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And there's the obvious question...|
Originally Posted by PowerStream
Also there is the obvious question... Why wouldn't I hold something in email attachment for more than thirty days?
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Why wouldn't we be informed of the limit ahead of time?
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Subject |
Originally Posted by Decorum
Reporting this to my SG and getting questions I don't have answers for. What specifically did the email say?
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missing e-mails
Discussion Thread
Response (GM Roland) 06/07/2010 04:35 PM
Hello,
I have found the recipes that had been lost. It appears that each of these had reached their 30 day limit and were deleted. At this time I have returned the below emails to your character.
Keep in mind that emails sent to yourself, or returned to you from another player will be deleted if they are not claimed within 30 days. If you need assistance again, please let us know and we will gladly help you.
Regards,
GM Roland
This is the response I got.
Thanks to the GMs for getting my stuff back.
Alts on all servers, lvl 50 of every AT:
lvl 50 Heroes on all servers but; Pinnacle, Victory
lvl 50 Villains on all servers but; Guardian, Pinnacle, Triumph, Victory
Current Projects: Tanks
Official MOM of Tribal Alliance
hmmmm... So it seems there is a loophole if people have multiple accounts. Very interesting.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Thank you very much. This indeed answers those questions.
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Cinder_Flux shares nicely: Subject missing e-mails Discussion Thread Response (GM Roland) 06/07/2010 04:35 PM Hello, I have found the recipes that had been lost. It appears that each of these had reached their 30 day limit and were deleted. At this time I have returned the below emails to your character. Keep in mind that emails sent to yourself, or returned to you from another player will be deleted if they are not claimed within 30 days. If you need assistance again, please let us know and we will gladly help you. Regards, GM Roland This is the response I got. Thanks to the GMs for getting my stuff back. |
Dec out.
If there's a time limit, then they really need to implement a line on the interface with a countdown. There's a lot of simple features that have existed in other game's emails that they should have looked at, noticed, and put in when they expanded our email.
To me, that's the advantage of waiting so long before they did it, but they kind of blew it. pohsyb et. al. do great work, but in this case it's a pretty glaring flaw.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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There's two different points here, and I'll address them seperately.|
Originally Posted by kendo
however, without any clearly worded "statements of intent" from the developments, one would have to be psychic to come to your conclusions here. absent an official policy statement, one can really only go by what one sees and infer from that.
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What some people imply is being psychic, I call common sense. We already saw the email feature crash and no one was reimbursed for what they lost. Yet when features that are intended to be used as storage crash the devs make the effort to restore a back up of that feature so players lose as little as possible. There is some loss but the devs try to minimize it. That makes it obvious to me that the feature isn't supposed to be used for additional storage.
On the above we can agree we have different opinions.
I'm responding to Hyperstrike in this response as well because he is also talking about the lack of notification.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
This time limit needed to be stated UP FRONT. Otherwise, it could be implicitly understood to be the intent.
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| I will agree with others that they should have done a better job of notifying everyone of the 30 day deadline. |
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I may be uncompromising in some areas but not telling players about something that could explode in their face isn't one of them. I don't object to the rule but it must be posted someplace where players can learn about it. |
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They need to make a special effort to make the players aware of that rule, and then make sure there is something in game that explains it to future new players. They can't force people to read the rules but they damn sure better be certain the information is available where anyone can read it. |
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| it's about being responsible and making a reasonable attempt to keep everyone informed about changes to the game in the first place. |
Or maybe they can send a nifty message to your global saying you have emails about to expire...
Either way, it is not like it cant be dealt with, but it was specifically talked about being used as storage, in open beta, and after it went live. Not mentioning the limit is a big snafu imo.
i hope, they give everyone a chance to cliam thier deleted emails. for a day or 2. i lost over 65 mil worth of influ and invention salavge. and i had no idea about the 30 day email delete. i always read the update posts all the way threw. and not 1 word about the 30 day delete.
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Originally Posted by PowerStream
Just a note, some people do have things that come up in real life that affect their game play. I recently had my mother go into the hospital for over 2 months, I did not play the game much if any. So because of unseen forces it is possible to not claim an email for more than 30 days. Would I hold NCSoft responsible for the losses? No probably not, but there is nothing like having things come up that make you feel victimized in real life only to come back to your "escape" to have lost more things.
