As crazy as it sounds $15/month is pretty pricey relative to the market for subscription based gaming.
I got you...my favorite "gym" isnt open right now due to renovations. I guess I will have to go to a lesser "gym" offered in my "gym" package to get my buff on.
Cadre does have a point. I don't share his feelings, but it is normal to expect access to what you are paying for. Add to that, that there have been several unplanned down times recently and it has been frustrating for a lot of us. I've been playing for a long time and I just kind of roll with it, but others have every right to feel differently.
Never takes long to descend into personal slurs and abuse does it? Entitled? Maybe. If you pay for, say, something from ebay and it doesn't arrive do you say 'ah, I am not entitled to those shoes, I'll just wear these old ones instead because I am not 'entitled' to what I have paid for, I don't want people to think I am a brat by asking to actually have what I've paid for' Or do you think you are, in fact, entitled to something you paid for with your hard-earned cash? No-one is asking for anything special with cherries on top; just to be able to use exactly what's been paid for
You bought 5 pairs of shoes on Ebay. All those shoes are not your favorites, but wearable. You received four of those shoes, but your favorite shoe is on backorder, since everyone wants that shoe as well. You will end up getting that shoe in the end, but it will take longer to get to you. I love analogies. As for the personal attacks, I will agree with you.
I appreciate the communication as well. Good night, sleep well, even if it's on beenbags in the halls outside the network operations center
I like the analogy where we agree to deal with all of this just to be permitted to play the game. Not agreement like OK...wink...wink...just let me in...but a legally binding agreement. All the calls for compensation are just futile attempts to get a business entity to feel remorse and grant something not entitled as previously agreed by all parties.
2 nights in a row servers down. Nuff said I will admit dreamweaver has been transparent, which is appreciated. But Verant, or SOE or daybreak or whatever they call themselves now is a software company. This was a very badly planned LARGE patch. This is their job, do it better.
Saying that they couldn't test the server merges is incorrect. If they were willing to devote the resources, they could have cloned the servers and the master database, then tested the merge on the clones. But that would cost money.
Good news kids! EverQuest is free. You aren't paying for access, you're paying for additional features. Name one company in the world promises 100% uptime and compensates you for downtime. Yet you're expecting this from a marginally profitable, 21-year-old game. You've priced your dignity at $1 and regardless of the FX rate, that's sad.
People are paying for a game that will have expected downtime. This is expected downtime. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. It baffles me that folk would so vehemently defend a commercial company who hasn't delivered what it should That people will take their time to say it's OK, more than OK, but jolly well expected, that people won't get what they pay for. We hear so much about 'marginally profitable' without having seen any detailed accounts for the game To answer the specific point, there are many many companies (in the UK at least) that compensate customers if their service is unavailble for x amount of time or is y amount late etc . That's formal arrangements, notwithstanding the plethora of goodwill gestures that are made without needing to be enshrined in a legally binding contract. Finally, I have never argued for 100% uptime. OTOH I do not get the impression of a company having vigorous debates and losing blood sweat and tears to shave second by second off the downtime. I don't see that unscheduled downtime is seen as the major problem/crisis that it would be in another industry - and dealt with with a commensurate sense of urgency.
Yay my turn! *cracks knuckles* Okay so this above comment is 100% true. When they said 24 hours, I personally expected 48. (Rule of thumb for anything more than typo corrections is 2x, if you have been around since day one, you should know that by now...duh) History has proven that although the interacting members of the community have their brown stuff in a group, I still stand by my theory that EQ servers run on hamster power, managed by a gaggle of howler monkeys. No, I don't expect any compensation, other than maybe spank some howler monkeys for me. Time has taught me that the people in charge of running this game are so out of touch with reality, that it really does no good to say anything at all, no matter how logical or legitimate it may be. (They are Californians after all. Google Elon Musk for additional examples ) I personally think that this could have been executed much better than the hot steaming mess the merged servers and databases and everything else probably is right now at the time of this post. But in truth, we all kind of knew it was going to go down this way given the long running track record of inefficient and ineffective management internally. Thanks to Dreamweaver for keeping us apprised of the overview of the chimpanzee olympics that is this patch at the moment. What is more appalling to me has nothing to do with the dev team, community manager(s), or anyone on the inside. It is the fact that if you are that unsatisfied, your ancestors are that offended that you aren't getting to play, and feel that gypped, why do you continue to pay to play this game? You, the consumer, are in control of how you spend your money. Yup, you stop paying, you don't get all the benefits of a paid account, but you also don't have to put up with the shenanigans anymore either. In the semi-paraphrased words