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Simple incompetence comes to mind. This is exactly what happened with ED. Even if you do argue that it was for the longterm good of the game, it was implemented horribly poorly.
B_L_Angel is not alone in doubting the truthfulness of the developers statements. If you just look over recent events
<ul type="square">[*]The Developers are notified of MA overreward problems in closed beta
[*]Developers ignore warnings [*]Developers receive further warning in open beta [*]Developers ignore open beta warnings [*]People post the problems on the boards [*]Further Ignore [*]MA goes live [*]People start using the problems [*]Developers are shocked and upset over this [*]Fit hits the shan over developer reaction [*]We have the accidental pre announcement of going rogue.[/list]
A cynical person might think that they deliberately let the MA over reward during the aniversary/ reactivation period to sucker people into renewing their accounts for a game circumstance they had no intention in allowing them to play.
[/ QUOTE ]I feel very badly for you, being forced to play a game run by incompetent, untrustworthy fools.
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Just because they decided not to hold up the release of I14 until after Easter does not imply they ignored the problems. They did get the fixes in pretty quick after I14 release, which indicates to me that they were probably working on them for some time. The sad thing is how little control a tiny minority of the players had when confronted with those well reported weaknesses of the system
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IIRC you were posting the issue about custom enemies with no ranged attack on the blaster boards. And If I recall, your words were to the effect
"We were told this would not happen"
So when you argue that players had so little control and it was a shame, which side of your mouth was that from ? The self righteous one or the one that egged people on to abuse it ?
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I am not sure what you are saying. I was critical of the decision the devs made concerning the lack of ranged attacks on some custom critters. I felt it trivialized one of my critters in a way I did not like and could be abused and would need to be fixed. I was surprised it exsited in closed beta, much less open, and even more so live. I have a feeling there is a lot about the custom critter design process over the previous 6 (+?) months we do not know. I suspect they had an entirely different system in mind and in the works which unfortunately failed.
While I am disappointed they did not have the current system in place during beta, I am not surprised they decided not to hold back I14 for it.
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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I feel very badly for you, being forced to play a game run by incompetent, untrustworthy fools.
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The common term is businessmen.
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I feel very badly for you, being forced to play a game run by incompetent, untrustworthy fools.
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Kinda sounds like a game called life. 
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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Kinda sounds like a game called life.
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Worst game concept ever but the refresh rate is good and its remarkably lag free.
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Worst game concept ever but the refresh rate is good and its remarkably lag free.
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Only because your senses mislead you into thinking there's a good refresh rate, if only you could experience things on the Quantum level, you'd see what refresh rate really means, same goes for the lag, it's a lie because your senses are synchronized to shut themselves off while other stuff is being processed!
I *DO* love the user-created content in 'Life', but I'd like it a lot better if they lowered the monthly fees
I believe that a Kheldian Gold Standard should be based on SO's, and for anything above that... there's Platinum!
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
Save Ms. Liberty (#5349) � Augmenting Peacebringers � The Umbra Illuminati
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but I'd like it a lot better if they lowered the monthly fees
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You got a monthly fee ? My plan has just one big one when I am done playing.
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I will not contest that there may have been a way of handling the MArc farming situation better. There is always room for improvement.
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heh, this has to be the understatement of the year.
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But in the case of the MArc, it was pretty much all laid out beforehand.
We told them in Beta would be abused.
They said in Beta that they would handle that by enforcing the existing policies against exploitation and modifying game elements as needed.
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beta, beta, beta. How hard would a gmotd, or using the warning channel in game have been for all those people that weren't in the beta, or just gloss over release notes (if read at all)?
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So far, they have not wavered from that position. They chose enforcement and pulling/adjusting game elements rather than some kind of blanket code solution or not allowing rewards.
It's not what I would have chosen, but maybe it is for the best.
In any case, I think history shows that the Devs are quite willing to overhaul systems when they decide they aren't working, so we have the entire future to hash this out.
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There is hope for pvp then lol.
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But whether or not you beleive anything the Devs say, logic persists that the only reason to refuse a customer's money is because you beleive accepting it would be ultimately bad for business.
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Simple incompetence comes to mind. This is exactly what happened with ED. Even if you do argue that it was for the longterm good of the game, it was implemented horribly poorly.
