To All Red Names! Don't let them get to you!

[ QUOTE ]
They are providing a service that people pay for. It's the nature of the beast I am afraid.

[/ QUOTE ] As a former Moderator at a small game called Wulfram II, it's got nothing to do with being a paid for service.

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My Going Rogue Trailer

Virtue (blue) - Wes The Mess
Virtue (red) - Jess The Best
@Razoras

I read the whole thread...........




What, Who me?........ I got nothin’


But the RED Names ROCK BABY!!!!!!!!!

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The developers should take whatever is posted on these boards and compare it to their mission and goal - if these postings point out a deficit in what they intended as to what is happening, then we as posters have done well.

Forum-tards should NOT dictate the direction of the this game, the creators are in charge of that. Besides, do you really want to play a game that is infuenced by someone who likes to post; "[Censored]!!!!! tHeY nErF s0kE G!!!!! WoW ees n0w m@ sheet!!!!!"

I know I wouldnt.

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Wow... to call this a butt kissing thread means you must be in need of reading lessons. Go back and color the pretty books in the LD class, kid.

Everyone who does a good job deserves an "attaboy" every once in a while (or "attagirl", sorry CuppaJo). If you feel this is butt-kissing, try being a manager for a while. See how morale drops when you don't recognize and constantly criticize. Then see how production drops.

Butt-Kissing?

No. They are my employees, as they are yours. You pay them $15 a month to do a job for you. That job is entertain you, fairly cheap in my book. Does paying $15 a month entitle you to abuse them. No. Will small-minded, immature people do it anyway, yes.

I will do my damndest to let someone who is doing a good job let them know I recognize it. Why? Because if you don't, they stop caring. What will that mean to you? Lets be logical.

You provide income, they HAVE to listen to your whining, right? Well, as long as it matters to them. If it no longer seems like a positive experience for them, creativity dwindles and they dread coming to work having to deal with the negative feedback. Good writers and developers and artists seek work elsewhere.

Others can replace them, RIGHT? Well, they are coming in on the middle of a project and will not have the heart and creative drive that the original group will possess if that original group had positive feedback for their vision and ingenuity.

WHO CARES? I PAY, THEY MAKE! RIGHT? Well, not necessarily. You see if it gets to be a pain, then Statesman and whoever else shares the business, goes for a buy out because the job ain't fun no more. They find someone who will buy a game with a good crowd already attached to it (200k+ members is it?) and a stable system (which it is). Statesman and business partners make their money, sigh and leave. Enter larger business that wants quick profit and can sell for a loss. No heart, no content, not the original vision. They will probably want to restructure payments to maximize profits. Updates may cost money. They may throw more money into advertising to get people to join more and rely less on word of mouth. Spending money on PR rather than development, counting on the influx from new players will make up for the attrition loss from older players who feel ignored and bored.

Not a win, win situation.

Whiners? Moaners? You lack long-term vision.

Criticisers? Good work, if something doesn't work let them know. But do so respectfully as they respect you as a customer. Don't think so, try other MMORPG's and come back when you figure out how GOOD we have it here.

Those who give "attaboys"?


Well.....


*swoon*


I for one like this game and the direction it is headed. If you don't.... and you can't figure out how to criticize without whining and moaning.... vote with your feet and your dollars ....do us all a favor....AND LEAVE.

*Baron gets off the soapbox, picks it up and hurls it at the whiney ones*

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Cheers to that! There is nothing I can add to that, except that it lifts my heart to know that there is at least someone who knows how to be a good MMORPGer, and a DECENT PERSON!

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Thing is, when you buy something how often do you make the point of going back just to say thanks or well done. Yet if you buy something and you aint happy whats the first thing you do? Complain of course.
I say credit where it's due.

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[ QUOTE ]
5 inf says she locks this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone help Comfort find the pocket book

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*shakes fist*

You dirty so and so! I knew I shoulda trademarked that *swoon* thing!

*grumble grumble*

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The problem is that very early on these boards two labels were established..

#1 if you're at all critical of COH you're whining..

#2 If you like COH and appreciate anything the devs are doing you're a Fan-Boy.

Both ideas are complete rubish.

Many of us see a bright future for COH but see imbalances that need fixing. Many of us are neither Fan-Boy or whinner we just want the best game possible.

I suggest extremists on both sides learn to be civil.

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In any event, I have no intention of debating civility with the entire board, that's not my job. It's poor CuppaJo's. I made a case for civility, and tried to reassure the devs that most of us appreciate the job they are doing in an attempt to keep them talking to us. I'll just leave it at that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know how long you've been reading these boards, but here's my take so you know where some of us are coming from.

I posted things just like you early on, the devs actually communicate, it's cool, treat them better. But then I started playing a controller.

