Breach of trust and empty promises

[lordhelmos]

Just something that came to mind. I am a survivor of Aion and I sort of see SWTOR heading the same raid (hence the term "Tortanic.")

 

I wanted to see SWTOR succeed, but the main driving force behind my animosity with the game and my return to my previous home in RIFT was due to distrust of the developer.

 

There are several alarming incidents that caught my attention.

 

Namely the first being patch 1.2 and the community being promised to know when it was hitting. We received little more than 3 days before it dropped.

 

PVP ranked Warfronts were promised to use and dangled like carrot on a stick, then suddenly pulled after a surge of competitive PVPer resubscribes.

 

The Rhakghoul event came and gone and the devs didn't even have the courtesy to leave a vendor up.

 

Tickets disappear from customer services and fade into thin air, even when they regard serious issues like players being locked out of a raid, permastuck, or when the game is crashing their machine and burning up hardware due to optimization issues.

 

I feel like I did with Aion. The game Aion was a great concept but it was badly mismanaged. As a reminder, remember this video?

 

 

This was the Aion 3.0 that was promised as early as 1.2 and never happened. It was just bait to hook people into the game and make them feel like it had a future. Aion is in 3.0 now and it looks nothing like the false advertisement in that video.

 

The guild summit PR events seem selective and the weekly dev. reports nit-pick at silly questions when they should be addressing serious problems in the game.

 

Story development and the "Starwars saga" we were promised is on hold at 50 and doesn't look like its going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Servers are drying up and dying and we are constantly being told things are ok.

 

It's one thing to have problems in your game, that much I can tolerate. That's to be expected.

 

However, the one thing you can never do is lie to your community and make false promises. Things like the PvP ranked warfront scam, the disabling of illum, the promise of moddable armor and wardrobe then restricting it to only endgame gear that no one has, the promise we would be informed about when patches are coming out then they are suddenly thrown in our face with no warning.

 

I can deal with a company struggling with a new game if they are honest. This type of PR to the community and the consistent treatment of us like we are idiots. Keeping us in the dark when its beneficial (such as the PvP ranked scam where the feature was pulled at the last minute after a surge of pvp resubs.)

 

Oh and do we all remember the suddenly "missing" un-subscription button in the account menu?

 

This I cannot tolerate. I love starwars and the starwars universe. But I will not sit here and be lied to, be scammed, be treated like an idiot, and be kept in the dark concerning the state of the game.

 

I am so disappointed in how this was all handled and how the community was treated. I didn't think SWTOR was bad, but I do think the way the community has be tugged around and cheated was wrong.

 

People are willing to go through alot for a game and world they like and are attached to, but they will not tolerate being mistreated.

 

I was with RIFT since headstart, I was never lied to by their devs. Yeah they made some mistakes, but they always formally apologized and came out with a good community PR. They didn't try to hide their failures on some hidden blog or tweet out in cyberspace then redirect the forums to it 1-2 days too late.

 

Mismanagement is the major issue here. This is another NCSoft with Aion. If the community is so important to the game, why are we being treated like this?

 

I am not surprised that EA won the consumerist Golden Poo award of 2012 and now that bad PR is leaking into Bioware and TOR and ruining the game for everyone.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/05/ea-wins-worst-company-in-america-golden-poo-award/

 

^ This is nothing to be proud of.

 

I liked starwars, I liked my community. However I will not sit by and just be another sheep to be tugged along by bad shepherds.

 

This game has no chance of survival until the community can be shown that the devs behind the game can be trusted and loved.

Edited May 6, 2012 by lordhelmos

[DogMeat]

WOW !

You just said what I could not, I agree 100%

I to am an old AION player from day one and China before that.

Truth in advertising is a Must!

You want the community to follow and pay to play your game you gotta shoot straight not from the hip after the fact.

 

This game has/had so much promise and BW Blew it. I think the that the post on another thread by a "company man" was more true then we want to think.

 

D3 maybe the last hope .....

[UnmarkedFaith]

Just something that came to mind. I am a survivor of Aion and I sort of see SWTOR heading the same raid (hence the term "Tortanic.")

