PSA - Forums Bad on Purpose

[~Gaesatae]

I've seen other companies do this when they don't want people on their forums anymore, pointing out uncomfortable truths. This is how they go about managing out criticism and negative feedback, once it reaches a critical mass. It's like how some fast food restaurants use uncomfortable chairs to deter loiterers.

DDO as we know it is on the way out, it has been for some time now. What is left for Turbine is the aggressive milking of hangers-on before DDO goes under for good. The new enhancement system and level cap increase will be an utter shambles of buggy disfunctionality; with many work arounds and shortcuts available in the DDO store.

You will be able to bypass the worst of the frustrating artificial barriers Turbine continues to build into the game, often under plausibly deniable smokescreens such as bugs in key aspects of game mechanics, by spending money in the store. This has already caused a lot of negativity on the forums, so Turbine are phasing them out as a viable social hub, in preparation for one more big obnoxious squeeze on the playerbase before DDO falls over.

The writing is on the wall.

[Charononus]

I've seen other companies do this when they don't want people on their forums anymore, pointing out uncomfortable truths. This is how they go about managing out criticism and negative feedback, once it reaches a critical mass. It's like how some fast food restaurants use uncomfortable chairs to deter loiterers.

DDO as we know it is on the way out, it has been for some time now. What is left for Turbine is the aggressive milking of hangers-on before DDO goes under for good. The new enhancement system and level cap increase will be an utter shambles of buggy disfunctionality; with many work arounds and shortcuts available in the DDO store.

You will be able to bypass the worst of the frustrating artificial barriers Turbine continues to build into the game, often under plausibly deniable smokescreens such as bugs in key aspects of game mechanics, by spending money in the store. This has already caused a lot of negativity on the forums, so Turbine are phasing them out as a viable social hub, in preparation for one more big obnoxious squeeze on the playerbase before DDO falls over.

The writing is on the wall.

Considering that it's pretty much a copy and paste job of lotro's forums I think you need this
http://jimdrake.me/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/tin-foil_365.jpg

[~nikos131313]

its not that i like the new forums but, can u name the other companies, so i can check their 'new forums' n compare to this one?

[BakaGenki]

http://foolishreporter.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/ihasconsprcythery.jpg

[~NewForumNameGoesHere]

The writing is on the wall.

Is this like the writing in bathroom stalls?
"Call 555-5555 for a good time!" Perhaps?

I think I'll pass on conspiracies for now. I haven't even had my coffee yet this morning..

[~Gaesatae]

I'm amazed that people are still in denial about the degree of capitalism we experience these days. You would think that the 2008 GFC would have given people a slight clue. I'm sorry folks, but everything you were brought up to believe about the world being a benevolent place, that there is some kind of planned positive agenda for our march into the future as a species, is a complete and utter hoax.

It is a world of vampiric organisations, driven by greed and power, bent on exploiting you with quasi-military organization and efficiency. They have had a long time to perfect their exploitative techniques, the telemetry from sources such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just the latest coup for the consumer industry. Come on guys, don't be suckers, nothing happens in big corporations that isn't discussed, planned and signed off in advance.

The forums have brought more negative publicity than positive since U14, more personal attacks on moderators and developers, more Turbine-bashing and ragequits. When people say put away the tin foil, I will say wake up suckers, you are being complicit in your own exploitation.

[zaphear]

I'm amazed that people are still in denial about the degree of capitalism we experience these days. You would think that the 2008 GFC would have given people a slight clue. I'm sorry folks, but everything you were brought up to believe about the world being a benevolent place, that there is some kind of planned positive agenda for our march into the future as a species, is a complete and utter hoax.

It is a world of vampiric organisations, driven by greed and power, bent on exploiting you with quasi-military organization and efficiency. They have had a long time to perfect their exploitative techniques, the telemetry from sources such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just the latest coup for the consumer industry. Come on guys, don't be suckers, nothing happens in big corporations that isn't discussed, planned and signed off in advance.

