Clintonian

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I don't see the next couple of issues taking nearly as long as I9 did.

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You shouldn't set up false expectations based mostly on unbridled optimism.

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I am disappointed that neither Statesman nor Positron felt they had the time to create a State of the Game address marking the third anniversary of their game. To me it is an indication of how important this game is to them.

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Yes - too busy working to make sure I9 is as good as it can be

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Then one shouldn't call it a "State of" address. It's entertaining that the company won't even go through the motions of posting Lighthouse's press release under Positron's name to prop up a polite fiction.

*chuckle*

When's MUO coming out?

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It is funny that after State's acknowledges that there were some flaws on how they designed and implemented the base system...that people are still attacking him on his semantics. Folks, this is why State's doesn't post as much as he used to! He is the designer...not the PR guy.

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Emmert is a college graduate with a background in Classics studies and a published designer in 'Pen & Paper' RPGs that are all about communicating through text and 'semantics'. It's one thing to cut a break for your average game forum poster who may not have more than public high school English courses under their belt, but it doesn't take a M.A. in Marketing to get one's point across, especially when the person in question has a background in reading and writing.

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"Real value" vs. "Percieved value"...blah, blah.

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No one expects you or any other player to speak clearly or definitively on this esoteric subject. However, if Emmert has trouble communicating "Real value" vs. "Perceived value" without seeming as if he is suffering some repeated stumbles, then that can be a real problem. The top tier people in a company that designs games for profit should be able to hold a fairly complex conversation on that comfortably. Does that heightened expectation of Emmert in comparison to players seem unfair? It's not. You and other players don't have to understand and articulate the nuances of this subject because it's not your job to do so. I wouldn't even expect average marketers to speak that definitively on this esoteric subject because of the tendency in that field to reduce most everything into 'Perceived Value'. It is, however, an essential part of a game designers job.

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It is a video game after all, there is nothing real here. He knows what he is working on is a game and entertainment. Therefore what is important is what is percieved by the players. In a sense, the percieved value of a base is really all that matters. State's knows this.

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I think you've confused different definitions of "perceive". In contrast, I don't think that Emmert is confused about what definition of "perceive" is properly in play here, thankfully.

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He says they didn't design it well. Now you want to beat him up because of the words he used? Give me a break!

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I agree that that simple, practical subjects shouldn't get mired in semantics. The more complex a topic, though, the more word choice plays a vital part in expression. This back and forth on Emmert's speech and Base comments is not the same as people getting their nose out of joint because certain devs continue to refer to the "Devices" powerset as "Gadgets".

I think if you scan back over the comments that the majority of people are not 'beating him up', but they are seriously discussing the subject, which means there's going to be less fawning and general cheerleading wankery. That's what happens in serious discussions between adults.

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Good in theory, not so much in reality.

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Bingo. That pretty much nails our design on bases. We're slowly but surely making additions and changes based on feedback & data. We'll get there...I think bases are a case study where a design didn't mesh well with actual gameplay! For some odd reason, some posters have thought my Serious Games speech blamed the players; heck no! Bases are 100% a DESIGN problem. Not a player problem.

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I can see why they would think that from your replies on the matter as well. You seem to cast the problem not as "costs too high" but as "perceived value to low." In other words the design was fine, but players don't value their "community" enough to contribute to it.

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Yes, the use of the term "perceived value" indicates that there is a inherent practical value that is hard to discern or is being overlooked. With Bases, that continues to be debatable, even with the current changes.

The repetition of "perceived value" tends to convey the idea that the designers created something that players just don't 'get', but will eventually if it's explained better. I'd like to think that the design people who actually work on Bases 'get' that players understand all the explanations, moved past the explanations, and have offered detailed feedback on how to enhance the product (Bases) so that the practical and percieved value are more in sync with actual gameplay trends, rather than idealized gameplay trends.

There's no sin is missing the target a little. It is sinful to drag one's feet in adjusting to the situation on the ground.

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Regardless I'm glad that progress continues on bases.

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Agreed.

Well, we'll see about who looks "silly" going forward in the months to come. I don't think the Vet Rewards feature shakes up the status quo that much. Progress is being made - good. I think the commentary here still stands up quite nicely, remaining constructive and relevant.

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Bases were not one of Cryptic's successes; I think most of us can agree with this.

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I'll venture to disagree. Especially with the Halloween content (I actually made four bases, for different groups) I've determined that bases are not FAILURES.

