Bureaucrat

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BaBs is probably muzzled from saying anything it about this until Posi has.

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I'm not going to comment on it for two reasons.

One, it's way outside of my department. I wasn't involved in the decisions and know absolutely nothing about what was done to who or why (outside of very broad generalities that everyone is already aware of).

Two, it's entirely a customer service issue. It's against the forum rules to discuss customer service issues here on the forums. And whether anyone wants to believe it or not, I'm just as beholden to the rules of these forums as the rest of you.

I was perusing this thread, saw reference to 'Man of La Mancha'--a play that my wife did props for in college--and pointed out that the Golden Helmet of Mambrino was actually a shaving basin.

I probably should have paid more attention to the original topic of the thread and the unintended attention that having a link to an OT post in the Dev Digest would bring to it, and for that I apologize.

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First of all, "Man of La Mancha" would be a interesting play to do props for and its neat that your wife did that.

secondly, don't apologize for posting in this thread. Like I said, posting off topic in a thread does a lot to let us know that you guys still pay some kind of attention to the fact that we are here and still want to engage us on a level beyond just devs to players. It brings you in as a part of the community rather than seperate from the community and in my opinion, it makes it far more enjoyable to be here.

For what its worth. I am glad BAB's posted here.

BAB's isnt going to be the red name that will comment on the situation at hand, its far from his job description and I wouldn't expect him too.

I am actually glad he posted though because honestly I miss seeing his name randomly appear for no real reason at all. BAB's has been oddly quiet as of late and its really too bad since even the goofy off topic red name posts were still some form of communication and in some ways more important than official notices or comments on issues. We expect replies from red names in regards to in game issues, we expect to hear reasons why certain decisions were made. When we get communication beyond that, thats a level of service that I have missed dearly. Castle occasionally pops off with some good non game related comments, positron on rare occasions, but BAB's was always fairly regular until several months ago.

I am glad to see BAB's pop in with something not game related, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it should.

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We just don't know who did what, and likely never will.


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And my point is that its largely irrelevant next to the fact that a decision was made and it was done. Regardless of who pushed the button, the company is still in charge of the button pusher and is liable for that button pushers actions.

I am a bureaucrat, its not just a fancy name, I know better than most how multi-faceted a company can be, I know how duties can be spread across many different departments and how difficult it is to point to one area and say "that right there is where X happens". Most likely Positron may have had little to actually do with the ban script, though I find it suspicious that a C/S person could design a script for that purpose. However Positron put his name to the policy shift and as such for better or worse, whether he did it or not, its his. Paragon Studios can't point a finger at some nameless schlub and say "his fault", pat themselves on the back, and move on. Paragon Studios should own up to the fact that their policy has caused some unintended harm, and as customers we should be informed if they are planning on fixing a problem that could effect us in the future if left uncorrected.

Prior to this temp bans were handed out on a case by case, usually for some form of griefing and I assume but don't know that some were for exploits. This is the first I have ever heard of them running ban/delete scripts as a punishment. Most exploits get closed, we hear about it later, and I have yet to hear of people getting banned for having used them, much less getting banned after it was fixed for using it in the past. No one was banned for the winter lord fiasco, they took the hit, learned from the mistake, and fixed it.


I guess my biggest thing is that its not just this incident, its one in a long line that has started just around the time that NCsoft bought COH and created paragon studios and heavily reinvested in the game. Since then the last couple of issues have been handled poorly. Red_Gren brought up a lot of points that I had already considered, they have new staff, a new office, a lot of really big changes have been happening. I understand all of that. I also understand your points TJ in that we will never really know who did what and who has been putting the gag on the devs.

My main point is that I am a customer. I play this game because its still kind of fun to me, the community is great, and the customer service was fantastic. The customer service has changed massively. I would consider it far below what I find acceptable and as such I am taking my business elsewhere. When they fix it I will come back, I don't want to have to leave, but I am not going to reward a company with my patronage for service that I find unacceptable.

If I felt that the developers at paragon studios were still in charge I would send a message to them, but I don't feel thats the case anymore, so I am sending NCsoft the only message they will care about, and that is not renewing my subscription. Maybe if they get the hint they will allow Positron and Co. to run their ship like they have in the past, in a way that IMO was far better.