That's when you really start to notice things. Like States saying they're going to "fix" controllers . . . and then making AV's immune to holds and nerfing the crap out of the only two controllers that worked in the first place. This after you spend hours and hours looking for teams w/ your hero b/c controllers are so lame.

Then you see them make "official" threads that have hundreds of posts, without any comment by the devs. Dozens of pages without even a "ok, we're at least looking at this."

Then you see obvious misinformation in some posts. Then you see contradictory comments in different boards made to appease different AT's, as if they think we're too stupid to want to play more than one type of hero.

Then you start to think they aren't so much talking to you, as in providing information and listening, as they are trying to make you think everything is peachy and you should like the fact that your heroes suck.

Then you start to think, hmm. What am I really getting from this "give and take" with the dev's on the boards? I'm not getting any insight into their plans - they make cryptic (no pun intended) comments, then do whatever the heck they want. Sometimess better than what the boards discussed, sometimes worse, sometimes exactly what was discussed.

So let me ask you. What does it help to know, for example, that "controllers aren't solo AT's," that "everyone should be able to solo," but that "controllers may solo more slowly than other AT's?" Does that mean you're going to make a controller, or give you any insight into where the controller AT is going?

If so - can you help me w/ my football pool picks? B/c you're obviously a mind reader w/ the gift of prophecy.

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[ QUOTE ]
If so - can you help me w/ my football pool picks? B/c you're obviously a mind reader w/ the gift of prophecy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well... I dunno...

You're not going to teach me about broken games, even if this is one. I'm sorry, but I was an OLD time Blacksmith in Ultima Online when it was the only game in town. I worked for seven months to build my Grandmaster Blacksmith (and I was NOT a casual player back then, it took that long for heavy players).

When I got finished I was one of the extreme few, Grand Master Blacksmith. Almost NOBODY went through the tedium necessary to do that in UO's early days. We were an honorable group, because we'd put in a LOT of time building our characters, and if you got a reputation for dishonesty, your Blacksmith was just flat out finished. Nobody would trust him with their stuff.

Then I watched as PVP got out of hand. I watched as other players were allowed to wander around and kill the blacksmiths at will. I watched as they were allowed to drag the blood soaked ore they looted from their fellow players back to their houses, where they would set up a macro that would get them to Grand Master Smith in a few weeks of 24x7 macroing, using materials they stole off the bodies of the REAL Smiths and Miners.

I worked hard to get around it. The miner killers flooded all the mining spots, even the ones on the ocean that required a boat. I started losing count of the number of times per day I got killed trying to mine enough ingots to make the weapons and armor my friends had asked for.

One week, I kept track of every piece of ore I mined vs. every piece I managed to get home past the griefers, the player killers, and the thieves. The ratio was greater than 100 to 1. I had to mine at LEAST 100 ingots to manage ONE ingot at home.

I was also the best known Blacksmith on Usenet. I posted in rec.games.computer.ultima.online. I was an old timer, and everyone knew my name. People created characters on my shard when "creators marks" went in, just so they could own a weapon marked "created by Ingot Head".

So, as one of the Blacksmith's most famous voices, I complained. I complained bitterly, and long, and hard. I was passionate, I was logical, I was everything I could think to be trying to save my profession.

But I wasn't abusive.

This game hasn't EXISTED long enough for you to suffer the same level of lost work, reputation, and emotional attachment I've suffered in some of these games, and if I wasn't abusive I think I can say that others can bear at least what I did before they become so.

Of course I can't remember every post, but I CAN tell you that I tried VERY VERY hard to not get personal, never never call the devs names, despite Raph saying things that insinuated the craftsmen needed to be helpless so the other players could play like heroes and rescue us. (Which they never did)

Now, if I held my tongue through that, if I remained civil while I watched YEARS of work wiped out, and the very people that were killing my character multiple times a day taking over my profession who's reputation for honesty and charity I was so proud... If I could watch them turn that profession into a gaggle of scam artists and macroing exploiters, and still not toss names at the devs...

Then I think more abusive of the folks here can be a bit more constructive in their criticism, and I think I've deserved the right to say "good job devs" without being called a butt-kisser.

Ingot Head of Minoc
Atlantic Shard

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Baron Leo and Ingot Head have nailed it down for me...

I've thrown out the occasional "attaboy" post myself, not to kiss butt or to suck up, but just to let the Boys and Girls in RED know that hey, not every poster on these forums - in fact not even a MAJORITY of them are whining crying nerf herding babbies.

They say that folks usually remember the bad more than the good, and when I was a trainer for Earthlink Networks we were told that for every 1 Kudo we received saying "good work" there were at least 40 "You SUXORS!". I am perfectly happy to try and tip that balance in favor of the attaboys...

