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Do you remember all the people who said "The more superpacks we buy, the more we let NC nickle and dime us in the store, the more content and fixes we'll get"?

How are those people going to explain the shutdown?

Do you remember the apologists who insisted that CoX was not dying even when it went F2P? Why don't we hear from those people today trying to do backflips to explain why this game is going belly up if it is doing so fine?

Next is for the devs.

Remember how often when the base building community, or the badge community, or the pvp community, or the AE crowd, etc., told you during the BETA testing of an issue that certain things were wrong, or problematic, or downright disasterous and you refused to listen?

There is a real cost to not listening, isn't there? If your vision and approach were so darn right, why has CoX been bleeding customers in a way that even F2P couldn't fix?


When developers hurried to fix things that benefited the players and yet let inconveniences and bugs linger for months or years, when developers were slow to accept responsibility, slow to change, slow to fix, rarely if ever apologize, when developers sealed themselves in a forum bubble where the most fanatics and devoted live, this is what you get.


I'm sure a few will try to rationalize, or argue. But there are no better rebuttal than the fact that they are shutting this down. If their vision and the way they were doing things were so right and correct, then this product would still be profitable, wouldn't it? There are far older MMOs out there that are still going and thriving.

So Posi and folks, hope you learned the lesson here and use it in your future endeavors. To the apologists and sycophants making excuses for bad behaviors over the years...you get what you rightly deserve.

We Told You So.

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It's amazing how many people trot out the "stop being ungrateful" line when someone voices a valid complaint. A Tier 1 inspiration that can be bought in any store for pennies is not a valid reward for ToT'ing.

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In every game there are those people, who apparently have their self esteem so tied to this game as if they have no life beyond it that every criticism, even legitimate ones like these, are taken personally. I remember fanbois ranging from the Battlecruiser forum fanatically defended their overlord, to things like Master of Orion 3, or the total wreckage that is now called Age of Conan (sure hope you aren't a Funcom stock holders as they are down 90+%). Sadly, these people exist in every game.

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It's their typical apathy and not doing their job.

Like the other poster, I also sent a bug report about the lack of spirits from Test. Either they failed to take players' input seriously, or they just flat failed to do their jobs.

The excuse to nerf tier 3 inspiration drops was obvious and illogical. So people can click doors 10 times more frequently, an easy fix would be to adjust their drop rates accordingly to drop 90% less. But instead its an excuse to further kill large inspirations in the game. Remember Kora fruit? Then they sneakily nerfed inspirations drops by bosses so sometimes they drop nothing. Lets be honest and call a nerf a nerf. There was an easy fix to counter balance the new door click rate, you guys just didn't want to do it.

Last but not least, people have complained about Jack's spawn rate for the last two years. It all fell on deaf ears. Its not like it would unbalance pve, kill pvp or destroy the market if people can fight Jack as often as Eochai. And add to all this the bit about "we won't fix it since its not an exploit", they are essentially admitting that as long as things hurt the players, problems can wait indefinitely, but if an issue happens to benefit the players they'll jump on it. A sadder and more pathetic attitude I have rarely seen. Like I said, typical apathy, disconnect and flat not paying attention.

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Who cares if they have all the badges? I sure as hell don't.

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Once again, I'm sure they don't care what you think either.

Debate this issue based on its merits, whether you give a damn about other people's concern isn't the issue, even if you'd like to make a mountain out of it. Screaming out you don't care about what is obviously important to some people reminds me of a kid who covers his ears and goes blah blah blah I don't care what you say.

Like I said, debate the issues based on its merits. Leave your contempt out of it if you want people to take you seriously.

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They don't care what I think and it is they that are making the mountain out of nothing. They want the system to constantly adhere to what they want, while some of us don't mind either way. It's that whole different strokes for different folks sort of thing. This new set of badges really helps out people who play a lot of alts. I have quite a bit of characters, even my main that has a lot of badges (and is pretty much my badger), so it is a nice addition in my opinion. It seems that people are trying to make it out to be a system that rewards you for not playing or for doing nothing and that simply is not the case. It rewards your offline characters while you are playing one of your alts. So you are still, I hope, enjoying the game.