 

I wanted to see SWTOR succeed, but the main driving force behind my animosity with the game and my return to my previous home in RIFT was due to distrust of the developer.

 

There are several alarming incidents that caught my attention.

 

Namely the first being patch 1.2 and the community being promised to know when it was hitting. We received little more than 3 days before it dropped.

 

PVP ranked Warfronts were promised to use and dangled like carrot on a stick, then suddenly pulled after a surge of competitive PVPer resubscribes.

 

The Rhakghoul event came and gone and the devs didn't even have the courtesy to leave a vendor up.

 

Tickets disappear from customer services and fade into thin air, even when they regard serious issues like players being locked out of a raid, permastuck, or when the game is crashing their machine and burning up hardware due to optimization issues.

 

I feel like I did with Aion. The game Aion was a great concept but it was badly mismanaged. As a reminder, remember this video?

 

 

This was the Aion 3.0 that was promised as early as 1.2 and never happened. It was just bait to hook people into the game and make them feel like it had a future. Aion is in 3.0 now and it looks nothing like the false advertisement in that video.

 

The guild summit PR events seem selective and the weekly dev. reports nit-pick at silly questions when they should be addressing serious problems in the game.

 

Story development and the "Starwars saga" we were promised is on hold at 50 and doesn't look like its going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Servers are drying up and dying and we are constantly being told things are ok.

 

It's one thing to have problems in your game, that much I can tolerate. That's to be expected.

 

However, the one thing you can never do is lie to your community and make false promises. Things like the PvP ranked warfront scam, the disabling of illum, the promise of moddable armor and wardrobe then restricting it to only endgame gear that no one has, the promise we would be informed about when patches are coming out then they are suddenly thrown in our face with no warning.

 

I can deal with a company struggling with a new game if they are honest. This type of PR to the community and the consistent treatment of us like we are idiots. Keeping us in the dark when its beneficial (such as the PvP ranked scam where the feature was pulled at the last minute after a surge of pvp resubs.)

 

Oh and do we all remember the suddenly "missing" un-subscription button in the account menu?

 

This I cannot tolerate. I love starwars and the starwars universe. But I will not sit here and be lied to, be scammed, be treated like an idiot, and be kept in the dark concerning the state of the game.

 

I am so disappointed in how this was all handled and how the community was treated. I didn't think SWTOR was bad, but I do think the way the community has be tugged around and cheated was wrong.

 

People are willing to go through alot for a game and world they like and are attached to, but they will not tolerate being mistreated.

 

I was with RIFT since headstart, I was never lied to by their devs. Yeah they made some mistakes, but they always formally apologized and came out with a good community PR. They didn't try to hide their failures on some hidden blog or tweet out in cyberspace then redirect the forums to it 1-2 days too late.

 

Mismanagement is the major issue here. This is another NCSoft with Aion. If the community is so important to the game, why are we being treated like this?

 

I am not surprised that EA won the consumerist Golden Poo award of 2012 and now that bad PR is leaking into Bioware and TOR and ruining the game for everyone.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/05/ea-wins-worst-company-in-america-golden-poo-award/

 

^ This is nothing to be proud of.

 

I liked starwars, I liked my community. However I will not sit by and just be another sheep to be tugged along by bad shepherds.

 

This game has no chance of survival until the community can be shown that the devs behind the game can be trusted and loved.

 

How about after 1.2 was released and some moron over there pushed a patch live that rolled everyone back to the previous version? And everyones toon that was in the new areas was lost to oblivion ? lol epic fail

[MaverickXIV]

Have fun in Rift. I hope you like hardcore raiding, because that's the only content Trion ever pushes out on a regular basis.

[lordhelmos]

Have fun in Rift. I hope you like hardcore raiding, because that's the only content Trion ever pushes out on a regular basis.

 

"All in all, Instant Adventures is something Trion is very excited about and, in our opinion, has hit a home run on. As Hartsman has mentioned, the developers have “leveled up” and have begun to come up with new and unique ways to use this system. Not surprisingly, down the road, post 1.8, we will see a Mentoring system. Everquest II players should be familiar with the concept of mentoring; where players mentor “down” in level, to play with friends . On the surface, this is a way for a max level character to spend time with lower-level friends, and create a stronger social environment in game. Not only that, but mentoring also offers an incentive for max level players, as it will give them another avenue to gain Planar Attunement experience.

