Occupy Stormreach grows!

[jonqrandom]

Hearts are returning to the Lahar.

they are, but there's no guarantee that tokens and fragments will continue to actually drop. is that good enough for you? that would still impact players who don't have stacks of the tokens to turn in.

• Along those lines, for over a year DDO has not been adding to the Twelve tokens reward system, quite the opposite, and we will continue to deprecate this system over time. As this is being written, the design team is discussing a few approaches to how this will be done.

(emphasis mine)

they are going to nix tokens for hearts. if you already know this, why wait until they do it? you may not - in fact probably will not find all this support next time, because if we don't get a decent fix for this now, then
a) some of us will have voted with our wallets and feet and simply won't be here, and
b) less of us left will see a point in protesting.

[Ungood]

On the bright side for Turbine if you act on this wisely and listen to your community, cancel the current planned U20, admit your are wrong about the path you tried to follow and work openly on the new U20. Then due to fact that this is so unseen throughout this genre it would be applauded throughout the whole MMORPG community. Stubbornly try to do your own liking and try mask it through doing it in bits and pieces and not telling us the whole story and just implement it, and lots of us will go.
(I am generally not a doom sayer and think it is mostly overrated but with this I have to agree and will support the players behind this complaint)

They have to go in this direction, look, they won't come out and say it, but here's the reality of things, they have been brutally neglecting their own game, and the biggest aspect of that neglect is the lack of end game. There is simply not enough to do in the "epic levels" and a good deal of it does not feel "epic" anyway. So they noticed that TRing was the big thing, something players do to keep themselves occupied.

They also noticed they were not making money off these TR's, in the sense they were not buying hearts of wood, so with the revision to the TR process (which I would like to add does not affect the Heroic TR at all) they need a way to recapture their investment, and that means they need to make money off the Dev time they put into the Iconic and Epic TRing, that money needs to come from someplace, but since as Glin admitted, Tokens are way to easy for a player to get, we can in a day, havd 20 tokens and be ready to TR, so they need to put in enough of a grind to make getting the heart detrimental enough so that players will question if they would rather buy the heart, or farm for it.

In the end, some players will be glad to farm out 5 even 10 saga's for their heart, that is the way they play, they have all they want, so farming for some minor increase in their power is worth it, however, that player is not who Trubine wants to cater to, that is not the player that Turbine depends on. They depend on players that have the money to spend on the game and question if the time grind is worth the cost.

Sort of like the F2P player willing to spend several hours to farm 1600 favor for 400 TP to get something, and someone else not seeing the valued of the time wasted to farm the favor and just pays the 4 bucks to get what they want.

Both of them thinking the "other" guy, is being played. Because the Favor farmer feels that they are getting it for free, and thus feels like they are wining something for their time and effort in the game, and the person willing to pay thinks the farmer is wasting their life and play time for so little gain.

Turbine is tying to get the person willing to pay to just buy their product to want to just buy the product, while at the same time giving a means to get it for just playing to placate the people who feel the need to play the game in that manner.

The trick with that is the price of things needs to be low enough to make the grind look unappealing. IE: 1600 favor vs 4 dollars.

I understand what Glin is doing, and why he is doing it. It has been an honor to stand on the bridge with you all, and I wish you well if you want to hold out longer, but I got the answer I was looking for. I sincerely wish that things never have to come to this, I wish that Turbine would always put the players first, and always want to move in ways that make us feel appropriated, respected, and valued.

I am not truly angry at Turbine anymore, and I have moved to the point of just being frustrated with them, more exhausted that this seems to be the only way they will realize what they are doing is disruptive and destructive to the game many people want to enjoy.

I guess the biggest thing I take away from this, is that they need to get more in-touch with their players, and really, there is no point in having a design team trying to advance your game if they have no insight into what will appeal to the players.

We shall see what they future brings from here on out. In the end, it's been 3 days of not playing, and honestly, as fun as this was, I don't ever want to have to do this again.

[Ausdoerrt]

^ Problem is, when they put up a paywall for TR, they are effectively killing what little is left of their "endgame". It is endgame, and players are willing to occupy themselves with it, largely because it doesn't take that much of an investment.

