Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
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It"s a step beyond that though, SOE didn"t keep their mouth"s shut. In some cases they flat out said something was working when in retrospect it clearly wasn"t even in the game yet.
I don"t have the anti-SOE hardon of Neric or Utnayan, but I think that"s the point Ut is trying to make.
I don"t have the anti-SOE hardon of Neric or Utnayan, but I think that"s the point Ut is trying to make.
Utnayan
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Yep, that"s exactly the point I am trying to make. Be open and honest so people do not waste their time trying to figure out something that doesn"t exist, and I have no problem. At least those players know so they can do something else in the game. As it stood, Ester the Tester flat out said Plane of Mischief was working as intended when players were wondering what do with cards dropping from mobs - when they clearly didn"t have the loot table finished, didn"t have the card combine NPC in RV, and 4 months later it pops up with the data being funneled in at the same time. Those people wasted 4 months trying to figure out something that was impossible.Kaxmax said:
Repeat that a couple times.
That is what Blizzard has NOT done.
Apparently you forgot our last discussion on this topic. EQ2 had the same thing happen when they released their last expansion and did not charge for the two high-end zones they opened up a couple weeks later. You have been posting sanely recently and this is just one slip so maybe I am being anal in pointing it out but I feel its warranted to counteract the 100s of posts of crap we have had to endure.Utnayan said:
Utnayan
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I would say there is a major difference in two high end raid zones in an expansion, and the following:
Molten Core
ZG
ZF
AQ 20
AQ 40
World event based on AQ
Battle grounds
PvP Honor system
Black Wing Lair
Naxx
What I am saying right here is that if you combine those zones and events, with any other company they would have just said, "Tough... We didn"t get those in retail" and sell all that as a high end raiding expansion.
Molten Core
ZG
ZF
AQ 20
AQ 40
World event based on AQ
Battle grounds
PvP Honor system
Black Wing Lair
Naxx
What I am saying right here is that if you combine those zones and events, with any other company they would have just said, "Tough... We didn"t get those in retail" and sell all that as a high end raiding expansion.
Asmadai
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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SoE was more of a "when expansion time comes, we"ll give you a continent worth of shit to do every 2 years", wherein Blizzard is a "we"ll give you a shitload to do patched in over a period of 2 years".
SoE would sell their end of it as a high end expansion, as it"s giving alot to do (albeit maybe not fully functional lot to do) all at once, wherein WoW"s is free as it"s slowly fed to the playerbase. Not saying either way is wrong really; it"s two different ways to get new content out to the masses.
Now that"s not to say I fully agree with EQ2"s way of charging a smaller amount for content, but even though they do charge, it doesn"t really bother me all that much. I mean it"s hard for me to tell someone "no I can"t give you $10" to someone whom i"ve paid over a thousand dollars in subscription fees to over the years.
Things get so "ehh" though when it comes down to calling one right, and one wrong.
SoE would sell their end of it as a high end expansion, as it"s giving alot to do (albeit maybe not fully functional lot to do) all at once, wherein WoW"s is free as it"s slowly fed to the playerbase. Not saying either way is wrong really; it"s two different ways to get new content out to the masses.
Now that"s not to say I fully agree with EQ2"s way of charging a smaller amount for content, but even though they do charge, it doesn"t really bother me all that much. I mean it"s hard for me to tell someone "no I can"t give you $10" to someone whom i"ve paid over a thousand dollars in subscription fees to over the years.
Things get so "ehh" though when it comes down to calling one right, and one wrong.
Right but without those WoW had no high end game at all. So they kind of had to add that stuff or lose alot of people. And you forgot Dire Maul and Mara but those and MC where ready before release just not finished testing.Utnayan said:
Utnayan
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Totally understand they had to add that. But remember my biggest point made is unethical behavior regarding that content and the patching process being used to support it. If SOE had been honest about zones not finished in expansions, told the player base, instead of lying, I wouldn"t have a leg to stand on. If Blizzard ever does that, I would be just as upset.Rythonn said:
Hasn"t there been an (or maybe a couple) incident(s) involving patches including things to track activity and programs being run or some such? Didn"t the patches also fail to include an accept/deny option or even a warning about what you were downloading. Seems a bit unethical to me, and I know there was a big uproar about it. Wasn"t the game WoW?
It"s been forever so I am honestly a bit unsure. Not to mention I quit WoW long before the event occured because I played before they patched in their endgame. After reaching level 60 I was beyond bored. Despite all the flaws and greif people had with EQ I never felt pushed into quitting. WoW did that with an unimagined quickness.
It"s been forever so I am honestly a bit unsure. Not to mention I quit WoW long before the event occured because I played before they patched in their endgame. After reaching level 60 I was beyond bored. Despite all the flaws and greif people had with EQ I never felt pushed into quitting. WoW did that with an unimagined quickness.