So far I have lost nothing btw, but I just don't like blanket statements that say "it's the user's fault for not being informed." (quotes are mine not trying to say you said that.) I usually go out of my way to be informed on the usage of things especially when there is potential for loss. I don't feel this was the case. And I'm usually one of the ones backing the Devs, so this isn't a dev bash from me, I just think it was poorly documented and then handled poorly after the fact. Also there is the obvious question... Why wouldn't I hold something in email attachment for more than thirty days? Some players did look at this as a storage bin. It should, in theory, be safer to use than an open SG base to transfer expensive/important/highly sought items. I'd rather have it in my personal email than in an SG base where my son (or any SG mate whom I trust immensely) might grab it while I was at work. NOW that I know better, I will make sure to clear out my attachments, but to insinuate that I should have known to do so prior to now is just not fair. Only quoted you because you were the first post I saw to bring it up. Other's stated similar sentiment, so don't take this as a jab at you because that was not my intent. (Stinks that I have to quantify this but it IS the internet...  ) |
First off let me wish your Mother the best of health. I hope she is better or is recovering swiftly. I also understand that there is nothing personal intended by your post, we're just having a discussion about our differing opinions.
Now things like the one you described above do indeed happen and it really sucks when they do, but those things are the unanticipated events that the devs can't reasonably plan for when they are designing features.
For some reason they feel a limit is needed. I would love to know what that reason is. They should have told us up front that there is a time limit and the reason why.
But regardless of the length of the time they choose there will always be someone who has a real life issue occur that will last longer than the time limit.
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Originally Posted by Lemur Lad
If there's a time limit, then they really need to implement a line on the interface with a countdown. There's a lot of simple features that have existed in other game's emails that they should have looked at, noticed, and put in when they expanded our email.
To me, that's the advantage of waiting so long before they did it, but they kind of blew it. pohsyb et. al. do great work, but in this case it's a pretty glaring flaw. |
Oh I love the idea of a countdown timer. The only flaw I can see is that it would still require people to open their email window from time to time to check on it.
You know there would still be people who be mad because they couldn't be bothered to check the timer.
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Yep. I was thinking this myself, but wanted confirmation that it related to self-sent mails.
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
hmmmm... So it seems there is a loophole if people have multiple accounts. Very interesting.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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No offense, but I have emails going back years, both at work and at home, in order to keep a record of information. When the devs decided to refer to the system as "EMAIL", that automatically came with certain expectations of how it would work, based on other email systems we have already been using for many years.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No offense but I'm not going to feel sympathy if someone gets burned when they are using a feature in a way it wasn't intended.
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
No offense, but I have emails going back years, both at work and at home, in order to keep a record of information. When the devs decided to refer to the system as "EMAIL", that automatically came with certain expectations of how it would work, based on other email systems we have already been using for many years.
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The only expectation we are entitled to is that when the devs add a new feature to the game they give us full disclosure on how to use it including any penalties that we might incur if the feature has a time limit.
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They need to have the information easily available, like the page that intro'd the email features, mentions some limitions (no hero/villian, 20 mail limit) but not this important one - that mails get deleted. Should be in the ingame help menu. |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
And again that's why I came back and added that edit to my original post. They need to make a special effort to make the players aware of that rule, and then make sure there is something in game that explains it to future new players.
They can't force people to read the rules but they damn sure better be certain the information is available where anyone can read it. |
Couldnt find the patch note with information about it. Couldnt search the dev digest for it (is there a trick for searching dev digest?).
Expecting the average player to have searched through patche notes is unrealistic.
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Normal emails last a lot longer than 30 days though. I expected similar rules for mail with attachments, as not psyhic enough to know there would be a difference.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
It's not unreasonable that emails are deleted after some period. Spam from RMTers probably constituted 99.9% of the emails on the system, at least until the global email/attachment feature was added.
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There is now at least an annoucement about it: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=225117
Whew, I was a bit worried there. I'm pretty poor redside, and I thought I had just lost my 40mil, Kismet +acc, and Obliteration/Eradication IOs. Glad they hadn't yet expired... but kind of miffed that it wasn't more apparent that they would expire at all. Still, at least it only applies to emails you send to yourself!
The main reason I had so much wealth sitting in storage was that I removed an incredibly lucky and wealthy villain from my characters (finally), and am incredibly indecisive and didn't know who to give things to. D:
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Nice to see that they acknowledged they are working on a more effective way of letting everyone know about the time limit.
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Originally Posted by Disappearing Girl
There is now at least an annoucement about it: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=225117
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No. We are 'entitled' to any and all expectations.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
The only expectation we are entitled to is that when the devs add a new feature to the game they give us full disclosure on how to use it including any penalties that we might incur if the feature has a time limit.
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Some, however, might be unrealistic. In my opinion, this expectation did not fall into that category.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
I'm curious as to why having large amounts of goods (inf, IOs, whatever) is seen as an exploit in any way.