 

The mentoring system ties into the motivation of “Instant Adventurers Everywhere”. The RIFT team plans on creating these IA’s all over the game so that leveling players and end game players alike, will be able to experience the game in a whole different way. Not only does this open up the whole entire map to veteran players, allowing them to explore and visit places they haven’t seen in a very long time, it gives them a reward for doing so as well."

 

Source: Interview with Scott Hartsman, Lead Developer of RIFT

Interviewer: Jason Dodge, 2012 Riftjunkies

 

_________________

 

Raid content only? Sure you keep thinking that.

[Kubernetic]

Just something that came to mind. I am a survivor of Aion and I sort of see SWTOR heading the same raid (hence the term "Tortanic.")

 

I wanted to see SWTOR succeed, but the main driving force behind my animosity with the game and my return to my previous home in RIFT was due to distrust of the developer.

 

There are several alarming incidents that caught my attention.

 

Namely the first being patch 1.2 and the community being promised to know when it was hitting. We received little more than 3 days before it dropped.

 

Going to stop reading right here, if you don't mind. I was listening to the Guild Summit broadcast in early March when they really started advertising 1.2 in earnest, and I clearly heard them say that it would be around the first week in April.

 

Anyone who was following the development knew when it was coming, or right around then. And it was still a few days late. Those that were waiting until the final Thursday prior to the 1.2 update to get their special crystals or vehicles that were being removed from the game have zero sympathy from me. Don't wait until the last minute if it's that important to you. And if you are waiting until the last minute, it clearly wasn't that important. You don't get to claim both. I wasn't able to save up in time for the vehicles or a special crystal. So what? Get over it.

 

Calling that a "Breach of Trust" number one suggests you don't know what a breach is, and don't seem to know what trusting means either. Good luck.

[DarkZeron]

Truth in advertisment?

 

Are you nuts?

[lordhelmos]

Those were only minor supporting examples. Breach of trust namely comes from the PvP scam that caused resubbers to be screwed when the Ranked WZs were denied half a day at the last minute after a suspicious surge of resub posts and excitement in the forums. Also they devs gave no date as to the state of the matter. People are just boiling in the pot right now.

 

It's hard not to feel slapped in the face. Moreover, slapped in the wallet.

[lordhelmos]

Truth in advertisment?

 

Are you nuts?

 

You will happily tolerate repeated instances of a developer spewing lies and shady actions at you?

[Synxos]

Have fun in Rift. I hope you like hardcore raiding, because that's the only content Trion ever pushes out on a regular basis.

Sounds better than extremely bugged raids in TOR,

uninspired pvp warzones, which were bugged as well.

no open world pvp

 

At least RIFT has something they can showcase. What can TOR showcase? Voice acting!!!

You can only level up for so long, and in this game, it's about a week or two, a month max.

[arcdaemon]

Ya this game has failed on so many levels.

[Baratta]

It boggles my mind 200 million spent on TOR and we get a cheap rip off of WOW.

[MaverickXIV]

Raid content only? Sure you keep thinking that.

And that comes with a new tier of equipment? No, it's just fluff. Trion is great at fluff, but they're pretty damn bad about creating an endgame for non-raiders.

 

RIFT is a hardcore raiding game. Rifts themselves have fallen by the wayside, and any non-raid content that Trion implements is simply an obfuscation of the fact that the only way to advance your character is through hardcore raiding once you've finished your T2 expert dungeon set. It took them more than half a year to finally add another five man dungeon, when they add a new raid in every single patch.

 

I really enjoyed my time in Rift, but to think that it was anything but an attempt to grab WoW's hardcore raiding player base is a laugh. I'll renew my subscription when they start releasing five man content as much as they do raid content, which I doubt will happen. From 1.1 to 1.8 they've added six or seven raids and one dungeon. In two patches, BioWare has added two operations and two flashpoints.

 

Also, Trion is completely in the dark with PvP. Every patch the metagame drastically changes.