They ARE already milking the HELL out of TR - through XP tomes, XP pots, and XP stones.

[nibel]

they are going to nix tokens for hearts. if you already know this, why wait until they do it? you may not - in fact probably will not find all this support next time, because if we don't get a decent fix for this now, then
a) some of us will have voted with our wallets and feet and simply won't be here, and
b) less of us left will see a point in protesting.

I voiced my complaints. I look at lama release notes. Anything that I disagree with I complaint and directly question in dev events.

I am aware they intend to drop support to epic tokens since MotU. The situations didn't changed now that the hearts are back. If there is not enough complaints for them to change their minds in the future, and there is not a viable alternative on time sinks compared to the effort to farm 20 tokens, I will leave. Simple as that.

[lyrecono]

no we won't, many will leave, no more help from vets to learn the game to newbies, game stagnates to a slow death

[Ausdoerrt]

The most hilarious part of this is that despite all the whining by the hippies, heart of wood will still be removed eventually from token shop. Have fun running epics!

The "funniest" part will be when all servers look like Wayfinder, after all the "hippies" leave. Not that you'd care.

[jonqrandom]

The most hilarious part of this is that despite all the whining by the hippies, heart of wood will still be removed eventually from token shop. Have fun running epics!

nobody (sensible) is attached to virtual items. nobody cares if we collect epic fishsticks to trade for a heroic helicopter of rebirth. we care how the system works, and the new system works so badly it's ridiculous.
saga-based sucks. BtC sucks. end of.

[sha123]

The "funniest" part will be when all servers look like Wayfinder, after all the "hippies" leave. Not that you'd care.

Its true i dont, because i can solo 1-28, including pretty much every single ee. However, its still fun to watch people suffer for nothing.

[Ausdoerrt]

Its true i dont, because i can solo 1-28, including pretty much every single ee. However, its still fun to watch people suffer for nothing.

Cute. Good luck financing the game on your own, too

[Gremmlynn]

I voiced my complaints. I look at lama release notes. Anything that I disagree with I complaint and directly question in dev events.

I am aware they intend to drop support to epic tokens since MotU. The situations didn't changed now that the hearts are back. If there is not enough complaints for them to change their minds in the future, and there is not a viable alternative on time sinks compared to the effort to farm 20 tokens, I will leave. Simple as that.

If their game remains easier to play for free than to pay for they have no reason to not leave themselves. As much as we may want the game to eventually be a perpetual TP machine where the favor from one life buys the pots for the next and hearts are easy to farm, that simply gives Turbine any reason to keep paying the power bill on the servers, much less continue with development.

Personally, I don't see their last idea as being workable due to the price point set on true hearts. But if they lower that a bit they might make it.

[Lanhelin]

media link list Update

[darthhento]

No, what THEY need to do is stop making choices of what quests THEY would like me to run instead of letting ME make MY choice of what quests I want to run. It's a game, I'm the one paying to have MY fun with it.

[Ausdoerrt]

If their game remains easier to play for free than to pay for they have no reason to not leave themselves. As much as we may want the game to eventually be a perpetual TP machine where the favor from one life buys the pots for the next and hearts are easy to farm, that simply gives Turbine any reason to keep paying the power bill on the servers, much less continue with development.

Honestly, I've always found this argument silly. A plenty of other MMOs manage to do it, and be successful, without milking the players quite so hard.

It may be easy to forget for long-time players, but DDO isn't a true F2P game that makes money off consumables and cosmetics. DDO CHARGES FOR MOST CONTENT. Let that sink in. It'd take about $200-300 just to own all the in-game content (cheaper with sales, so maybe $150-200). Most F2P games offer all of this for free, including major new expansions - look at Aion, look at Neverwinter.

And yet Turbine has one of the most aggressive nickle-and-diming strategies on the market, which at this point can easily rival the lowest of the low among Korean and Chinese developers who design the games as a deliberate money-sink from the ground up.

To recap using examples: GuildWars charges for content, Korean MMO A charges for consumables, DDO charges for both. Therefore, I don't really think the "they need to make money too" argument is valid or applicable. There is a fine line between monetization and keeping the players happy.