Is it because the ultra-rich were storing over 2 billion plus market slots?
Inflation has driven up prices but the inf cap remains at 2 billion. So in many ways, our ability to store inf has decreased over time.
Now if you want to store huge amounts of inf or goods, you need to make a few characters on an unused server, level them up a little bit and have them open the global emails. So this time restriction hasn't really fixed anything.
Is it the convenience of always having an extra insp or recipe at hand?
This is hardly game-breaking. You cant open emails and much down an unrelaistic amount of insps during combat. Situations where stored recipes could come in handy are very rare and contrived.
Seems to me this has failed to fix a non-existent problem, AND potentially driven a few players away. Losing your "life savings" in a game is the sort of thing that can snap you out of the moment and put a game into perspective.
(I havent been burnt and I'll keep on playing, BTW 
)
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No one said having large amounts of goods was seen as an exploit.|
Originally Posted by DrMike2000
I'm curious as to why having large amounts of goods (inf, IOs, whatever) is seen as an exploit in any way.
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| Inflation has driven up prices but the inf cap remains at 2 billion. So in many ways, our ability to store inf has decreased over time. |
That's 88 characters that could store 2 billion each for a total of 176 billion.
When CoV came out we got 4 more slots per server. That's 132 characters that could hold 264 billion.
Now we can have up to 36 characters per server. That's 396 characters that can hold 792 billion.
Each character can have over 20 slots at the CH each of which can be used to store another 2 billion inf. (I'll round down to 20 because I'm not sure of the exact number of market slots over 20) So we can also store another 1,584,000,000,000 at the market.
Add that to the 2 billion each character can hold and we have the ability to hold at least 2,376,000,000,000.
That's two trillion, three hundred seventy-six billion inf. So I'm not sure where you get the idea that our ability to store inf has been reduced.
Must be that new math they teach in schools these days.
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| So this time restriction hasn't really fixed anything. |
What I meant was that the 2 billion influence we can store per character means less in terms of what it buys, due to inflation. Maybe it used to translate into say 2000 LotG +Recharge recipes, now it only translates into 200.
My point was that if it is a problem for a character to have 2 billion influence today, then it must have been a bigger problem a few years back.
Pardon me if that wasn't clear.
But, as you point out, this restriction has been implemented for stability, which kind of makes the starting point of my post moot. So, no worries
Which is why I think they need to put the market fee on a sliding scale to suck more inf out of the game on those big ticket items.
2 Billion was a joke pre market and even during the first 6 or so months. But after AE, the inf fix for level 50s, the insane drive to purple out characters, all has inflated the inf supply that it's approaching the post WWI Germany wheelbarrow of cash for a loaf of bread levels.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
I think of it more like the Roman Empire, where bread was free and anything else got really expensive really fast... the price of SO's hasn't gone up.
Forbin: What makes you think that storing 20 billion in email is "like an exploit" but storing 40 billion in market slots, per character, is "not like an exploit"? I'd think that bidding on nonexistant recipes is MORE likely to be an exploit than not picking up your mail for a month. You've got a moral high horse going on here that I just don't understand.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Edit: Although I will agree with others that they should have done a better job of notifying everyone of the 30 day deadline.
Just a note, some people do have things that come up in real life that affect their game play. I recently had my mother go into the hospital for over 2 months, I did not play the game much if any. So because of unseen forces it is possible to not claim an email for more than 30 days. Would I hold NCSoft responsible for the losses? No probably not, but there is nothing like having things come up that make you feel victimized in real life only to come back to your "escape" to have lost more things.
So far I have lost nothing btw, but I just don't like blanket statements that say "it's the user's fault for not being informed." (quotes are mine not trying to say you said that.) I usually go out of my way to be informed on the usage of things especially when there is potential for loss. I don't feel this was the case. And I'm usually one of the ones backing the Devs, so this isn't a dev bash from me, I just think it was poorly documented and then handled poorly after the fact.
Also there is the obvious question... Why wouldn't I hold something in email attachment for more than thirty days? Some players did look at this as a storage bin. It should, in theory, be safer to use than an open SG base to transfer expensive/important/highly sought items. I'd rather have it in my personal email than in an SG base where my son (or any SG mate whom I trust immensely) might grab it while I was at work.
NOW that I know better, I will make sure to clear out my attachments, but to insinuate that I should have known to do so prior to now is just not fair.
Only quoted you because you were the first post I saw to bring it up. Other's stated similar sentiment, so don't take this as a jab at you because that was not my intent. (Stinks that I have to quantify this but it IS the internet...