[lordhelmos]

I'm not saying its possible for EA/Mythic/Bioware to change their current community image regarding the game. However, once you get a bad reputation for shady dealings its hard to get rid of. Trust is something hard to get back once you lose it.

 

When dealing with a game that had (past tense) over 1 million subscribers at launch, bad PR is the LAST thing you can do. Even simple mistakes spread like wildfire. One bad article for a credible source can cost hundreds of subs in a week.

 

You want to believe in the devs and game, but when bad news is ringing all around you and you get articles like this:

 

____________________________________

Source: Force Junkies (2012)

____________________________________

 

"The Bright Side of the Ranked Warzones Delay

Date: May 3, 2012 | Written by Er Moonanite | Posted Under: Article, Editorial | DISQUS With Us: No comments yet

 

After canceling the release of Ranked Warzones a single day before players were expecting them, Bioware has yet to give us an update on their status. They haven’t even said the typical “we’re working on it but can’t set a deadline” and no one on the dev team has commented. Unfortunately, if they had good news I bet we would hear it, but right now all we get is silence.

 

Of course the fans aren’t being silent. There are rumors that thousand of players resubscribed to the game just for ranked warzones. From their perspective, Bioware waited to announce the delay of ranked warzones as a marketing and business plan to gain subscriptions."

 

_______________________________

 

When even the game's own fansites are bashing the game for bad PR... well how do you recover from that?

[Callianna]

If you hate TOR that much then please feel free to play whatever other game you like. Why spend your time on the TOR forums saying how much you hate the game? I don't like WOW anymore and I can think of much more fun things to do then to troll wow forums saying how horrible their game is. It's a matter of personal preference, play what you like, bashing a game you no longer enjoy is not going to change the mind of those that do enjoy it.

[lordhelmos]

If you hate TOR that much then please feel free to play whatever other game you like. Why spend your time on the TOR forums saying how much you hate the game? I don't like WOW anymore and I can think of much more fun things to do then to troll wow forums saying how horrible their game is. It's a matter of personal preference, play what you like, bashing a game you no longer enjoy is not going to change the mind of those that do enjoy it.

 

I didn't bash the game, I made a legitimate claim that the community was mistreated by the game's PR representatives. Oh, and I cited sources and provided hard editorials from credible and popular sources. Two different things.

 

When did I say I ever hated the game? Sure it has problems, but that is not the purpose of this post.

[Fomby]

I'm an advertisement major and I'm appalled at how bioware is handling some of its issues and the lack of competence in the PR department is astounding.

[JediElf]

If you hate TOR that much then please feel free to play whatever other game you like. Why spend your time on the TOR forums saying how much you hate the game? I don't like WOW anymore and I can think of much more fun things to do then to troll wow forums saying how horrible their game is. It's a matter of personal preference, play what you like, bashing a game you no longer enjoy is not going to change the mind of those that do enjoy it.

 

Pretty much this. I got very disappointed with Rift in the end, however I didn't spend the remainder of my sub bashing Rift, and demoralizing it's fans. I had my say in an email, and left it at that.

 

I really do worry, about the gamers of today, I really do. Constructive feed back is one thing, but we are well past that point now.

 

How much worse can it get?

 

Edited May 7, 2012 by JediElf

[MaverickXIV]

I'm an advertisement major and I'm appalled at how bioware is handling some of its issues and the lack of competence in the PR department is astounding.

As a consumer, I think they're doing well. Do I cancel you out?

[Frostvein]

If you hate TOR that much then please feel free to play whatever other gamitalian like

 

This has already happened, or did you miss all the "my server is dead" posts?

[Darkhosis]

I agree with a lot of your stuff. Real shame that Bioware lost focus and can't seem to figure out what people want despite being told. There should be emergency server merges and every dev working on LFG tools... But no...

 

Anyways... To say Rift is any better is where I must disagree. They took that game all over the place into settling into a grind/farm model. All there is to do *period* in Rift is grind and farm on a scale rarely seen outside Korea.