They're perhaps mediocre, perhaps simply "good enough but not in any way exceptional" in the same way that those old russian cars of the 1950s and 1960s were functional and did the job, but were anti-luxurious and anti-performance in every way.

We're disappointed, perhaps, because we expected something really spectacular, and didn't get that.

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Well, considering that Bases got an extraordinary amount of time and resources devoted to it and it still doesn't quite work according to specs, and has some conceptual flaws to boot, this feature lies perilously on the line between success and failure currently. It doesn't have to completely not work to be a failure. In fact, I think it's completely safe to say that the initial implementation of Bases has been a failure, and that subsequent patches and fixes over the last six months have made great strides to revamp and redeem this feature.

If Bases had been something that required the same amount of time and resources as, say, Pocket D, then it would be in a far better place as far as evaluating its success or failure. But it didn't.

I still think Statesman is trying too hard to connect costumes to bases as having the same value system and metrics, but I respect that he has taken more than one stab at this thread's stiff commentary and seems to be perilously close to 'getting it'.

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But costumes don’t provide ANY gameplay function – and people care a WHOLE lot about them?

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Costumes don't provide "ANY gameplay function" the same way that mission text and the narrative of storyarcs don't. I've already offered a hypothesis for why this is something of a blind spot for Statesman, so I won't belabor the point.

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But it shows human behavior (and this was the point of my talk): people LOVE individuality. They’re willing to express it. But they won’t consider (in game) it worth a lot of time/effort to create a space that’s customized for group identity. Clearly, people don’t mind group identity (hence, super group costumes) and they love their own personal costume creation.

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In part, the devs created the heightened expectations. Much of the rest of the game works so well and integrates together so nicely. If bases were more accessible to non-SG people and were actually situated in the game world instead of some small pocket dimension, maybe they wouldn't need to have more obvious utilitarian functionality. As it is, bases are an expensive distraction from the rest of the game world - even if the CoP Trial were active. That's what I find mildly ironic. The CoP wasn't expected by the playerbase to be anything but a more streamlined Hammi raid, and now the company has already evolved their raid vision past even that into being along the line of the LRSF because many people have clamored for something less numbers intensive than Hammi and the devs seemed to have concurred. So while the company is continuing to develop raid/SF 2.0 content, they've still got this wonky instance of raid 1.5 content from 2005 that they've got to wrap up. I'd offer more sympathy about that, but I have no idea whether they tripped themselves up this past year or whether they're the victim of several unfortunate circumstances that caused things to go awry.

Cheers.

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The single most requested item in CoH is to make the costume creator standalone...

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I find this shocking. I thought the single most requested item would be new content followed by, specifically, post-50 content.

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"New content" is a given, but an overly broad term that the company likely doesn't track. I wouldn't be surprised if, over time, an offline costume creator is technically the most popular specific request. It's about the only thing that a majority of people would agree on being entertaining, though most wouldn't put it in their top three of the top ten things wanted.

I recently saw the CoH-Korea offline costume creator torrented with the english hack info included, so there's still a smoldering interest in something like that.

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To boil it down, what I was suggesting is that we, as Americans, have an innate abhorrence of working primarily for some one else's gain.

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Agreed, with an edit.

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Political ideologist and contemporary philosopher John Rawls once proposed a thought experiment aimed at developing a new social contract. Rawls suggested that you imagine yourself in an original position behind a veil of ignorance . Behind this veil, you know nothing of yourself and your natural abilities, or your position in society. You know nothing of your sex, race, nationality, or individual tastes. Behind such a veil of ignorance all individuals are simply specified as rational, free, and morally equal beings. Thus, the key is that people make decisions based on what is good for their community as a whole, and without regard to their own self-interest (since they operate behind a veil of ignorance and don't know enough about what would benefit them).

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Rawls has a point, but I'm more comfortable with Rousseau's thoughts on the 'social contract'. Humans tend to be barbarians with a thin veneer of 'civilization' on us that tends to wash off in the metaphorical rain, so I'm more simpatico with philosophers who've survived through bloody revolutions in the streets. Rawls tends to strike me as a little too idealistic and sanitary, but he's a good read to even a visceral, bare-knuckle amateur philosopher like myself.

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Get the point?

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There's some interesting stuff in your post, but I really think you're straining to make the 'government type' metaphor work. Entertainment works on slightly different priorities than real-world institutional concerns. All the same principles apply, but there's are just different priorities and 'physics' to entertainment and hobby pursuits, including generally a much higher threshold for tolerating fascist-like decisions. Then again, look at how this country has turned over the last few years...