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See? So much easier if you talk about the issues instead of post nonconstructive tripe like "I don't give a damn what they think."

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Who cares if they have all the badges? I sure as hell don't.

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Once again, I'm sure they don't care what you think either.

Debate this issue based on its merits, whether you give a damn about other people's concern isn't the issue, even if you'd like to make a mountain out of it. Screaming out you don't care about what is obviously important to some people reminds me of a kid who covers his ears and goes blah blah blah I don't care what you say.

Like I said, debate the issues based on its merits. Leave your contempt out of it if you want people to take you seriously.

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Who gives a crap? The only one cares is you.

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pssst ... they care about your view as much as you care about theirs.

Think about that one.

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Snow_Globe isn't completely off his rocker here. There is an intrinsic value to the badge system that actual badge collectors provide. Unless it is required for an accolade or other unlockable, only completists really go after, or even care about things like explore badges, or many of the defeat badges. The devs have sent mixed messages about the badge system by statement and action for as long as the badge system has been in place. It is not unambiguously a given that players just aren't supposed to be able to get all the badges as Venture claims. In an absolute sense, that's technically true, but the devs have always hoped that the players would pursue everything else.

You can't tell people "be a collector, of some stuff." That's incompatible with the collector mindset, and a good game designer should acknowledge the target audience they are targetting. If the devs are targetting people who care enough to pursue some of the badges with no meaning beyond collection, and will happily ignore all the ones that are designed to be out of reach, they are targetting a phone booth: there aren't bound to be lots of people like that.

*If* the devs push the collector mindset too far, they could devalue badge collecting past a tipping point, and simply eliminate collectors from the system. The only people left would be the ones who would only pursue badges if there was something else in it for them. And in that case, badges cease to be a meaningful reward item in the game. They would only be a game mechanical contrivance to act as a placeholder to unlock the *true* rewards.

That is a gameplay loss of some value. Why its not a higher priority to address is something that I'm honestly not sure about. It almost seems like the Powers That Be think its something they can fix whenever they want, so its a low priority. I'm not sure I agree. I don't think there's any danger *now* to the badge system, but I also believe that the first sign I detect that it is in danger will be when its dead. We're not going to have swimming polar bears giving us a hint.

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Bravo Arcanaville.

Probably one of the very best posts in the forum from all these years.

Too bad Posi will never EVER understand or pay heed to that message.

Not sure whether there is any point in keep adding to this thread. Its a great consolidated list. But instead of dealing with any of the listed issues that the players are concerned about, the devs went and decided to completely redo the base salvage system that no one was complaining about. Again and again the devs have shown that they totally don't "get" bases. Talk about being blind, deaf and stubborn to boot. Instead of simply having to encourage people to play in sg mode, now we all have to look forward to trying to convince them to donate their invention salvage for base architech instead of crafting IOs for themselves. What a total fail.

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Pardon me for being blunt...
Why do so many people think Empowerment Stations suck?

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Why? Because they are trying to do two things at once instead of one at a time - 1) making a resource sink, and 2) pretending some lame buffs are uber to be worth great costs.

To the devs : please don't assume your players are stupid. When something isn't worth it, *most* people tend not to do it. Examples : empowerment buffs, fighting Paladin in KR, killing malta turrets, non badge hunters going for the sg Combat Log, secured plots (lol), etc. etc. etc.

The empowerment buffs is a joke, we know it, they know it. Unfortunately, their data mining is going to show quite a lot of use because people are crafting KB buffs and burning it repeatedly and over and over in order to farm for the Fabricator badge. Great resource sink and scam, by the way.

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Rezzes getting *reduced* makse sense, because the purchase price of Rezzes also got reduced in I12, and intentionally so. You can't have Rezzes sell back for 5 times the normal insps anymore since they can be made with only 3.
The trouble is that Rezzes and everything else then got reduced another time.

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Oh I wasn't saying that Rezzie shouldn't be changed to make the sale price as intended, but I AM saying that the double standard where they fix things to 'work as intended' only seem to apply when it ends up lessening the players. As you well know the numeric value of Empath isn't as intended, so why are they willing to completely re-do the pitiful sale prices of all inspirations but not the one number for Empath? One can't have it both ways. Either show a willingness to address ALL the numbers that aren't working as intended, or spend their developement time elsewhere, and not just change the ones that "benefit" the players. Hence my assertion that they act petty and small. It isn't like we don't have a ton of REAL bugs that need fixing.