The forums have brought more negative publicity than positive since U14, more personal attacks on moderators and developers, more Turbine-bashing and ragequits. When people say put away the tin foil, I will say wake up suckers, you are being complicit in your own exploitation.

This game IS owned by Time Warner people... the company that doesn't want us to have faster bandwidth. They are evil, there is no doubt about that.

[smatt]

I'm amazed that people are still in denial about the degree of capitalism we experience these days. You would think that the 2008 GFC would have given people a slight clue. I'm sorry folks, but everything you were brought up to believe about the world being a benevolent place, that there is some kind of planned positive agenda for our march into the future as a species, is a complete and utter hoax. It is a world of vampiric organisations, driven by greed and power, bent on exploiting you with quasi-military organization and efficiency. They have had a long time to perfect their exploitative techniques, the telemetry from sources such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just the latest coup for the consumer industry. Come on guys, don't be suckers, nothing happens in big corporations that isn't discussed, planned and signed off in advance.The forums have brought more negative publicity than positive since U14, more personal attacks on moderators and developers, more Turbine-bashing and ragequits. When people say put away the tin foil, I will say wake up suckers, you are being complicit in your own exploitation.LOL, so this is "New"? Welcome to the human race... This is it... It's been going on since humans started forming communities..... And um.... One of the ways "organizatins" have been fleecing humans for a VERY long time is threatening them with all kinds of nasty things happening to them in this life and after. Every time I read stuff like what the quoted person said, it makes my eyes roll back.... As for the orignal poster... Well I doubt it.. You see if Turbine TRIED to make something bad, it woulod probably be really great... This forum thing is a mess..... Faceplant.....

[Charononus]

I'm amazed that people are still in denial about the degree of capitalism we experience these days. You would think that the 2008 GFC would have given people a slight clue. I'm sorry folks, but everything you were brought up to believe about the world being a benevolent place, that there is some kind of planned positive agenda for our march into the future as a species, is a complete and utter hoax.

It is a world of vampiric organisations, driven by greed and power, bent on exploiting you with quasi-military organization and efficiency. They have had a long time to perfect their exploitative techniques, the telemetry from sources such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just the latest coup for the consumer industry. Come on guys, don't be suckers, nothing happens in big corporations that isn't discussed, planned and signed off in advance.

The forums have brought more negative publicity than positive since U14, more personal attacks on moderators and developers, more Turbine-bashing and ragequits. When people say put away the tin foil, I will say wake up suckers, you are being complicit in your own exploitation.

http://troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/not-that-it-was-aliens-but-it-was-aliens.jpg

[~Teenah]

I wonder if the OP thinks that PSA stands for Pure Speculative ******tery?

[~Lorien_]

Is this like the writing in bathroom stalls?
"Call 555-5555 for a good time!" Perhaps?.

Wrong number.... It should be 86-75-309

[thenerfed]

The real question is what happens if you are on some other site and neverwinter pops up. Presumably the thread will contain people looking for a D&D MMO. So you tell them about the recent wonders of DDO:

- Have your credit card repeatedly billed until it hits credit limit!
[even worse is for DDO threads where you tell them to make sure they remove their credit card info due to Turbine forum idiocy and bug history. Followed by "I hope you removed your credit card because of the repeat billing bug". You really don't want that type of unforgivable failure to be so predictable.]

what, people are still reading?