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Bases in CoH/V are not as popular as one might have expected because the system inherently produces a social structure that is decidedly un-American.

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Well, when was the last time you visited a planning and zoning meeting for your municipality? I think most people who get exposed to real "American" democracy in action would be surprised.

I'm not sure that there's much consensus on what being "American" is, though, considering it's a hodge-podge of a variety of governing philosophies ranging from libertarianism to socialism with more and more flourishes of fascism in recent years. Considering that the definition of "American" depends on one's situation and perspective, how would the developers divine how to make the game more "American"?

Ultimately, I'd argue that people don't want something exactly like real-life in their entertainment and there's only so much one can learn from real life to guide virtual life design, so imposing real-world doctrines realistically might be just as flawed as what has been done with bases. As an example, base rent is realistic and logical and simulates capitalist opportunity costs to an extent, but falls apart as something useful in the current Prestige economy and interms of CoX's gameplay.

I don't think most people fault the devs for not inherently knowing what "fun" is, but that the feedback loop for discovering what will be fun for most people in this unique game isn't as effective as it might be.

*cough*

I'm so bored waiting to go out tonight, lol.

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Intestingly, costumes have no gameplay value. They don't boost damage. They don't boost resistance. They don't boost defense. They're only for show.

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Costumes looks cool cost nothing (at first) to create and add numerous different pieces to the overall appearance over time. Costumes are as character defining as powers. To say they have no gameplay value or are "only for show" is kinda insulting to people that take pride in their costumes and the inter-relation between their costumes and their characters story/powers.

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I didn't take it as insulting, but did take it as dismissive as far as the value of the costume creator, and it's probably good to bring up. (I couldn't really shoe-horn it into the structure of my other reply.) It's a mistake on anyone's part to discount the power of the costume creator to facilitate 'immersion', which facilitates (but does not create) 'fun'. The flexibility and current costs of the costume system makes up for or papers over the creakier parts of the CoX 'gameplay' experience for a lot of people.

"Costumes have no gameplay value"? When did gameplay only consist of number-crunching? It's nigh to saying that the user interface doesn't matter that much, or level design is a minor concern. It's such a narrow, incomplete view of gameplay. I'll rack this up to awkward articulation because if Statesman doesn't "get" how much the costume creator has been a factor for drawing in and maintaining subscriptions, then it really was best for him to move up the corporate ladder and staff someone else as Lead Designer who 'gets it' when it comes to mass media entertainment.

Statesman, thanks up front for responding to this thread and participating with the relatively peaceful round table dialogue we players have been having. It's appreciated.

I think there's some misinterpretation here - or my speech wasn't clear.
Well, a couple of people have indicated that the article's editing seems to have cut out or slanted valuable context to the quotes, which several people have accepted and attempted to take into consideration. I think the critiques persist because some of the slant of the article on the speech is perfectly in line with thoughts offered by red names in this forum. The article may be flawed, but it isn't out-and-out 'wrong' in portraying a summarized dev perspective on bases. The speech's coverage is notable only because there's a perception that you gave the speech freer than usual of corporate marketing restraints, not because you said something all that different than what is disseminated in more formal settings designed to market the game or placate players. It seems to a fair number of people that perhaps either (A) you viewed the keynote speech more as just another marketing venue and maintained hype talking points, or (B)that your internal Bases discussions are suffering from a little denial or defensiveness towards the people your trying to entertain. (A) does a disservice to the aims of the conference, and (B) indicates that the players aren't the only ones who aren't 'getting it' as far Bases go.

As just a resource for expressing something unique, base creation is on par tech wise with costume creation. Admittedly, there's not quite the same amount of textures, colors, etc., but there's still a lot of versatility. And the layout possibilities are endless.
Agreed, sort of. Kudos are deserved for the base editor, but "endless" is marketing speak. In addition, while there may technically be more possibilities in the base editor, the smaller details pack much less perceptual punch than the smaller details of the character editor in many people's opinion. The work it takes to finalize a character design with aesthetic concerns compared to what's required to finalize a base design with aesthetic concerns is on two very different scales, especially since there elements to the base designer that are very counter-intuitive to set dressing in real life. The base editor is good, but it falls short of great because of its technical limitations.

But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ
Your comparison is undermined by the fact that costume tokens are given out like candy and Influence is much easier to generate. Also, virtually nothing comes free with bases, whereas every character is able to make a very functional and distinctive costume design for free, right out of the box. Apple meet orange.