 

Not to mention Trion's lackluster security... Thanks to them my email and old password are in the hands of hackers. To this day I still will get the odd email of a site I'd forgotten and an illegal login. Not to mention all the phishing emails. Hackers were already into my Facebook before Trion released the next day they'd been hacked and lost everyones email, pass, secret questions, and partial credit card info. Will never trust them again.

 

And YES it was Trion and not me visiting some illicit site. I have many levels of security and my Trion email was my super secret email... Ah well.

[Callianna]

I didn't bash the game, I made a legitimate claim that the community was mistreated by the game's PR representatives. Oh, and I cited sources and provided hard editorials from credible and popular sources. Two different things.

 

When did I say I ever hated the game? Sure it has problems, but that is not the purpose of this post.

 

Wasn't replying to your specific post, just in general. The game is brand new so sure there are going to be problems. Can't think of a single mmo that has ever been released that was perfect. IDK maybe I just came into the game with different expectations, I expected bugs, and problems be it UI lfg or whatever. I don't pvp so can't say anything about that but overall I was pleasantly surprised with the game. I enjoy playing and I enjoy the people I play with. I'm just tired of the negative threads, most of them rants about this that or whatever but guess I shouldn't expect anything else on the forums, those that are enjoying the game are playing instead of posting .

[Kourage]

Nothing was promised. Stop your lies.

[WarSiren]

Just something that came to mind. I am a survivor of Aion and I sort of see SWTOR heading the same raid (hence the term "Tortanic.")

 

I wanted to see SWTOR succeed, but the main driving force behind my animosity with the game and my return to my previous home in RIFT was due to distrust of the developer.

 

There are several alarming incidents that caught my attention.

 

Namely the first being patch 1.2 and the community being promised to know when it was hitting. We received little more than 3 days before it dropped.

 

I knew when it was coming out roughly almost a month in advance.. clearly you don't keep up on things. They ended up being a week later than they were saying though... it happens.

 

PVP ranked Warfronts were promised to use and dangled like carrot on a stick, then suddenly pulled after a surge of competitive PVPer resubscribes.

 

As a prominent competitive PvPer in a lot of other games I will just say this, if you played the PTR or knew anyone testing what they had in, you would be glad they delayed it. Better delayed than broken, and it was broken. Again you must not look into things very much. Yeah it sucks it got pushed back, but eh they didn't "lie" they delayed it until they get it working. Guess what it happens in MMOs remember the Dance studio in WoW? Guess what still not out.

 

The Rhakghoul event came and gone and the devs didn't even have the courtesy to leave a vendor up.

 

Rift is the only game that I know that caters to last minute people that can't do the event while it's going on. IMO as a long time MMO player it kills the value of the event especially since the Virus is still lingering and the item could still be gained if they left the vendor it, which means with all likely hood it will be back. Most rift events that have the vendor still in place won't be.

 

Tickets disappear from customer services and fade into thin air, even when they regard serious issues like players being locked out of a raid, permastuck, or when the game is crashing their machine and burning up hardware due to optimization issues.

Not sure how this is a "breach of trust" and not just a current ongoing being worked on issue I don't remember ever getting an actual ETA for this. So yeah do you even know what those words mean?

 

I feel like I did with Aion. The game Aion was a great concept but it was badly mismanaged. As a reminder, remember this video?

 

 

This was the Aion 3.0 that was promised as early as 1.2 and never happened. It was just bait to hook people into the game and make them feel like it had a future. Aion is in 3.0 now and it looks nothing like the false advertisement in that video.

 

Really because this game has had more patches fixing issues quicker than any game I can remember in recent history, just because your issues aren't fixed yet doesn't mean they are ignoring them. Hmm is it possible some issues take more time than others...*gasp.*

 

The guild summit PR events seem selective and the weekly dev. reports nit-pick at silly questions when they should be addressing serious problems in the game.

 

Soo you want them answering the same 3 questions every week? Because they addressed almost every issue at least once in the Q&A's just because they weren't answers you wanted doesn't mean they weren't addressed.. moving on..

 

Story development and the "Starwars saga" we were promised is on hold at 50 and doesn't look like its going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Hmmm later this year isn't soon enough for you?