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I feel that anything that is conducive to the group getting caught up and/or getting to know one another would be preferable. Movies can be good fun, but rank low on my list for group activities since the group just sits speechless for a couple hours. Not good for getting-to-know you kinds of things. There's always the MU games area with arcade games and bowling. Or we could do what we did after Korean BBQ during the '07 M&G and stop in at a coffee shop for chatting and coffee consumption.

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Bowling might actually be awesome, if for nothing else than the students will have all vanished by this weekend so by the time we are talking about for a murder burger thing the MU would be a practical ghost town.

I will have to see what I am doing that weekend, sounds like this could be a lot of fun.

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Didn't they just kind of talk about maybe banning some of the most egregious farmers and haven't even done that yet? Honestly this whole things seems like another tempest in a teapot that's all this forum maybe ever has been good for. If that's all it takes to get you to leave then it seems more like you would find some other reason to leave soon anyway.

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I don't really want to get into the details here, but in short, instead of handling it on a case by case basis like they said they would, they instead ran a ban script and the problem I have with it is that a number of people who never stepped into MA at all got banned because they leveled too fast using the legitimate level pacting.

There was a lot of information about what happened so its not a tempest in a teapot, its an actual issue that was handled very poorly. I've been here for well over 2 years, I enjoyed the game and attended both meet and greets. Until this happened I was very much invested in this game and cared a great deal for it. Just because you didn't hear about it does not mean it didn't happen, what it means is that you didn't pay attention and the devs did a good job trying to bury it.

like I have said many times, my issue isn't that people got banned for abusing MA, my issue is that punishment was handed out for no reason to people who didn't even use MA because they used a script rather than do it case by case. Its also an issue that should have never happened if they did their job right and fixed what everyone was telling them was wrong in closed beta rather than push it live.

Something has changed at paragon studios and I suspect it has something to do with NCsofts major investment into it and the strings attached to that investment. Its not a good direction.

In any case, I have said what I came to say and I wont drag it out anymore. Whether or not someone has paid enough attention to know what did or did not happen does not change the fact that it did indeed happen.

No shame in coming back if things get better either or if something else changes.

Personally I am choosing to let my account expire because of how issues of late have been handled.

I kept subbed partially because I still find the game fun, sadly I just don't have a lot of time to play anymore and my interest in playing has been fading. Despite the slacking of personal interest I remained subscribed because I liked the idea of being able to play, and because I really liked the dev team and wanted to support them. As of today, I simply have no respect anymore for how the devs have acted as of late. We used to have a really good and fairly constant communication with the developers and now we don't. Instead of taking feedback on a broken mechanism in their newest feature and fixing it, the devs chose to punish the players for abusing it whether or not they had actually used it.

Long story short, now that I no longer feel any loyalty to this dev team, nor feel like supporting them, the game just isn't fun enough for me anymore to keep me interested.

If they come out with something awesome and new, I may come back and check it out, but I probably wont stay long even then. If I see the devs shift attitude and return to what made them awesome and admit some fault in punishing honest players (not apologize at all for punishing those that abused the system), I will probably be back for much longer.

so while you may feel there is no shame in staying, there is also no shame in cancelling when you feel the product that you are paying for is simply no longer worth it.

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*Hands Bureaucrat a monolith and a "bang head here" poster*

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I am a bureaucrat.
I have my own.

Thank you though.

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We've been over that in this thread already. The employer isn't buying your time, they're buying the services you perform during that time. Even if the service is simply being present and available.

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They want the service, they pay for my time to perform such a service. I am paid no matter if I provide the service or not so its not the service in and of itself that is being paid for.

Time is a commodity in that it can be marketed and sold. Time has a value as a component of a market transaction.
Say I am living in northern california and I want to get a transcript from a college in san diego. I can spend 42 cents and mail the request, or I can go to kinkos or other similar place and spend $2 or so sending the request page.