But even if there's an architect: many super groups have a member who designed a single costume which all then use. In other words, they're more than willing to accept someone else's opinion in the group identity for their avatar appearance. Again, the primary difference is cost (I think).

You're missing a crucial detail again. Even if a character has only one costume slot, he/she/it can have a personal costume and a supergroup-colored costume. How does this equate to bases? It doesn't really, especially when the opportunity cost to having a second costume slot is relatively small if an SG enforces strict costuming guidelines. There is no base slot 2, base slot 3, base slot 4, base slot 5. With costume designs, there is always - ALWAYS - an co-existing option to go exercise personal choices while submitting to the common good of the group. Bases afford most players less rights and privileges than the average apartment renter who sacrifices many liberties in order to be part of a particular building in a particular community.

The cost factor is, in part, a misleading distraction. Fixing the Prestige economy won't make people love Bases. It will, however, address a fat, stinky negative aspect of Bases, and is worthy of pursuing.

I really think it would best to not compare the two systems so closely any further. They only have superficial similarities in both form and function.

I completely agree with many of the suggestions raised in the Base Construction forum, as well as one's mentioned here, would improve Bases to some degree or another. Posi and I go through them at length; really, it's just a question of time & resources. Some things would take astronomically long to do - or perhaps there's something else even more requested or popular.
I think most people understand that and appreciate the juggling act the devs have to do with the multitude of conflicting priorities and limitations of production. The reoccurring theme in this thread isn't you folks at Cryptic perpetrated some horrible sin, but that in making a post-mortem of the Bases feature implementation you seem to emphasize it's lack of popularity is more due to the fickleness of players, than the bugginess or kludgeyness of the product. There's several prominent functional design flaws and bugs with Bases that have yet to be fixed, in addition to some conceptual flaws. To the company's credit, you have begun to address them, but the finish line is not just around the corner.

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1) Happy birthday Clintonian!

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Thank you. I still have over an hour to cling to my youth here in California at the moment.

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However, I also think that changing direction within a MMOG is like steering an oil tanker - you might want to make that turn, but it's going to take a while to get the thing facing some other point on the compass.

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Agreed. Just like with the conventional wisdom of the Dems retaking Congress this year, I think it's too early to cheer about a new day dawning yet - but I'm hopeful in my skepticism.

Remember: REAL HEROES VOTE on November 7th!

(...and real heroes insist on voting with paper provisional ballots if their electronic voting machines don't print voting receipts...)

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I don't see the confusion here....isn't this exactly what he said? People don't like it because it doesn't allow them to express their individuality; only those top five percent get to actually build the base while everyone else just contributes prestige.

It doesn't sound to me like he's saying "Well, I guess they just hate bases, go figure"....he's got at least some inkling of WHY people don't like bases, or one of the reasons, at least, and that's a good start towards getting them fixed. I don't see anything indicating that he thinks the players are rejecting the underlying concept of bases.

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Well, some of the quotes still seem to throw the onus of the poor reception on the players, rather on the design. There's still a little undercurrent of players didn't play the way he wanted them to, which handicapped the awesomeness of bases. You can see that inkling as a ray of insight, but it also could be a smaller mea culpa rationalization to avoid addressing a bigger problem.

It still seems like he's conceding a point with bases, when the point isn't really his to concede. The conclusion isn't really his to decide. The facts speak for themselves. The bases are a flawed construct - especially so since they are still so buggy and so many at-launch promised features to them are still not there. If they were there, he'd have more reason to imply that players didn't appreciate bases, but those features and functionality are not there. So he sounds a little like someone who's a little out of touch with the reality on the ground. *

I think that's been pointed out pretty clearly by the detailed, and mostly respectful responses in this thread.


*(Then again, I don't recall Emmert being all that hands-on with base design prior or during CoV beta. A couple of red names thought to be hands-on with the original base feature design are no longer with the company. This is actually ties into an ongoing discussion in various places about whether it's good for MMOGs to have seminal creators move on to new projects after a year or two. These things are complicated beasts of code, and it's difficult to replace the kind of code/feature experience that comes from having built it in the first place.)

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Still my main point really was just people really do get ridiculous.