B_L_Angel is not alone in doubting the truthfulness of the developers statements. If you just look over recent events
<ul type="square">[*]The Developers are notified of MA overreward problems in closed beta
[*]Developers ignore warnings [*]Developers receive further warning in open beta [*]Developers ignore open beta warnings [*]People post the problems on the boards [*]Further Ignore [*]MA goes live [*]People start using the problems [*]Developers are shocked and upset over this [*]Fit hits the shan over developer reaction [*]We have the accidental pre announcement of going rogue.[/list]
A cynical person might think that they deliberately let the MA over reward during the aniversary/ reactivation period to sucker people into renewing their accounts for a game circumstance they had no intention in allowing them to play.
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Your cynical perspective may or may not have happened. People are naive if they think stuff like that doesn't happen. That isn't to say it DID happen. Some things indicate there is a lot of grey in this situation. Even if they did utilize such underhanded techniques I don't blame them. Business is for real and it is serious bsns.
I believe them when they say they didn't expect it to be as bad as it was, but at the same time I KNOW they could have taken simple steps to prevent the abuse (even during a blackout) and they chose not to for w/e reasons.
You knew the going rogue announcement would happen at the tail end of a reactivation period, or double xp event, etc so that it would hit maximum amount of people.
I don't think they wanted it to drop this soon. I think this was supposed to be the announcement that followed shortly after CO launches. Let people check out the new shiny and then lure them back along with some of the new people that game snagged. But damage control of MA made slipping rogue necessary.
dropping the news this soon gives ample opportunity for competition (both direct and non) to overshadow this news very easily because of the "what have you done for me lately" appeal.
"going rogue" is going to have to be RE-announced several times now lol and they are either going to have to have a LOT of content (to keep letting new info out to keep interest high), or one heck of a marketing team. (personally I think there is much to be desired on both counts, but we'll see).
Captain_Apple I however am in a GREAT mood! 
How bout yourself? lol
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Worst game concept ever but the refresh rate is good and its remarkably lag free.
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Only because your senses mislead you into thinking there's a good refresh rate, if only you could experience things on the Quantum level, you'd see what refresh rate really means, same goes for the lag, it's a lie because your senses are synchronized to shut themselves off while other stuff is being processed!
I *DO* love the user-created content in 'Life', but I'd like it a lot better if they lowered the monthly fees
[/ QUOTE ]I wish it was easier to modify my character's build. I mean, what's up with all this "exercise" and "diet" stuff? Why can't I just adjust a slider?
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actually, you are. What is a rental contract? an agreement between 2 people. The laws vary from state to state, but I know from personal experience that evicting someone is not as easy as calling the police and saying the other person is trespassing.
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Allowing someone to stay at your residence is far far different from renting someone a property, money aside. I also know for a fact that in the situation we're talking about, the police can and will remove a no longer desired "guest" whether they paid you some money to cover your expenses or not. Perhaps, as you note, it's a difference in our state laws, though, and we've gotten WAY WAY off on a tangent so I'm just going to jump off this derailment. Feel free to have the last word (just to note that I'm not trying to grab that and run).
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Preach it brother! Just did this myself last night. I don't care if you are a preferred customer, you don't walk into MY house and openly abuse and berate anyone. We are employees, not targets for your hostility. We are trained to be polite, hospitable, welcoming, and to a degree subservient. But that is a courtesy we extend in order to garner a name for our brand. To make you feel at home even when you are miles away. Offering to fluff that pillow, or leave you a specialty gift in your room when you arrive. It's our pleasure. But treat me or my staff like you own me and cuss us out because the weather is bad, or because we don't serve some special dietary requirement we were never informed of, or because we ask for a photo ID AND a Credit Card unless an authorization is sent prior to arrival, and I become a very unhappy pappy.
There are policies in place, and though I do not control what they are, I am the one who must enforce them. Have I at times been a bit heavier handed than I should have? Sure. Once a fella decided that being asked for an ID was cause to cuss out every employee he saw and make gestures wildly around him that looked like he was wanting to fight invisible ding-dong soldiers. After finally stepping out from behind the counter, I informed him that his reservation would not be honored and he could walk out or fly out (He decided walking would be more dignified.) College graduation insured that only a buddy with a couch would hold him there for the night.