And if that makes some of the folks here think less of me, so be it. The reasonable ones are the only folks whose opinions really matter.

-Rob

OH, and P.S. GOOD JOB DEVS!

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"I swear you could fling a man hole cover across the street and hit more notes than 90% of those idiots on American Idol" -Desmodos
"Every time you post I feel like I been hit with a fist full of smart! Thanks." - Volken re: Sucker Punch
Arc #36984 V'kta A'cha Vox'm

Agreed Ingot.
The Devs ROCK! Thanks for the hard work and patience with the game. Many, many of us appreciate it!
There'll always be some little kiddie so blinded with pubescent rage at the world that he or she has to scream at everyone; just ignore it, they'll eventually learn respect.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If so - can you help me w/ my football pool picks? B/c you're obviously a mind reader w/ the gift of prophecy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well... I dunno...

You're not going to teach me about broken games, even if this is one.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has nothing to do with a game being broken. It has to do w/ what exactly you're thanking the dev's for.

I think I've made exactly two posts directly critical of the dev's, and both times it was in response to lack of communication, not anything game-related. Those of course are going to happen, and nothing to get personal about.

This is a great game, and the devs have in general put out a good product. But whatever you call the dev responses on the board, they are not taking aprt in a debate. Particularly for controllers, they are not even taking suggestions on things until after drastic changes are made. Heck, they aren't even giving notice of the changes for the most part.

So what are you saying here, Ingot? Good job on a good game? That's great, but has nothing to do with posting on these boards or communication. I thought communication with the dev's was the point of your posts. And that we do not get. We get a sad little facade of communication.

But if that makes ya happy, go to it.

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Go Dev's! you rock!

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Junkyard Wolf
California Smog(CoV)
Far Rider
Durango Dave

[ QUOTE ]
This has nothing to do with a game being broken. It has to do w/ what exactly you're thanking the dev's for.

I think I've made exactly two posts directly critical of the dev's, and both times it was in response to lack of communication, not anything game-related. Those of course are going to happen, and nothing to get personal about.

This is a great game, and the devs have in general put out a good product. But whatever you call the dev responses on the board, they are not taking aprt in a debate. Particularly for controllers, they are not even taking suggestions on things until after drastic changes are made. Heck, they aren't even giving notice of the changes for the most part.

So what are you saying here, Ingot? Good job on a good game? That's great, but has nothing to do with posting on these boards or communication. I thought communication with the dev's was the point of your posts. And that we do not get. We get a sad little facade of communication.

But if that makes ya happy, go to it.

[/ QUOTE ]


(player checking the floor of the room, finds that it has indeed frozen over)

I have disagreed with Hanged_man with the severity of nerfs and what not in the past but I am glad to see that someone else besides me has this opinion. Yes hell has frozen over again because rather than debate over technicalities with hanged_man I am going to agree 100%

Well put Hanged_man. To all those who don't realize that Hanged_man gives credit where credit is due and criticism where criticism is due; don't worry, if you look back over all of his posts you may understand some day.

The forums are about communication. You have the right to say "way to go Devs!" I have the right to say "Not bad, but did you notice this?"

Being better than everyone else does not make you great. Especially when most people bring up comparisons to what they consider broken games. "Well this broken game is better than that broken game."

Sorry but that logic does not cut it for me. The Devs are trying from looking at Statesmans recent posts to fix some of the things that are broken. This is great. Good job Devs for going out there and giveing it a college try. That was serious.

But if you were one of the people who responded on an over one thousand response post that garnered three dev responses at the begining and none since you might be more reluctant to say "Ignore those people complaining!"

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amen, good job. Thanks for trying so hard to keep things fresh and leting us know as soon as humanly posible. This is an amazing body of work and you should be proud

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I've been working hard at being succinct, so I wanna just chime in with:

1) CuppaJo is frikkin KEEN -- and that's not an honor I throw around lightly. I've been lurking for a while and I've almost never seen anyone maintain that level of consistent friendliness, helpfulness and patience. (And I've also been into these kindsa games since the early MUDs.)

2) The devs here are also way-super-faboo, and I MEAN that. Perhaps the crankier, more misanthropic ones are given private forums to play in, but the devs we hear from not only seem to care what we have to say in public, but they actually release updates with things we WANT!* FOR FREE!! (No, I know, we pay monthly, but you know what I mean.)

3) The CoH community just plain rocks. Aside from the bad apples here and there, as a rule the barrel is helpful and FUN. So folks wanna call this butt-kissing, I call that gripey. As others pointed out we are all people here, and I'm a solid believer in letting people know what you think they're doing right.

So there.