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Agreed. There is some wiggle room between 0 and 'ALL THE WAY TO 11, BABY!' on the expectation scale, though. A lot of reasonable discussions here and in real life get off track with too much attention given to the extremes. It's tempting to tell an '11' person that they really should expect a '1' because it's frustrating to give a loony any credence to their fantasy and you want to shock them to reality, but these things tend to bite people in the [censored] later on. I have the marks to prove it, myself.

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A) Assuming Cryptic owes them more than it does. (Cryptic, by terms of service, only owes you access to the servers for your 15 bucks a month. Everything else was never guaranteed - it was merely something decided on as a way to entice customers. Yes, I would quit without that stuff - but that doesn't mean they *owe* it - it merely means its a good way to retain customers.)

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A very minor comment: I think it's NCSoft who takes our money for access to the servers. Cryptic takes our money (however indirectly) for access to their content. And it's kind of hazy on exactly what this "content" is, which I think is the reason for a lot of the ranting on the forums.

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I won't go into a long spiel about this again, but our $15/mo pays for more than server access. Who says that? Just the players? Nope, NCSoft says that if you check their Knowledge Base. And common sense. Content updates don't grow on trees that never need watering - somebody gets paid to make them.

People can inappropriately feel over-entitled to more content, but it's inherently impossible for them not to feel entitled to periodic content updates. Kellis is correct in that players are not guaranteed (and are sometimes confused by) specific content updates and fixes or specific timing of their release, but players have been promised some sort of content and fixes as part of the service and within a reasonable timeframe. To assert otherwise is cheerleading rationalizations that do nothing to encourage the maintenance or improvement of service.

I'm all for more realistic expectations (which is why the company's hype methodology boggles the mind), but lowering the bar to below sea level is just crazy talk.

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That's what the "new mantra" of "give the players what they want" really means: I've managed to let go of "my vision" and am now comfortable making it "our vision."

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Honestly, though, has there been much evidence of a concrete philosophical shift apparent in the game's development or in game changes? Perhaps it's the political skeptic in me, but I haven't seen that much of a shift. I have seen some spin and hype surrounding a shift, but I haven't really seen a lot of changes to reflect the shift. Maybe there'll be more evidence with after I8's out of the can.

I don't see a lot of personal criticisms of Emmert. I see critiques of gameplay and functionality in CoX, along with commentary on the company's ability and expertise in managing subscriber expectations.

Most of the people here have spent a lot of time, historically, recognizing Cryptic's achievements and complimenting the devs on the many things they've 'gotten right'. This thread is primarily about Bases, and Bases are not one of the things that Cryptic 'got right'. They 'got close' in several respects, but have yet to 'get it right' yet.

Trust me, the devs have thicker skin than you likely have in the face of criticism. This thread is 10 times more useful to them as-is, than it would be if people just formed a daisy ring of praises and excuses.

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and absolutely no mention of the legend system... new epic AT's. But hey we are still devoting resources to a crafting system :/

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The Dev Digest is your friend. Click on the link in my post signature below and bookmark it for handy reference.

The devs ahave commented not long ago that the 'Legends' system was folded into the 'Inventions' system that is planned for I9 if it doesn't get pushed back again. The devs have commented there was no mention of any EAT being specifically released in I8, just in a future content update. Look for it in 2007.

As a heads-up, traditionally at this point in the development cycle, the devs are really focussed on the the Issue that's about to go out, so expect specific questions about future Issues to get vague-to-the-point-of-useless answers on those topics or no answers at all.

Plus, here in California we have to read through a huge voter guide for the Nov. 7th elections about various Propositions, various state and local bond measures, and whatnot. It's a lot of work that has nothing to do with the game to filter through the hype and hyperbole and misdirection - but remember, real heroes vote!

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As well, Tar Patch recharges fast enough with three SO recharges that it is up every fight. Pre-ED you could self stack the thing.

Its funny how something like that, which we told the developers was overpowed as soon as we could test the addition of -Res to Tar Patch was left alone for ages, and yet, specific action is taken to nerf Auto Turret? Misplaced priorities.

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It's gotta be the RV turret situation bleeding unnecessarily over. Problem is, it's a bit of an apples and oranges situation in my mind. You just can't compare the effectiveness of temporary stationary pets to sort-of-perma armed fixtures that can occasionally be used as pets by bunker operators if they bother to jump in the driver's seat.

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It really is a ridiculous power, and not one that you ever see in comic books, except as a plot hook, such as when a group of heroes are teleported up to an alien space ship to be used as pawns in a intergalactic gladiator game.

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LOL,... /QFT (JLU ftw!)