- Maintence on weekends. Because Turbine hates their employees as much as they hate their customers.
- Remind them that marthon "awareness raising" ribbons are available for ~$1 a pop. Proceeds going to Warner corporate income fund. The CEO needs a bigger bonus.
- Point out that if you follow the paths you will get a complete gimp and need to reroll in a month or two. If you make one on your own you will make a complete gimp and need to reroll in a month or two. By the way, search on "paths revisted" no longer brings a working link, so good luck digging for a workable beginner build.
- Forum destruction removes an important way to learn the game. Expect to be a newb for an extended period of time. Go even longer before you learn just how bad your build is and you have to reroll.
- Is the enhancement system going anywhere? Last I heard you might be able to take *something* on another tree if you had a top tier enhancement in one tree, but don't count on taking much. Lamania chatter has been dead for weeks, and my client just doesn't want to download. Best guess is that Turbine is dead set on making sure DDO has less character options than neverwinter.
- The OP seems to think the expansion is a death knell for the game. Looks likely, the last expansion gave carte blanch to change everything under the sun and employeed temps for a deathmarch. The code base barely survived that and it isn't going to survive another. Turbine has a tendancy to put things on firesale in the store before making them free, so I'm expecting them to try to grab as many pre-release purchases as possible than produce a minimally functional expansion for as short as they can before turning off the servers.

Yes, I know there have been DooOOOoooOOOooom threads consistantly on the forum since beta. The impressive bit is that they managed to inflict so many disasters so close to Neverwinter giving them all the free advertising they could want, and all we can say is "runaway! runaway fast! You're better off posting your credit card information on /b than giving it to Turbine!".

[Chai]

http://i41.tinypic.com/34rvjtg.jpg

[phillymiket]

OP I must admit, sometimes I read threads and think "Yes, this is so bad it must be on purpose."

:-D

Sorry, I kid the you, I kid.

Seriously though, why would they spend money to worsen something if they were just riding the ship down?

The math doesn't seem to work.

I think they just ran short of time with the project and cut out that whole quality control/testing/reviewing thing before releasing this.

I can only assume that the log out issues will be remedied and I really hope people's lost data will be recovered and also hopefully some of the aesthetics will be improved.

You gotta admit, SOME of the new features are good if they can just straighten the mess out.

[~Sqrl]

So they made the forums terrible so people wouldn't complain?


It doesn't seem to be working from what I can see =P

[Cyr]

lol, reading this thread a user on my ignore list came up...and it was this big annoying all white box...sigh even the ignore function is abrasive on these forums now.

[RightToRemainStupid]

I have to agree with this, it's almost as if Turbine WANTS to go out of business. Or they know that DDO has already been cancelled beyond the next expansion and have already begun winding it down. The cracks are definately showing.

[DynaTheCat]

I'm confused by OP's logic....

So... they spend all that money and time making a new "expansion" and revampin the enhancement system because turbine is expecting their game to die?

I've seen MMOs die.... creating new content and an iconic hero system / easier enhancement system to attract new more casual gamers is not how MMOs die....

When FTP MMOs die, they start telling everyone to submit claim forms for a refund on the points and stuff they bought. (I.E. when Akklaim went bankrupt)

Logical failure.

[RightToRemainStupid]

I'm confused by OP's logic....

So... they spend all that money and time making a new "expansion" and revampin the enhancement system because turbine is expecting their game to die?

I've seen MMOs die.... creating new content and an iconic hero system / easier enhancement system to attract new more casual gamers is not how MMOs die....

When FTP MMOs die, they start telling everyone to submit claim forms for a refund on the points and stuff they bought. (I.E. when Akklaim went bankrupt)

Logical failure.

The only logical failure I see here is some people's refusal to acknowledge the obvious divergence between what they hope will happen and what is actually happening. DDO has been put out to pasture on a skeleton staff, with morsels of low quality overhyped fluff being dangled in front of the naive/in denial tragics/addicts to squeeze them for whatever they are worth until Turbine/WB are no longer breaking even.

Then the game servers will be shut down(with little or no warning), not too long after the bugged new 'expansion' and years late 'enhancement pass'(read nerf) are rolled out. DDO is finished once Turbine/WB have milked that last dying spasm of the player base TR'ing and buying Otto's Boxes and store consumables to salvage what's left of their broken, nerfed toons.

