You are wrong. This game is kept alive by ALL PAYING CUSTOMERS. One group of them is not more or less important than the rest. Many of the newer players who play this game are playing because us VETS recommended them. You see those people cruising around with cube pets. Every one of those people is responsible for at minimum 2 others playing this game.
Where is your FACT god now?
You are also confusing FTP with P2W. Youre calling me clueless but youre the one trying to say they are one and they same when they are not. I fully support F2P / Premium, and am fully against pay to win / pay to cheat / pay to circumvent game balance.
Given how much DDO is struggling from a revenue standpoint right now, I'd say that in reality only (1) matters. Anyone who seriously believes that DDO is going to agree to lose revenue by putting any significant impediments on mana pot usage is just kidding himself. The fact that this thread can endure for so long in the face of cold reality is a testament to the extent that some forum posters consider reality to be completely optional.
Again, for the 935th time, my nonsupport for pay to cheat has absolutely nothing to do with caring about how others play. This is a strawman argument and nothing more. I have posted this now 4 times in this thread.
I have been making puggers accountable since I joined this game. Most have not. Most dont even want that accountibility themselves. Remember the shroud blades thread, when people were harping about how they just want to take the first 11 joiners and not have to use strategy at all and win with minimal effort? This is what supporting easy buttons gets you. More of the same. People complaining they dont want to have a chance to fail because it wastes time. Mana potions fall right into that equation, because one of the best ways to mitigate through what would have been a fail is to chug their way through it. When the choice is to fail (and possibly learn) or just chug and succeed (not learning anything other than chug = success) people will choose chug. Limiting mana potions -IS- holding people accountible.
I understand this, but others cannot get it into their head. I am not trying to come down on you personally, but others in this thread that dont want to stand up and tell a pugger to get their sh** striaght, but they will ask for this?
When the formites start telling puggers what time it is and quit enabling them, then we might see reults. Until then they might as well sell level 20 level sigils in the store. Many of the take the first 5 or 11 are just enablers anyways.
Flabby-Flaber-Flabo-Heifer-Oinks
BEAGLES
The second sentence here is not a fact.
Going back to CiTW. As uber of a player as you consistently try to and feel the need to remind people of, you should know to stand under the rock during the SP draining moments. This argument should be settled and dead that because of one raid that has this mechanic, it must follow that this will become the norm? No.
Last edited by Sonos; 11-27-2012 at 11:34 AM.
I think peopel are putting way too much into the revnue thing.. Certainly selling SP pots generates a few bucks... But it's not a huge or even large amount by any means. If the Dev team felt that it would increase the overall playability of the game in the long term by goign into the fantasy that Maddmatt and a few others have, that limiting SP pots usage would increase player skill, and therefore someone magicalyl bring more players to the game... Well then, the small amount of revenue from SP sales would be tossed into the wishing well, in a flat moment.
As for as Turbines finances... Well who knows... I can only guess with plaeyr populations, amount of lfm who's on lsit etc.... I get ltitle tidbits from some frineds at WB, but it's all so buried that unless YOU have very specific information, you're just guessing as well..... I doubt its' all as dire as you constantly portray though. It goes u, it goes down and trying to measure on hiring and layoffs. Well if you're doing that you have no clue about the business cycles within the entertainment industry. Revenue could be way up, but yet a company is laying off, for many reason, and the opposite could be true as well.
Why are we all walking around with bananas in our arses? If feels awkward and frankly it kinda hurts.
(Pulls out banana and walks away.)
Whenever people throw out suggestions I always think about what is the most likely scenario.
SP potions are coded into the game to share the same timer as all the other potions. Will it take less work to add a cooldown on one particular potion? or add a couple seconds to the existing cooldown on all potions to prevent the chain pot consumption mechanic.
In response to your second comment, the intended level of SP management or challenge should be an individual choice. I see SP pots as invaluable to undergeared new players who need to use them to stay competitive with the overgeared veterans in order to run content that allows them to gain the gear to have less of a dependance on SP pots.
If you ever ran an elite "naked" (no gear, weapons only) shroud run on a divine character you'll understand.
Daishado
"drink triple ... see double ... act single! uh oh wife aggro" *hides*
The revenue story is quite apparent to anyone who has spent significant time looking at all the indicators
1) restructuring
2) broken content
3) declining customer base (user population)
4) the relatively fixed costs of running the game vs the revenue that scales rather closely to the number of customers
5) discontinued support (German/French translation)
The appropriate model to use to assess this game is not the entertainment industry. This is not a movie. The revenue and costs all model exactly to commercial software with a recurring revenue stream.
At this point, I think you greatly overestimate how much control the DDO development team still has on anything revenue related. I'm sure that while the game was running according to WB expectations (generating the expected profit margins), the DDO team had more or less free rein. Once WB saw the third quarter revenue/expense numbers, they stepped in, restructured, and probably have been actively involved ever since.
In Corporate America, the last thing you ever want to do is convince your boss that you need his help. That is exactly what DDO has managed to do here. Turbine/DDO is most assuredly on some WB exec's "issue list" right now. Getting off that list won't be an easy or short process, but until they do Turbine/DDO will be at risk for getting even more "help".
I've been writing about the economic issues facing this game for the majority of this year. Looking back at the state of the game at the beginning of the year vs where it is now, if I erred I erred on the side of being overly optimistic. When I start being substantially wrong about what is going on, I''ll stop writing about it.
Oh people do care, they just dont always voice it. I have been in plenty of groups where the entire group died and someone says, "ill buy a res cake" or "I forgot to bring more mana pots, ill get some from the store" and someone else in group or i will say, "save the TP, its not worth it. We can come back and try again".
As i pointed out before, we dont always know, but sometimes we do. I dont assume when someone drinks a pot, they are store bought, but i begin to wonder when i see a blue bar go from nothing to half or more consistently in a quest. I have also played with a number of people who do buy such things as mana pots, but those are my experiences that i will never be able to prove.
Just because sp pots have been in the store for so long, doesnt mean anything other than people cant just rely on in game resources, groups, gear and other sp regen clickies. It means they prefer to make their questing easier by having access to unlimited resources.
Last edited by Qhualor; 11-27-2012 at 12:38 PM.
Stating that none of us
A) work for Turbine
B) are part of their accounting region to actually see numbers.
result:
FACT god states everyone is speculating and knows very little while trying to sound hyper knowledgeable while standing on a strawman set on fire.
P.S. biscuits burn.