In terms of cost to transmit I would wager that the cost of the fax, including labor on the colleges side to take the fax from the machine, is on par or maybe even cheaper than the 42 cent stamp. So if the service is about the same why am I paying 1.58 more to fax? that is a cost of time. I am paying to cut a week off of transit time so that the request can be processed that much faster.

If I pay for express shipping, the same amount of labor and skill is used to get my package from point A to point B but I pay extra to get it there faster, I pay for that time.

If I am a freelance designer, it takes me say 5 hours to design a simple logo, and my typical turn around time is a week. If a customer wants they can pay me more and I will get it done faster. The logo is still designed in 5 hours, but because the customer paid more for the time I can get it out in a day rather than a week.

People pay for time. People also pay for the service and skill. Service and skill are non physical commodities just like time. Service doesn't weigh anything, skill doesn't weigh anything. A machine operated by a highly skilled operator weighs the same as the same machine operated by a novice.
The reason why people value higher skills is not just because the product is superior, its also because it can be done faster. Someone who has never built a computer before is going to take much longer to build their first computer as opposed to someone who has built hundreds.


in short darktyger you are wrong. Time is a marketable commodity. Time can have a value placed on it. All you are doing is playing semantics games and obviously have no real idea of how markets work.

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Just because the AE became popular for farming, doesn't mean the devs will accept that. If they could delete every single farming mission and feature from the AE without hurting storytelling content, they most likely would.

Do what you want, just don't assume you're being backed up.

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They can just run a ban script to target any and all missions with "farm" in the title, temp ban the accounts for 3 days, pat themselves on the back and move on.

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Do you really think that most farm mishs have "farm" in the title?

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It was sarcasm regarding how devs dealt with fast PLed toons.

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at least someone got it.

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Just because the AE became popular for farming, doesn't mean the devs will accept that. If they could delete every single farming mission and feature from the AE without hurting storytelling content, they most likely would.

Do what you want, just don't assume you're being backed up.

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They can just run a ban script to target any and all missions with "farm" in the title, temp ban the accounts for 3 days, pat themselves on the back and move on.

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I can see how people would like to see something like that. But, honestly its none of our business. Any disciplinary action taken, even if taken mistakenly like some have claimed, has no bearing on anyone but customer service and the customer concerned.

For example, me and my niegbhor both have ATT wireless. My niegbhor tells me his cell phone has been shut off. I have no idea why unless he tells me. ATT should not have to send me a letter explaining why my niegbhor and X number of other people have had thier phone shut off. Its none of my business and expecting them to let me know about it is ludicris (I am pretty sure I spelled that word wrong.).

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The difference between AT&T, and this game is that this game has a community that AT&T does not have at all. City of Heroes is an MMO, lots of people who interact and enjoy the same game builds a community in a way that individuals using cellphones does not.

I don't want to know exactly what the disciplinary action was, nor do I want to know who it was taken against. I want to know that the sloppy way that the punishment was handled will not happen again and that they have learned from their mistake and players who have done nothing wrong don't have to worry about getting a temp ban for no reason.

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the "shut up and go away" posts that are oh-so-helpful (and in my opinion should be banworthy themselves).

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I hope that its not a bannable offense they may end up running a script that bans anyone that uses the word "and".

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On the other hand, I think it IS good policy for the company to discuss their policy or philosophy regarding discipline, including aggregate numbers. For example, I think it would be OK for them to state (with my own made up numbers):

"Recently we took disciplinary action on 157 accounts that had engaged in exploitive conduct inside the mission architect. On further review we realized that we had mistakenly disciplined 15 accounts. Those accounts have been fully restored, compensated, and have our sincere apology for the misunderstanding. We are reviewing our internal policies and systems to ensure that those errors are not made in the future."

I would appreciate seeing a post like that. I'm sure others would as well; and a bunch wouldn't like it all . . . like most things in this forum.

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I would be one of the ones that would greatly appreciate a note like that being made. Some note, something that let the playerbase know that while they made a mistake in handing out punishments they learned from that mistake and will try to not do that in the future. Its really that simple and it would have done a lot to make the playerbase feel better about what was done.

