CUEmu - Thread Posts

Gribnitz

Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:29 pm

I have played a LOT of MMPORG's over the years. Why is it that everytime one of them starts to tank into the toilet, they start sending out emails to former players to come back because the game has improved ??? Free Trial Period if you come back !!! Get 2 months free !!! One month free for you 'valuable current player' if you can get your friend to come back for a month!!!

Has it ever occurred to these MMPORG's that if they just listened to the player base in the first place, they would not be tanking into the toilet ?? Why must this occur with game after game ? Do any of these online games actually look at the prior competition and see why people leave in droves ? Do any of them work quickly to fix the problems the player base is experiencing ? Do they really have to win the Coaster of the Year Award before they react ??

A few examples why people leave :

Ultima Online - Player Griefing

Asheron's Call - Macro Players using 3rd party utilities

EverQuest - Harsh Death Rules / Massive Nerfs

I am sure there are more. How many friggin years did it take these examples to realize they are screwing themselves by screwing the players? I know I didn't hang around long enough to find out. I got frustrated, bored and angry and then finally quit. Is that what has to happen to get them to learn a lesson and react faster ??

Sad when we could be having so much fun.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gribnitz the Rodian with the glasses
Master Droid Engineer - Master Artisan

Did you know it is physically impossible to lick your own elbow?

Kauri Server shop located at -1155, -4532 only 900 meters South of Bestine

Hillslayer

Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:33 pm

#2

AC's gone to Turbine now. Gonna get rough for a while but we may actually see new players eventually.... (Been playing that more then SWG this past week tbh.)

-Jaramar Hillslayer
Ex-Chef Ex-Squad Leader Ex-Pikeman Ex-Rifleman Droid Engineer

SOE's favorite SW quote - "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

JediKnightMark

Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:34 pm

#3

Gribnitz wrote:

Has it ever occurred to these MMPORG's that if they just listened to the player base in the first place, they would not be tanking into the toilet ??

No, of course not. This is SOE after all. There's no room for listening to customers when it's so much easier to just keep promising things until the dewbacks come home. So many people WANT to love Galaxies that they'll keep hanging on forever if SOE keeps goading them on with "features" that should have been in the game at launch.

---------------------------
Haelon's Mercantile, Bounties and Starship Services.
Tatooine 2490 -4860
2-4-1-4 Reality Consultant
Yet another beta wasted
A respec a day keeps the monotony away

JediKnightMark

Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:36 pm

#4

BTW Hillslayer, I'm stealing your signature idea and finding me to SW quotes to stick on my profile in a mocking tone so I can direct them at a company that I'm basically paying $15/month to complain about on their forums. hope you don't mind

---------------------------
Haelon's Mercantile, Bounties and Starship Services.
Tatooine 2490 -4860
2-4-1-4 Reality Consultant
Yet another beta wasted
A respec a day keeps the monotony away

Hillslayer

Wed Feb 04, 2004 9:37 pm

#5

Go right ahead. They deserve it.

-Jaramar Hillslayer
Ex-Chef Ex-Squad Leader Ex-Pikeman Ex-Rifleman Droid Engineer

SOE's favorite SW quote - "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

Virtanis

Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:13 pm

#6

Blizzard better take a good long look at SOE...

"You Droid Engineers have had to suffer through some tough times. The Devs do not hate the profession and have plans to address some of the larger concerns."
- Q-3PO 10/23/03 1st Annual Droid Engineering Academy Awards
- Fortium - Master Droid Engineer - Master Artisan - Grumpy Advocate for Droids and DE's -
- Proprietor of CF Industries Droidworks -
Naboo: -6600, 3450; Tatooine: -680, -4290; Dantooine: -772, 2860; Corellia: -140, -5500;

JediKnightMark

Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:23 pm

#7

thanks. Maybe I should start a thread just encouraging people to put the infamous JustG quote(s) on their sigs from now on.

---------------------------
Haelon's Mercantile, Bounties and Starship Services.
Tatooine 2490 -4860
2-4-1-4 Reality Consultant
Yet another beta wasted
A respec a day keeps the monotony away

Shaladim

Thu Feb 05, 2004 4:50 am

#8

Puck_Starfire wrote:

Gawd I can relate on Asheron's Call. Awesome game until all the kiddies started coming over from Everquest and using their macros.