* Note: By "we" I mean myself and others who want them. I know there are tons of things people want for various classes/powersets they haven't gotten, but I've been on both sides of this fence and I can't put the entire 'fault' of "differences of design wants" on devs

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#28470 - MA & YOU! Quick Tutorial
Poster 1481: Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings
Cultist fun in 3586 Project: Perilous - Into the Chthonian Pit
Formerly of Perils of Paula!

Just for the record, we're really happy with the COH community - it's one of the best, most positive, communities of the games we play, with a far higher level of intelligent, well-thought-out posts than average - no BS. People are passionate (of course) and not every post is positive (by any stretch) or on-target but all in all we like it, warts n' all. We need the feedback to make the game better, both positive and negative, and our time on the boards is well-spent.

Yes, we all know the average industry bar is low (heheh) but I actively like visiting our boards.

-jg

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Jeremy Gaffney
VP Product Development, NCsoft

[ QUOTE ]
Just for the record, we're really happy with the COH community - it's one of the best, most positive, communities of the games we play, with a far higher level of intelligent, well-thought-out posts than average - no BS. People are passionate (of course) and not every post is positive (by any stretch) or on-target but all in all we like it, warts n' all. We need the feedback to make the game better, both positive and negative, and our time on the boards is well-spent.

Yes, we all know the average industry bar is low (heheh) but I actively like visiting our boards.

-jg

[/ QUOTE ]
Remember though that some people are out just for personal gain and whine until people take notice.
I think the devs know what the're doing on this game though.

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I'm always surprised by what people expect their $15 a month entitles them to. But I respect their right to their opinions, valid (to me) or not.

All I can say is, I echo the original poster's sentiments. I thank Cryptic for giving me a game that has produced literally endless entertainment. I spend every non-work minute injecting the sweet high of City of Heroin.

And yes, I like my parents' basement just fine, thank you very much. It muffles my subwoofer quite nicely.

--NT

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They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!

If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville

Today I left work after an hour of overtime. Just felt like catching up on some papers, and getting a bit ahead for tomorrow.

Having just checked the Dev digest a few hours earlier, I though little of it.

Upon arriving home, I found a long list of posts. Shrugging, I started reading them from where I'd left off.

Tanker loving is en route, on top of the end reductions to attacks!! *gasp* Nice.

Lord Recluse announces his presence. *Gasp* Very nice.

Statesman lays some smack down, as always, a few laughs, and then HOLY CRAP! A possible patch release/GM Event/Statesman-only-knows thing happening this week.

*GASP*

*Nearly soils himself*

. . . I love you guys and gals. Seriously.

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[ QUOTE ]
So what are you saying here, Ingot? Good job on a good game? That's great, but has nothing to do with posting on these boards or communication.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm saying that ALL of the things they get hit with, they are doing better than any other MMORPG dev's I've seen.

Does that mean they're perfect? No. Personally, I agree with some of your points, I think they play things a bit close to their chest...

But I understand why they do that. They don't want the entire process out there in the open, because every time they say "Hmm, that's an interesting idea", 100 people take that as a promist that they're going to DO it, and they get ripped a new one when it doesnt work out.

I truly don't think we disagree here. You might be thinking I'm saying the dev's decisions shouldn't be criticized...

Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the DEV'S should be treated with respect, and if they bonehead an idea, then the IDEA should be criticized...

Or at least rationally discussed.

Again, I've had my frustrations, but these guys have been better than almost any other dev I've watched on a public board.

Ingot

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"Tosser" isnt really that insulting.

I've made hundreds of constructive posts, started threads that have spawned hundreds of replies etc..

In Update 2, literally everyone of my characters (40 Fire/Kin, 42 Fire/Dev, 39 Kin/Rad) was nerfed. Sure i understood smoke, and perhaps even Fire Imps, but definately not FS.

The Devs created an "official thread" that went into something like 400+ replies without answer. I run a number of companies, if my staff allowed such a lapse in customer support i would have them publically flogged.

For the record, my "insulting the devs" seemed to have got the issue addressed and solved. Making noise, even negative noise, is often the only way to get things done.

To TOP, you are clearly a fanboi and therefore just as invalid as someone who just whinges for no reason.

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[ QUOTE ]
Remember though that some people are out just for personal gain and whine until people take notice.
I think the devs know what the're doing on this game though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Many won't believe this, but most balancing (or not fixing of claimed imbalances) is based on datamining as opposed to volume of complaints, or so claim the balance folks when I talk to them.

Board posts/complaints do make folks run different queries on the actual live data however to see if there is fire with the smoke, so it's well worth posting if you see something that appears off.

-jg

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Jeremy Gaffney
VP Product Development, NCsoft