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The majority of players shrugged and moved on when the exploit was closed, most were probably glad that they could find teams to play the actual game again. The handful of whiners on the forums prove nothing. Hysteria about getting banned for 'playing too well' is completely unfounded- yes, the devs made some mistakes, but they're working on fixing those mistakes. If it's the price to have less level 50 newbies, so be it.

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The thing you keep missing prof is that just about everyone shrugged and moved on when the exploit was closed. No one cares that an exploit was closed. You keep holding onto this idea that it was the exploit being closed that got people riled up when thats not the case. I would wager that if the devs actually went on a case by case basis and issued temp bans to the most notorious of the MEOW farmers it would not be an issue at all. However that is not what happened. They decided to tell the players it would be case by case, and then ran a script to ban anyone who got to 50 in less than x hours, which sounds fine until you remember that a few issues ago you made a level pact system that would allow someone to go from 1-50 in a level pact only having to log on twice. People who never exploited anything were getting punished and had to badger C/S to get fixed what should have never been broken. Thats the problem people are having.
I like this game a lot, I liked the devs quite a bit, if I16 turns out to be awesome, or if Going Rogue offers something spectacular I will probably be back, until then I'm gone. I am under no illusions about the amount of people effected by what they did, nor do I actually think that this debacle is going to "kill the game", this game is going to be around for a good long while, but I do know that people who were not directly effected by the bans have quit because they just don't like how it was handled and a good number of those people have been around for a while and aren't just some level 50 newbie.

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Besides, people aren't leaving because of the closing of "exploits" (Meows? Not an exploit. Snake Eggs and the Vanguard Ouroboros flashback? Those are exploits.), they're leaving because of how badly the entire situation was handled.

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I just wanted to say QFT.

We can debate about whether or not we believe MEOW farms should or should not be counted as an exploit (personally I am on the fence on the issue, it may or may not be an "exploit" but it was certainly an abuse of the system), however the biggest issue is not what was done so much as how it was done. In my opinion it was handled very badly.

And what happens when you get used to having all the badges and then a good chunk of them dissapear with the next issue?

badge numbers are not only uneven for red vs blue side, but also can fluctuate with the whims of the developers.

learn to slot for end redux and get stamina.

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This is pretty much why I consider Statesman to be a traitor.
Not only has "Statesman" (Jack) turned his back on CoX, it was in an effort to make big bucks with Marvel Online (which no matter how good or bad it was would have been competition for CoX), then he goes on to massacre the great gaming system that was the great and infamous Champions the PRG by using the remains of Marvel Online for the mechanics (the Champions mechanics both for powers and combat would have held up in a computer environment as they are all mathematically based), then stamping on the Champions name on the travesty, and finally sticking in the (laughable) "signature characters" (we always considered them to be examples of how not to make characters - especially Foxbat!), but the studio he is part of begins bashing CoX in order to hype Champions Online.
I'm not impressed.
Is he the plague of plagues? No. He brought us CoX and that's a great thing. It's just selling out CoX, leaving it behind, and then trying to replace it.

Statesman's a traitor alright. Don't let that star-spangled costume fool you.

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First of all, why wouldn't Jack want to move on to another project? If he's got the desire and the goods to work on something new, why not, especially if he had a chance at Marvel money. Who wouldn't jump at that?

Secondly, "massacre the champions system"? They bought the IP, not the system. They never had the Hero system to work with ever, they only bought the rights to the setting.

It sounds like you neither understand business nor what champions online is.

Look, from what I understand about Jack Emmeret, he was an OK designer, and horrible beyond belief at communicating anything, especially to the players. From seeing his past posts, and current interviews, he has the PR skills of a rabid wombat and is better seen and not heard.

He's not a traitor, hes a business man, he has skills that he gets paid for. Designers and programmers are not limited to just having one product lest they be considered a "traitor".
How many other desigerns and programmers out there have experience with superhero MMO's? It only makes sense that a company would want someone with that experience at the helm.

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So I'm 30 now. Who wants to come sit on my knee while I tell them about the Great War?

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thats not your knee.





not falling for that again.

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In the end it was all about having some people on the team that knew what they were doing, could communicate the tactics needed, which order to take the AV's down, and players that were competant.

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Expecting competency sounds like you're wanting too much, if this thread is any indication.