Heavy handed? Sure. but would you have wanted to have that guy on your property?
The main point here I think is that the term farmers has been attatched to two different groups of people.
Farmers: People who bloat their missions with mobs to maximize their rewards. Some missions prove more lucrative than others, ergo; they find popularity among this group. They commonly find ways to optimize their team builds, and form groups or clicks that spend their time enjoying content provided. Surplus is unloaded onto the market, and they are the taskmasters that any MMORPG need for a backbone. They do the grinding that some won't go near. If a preferred mission is made harder, they cry foul(*) and move on to the next best thing.
Farmers: This group finds loopholes and exploits for the express purpose of breaking the intent behind the game. They find out that Winterlords are broken and engage in a frenzy that quickly consumes the populace, drawing them into mob mentality. They usually result in broken upper-level builds and may have little play experience with that class. If they are unfamiliar with the market, they may sell valued drops at a vendor or place dropped recipes at higher than usual cost, giving the market hiccups. If their exploit is Fixed, they cry foul(*A common thread, and one of the few that connects the two.) and make empty threats.
Maybe we need clarification before we break out the pitchforks?
MY FAREWELL GIFT
It is never truly gone, as long as there is someone left to remember.
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2 cents' worth: we don't rent the game. We subscribe. Wouldn't a magazine subscription be a better analogy?
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Probably. I was originally just trying to be just subtly "off" from the inevitable "rental" agreement that comes up to illustrate the difference, but like many 'net conversations, it kind of took on a life of its own.
Dec out.
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2 cents' worth: we don't rent the game. We subscribe. Wouldn't a magazine subscription be a better analogy?
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Probably. I was originally just trying to be just subtly "off" from the inevitable "rental" agreement that comes up to illustrate the difference, but like many 'net conversations, it kind of took on a life of its own.
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[innocentlook]
I have no idea what you mean.
[/innocentlook]
The more I think about it, the more I realize it's not that bad an analogy: you go buy the magazine every month, or you prepay for certain length of time in advance.
Different people read the same magazine for different reasons, the articles, the pictures, the fiction, the ads, the personals, whatever.
Yet your money gives you absolutely no control over the content. You choose what you like from what's offered. If you don't like it, you can voice your discontent (but complaining about something that isn't even present in the magazine won't get you very far), or you can stop buying it.
Of course, after that, it begins to break down, but it's still not a bad comparison.
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Yet your money gives you absolutely no control over the content. You choose what you like from what's offered. If you don't like it, you can voice your discontent (but complaining about something that isn't even present in the magazine won't get you very far), or you can stop buying it.
Of course, after that, it begins to break down, but it's still not a bad comparison.
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Actually that is pretty good. The first thing I thought of was the New York Times on that one. The comparison is apt. The times has long slanted its reporting and has been losing readership as a result. (Its gotten so bad they are editorializing for a bailout of newspapers). COH has alienated segments of its audience and has put in place policies that tick off broader portions.
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We will have to agree to disagree here. I think the comm officers were a massive exploit in that they were not being used as intended and gave at specific levels extreme amounts of xp far and above anything else possible in the game. People knew this and exploited the heck out of it, I can't personally see how it isn't an exploit despite how long it took the devs to deal with it and despite how public it was.
To keep with the analogy its kind of like the last forest ranger that used it forgot to put the gate back the last time they used it and they didn't get around to either fixing the gate or closing it for a few weeks.
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The devs knew when they put them in MA that Comm officers gave more XP than normal, and still they moved foward. They knew it when they did their own internal testing, and still they moved foward. They were told in closed and in open beta that it would be exploited, and still they moved foward. As far as I'm concerned, and I guarantee I'm not alone in this, if it can go through such extensive testing with full knowledge of the potential exploit and still go live, then it must be working as intended.
To use your analogy, the forest ranger forgot to close the gate despite the fact that he was told repeatedly over several weeks that the gate was open and that he needed to get his [censored] over there and close it. He's got nobdy to blame but himself if the bears got out and raided everybodies picknick baskets.
[/ QUOTE ]This is interesting to me, because I read claims to the exact opposite, that the Comm Officer exploit (putting many of them on a single map so that all but one won't summon portals) was NOT identified before release.