Asmadai
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When I picture WoW and EQ, I see two people sitting at a desk.
One claims he"ll have his stuff ready by the project due date, but come due date, only parts of the project are complete. If you ask him about the incompleteness, he"ll tell you "oh it"s complete; i"m serious."
The other acknowledges the fact that there is a due date, but flat out tells you he won"t have the project complete by then. Slowly, after the project was already due, he brings the completed numbers and pie graphs that were missing to the table.
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I really can"t tell which one i"d hate more. I guess it all comes down to how bad you hate being lied to. I don"t mind it all that much; not near as much as some. Blizzard was upfront sure, but I wouldn"t say that "truth" outweighed "incompleteness" here.
SoE lied about the completeness of their own product, but even thru the examples i"ve seen, and the examples i"ve personally experienced, it was like, 1 or 2 zones every expansion that they lied about? And lets not forget, where YOU were in the game really affects the judgement here.
Take Velious for example. The only people who were really hurting from the ST and PoM lies were the high end raiding guilds. I think there was about 3 on my server all throughout Velious that could even last 5 minutes in those zones. From the view of the server, Sony lied to us 3 raiding guilds. The other people on the server could really care less, as the zones they can do were working just fine.
Now think of WoW - The "endgame" crowd on here didn"t even have ANYTHING to do until they patched in MC. We were pretty much handed the 5-10 man zones, and told "have fun until we can finish the rest". But this is ok?
Like I said, it comes down to how getting lied to truly makes you feel. However, regardless of ethics, both companies fucked up imo.
One claims he"ll have his stuff ready by the project due date, but come due date, only parts of the project are complete. If you ask him about the incompleteness, he"ll tell you "oh it"s complete; i"m serious."
The other acknowledges the fact that there is a due date, but flat out tells you he won"t have the project complete by then. Slowly, after the project was already due, he brings the completed numbers and pie graphs that were missing to the table.
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I really can"t tell which one i"d hate more. I guess it all comes down to how bad you hate being lied to. I don"t mind it all that much; not near as much as some. Blizzard was upfront sure, but I wouldn"t say that "truth" outweighed "incompleteness" here.
SoE lied about the completeness of their own product, but even thru the examples i"ve seen, and the examples i"ve personally experienced, it was like, 1 or 2 zones every expansion that they lied about? And lets not forget, where YOU were in the game really affects the judgement here.
Take Velious for example. The only people who were really hurting from the ST and PoM lies were the high end raiding guilds. I think there was about 3 on my server all throughout Velious that could even last 5 minutes in those zones. From the view of the server, Sony lied to us 3 raiding guilds. The other people on the server could really care less, as the zones they can do were working just fine.
Now think of WoW - The "endgame" crowd on here didn"t even have ANYTHING to do until they patched in MC. We were pretty much handed the 5-10 man zones, and told "have fun until we can finish the rest". But this is ok?
Like I said, it comes down to how getting lied to truly makes you feel. However, regardless of ethics, both companies fucked up imo.
Regardless of the examples and opinions the bottom line is it comes down to what you believe in as a company, and what you stand for. If you are a company founded on integrity, principle, respect and accountability you will be seen as such by anyone not possessing blind hatred for you.
That"s not to indict anyone out there, because in the two examples being thrown around I have a ton of respect for both companies.
They"ve both made mistakes, they"ve both, imo, done things differently than I would have, but it"s their companies.
I don"t think either one has set out to screw their customers, ever. I think they both try and do what"s best for themselves at every turn, with as little ramifications to their customers as possible.
The bottom line is that I, as a customer, have the ultimate say in how they run their companies. If I disagree, they don"t get my money. If they make enough people dislike them, or disagree with how they practice their business, then they become irrelevant or go away.
Neither of them has done that. EQ2 has maintained a pretty consistent customer base and Blizzard is big enough that booting 59k customers for infractions against their users agreement was an easy thing to do.
That"s not to indict anyone out there, because in the two examples being thrown around I have a ton of respect for both companies.
They"ve both made mistakes, they"ve both, imo, done things differently than I would have, but it"s their companies.
I don"t think either one has set out to screw their customers, ever. I think they both try and do what"s best for themselves at every turn, with as little ramifications to their customers as possible.
The bottom line is that I, as a customer, have the ultimate say in how they run their companies. If I disagree, they don"t get my money. If they make enough people dislike them, or disagree with how they practice their business, then they become irrelevant or go away.
Neither of them has done that. EQ2 has maintained a pretty consistent customer base and Blizzard is big enough that booting 59k customers for infractions against their users agreement was an easy thing to do.