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<ul type="square">[*]Auto-Doc buyback prices for 2nd and 3rd tier inspirations were cut to 1/4 with Issue 12. Why? [/list]
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Clearly thats because the grossly unreasonable buy back price was causing a severe economic imbalance within the game so it must be addressed immediately! Things like this is FAR more critical than all the broken items in base, the bugs in the editor, and those missing advertised features which-shall-not-be-named.

Yes, that was sarcasm of course. But beyond just having a list of things to fix, we really need to address the often misguided and PETTY priority the devs have chosen to spend their precious developement time. They have no problem with people flipping recipes and salvage in WW and earn millions for little to no work, but they chose to reduce the tiny tiny bit of buy back price for tier 2 and 3 rezzies? Its only been like that for 2.5 years. How petty is that?

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<ul type="square">[*](updating an existing item here) Storage for Inf. But given that the devs removed the ability to hold Inf on a trial account, holding Inf in a base item would probably be equally unbalanced, and thus very unlikely to happen.[/list]
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Since trial accounts can't join SG, I don't think that is an issue.

Very nice guide, thank you.

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When did that happen? I'm aware of the devs making balance changes, but I'm not aware of them ever just making a change because it "made sense". In fact, we argue on these boards all the time for things that "make sense" but the devs don't change the rules to accommodate that.


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There are numerous examples. The change to the original mentor badges is a good example. They changed it when it didn't make sense due to the sheer amount of time required to lk someone. Unfortunately they totally screwed it up and went way under, but thats another story. The original numbers didn't make sense. They changed it. The rest is history.

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OK, so let's say it's broken. So what? Why should they do anything about it now? Why should they change the rules? What's the benefit of doing so?

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The same reason they should fix the broken Robo Surgery units, or missing badge graphics, or costume clipping or bad flight pose? Professionalism, pride in one's work, and credibility? Take your pick.

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That's not an unreasonable reason to change it, but don't we have to consider that in a game, changing the rules shouldn't be something done lightly?

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Changing the rules when the rules no longer make sense to the dev is not "done lightly". They have done it before, and they will do it again.

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OK, so let's say it's broken. So what? Why should they do anything about it now? Why should they change the rules? What's the benefit of doing so?

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The same reason they should fix the broken Robo Surgery units, or missing badge graphics, or costume clipping or bad flight pose? Professionalism, pride in one's work, and credibility? Take your pick.

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But I'm a narcissistic (censored), GFN, what's your excuse?

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I'm OCD about people who are OCD.

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I believe that idiot was me. No kids.

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No, I wasn't referring to you. Was definitely not you, that person has at least a boy.

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The inf badges, on the other hand, you need to actually play the game to earn them. And it's not casual play, either. Farming, tough enemies, long play hours... it takes a LOT of work to get the epic inf badges in any decent amount of time. It's FAR more likely for someone to be sitting at the computer for an unhealthy length of time working on this type of badge.


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QFT

If someone is to talk about "harmful", the top influence badges is definitely much more "harmful" to a person than Empath. With Empath, at least you can go to work while you sit with your thumb up your nose in the arena. But with Popular and Leader it is different. I remember when one of the top badge idiots bragged about his Leader badge, and someone raised an issue, he INSISTED that he has a life. Oh yeah, I'm sure his son is real glad his dad sat in front of the computer for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours farming influence instead of spending that time reading or playing ball with him.

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First, I am the high priest of loot and I'll never turn from my lady loot. It's the very fact that I have no concern with her fickleness and wait patiently for her caress that I have not exhibited any OCD tendencies at all.


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Some people refuse to acknowledge that they are OCD about badges, while some refuse to acknowledge they are OCD about other things. Funny thing is, those folks aree usually the last to recognize their own problem. I'm sure you think "you can quit any time too". See? Not so nice when you are on the receiving end, is it? Maybe from now on you'll think twice about mocking others because your self dubbed "high priest" habits might be under the microscope also. And if you think your obsession is somehow BETTER than others, well, I've got news for you. It isn't. Its just as ugly.

