot of griefers either left or disbanded, leaving behind guilds that are far more supportive to their faction. I've noticed, in the last 2 weeks since the incident, a lot more positive and friendly chat on the Faction and Nation chat, a lot more help from larger guilds being offered to smaller ones, and individual non-guild players, and over-all improvement to the community.