Oh crap! I thought I had to keep playing and paying (for years) and bitching endlessly on every forum possible about how (company X) were mounting a personal vendetta against (me/my class) and my mental well-being by failing to immediately and instantly address my personal agenda of concerns at the expense of all others.Ngruk said:
Live and learn
Utnayan
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I totally understand where you are coming from. People can decide who they do or do not give their money to. But here are the problems with unethical behavior forcing that reaction in the first place:Ngruk said:
1> Publishers do not hold themselves accountable. As you will soon find out, there is a lot of scapegoating for common sense mistakes in this business. The Sims Online didn"t sell because the game was purely a disaster. Instead, the producers behind that just said that their game was fantastic, it just didn"t sell because the market was saturated, Then here comes WoW and gets 6 million subs.
2> The genre itself still gets harmed by word of mouth. How many people waited until a company with Blizzard"s reputation touched the market? (Aside from some opinions at this point that they released an unfinished title) How many people were jilted by what they had heard with very poor QA and basically paying to make the game? (For this example, Star Wars Galaxies) I believe the harm caused was actually a barrier to entry for a lot of gamers that wanted to try an MMORPG, but heard all the horror stories of bugs and unfinished content.
3> Which genres have been completely killed? Planetside was a very cool concept with terrible implementation, design, and rushed processes. It wasn"t well thought out, and as such, tanked revenue wise fairly quickly. I know that the MMOFPS genre can succeed if done right. Unfortunately, publishers that are in charge of some great IP"s that can take advantage of an MMOFPS style game will not take the risk now because they see Planetside and they don"t see a shitty game, they see a company that took a risk with the MMOFPS genre and they scapegoat the genre as a failure.
The things that some companies do today will effect the creativity and risk other companies will take in the future. If that wasn"t the case, I wouldn"t care nearly as much. But that is what is wrong with the industry at this point. There is too much finger pointing, scapegoating, and genre blaming -- and not enough common sense in saying "You know what... this game failed because of this or that in the game itself".
In the end, when it comes down to ethics, customers and players of games everywhere just want the truth. It isn"t the game? Fine. Just let them know about it and do not lie about it. Gamers are the most forgiving people in the world when you are honest from what I have seen, but when you aren"t, that"s when you really stir up the pot.
Either way, mistakes are mistakes. Lying isn"t a mistake, it"s just a flat out wrong thing to do.
Hey. I will check out and respond to some points you make above Ut. Pretty valid stuff (although I am one of the people that does believe WoW was released unfinished, though it didn"t affect my gameplay in the least).
But I saw some earlier posts hacking on R.A. and wanted to throw a link up for anyone interested to take a peek.
The world is a VERY small place. Turns out when I decided to take the plunge and contact R.A. to begin my pitch to him to be involved in GMGs first product, he lives like 30 minutes from me in Mass.
We"ve become very good friends, very fast.
In addition to my me being a fan (hey I can"t fathom creating the stuff he has) I respect the fact that he"s a pretty damn good person first and foremost.
Anyway, I thought I would post a link here to make people understand that GMG and our first title is not "Three rich idiots trying to make their idea of a cool game."
And also that there is some incredibly creative genius at work when it comes to the Creative Lead and his thoughts about what he is doing.
http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/...t-dourden.html
Oh and btw, I have ridden him mercilessly about the mullet, which he no longer has and claims vehemently that it is NOT a mullet. His wife comes to his defense but I ain"t buying it!
But I saw some earlier posts hacking on R.A. and wanted to throw a link up for anyone interested to take a peek.
The world is a VERY small place. Turns out when I decided to take the plunge and contact R.A. to begin my pitch to him to be involved in GMGs first product, he lives like 30 minutes from me in Mass.
We"ve become very good friends, very fast.
In addition to my me being a fan (hey I can"t fathom creating the stuff he has) I respect the fact that he"s a pretty damn good person first and foremost.
Anyway, I thought I would post a link here to make people understand that GMG and our first title is not "Three rich idiots trying to make their idea of a cool game."
And also that there is some incredibly creative genius at work when it comes to the Creative Lead and his thoughts about what he is doing.
http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/...t-dourden.html
Oh and btw, I have ridden him mercilessly about the mullet, which he no longer has and claims vehemently that it is NOT a mullet. His wife comes to his defense but I ain"t buying it!
Speaking from an "at work" perspective I"ll take the slow, truthful worker over the liar any day of the week, and I"m pretty sure most people would as well.Asmadai said:
Knowing that something isn"t going to be finished manages expectations, and allows people to plan around it. Getting piecemeal, incomplete, poorly-done work at the last minute after repeatedly being told "It"ll be on time...and it"s going to be AWESOME" leads to pissed off workmates & management, and said worker being escorted off-site with his belongings if it turns out to be a habit.
