Vinia wrote:I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... " />Then everyone can cheer that some random person said something to them and nothing changed and then they left!
I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... " />
I think some people don't quite understand business. We don't have enough players to deserve a bigger budget. We can say whatever we want about a bigger budget bringing in more people, but would it? We have less than 5000 players more than likely. 5000x15x12=$900,000 a year. Now that may seem like a lot, but you have to realize they pay more than just server costs and 3 devs. Walrus probably still gets some of MxO's cut, Virrago gets some from it, Brewko probably gets some of it, Moonlite might get some, and other GM's or TSR's probably take a bit. Rarebit has said before he's heard a worker costs their company almost 3x what their salary is in general expenses. So...money starts draining pretty quickly.
What about Station Access?It doesn't matter of the budget though, we are still paying the same and SOE need to do something to justify it. An MMO needs a test server at least to get anywhere, we may get content without one but as good as Dracomet and Rarebit are at comeing up with unique stuff, it will always be re-hashed and re-skinned stuff. And slowly taking away each part of the game isn't helping matters.
SOE may not be planning to close MxO, but when everyone gets tired of being the red headed step child they will be forced to make more and more cutbacks then what?
I'll finish with an old but true saying: You have to spend money to make money
Chadwick's departure... I have mixed feelings. He did a great job of setting things up, but things got a bit... detached from players' expectations and enjoyment around when Anome showed up. I'm glad Rarebit's taking over on this front now - he's way more in sync with us.
No more cinematics? Depressing. I'd at least have hoped for one last one to mark the transition... one last plot twist.
New sentinels? Finally. More than one update per year ftw.
NightTrace wrote:Vinia wrote:I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... " />Then everyone can cheer that some random person said something to them and nothing changed and then they left!Perhaps it changed nothing, but it's the first time I and many others had heard from someone other than our Dev's and producer about the game, if anything at least it showed SoE that we're not gonna blame our staff but have their bosses in our sights. Perhaps we need to remind them. TUS's leaving (even though she's been posting here again trying to help... again) has nothing to do with it.
Vinia wrote:Neoteny wrote:I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... ">Then everyone can cheer that some random person said something to them and nothing changed and then they left!............Right.
Neoteny wrote:I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... ">
I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.
Hey, I don't run the place I even said then that I was simply relaying what had been told to me by those guys I spoke to, so don't go blaming me if what was written didn't live up to what you made of it
The thing is that I do have a lot of love for SOE, they have the games that I love to play. However, it's things like this that hurt that, not just for me and all of us here but if we get pissed at this stuff, we tell our friends, and they tell their friends and so on... it's the little things like this that result in SOE having the rep it does.
The good work that the company does is never heard of as no-one ever complains when things go right. It's only when the bad things happen when people hear about it (think about SWG and their biggest arse-up, that's all most people ever heard and yet that game has some truely great content)
I happen to be happy that the cinematics are gone.
I feel that the cost of the cinematics outweighed the benefits. For one thing, the cinematics weren't absolutely essential to the progression of the story. At times, they did show us interesting things that we wouldn't get to see otherwise (the sentinel attack on Stalingrad or New Zion, for example) however the latest ones regarding the Intruders didn't seem to contribute much. Additionally, there was always the RP plothole of how player characters would have access to the knowledge gained from the cinematics. I don't mind a system where all the story knowledge comes through media that makes sense from an RP perspective (missions, Live Events, newspaper, forum broadcasts). As NT mentioned, it would be nice if there was a little more graphic content coming from LESIG to fill the void, but we'll see what happens there.
The cinematics cost money to develop, draw, animate, produce, etc. Creating one every 6-8 weeks probably cost a substantial amount of money. With the recent changes, they no longer have to spend any money on cinematics and can still achieve the same effect at no additional cost, by instead having the Sentinel produced by Rarebit (same salary as before) and LESIG (an unpaid volunteer staff).
Personally I never mind seeing the content of MxO become more open-source. I still second everyone's sentiment about wanting to get involved though. It would be nice if the community as a whole could add to the official content.
I'm sad to see the cinematics go, but considering how poor the animation quality had gotten, it might not be such a total loss.
And yay for the return of the Sentinel! :: Hopes, hopes, hopes she gets asked to help write pieces for it::
NightTrace wrote:Vinia wrote:Neoteny wrote:I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.I agree, I know that there are a lot of upset people but the Dev's are in the same boat with this complaining to them won't do anything to help... Perhaps we should get TheUnknownShadow to talk to SoE again... ">Then everyone can cheer that some random person said something to them and nothing changed and then they left!............Right.Hey, I don't run the place I even said then that I was simply relaying what had been told to me by those guys I spoke to, so don't go blaming me if what was written didn't live up to what you made of it The thing is that I do have a lot of love for SOE, they have the games that I love to play. However, it's things like this that hurt that, not just for me and all of us here but if we get pissed at this stuff, we tell our friends, and they tell their friends and so on... it's the little things like this that result in SOE having the rep it does. The good work that the company does is never heard of as no-one ever complains when things go right. It's only when the bad things happen when people hear about it (think about SWG and their biggest arse-up, that's all most people ever heard and yet that game has some truely great content)
The problem here is that SoE has never made a "good" financial decision as far as MxO's playerbase is concerned. We have always been shirked when the money and marketing train goes through.
Never have we had an announcement that "RandomGuy" is going to be added to the dev team! RandomGuy is an experienced animator and graphical designer, and will be creating new abilities for the game.
No, all we've gotten in 3 years is the firing of the LET, HCFrog's departure, Walrus's semi-departure, Chadwick's departure, a scaling down of cinematics from gold to silver to nothing and the death and revival of the Sentinel.
However, through it all, we've payed 15 dollars per month for whatever it is we get. Now, from a consumer standpoint, we should see that $15/month funded the game in its infancy, meaning the LET, the animators, the whole Monolith team and that is what we should expect when paying 15 dollars a month. For what SoE appropriates to us now? Maybe we ought to be paying 2 dollars a month. The fatcats need to recognize this and give us some *CENSORED* staff for our money.
NOTE: This is no offense to our current staff, who do a phenomenal job with the funding and staffing SoE gives 'em.