There will be no refunds or recourse and only once the dregs of whoever is left drift into other games, or take some time out for a fresh perspective, will they realise just how vigorously they got reamed by Turbine/WB. I would be very surprised if DDO makes it past 2014 and depending on if/when the expansion/enhancement pass are bungled out, I could easily see DDO going under this year.

[Gremmlynn]

The only logical failure I see here is some people's refusal to acknowledge the obvious divergence between what they hope will happen and what is actually happening. DDO has been put out to pasture on a skeleton staff, with morsels of low quality overhyped fluff being dangled in front of the naive/in denial tragics/addicts to squeeze them for whatever they are worth until Turbine/WB are no longer breaking even.

Then the game servers will be shut down(with little or no warning), not too long after the bugged new 'expansion' and years late 'enhancement pass'(read nerf) are rolled out. DDO is finished once Turbine/WB have milked that last dying spasm of the player base TR'ing and buying Otto's Boxes and store consumables to salvage what's left of their broken, nerfed toons.

There will be no refunds or recourse and only once the dregs of whoever is left drift into other games, or take some time out for a fresh perspective, will they realise just how vigorously they got reamed by Turbine/WB. I would be very surprised if DDO makes it past 2014 and depending on if/when the expansion/enhancement pass are bungled out, I could easily see DDO going under this year.The fact that someone is still being paid to work on that enhancement pass tells me otherwise. If Turbine were actually winding the game down, we likely would still be on the old forums and they would have use the negative feedback they have gotten on the enhancement pass as an excuse to drop the whole thing.

Intentionally annoying customers just isn't a good way to get them to play the next game you roll out.

[extraocular]

Why would WB/Turbine close something down if there is money to be made?
Lets say that they were on a skeleton staff, and where making minimal investments into infrastructure.
That would mean that WB/Turbine could extract a modest profit from a rather small player base.

I would not play this game if there was something that played just like it except was better.
The question I have for you is where would I go to? What game is like this one? There are a ton of wow clones, and they are interchangeable. Different takes on the same theme. But where is the ddo clone that is better than the original, tell me and I will drop all of the time and money I invested in ddo and go to that game.

Just imagine if a new game was developed that was everything we (the majority of players) like about ddo and none of the things we don’t. Ddo would be dead in no time, people would write off their investments in ddo as a sunk cost and go to the better game. BUT, who would develop a new game for a niche market? And one that is already being served by an established game?
The Camelot unchained audience was not already being served. City State Entertainment had to resort to kickstarter for funding that niche game. Ddo is a game that would not have been made in todays climate.

[THAC0]

My opinion... Is that regardless how bugged/bad DDO is and becomes... The servers wont be shut down. Sure players will leave for better games or just tired of the same Turbine "it will get fixed soon" line.

But if you stop to think.... Asheron's Call is still around. Albiet...it is not as popular as it once was...it lives and limps on. I think DDO will continue the same way unfortunately.

What i hope though is a server consolidation and for them to address bugs. Hold off on adding new content. Fix the bugs in game now. Put the expansion pack #2 on hold until these issues are worked out. Do the enhancement update after.

We went months without updates to the game way back when. I think most of us could tolerate that again if we were seeing progress with them fixing things.

My 2pp

Thac0

oh yeah...they may be a little distracted with their new game... Infinite Crisis. ;-). Different teams I hope...but the distraction is there.

[HatsuharuZ]

When I first read the title of this thread, I thought that it was about forumites/players being verbally abusive to Turbine and the devs on purpose so that they could get a response out of them. Silly me! ^^;

[Qhualor]

one of these days these threads will be right and the naysayers will have egg on their face. the argument of how DDO is dying is very compelling. I hope it lasts. remember, its 20% off +4 tomes available in the store right now.

[GermanicusMaximus]

We went months without updates to the game way back when. I think most of us could tolerate that again if we were seeing progress with them fixing things.


326.

That's how many favor granting quests/raids/challenges exist in the game. (OK, 327 if you have prepurchased the new expansion.) We could live for a while without new content if Turbine actually spent that time fixing some bugs.