[Havok.cry]

DDOgamer is claiming that all our demands were met and that the protest is over.

[Terebinthia]

No, what THEY need to do is stop making choices of what quests THEY would like me to run instead of letting ME make MY choice of what quests I want to run. It's a game, I'm the one paying to have MY fun with it.

Exactly this. I've not had time today to craft a response to Glin's post, but I don't feel it addresses the concerns I have remotely. I'll be staying on the bridge.

Tere

[Ausdoerrt]

DDOgamer is claiming that all our demands were met and that the protest is over.

Saw that. Left a comment. Unfortunate.

[HernandoCortez]

You're welcome. But this won't happen I guess. If they really wanted to hide this thread, they'd already done it yesterday. At this point I want to thank the invisible moderators for their polishing this thread, deleting the most ridiculous Troll-posts tirelessly! Thank you very much!

They edited a post with links to other sites. That post had a link to the most forbidden forum here.
Yes, they can't hide this thread once it caught the press attention.

Is it so hard to interact with your playerbase, Turbine? Do you really need to be so egoistic/egotistic? Stop editing/deleting/hiding threads when people don't agree with you.
Propose changes, make polls, let your playerbase decide.

INTERACT. People even waste their time to preview stuff on Lamannia, they point out your flawed updates and you do nothing about it. You let stuff go live and get exploited.

Use your playerbase goodwill. Reward and listen to those who care enough to try and help you instead of sending them away.

[Gremmlynn]

Honestly, I've always found this argument silly. A plenty of other MMOs manage to do it, and be successful, without milking the players quite so hard.

It may be easy to forget for long-time players, but DDO isn't a true F2P game that makes money off consumables and cosmetics. DDO CHARGES FOR MOST CONTENT. Let that sink in. It'd take about $200-300 just to own all the in-game content (cheaper with sales, so maybe $150-200). Most F2P games offer all of this for free, including major new expansions - look at Aion, look at Neverwinter.

And yet Turbine has one of the most aggressive nickle-and-diming strategies on the market, which at this point can easily rival the lowest of the low among Korean and Chinese developers who design the games as a deliberate money-sink from the ground up.

To recap using examples: GuildWars charges for content, Korean MMO A charges for consumables, DDO charges for both. Therefore, I don't really think the "they need to make money too" argument is valid or applicable. There is a fine line between monetization and keeping the players happy.

Except that you are not factoring in how many players those other games have paying "something" and how many this one has. The vast majority of the costs for an MMO are static, the same regardless of whether they have 10 playing customers or 10 million. DDO seems to be a lot closer to the former than the latter.

Also, no store consumables and certainly no store cosmetics, are needed to play and that content is buy once and done. It also costs considerately less than that in my experience. Between first time server points and re-earning points in every character slot every TR or re-roll. New favor available every time new content is had. Only those who want to put no effort into the system are paying what you say. That's not even taking into consideration that not many would even want to have all of it.

Then take into account that TRing, in itself, isn't necessary to play and I don't see why so many think it's something they have some sort of right to do easily for free. What next, free server transfers or name changes?

[Havok.cry]

TRing, in itself, isn't necessary to play

You and I disagree about this. Many of us here would have quit DDO a long long time ago if we couldn't TR. This game would have died a long long time ago if TR wasn't there to keep us going. It is absolutely necessary to the continuation of this game.

[Memnir]

TRing, in itself, isn't necessary to play

No it isn't. That's correct.

Me, I hate TRing. Can't stand it, and have only done it once.


For me, this is bigger then my gaming habits or how I feel about TRing though. For me, this is about a trend that has been evolving in DDO game design over the past year or so. This is a trend, and one I don't see stopping unless the Devs understand that it's something that players find unacceptable. I'm on the Bridge not because of this specific change - but because it's what DDO is becoming and will continue to become unless the tide can be turned.



Am I big enough to turn the tide? No. No more then a pebble can stop a wave. But, this game has lots of pebbles to pile up. And hopefully, with a lot of us doing so on the Bridge right now, we can at least get the wave's attention and change it enough to matter.