AC is still the best for me, and now they are opening a new server andopening up the Dark Majesty expansion for all players!

BTW many EQ players I met hated AC.

DarthBukai

Thu Feb 05, 2004 5:11 am

#9

Two reasons:

1) Corporate ego, the inability to admit they were wrong in the first place or that someone they disdained was right.

2) Marketing: In most companies the marketing department has an inexplicably disproportionate amount of power relative to the necessity of their existance. This is mostly due to the fact that the marketing department is way better at selling their ideas to executives than the people who actually produce work in the company. Therefore you get companies trying plug holes in a dam with PR posters.

Zuni Fhettisch - Future Uncertain
Ex-Master Droid Engineer/ Artisan/ Merchant - Loved his 'Droids but saw no love
Gone to Medical Academy like Mom always wanted him to - Master Medic/ Master Doc
Ex-Master Marksman, Commando, Swordsman, Brawler, TKA, Fencer

ResourceMonkey

Thu Feb 05, 2004 8:40 am

#10

The trouble is that many of the players mention cannot be fixed overnight. The Devs do listen to the player base, but they also take into account that just because one person says "It sucks" there isn't another saying "It's great!". People always complain about what is wrong and rarely about what is good. So they have to take that balance into consideration.

By the time the problem has had enough support, voice and has been verified and approved for changes, you then have to allot the manpower and resources to change the coding - and the more detailed an aspect, the more code that needs to be tweaked, tested and retested and retweaked. By the time that all gets done, a couple of months could have passed. So, it's not unheard of that by the time they bang out the top 5 bugs, half a year or more has passed.

Also, some companies send out questionairres to those people who have quit the game, asking them as to why. If the majority of the responses have issues in them that had been fixed, they would of course ask players back since they now fixed the troubles they had with the game. Not to mention you can always use more customers.

FRUGA HAS LEFT THE GALAXY - Good luck all, I'm done with this game - Account Closed 9/10/2004
with a two month visit again from 6/05-7/05

Upon launch of JTL - An Empire Deserted (no one on planet) Coming in 2005! "Star Wars Galaxies: The Jedi Empire"

Gribnitz

Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:19 am

#11

ResourceMonkey wrote:

The trouble is that many of the players mention cannot be fixed overnight. The Devs do listen to the player base, but they also take into account that just because one person says "It sucks" there isn't another saying "It's great!". People always complain about what is wrong and rarely about what is good. So they have to take that balance into consideration.

I wasn't talking about SWG in particular. Look at UO. I played that game for a good 2 years before giving up. From day one they knew from the player base that the player grieifing was out of control and people kept telling them that they wanted a pvp switch. They changed the 'murderer' logic code instead, which just made people turn into red terrorists in the game. It was exciting, but frustrating at the same time when you didn't have a choice and the same old crap happened day after day.

I don't remember exactly how long it took them, but they finally opened up non-pkduplicate worldsand most the population flocked over to those, leaving the PK world virtually empty. By that time a huge amount of the player base had left the game for EQ or AC.

I don't know about you, but 2+ years was a bit excessive to let the complaints go unanswered.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gribnitz the Rodian with the glasses
Master Droid Engineer - Master Artisan

Did you know it is physically impossible to lick your own elbow?

Kauri Server shop located at -1155, -4532 only 900 meters South of Bestine

Hillslayer

Thu Feb 05, 2004 12:00 pm

#12

1 star bandt alert.

-Jaramar Hillslayer
Ex-Chef Ex-Squad Leader Ex-Pikeman Ex-Rifleman Droid Engineer

SOE's favorite SW quote - "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

Puck_Starfire

Thu Feb 05, 2004 1:16 pm

#13

Gawd I can relate on Asheron's Call. Awesome game until all the kiddies started coming over from Everquest and using their macros.

As far as Blizzard goes, they have yet to put out anything bad, so I'm giving them a chance. But not WoW. I hate Warcraft, tho it's a decent game overall. But have fun with it guys.

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Thread: Who else has played other MMPORGS and wondered this ???