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You're conflating two different concepts in your mind. I'm not saying that everyone who likes badges is exhibiting OCD tendencies. I'm saying that some people take it too far with this need to "have them all".


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I was going to respond to the rest of your post but that last statement just stuck out too much like a sore thumb to not refute. Did you READ this thread, and in particular the OP? Neither the OP nor I were talking about this "must have them all" thing that is in *your* mind. The OP clearly, exactly and articulately detailed why the REQUIREMENT for Empath is stupid. Don't let your pet peeve, which doesn't exist in the OP, turn this legitimate into a platform to discuss what you want, which is apparently badge OCD. Because if you are going to put a spot light on that, don't be surprised that others will put *your* OCD on the spot light. It matters not whether you have zero, or one, or many purple or rare loot pieces. You and I and just about everyone who frequent the forum know who is the loot champion here even if you don't want to admit it. So, do you want to talk about badge OCD, or whether Empath was designed right or not?

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Except, you don't see anywhere near the same level of obsessive behavior on these boards towards ultra-rares.

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LOL look in the mirror and see its Champion. In one particular occasion, I remember someone waving a banner with the Apr-June sub numbers and declaring phat loot a winner, but was embarrassingly silent when the Jul-Sept number showed that people came back to give loot a fair try, then decided that they wanted to be elsewhere. This incidentally was the same someone who fanatically defended just about every post against loot, egging the devs on in every opportunities, but seems to somehow think that the people OCD about loot has left lol. I guess it is true, OCD people are often the last to recognize their own OCD. You reviled and found badge OCD intolerable, but when in fact you aren't that much saintlier than those you denounce. The behavior just comes in a different form.

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Another strawman. I never said "Remove badges" I said, "Remove epic badges". Why? Because the behavior that people have exhibited towards these badges are unhealthy and worse than anything else I've seen in game including loot.

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Oh plluuuease. Instead of FIXING the Empath badge by putting in requirements that a normal AT can achieve within the reasonable lifespan of the game, you are advocating removing it entirely. That, is precisely the misguided defeatist attitude that I spoke of. You want to, and i quote "remove epic badges" instead of fixing the existing badges. Something more misguided and defeatist I have rarely seen. Heck, if the devs had taken THAT attitude with Blasters, whom they admitted were not performing the way they wanted, they would have removed that AT instead of fixing it instead lol. Sure glad you aren't in charge. In fact, ultra rare phat lewt encourages the same obsessive stupid farming behavior too. Lets remove all epic loot. Pwnt.

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No. Empath actually has no gameplay effect. That's a fact. Most loot (except costume pieces which I excepted) has a gameplay effect.

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Its like speaking to a stubborn brick wall. Decorations in base has as much gameplay effect as Empath, actually it has less since at least people can wear Empath as a title. So it is okay to make some waste baskets, chairs and tables requiring months or years of exploiting a known game loophole? Or do as you suggested, instead of FIXING the requirement, just remove all those decorations? Lets cure someone's headache by removing his head. What a misguided defeatist attitude.

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Except you didn't respond to my point. You just mentioned other useless things in the game that people seem to enjoy. I never said I did. I said loot makes your character better. Which it does. You didn't say anything that rebutted that.

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I *refuted* your point. You said "Empath does nothing", as if that personal opinion is grounds for dismissing it. I listed a number of things that might -seem- useless to some, and clearly dismissing those is folly. Hence your whole arguement of "Empath does nothing" is not only irrelevant, but misguided since value is in the eye of the beholder, and you aren't judge and jury for everyone. If you want to dismiss Empath, come up with a BETTER justification than "it does nothing".

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Yawn. Loot makes your character better; Empath does nothing.

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Yawn. Decorations in bases do nothing. Costumes do nothing. Character bio and backgrounds do nothing. Standing around in Pocket D roleplaying also does nothing. Just like the Empath badge doing nothing. [u]So glad we have an authority on what is "better" for each of us in a computer game. [u]

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You're more than welcome. Anytime.

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Do feel free to come up with a rebuttal on the logic or reason on my reply. Oh wait, you can't.