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Not QFT. Pinpoint short range teleports are no stranger to comic books. It just isn't used as often because it's not very dramatic as a regular device in most situations since the comics don't treat TP Foe as a to-hit power. Recall Friend in narrative fiction also undermines the stakes in risky situations in ways that are much more acceptable in a computer game. It's also more difficult to set up artwork panel tableaus elegantly to convey the power. Nightcrawler's (X-Men) particular teleport abilities are a notable exception, and many teleporter characters mimic him.

Soooo, not so ridiculous after all.

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When Castle said "Legacy issue" I think he was referring to calling Devices "Gadgets".

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You're right. Mea Culpa. I mixed it up with an unrelated past reference to 'Legacy issue' elsewhere by a red name.

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I think the change probably increased in importance when more people started taking TP Foe. It is more popular than it used to be.

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I'll have to take your word for that. It's always been popular among PvPers, and Controllers have been using Recall Friend on mobile pets from CoH's launch until the devs fixed the elevators to allow pets. Even now, Recall Friend is useful for precision placement of pets in battle, when they hang on map architecture, and when you outpace your pet in outdoor maps and zones. The current wisdom is this decision is an outgrowth of removing the exploit of porting bunker turrets in RV. While I can agree that those RV bunker turrets probably deserve a teleport exception, I feel player- and NPC-generated pets are fair game for any power. Evidently, Castle disagrees. Feh on that.

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To be honest, I don't have much of a problem with the change itself since you can't TP most of the other objects like Auto Turret around either (Ice and Burn Patches, Caltrops, Tar Patch, etc.) You can, however, get a lot more use out of those powers, partly but not entirely due to their recharge rates.

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None of the powers you listed fill a stationary pet role. Auto Turret, the mortar(s) (i'm not a MM aficionado), and even the Devoured Earth emanators do. People aren't concerned about tp-ing around Tar Patch and such, because people haven't been porting them around for forever and they don't act as pets.

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Last time I checked, there is no Gadgets secondary. There is, however, one called Devices. Freudian slips like this and folks wonder why some hold the belief that the devs don't seem to know the Blaster AT all that much.

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Gadgets is the internal name of Devices. It's a Legacy issue and it was my mistake when adding the patch note.

As for the change itself, there was an exploit involving TFoe and various stationary entities (like Auto Turret.) In fixing this, the player versions of these entities were locked down as well. I do realise this impacts one of the tactics Devices players used to bypass the limitations of the set. I'll be keeping an eye on this to see if the change hampers the gameplay too severely.

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Frankly, I think the dev staff is overusing the term and concept "exploit" here the same way the playerbase tends to overuse "nerf".

This smells like the teleport powers being out of favor with staff because it makes their job harder to design challenges after two years. What's the word I'm looking for... ah yes...

WAAAAAAAAAH!

It's illogical to not be able to teleport emanators, small turrets, mortars, etc. Truth be told, it's odd and breaks immersion to not be able to tp glowies, but I can at least understand that glowies are a different class of object that wasn't built to be moved. Removing functionality that already penalizes characters by making them take a power pool to enjoy is silly, narrow thinking - especially after two years of it not breaking the game! Whose radar was this on? It's so out of left field. Next thing you know the dev staff will be locking down the ability to teleport mobile pets.

It's not exploitative. It makes perfect sense. This solution is, respectfully, a kludgey hammer of expediency. Ugh. "Legacy issue"? For who?

File this under fussy tweaking of code for tweaking's sake. I guess it was easier to do this than fix the CoP definitively.

*chuckle-sigh*

I swear, some of the things that get "fixed" nowadays just make you shake your head.

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All in all, I'm very dissapointed in this, and I know its going to influence some folks in my SG to suspend their accounts.

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Oh noes, less Veteran Rewards for them.

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I'm sure his SG mates will be really gnashing their teeth about missing out on the Cyrillic letters and sombrero hat Veterans Rewards if they're interested expanded gameplay options. There's only so many baby carrots you can dangle for some people before the hunger for a real meal overpowers the desire for those adorable little carrots.

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*sigh* Called about 15 Wal-Marts here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to check. Couple of them here actually knew about it, but none of them had seen it yet. Really disappointing. Kind of like being told your getting a Red Ryder bb-gun for Christmas, only to open the last box and find a pair of sox and a note for an IOU.

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Err, I guess the metaphor works if you already have a Red Ryder bb-gun with a slightly different trim. There isn't that much in the GvE edition.