Creature Handler Archive
Thread: My own rambling thoughts on this mess.
I just came back to the game after a hiatus of over a year and a half. First, a little background. I started playing SWG late summer of 2003. Creature Handler was the only profession I was interested in. I played a lot and reached Master CH by November, 2003. However, some things began to happen that made me less enthusiastic about this game.
I had been disappointed with the original wave of combat rebalancing that only affected Creature Handlers.I had also grown tired of the constant bugs that weren't being fixed (petsthat stopped following you wasa huge one), the lack of rare baby spawns as promised (Frenzied Grauls andBull Rancors anyone?), and unnecessary features such as the introduction of the 15 secondpet call delay. I finally had enough and chose to end my subscription in the first quarter of 2004.
From time to time, I would still miss my CH days. During thosefew times, I would come peruse this very board to check whether or not the profession had been improved. It had not. A year after I quit, the same problems still existed. I saw that Vertexon would compile his umpteenth list of the top issues facing the CH community and submit them to the devs for a prompt ignoring. I remained glad that I had left.
About a month ago, I checked the boards again. Lo and behold! There were changes to the CH profession with the introduction of the Pet Specials system. I was intrigued, and resubbed. Some of the pets in my datapad were now unusable because their CLs were now over 70. It took some getting used to, but I was rebuilding my stable of critters and was just beginning to figure out the new system. I was even happy to tame a Frenzied Graul. By chance, I happened to run into one of Milteck's alts the other day, and he invited me into BEAST, which I quickly joined. I was having fun again as a CH!
I had been busy the last few days and haven't had a chance to play or read the boards since Tuesday. From work, I took a glance at the boards today and was sad to see a goodbye post from Ko-Airi. I quickly became shocked as I read why.
I have never before seen firsthandsuch adirtyand underhanded move by a company towards its customers in all my life. I know I can't say anything new here, but I think I need to have a cathartic moment and type this out. Luckily for me, I haven't had a chance to buy the ToOW expansion yet. I was planning on it however, and was definitely interested in obtaining whatever it was that would allow me to control a CL of 80.
As so many others have already said, to market a product to customers with the expectation of a certain service, only to take it away a few weeks later (after you've already bilked your loyal customers out of an additional $30, mind you) is despicable. It's not like this was a sudden decision. Many people at SOE and LucasArts knew this change was coming, yet continued to hoodwink the CHs, for just one example, by dangling the carrot of a CH Necklace out in front of them.
Then, I read on these boards that there was a summit in Austin that only a select, sycophantic group of correspondants were invited to. The correspondants whose professions were getting the axe weren't invited to give their feedback. Instead, these specially selected correspondants turned into lackeys and yes-men towing the SOE line. That whole situation just compoundsmy disgust factor. I won't even get into the gross underrepresentation of the number of CHs that the devs are using as justification for getting rid of us.
Sorry for rambling on, but I needed to express my feelings on this, like many others have before me these last few days. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I have cancelled my account 3 weeks after I reactivated it. It expires November 11, but I won't log back in. I was inticed to come back by the positive changes that had been made to the profession and the positive changes that were to come with the purchase of ToOW. Thosechanges willno longer exist, they've been taken away from me. I have, and I urge others to do the same, disputed the monthly charge with my credit card company because SOE will no longer be providing the service that was advertised to me. I may not win my claim, but I felt it needed to be done.
With that, I shall say goodbye and good luck to those of you who decide to stay.
good to see some other people who know what is really going on
/salute
now back to being depressed for 2 years
Look at Larry's post count.
This is one of the people who aren't in the vocal board posting crowd.
He probably speaks for a great many lurkers and others who don't frequent the boards. The ones that SWG management says likes the changes, unlike those naysayers on the boards.
The word will spread how you screwed over your customers, SOE/LA. It will get out. This is appalling treatment. You may think that any publicity is good publicity, but frankly, I hope the dips responsible for this fiasco lose their careers over this.