that so many people that feel this way say: "I was expecting more". You have every right to feel this way. But to whine and complain on here about the latest bungled "whatever" produced by the makers behind this game does zero good, and as I, among hundreds, if not thousands, can personally tell you, even producing logical sound arguments have little to no effect either. So put your money where your mouth is, or rather, take it away from where it's going in this case. Cancel your subscription, show them you are dissatisfied, speak in the language that the howler monkey "overseer" understands. (See what I did there? ) I cancelled my yearly subscription renewal months ago, because I have not been impressed, and there has been nothing that has changed my mind the other way as of yet. I am exercising my power as a consumer by choosing not to re-purchase any of their subscription offerings, because the ever-dwindling benefits vs. the price and problems do not warrant me opening my wallet further. That is all my personal opinion btw, and everyone is going to have their own and choose their own actions accordingly. If you are one of those people that cannot take this stance and do the same, do us all the kind favor and cease with your petty whining and pay your money in blissful "sheeple" silence. You have the power, either use it or do not, and leave the rest of us to make our decisions about it in peace. If you want to continue playing the game as a paid account, that means you have to take the good and the bungled together, and deal with it. The company controls all the cards here, and if you ever sat down and read the ToS agreement, you would realize that they do not guarantee everything to go right, everytime, no matter the circumstance. You are purchasing a service also, not a product. This is an entirely different categorization of "product" and so every physical world analogy I have seen thus far on here does not apply. (You guys really should learn digital business law if you are going to comment with stuff like that. But I do appreciate the extreme amusement also, so I am torn.) The point I am trying to make is, if howler monkeys already manage this, don't act like them and fling poo when you are all inside the same cage. Stand on the outside and watch while you eat your popcorn/peanuts/icee and tell your kids: "Look guys, the monkeys are at it again!" But everyone is going to do their own thing, kinda like what the company does. They have their own agenda they stick to, and sheeple are going to be sheeple and think they are right. So mostly I think I am typing for my own amusement, and maybe a few select others. Anyway, this is long enough so hopefully see you all in game soon! P.S. BTW I have decided on what will buy my subscription back. Everyone has their price. 50 million plat deposited into each one of my character's bank accounts. Not really. But just as a thought, as an additional incentive for buying a yearly subscription you should toss some plat (NOT the amount I mentioned) at that tier of subscription people. They obviously are going to be playing for a while, and probably will need to expend massive amounts of plat, given that arbitrary TS items from vendors cost anywhere from 200 to 56K plat to make combines/armor activations, etc. This could also go to them setting up barter characters, so that more than just a few people have all the plats. Unless that is the plan, and then simply disregard my suggestion.
They have plenty of hardware and alternate boxes they could do a clone over to. When you say money if you mean man-hours and having to pay out labor yes there would be some but someone there should be able to clone their main server (databases and all in under an hour or two) Cloning servers no matter what type they are is actually not a monumental task. Working on all the little intricacies within said server(s) is what takes up most of their time and causes alot of the banging of heads against a wall (downtime for players) To the main point, yep servers should have been merged offline in a cloned environment for testing and/or servers being merged (TLP) should never have had reliance on live servers in the first place but that's a moot point at this juncture clearly
You may love your sports team, but think current management suck You may love your country, but think your president is 'somewhat lacking'. etc etc You can, indeed, sit on your thumbs and just let your team/country go whichever way the folk you have issue with are taking it. Or you can stand up and shout about it. The latter may, indeed, do no good at all. But surely if you love something you need to at least voice a concern? Offer alternative suggestions? Argue for better?
Indeed. As I said in my previous post. Use the power you have. Take their money away. Cancel your subs, and when their reports come up lacking for income, you will have your desired effect. My first favorite weapon to use is knowledge. It's my go to, and also happens to be the ultimate weapon. But some "sheeple" are immune to this weapon, because they counter with "blissful ignorance" or "Californian" (BTW I can rag on all you Cali's all I want, I come from a family full of them, and almost was one myself hehe.) In this case, I use my 2nd favorite weapon... money. It's not as powerful as knowledge, but rarely can be countered, and there are no immunity effects, even if they counter with "Millionaire" or "Billionaire". It puts a DoT that has a lasting effect the more times it stacks, the more people that use it, unlike how Necromancers are going to feel in game once the servers come up. (ROFLMAO) You can also inverse the DoT and have it drain, and stack accordingly the more people use the inverse of it. Truly a versatile weapon. But if those 2 fail, then I go to my 3rd option.... the rubber chicken. No one wants the rubber chicken. It's a terrifying weapon.