Yet, even if it was, using anything in the game to collect an "unnatural or unintended" level of benefit IS prohibited by the rules of the game. In the Forest Ranger and the gate analogy, it's like there were signs on both sides of the gate saying "Do Not Enter. Trespassers will be prosecuted." Even if the gate's wide open, if you go in, you're breaking the rules and subject to punishment.
(I know I'm responding to a post over a day old, but I'm very curious about the "identified before release" question.)
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My Rebuttal to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaARoLhnkc4
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A cynical person might think that they deliberately let the MA over reward during the aniversary/ reactivation period to sucker people into renewing their accounts for a game circumstance they had no intention in allowing them to play.
[/ QUOTE ]
And this brings to fruition an opinion that was in the back of my mind, but that I had not yet formulated.
I think that's EXACTLY what they did.
It really would have been kinder to just host another double-xp weekend or event than do this, though. I just can't repeat enough how poorly the recent spate of bannings and lockouts I have been reading about, reflects on the game.
People should not be locked out, banned or have things deleted unless they are literally trying to hack the game or actually damage some real-life component of it. All this other crap is hitting a fly with a sledgehammer and I really hope the developers have thought this through carefully, because it does not look good.
They are acting like CoX is an inelastic good. IT IS FAR FROM THAT. I would have thought they learned that way back in the Enhancement Diversity days, but.... *shrug*.....
since anyone not in line with the Party is not allowed to speak, this turns into another nice american portfolio.
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since anyone not in line with the Party is not allowed to speak, this turns into another nice american portfolio.
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En francais si vous plait ?, Je ne comprende pas
im persecuted by mod 08 , but i barely think anyone will see that, since he deletes me as i speak...
besides, the mood on MA is all fine with me, since i dont play with anyone, i closed all my global chats, and my one and only attenpt to team with any, turned into a void, aka nothing.
someone"anyone wanna do something?"
me "yes, im game"
someone "..............................
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since anyone not in line with the Party is not allowed to speak, this turns into another nice american portfolio.
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En francais si vous plait ?, Je ne comprende pas
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"Etant donné que les personnes qui ne sont pas d'accord avec le parti seront suprimmées, on dirait une photo de famille americaine"
the mood on MA is simple: texas is into communism, they give the game back to the people, man, that movie "W. "by Oliver Stone was a joke, a pretty bad movie...But when i play this game.... i mean, the movie was bad, but the mood on MA is even worse.
I haven't played in MA since it went live. But in closed beta I remember a lot of proud dev pronouncements about how there would be no problems with farming and exploits. This continued through closed and open beta when the obvious problems (mentioned by many players on the forums) weren't addressed.
So now that those problems have almost brought down the system, the devs are in the position of cleaning up a gigantic mess and alienating people who came by their badges honestly.
I have no sour grapes since I'm not affected personally, but I think this whole process of closing the barn door and cleaning up all the giant piles of horse doo-doo once the animal was long, long gone is extremely unfortunate.
It doesn't entice me to go back to AE at the moment. I probably will eventually.
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So now that those problems have almost brought down the system
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What does that even mean? All of my arcs work and only one or two of the people I know have had any invalidated for any reason (usually because of a bugged map they removed). How have they "brought down the system?"
And if you haven't played one yet since they went live, what do you know about it anyway?
I haven't done a Hamidon Raid since the new version came out, but you don't see me claiming the devs ruined it because I wouldn't know. I didn't like them in the first place and actually stopped doing them long before the new system went into effect, but whatever.
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actually, you are. What is a rental contract? an agreement between 2 people. The laws vary from state to state, but I know from personal experience that evicting someone is not as easy as calling the police and saying the other person is trespassing.
[/ QUOTE ]
Allowing someone to stay at your residence is far far different from renting someone a property, money aside. I also know for a fact that in the situation we're talking about, the police can and will remove a no longer desired "guest" whether they paid you some money to cover your expenses or not. Perhaps, as you note, it's a difference in our state laws, though, and we've gotten WAY WAY off on a tangent so I'm just going to jump off this derailment. Feel free to have the last word (just to note that I'm not trying to grab that and run).
[/ QUOTE ]2 cents' worth: we don't rent the game. We subscribe. Wouldn't a magazine subscription be a better analogy?