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Its true. I have such unreasonable expectations.

Happy Birthday Smoke!

My first LRSF run, 4 corruptors, 2 brutes, 1 stalker, 1 bots MM. No nukes, no shivans, neither me nor the mastermind had completed one before. We had two deaths total and those were in the first 2 missions. The last mission we tore apart. we did the whole thing in just over an hour.

In the end it was all about having some people on the team that knew what they were doing, could communicate the tactics needed, which order to take the AV's down, and players that were competant.

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All the other stuff was okay because it wasn't using the MA. But the minute someone uses this "creative content outlet tool" for "non-creative" purposes, all hell breaks loose. And, I've gotta agree with Iggy. A nice long post apologizing for removing badges is nice, but where's the nice long post apologizing for removing characters and banning accounts (especially those that were done on accident)?

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In my opinion, the apology needs to be to the community for all the people that were accidently banned for 3 days with no reason. No apology needs to be handed out to those that exploited the system, no matter how they (the exploiters) try to rationalize exploiting, its fairly clear on its face that MEOW teams were exploits. While I grant that the devs have the authority and can temp ban accounts for exploits I still dont neccesarily agree with it. I don't always agree with what the developers have decided in the past, however in this case their decision to run a script hurt players that may have never stepped foot inside a Architect Building and more than have stayed away from exploits. Furthermore I think the handling of the ban, no response from the devs in any way, no " we understand that there are players who have been erroniously banned, if you think you are one of those please contact customer service and we will take care of that right away", nothing, in fact until recently any talk of it was deleted.

My biggest beef though is just how it was supposed to be case by case and instead they ran a script to ban folks. The fact that they have a script for that is alarming. The time they spent writing that script would have been better spent fixing the rikti com officers in beta before going live, it would have saved them a lot of headache, a lot of goodwill, and a handfull of subscriptions.

maybe next time they will listen and fix the massive exploits before sending it live and having to do the same thing all over again.

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Maybe it's not so much an apology as a statement of recognition that they have made mistakes, they have heard our pleas and will be less punitive in the future and NEVER, EVER, run a ban script again.

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This is pretty much what I want to see. I would love to see a recognition that they goofed up, that they know what they did wrong and in retrospect they shouldn't have handled it the way that they did and in the future they will be more wary.

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I would have given anything just to hear Positron say that anyone can play this game how they wish. And that we should all have fun. Hell I would have bought 5 lifetime subscriptions had he said that.

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Indeed!

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I have to agree with this. Heck I wouldn't even go so far as Positron saying we can play however we like. I just want an apology for the really poor way this whole thing was handled.

As someone has said before, I don't begrudge the devs for what they did so much as how they did it. Positron screwed up.

I don't know what has changed, I don't know if there is pressure from the studio to make good on the massive investment that was made, or if its pressure from training all new staff, but something is different and wrong. There used to be a time when the Devs were very upfront about what was going on and why, things plodded along slowly but player feedback was taken into consideration and there was a much stronger sense of connection with the game. Now things seem to be moving faster, but without any consideration for what we the players want. It feels like instead of being seen as members of the community, members of a game that we all have a passion for, we are just numbers to them, simply a bottom line that has to be improved to maximize net profit and yield a higher return on investment.

This is a 5 year old game. The ol' girl is showing her age, she's been pushed to the max as far as whats allowed with the engine and no matter how many bells and whistles are added, they are all the same bells and whistles. MA was the new hotness, but it was handled so horribly that some people refuse to touch it. The one thing this game had was a fantastic community that was bolstered heavily by the interaction with the developers. People felt invested in the game since they felt they could always get a hold of a developer, always talk with one. I just don't feel that anymore.

The last several issues have been dissapointing, not because of content, not because of changes made, but because of how they were handled, how distant the game has felt from the community.

My account is due to expire on the 16th, I may or may not renew. It may be time for a break. I still love the game, I still love the community, but I just cant financially support a team of developers that I just don't care about anymore. Its one thing to make mistakes, we are all human, we all make mistakes. Its another thing though to not admit fault for making bad decisions. It shouldn't take a week or two to admit a mistake.