 

Servers are drying up and dying and we are constantly being told things are ok.

 

I don't remember them saying things were okay, i remember them saying they are going to start off with Transfers first then go from there and Transfers are coming early summer. So that could be any week now.

 

It's one thing to have problems in your game, that much I can tolerate. That's to be expected.

 

However, the one thing you can never do is lie to your community and make false promises. Things like the PvP ranked warfront scam, the disabling of illum, the promise of moddable armor and wardrobe then restricting it to only endgame gear that no one has, the promise we would be informed about when patches are coming out then they are suddenly thrown in our face with no warning.

 

Lying and delaying due to Technical issues or wanting to bring us a better design are not the same thing. Rated Warzones were Technical issues they happen and it was pulled last minute, it's not like they said hey we're gonna give this to you.. never have it on the PTR and just never give it to use. It was being tested and it was deemed at the last minute to not be working correctly it got delayed.. guess what Season 1 wasn't supposed to start til 1.3 anyways.

 

I can deal with a company struggling with a new game if they are honest. This type of PR to the community and the consistent treatment of us like we are idiots. Keeping us in the dark when its beneficial (such as the PvP ranked scam where the feature was pulled at the last minute after a surge of pvp resubs.)

 

They have been honest, everything you've claimed as a lie has legitimate reasons as to why it's not here yet. So please look the word up.

 

Oh and do we all remember the suddenly "missing" un-subscription button in the account menu?

 

This I cannot tolerate. I love starwars and the starwars universe. But I will not sit here and be lied to, be scammed, be treated like an idiot, and be kept in the dark concerning the state of the game.

 

I am so disappointed in how this was all handled and how the community was treated. I didn't think SWTOR was bad, but I do think the way the community has be tugged around and cheated was wrong.

It, wasn't you're just horribly misinformed or are trying to make a scene.

 

People are willing to go through alot for a game and world they like and are attached to, but they will not tolerate being mistreated.

 

1.) all you information was WRONG. you either are VERY misinformed, or you were just looking to slander this game by bypassing things that dissolved your arguments.

 

2.) If you really want to go play Rift please do, exit quietly and go play a game where boring Hybrids rule. (Soul system was one of the most terribly designed class creation in any game I can think of to date. Not the concept their execution of it.

 

I was with RIFT since headstart, I was never lied to by their devs. Yeah they made some mistakes, but they always formally apologized and came out with a good community PR. They didn't try to hide their failures on some hidden blog or tweet out in cyberspace then redirect the forums to it 1-2 days too late.

 

The Blogs are not hidden you clearly just suck at internet navigation.

 

Mismanagement is the major issue here. This is another NCSoft with Aion. If the community is so important to the game, why are we being treated like this?

 

I am not surprised that EA won the consumerist Golden Poo award of 2012 and now that bad PR is leaking into Bioware and TOR and ruining the game for everyone.

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/05/ea-wins-worst-company-in-america-golden-poo-award/

 

^ This is nothing to be proud of.

 

I liked starwars, I liked my community. However I will not sit by and just be another sheep to be tugged along by bad shepherds.

 

This game has no chance of survival until the community can be shown that the devs behind the game can be trusted and loved.

 

 

Later.

 

Oh and I do want to point out if this persons sole intent was to mainly demoralize they would have posted and left, and not continued to replay. I bet they even have this thread subscribed.

Edited May 7, 2012 by WarSiren

[banecolton]

Wasn't replying to your specific post, just in general ... I enjoy playing and I enjoy the people I play with. I'm just tired of the negative threads, most of them rants about this that or whatever but guess I shouldn't expect anything else on the forums, those that are enjoying the game are playing instead of posting .

 

So what I am getting from your post is that you like the game, but you don’t like people posting an opinion of the game that you don’t share, and that you want to take a shot at people who post their opinions on the forums by posting your opinion on the forums…

 

I can truthfully say that if you like the game and are enjoying it then I think that’s great and hope you continue to do so. However if you are “just tired of the negative threads” then don’t read them.

 

Really, it’s that simple.

 

And if you are tired of them then why not only force yourself to read them but post in them as well? If it really bothers you why subject yourself to it?