$1,600 ... 2000 - 2005 = 5 years * 2 accounts @ $110 per year + $50 per expansion $170 ... 2005 - 2006 = 1 years * 1 accounts @ $110 per year + $60 per expansion $5,100 ... 2007 - 2012 = 5 years * 6 accounts @ $110 per year + $60 per expansion $2,650 ... 2012 - 2017 = 5 years * 3 accounts @ $110 per year + $60 per expansion $3,000 ... 3 accounts spending at least $1,000 each on LON (live servers) $6,000 ... 3 accounts spending at least $2,000 each on LON (test server) $6,000 ... 3 accounts spending at least $2,000 each on SC / DBC (live servers) $3,000 ... 3 accounts spending at least $1,000 each on SC / DBC (test server) $27,520 (I'm pretty sure that's an AT LEAST number because I was way conservative on the LON / SC estimate--I'm afraid my spouse will somehow connect some dots that frankly I'm glad she hasn't thus far.) And just imagine if you assigned a dollar value to time, as well, and added up the hours for that in the equation. Which I wouldn't have spent if I wasn't deriving some entertainment from the game, don't get me wrong. I mean, just going to the movies every other week for the same 16 year period, and going out for dinner half the times I went to the movies would have cost me maybe $10,000 plus 20% of the time spent, I'm guessing, so please don't think I'm trying to make this about just money. I know I'm not even near the amounts some of the "whales" I'm aware of in the game spend. I only really mention the money because until recently, I guess I'd never really stopped and thought about it, and I doubt the developers really have either. But I'm guessing that players who've stayed around for the past couple of years and continued to support the game might have done it because they felt "invested" in the world and I think that should be in the back of a producer's mind when they're trying to decide if the last couple of years have been a good direction. For over a decade and a half, I've reconciled myself to the fact that the money and time I spent didn't entitle me to see the whole game (lots of content I'd just never see because of my playstyle). My choice, no harm no foul there. I was glad to support the parts I did see and knew that eventually I'd see the other content even if it was grayed out to me. I'd hear over and over again about risk vs. reward and apparently that didn't apply to financial risk or even hours played because that would just be pay to win or some other bad term. My time only mattered if I spent it watching the backside of some tank with 20 other people... whatever. (Although maybe guilds are made up of 100 people x their own 27k investement plus time and doesn't it make sense they'd be the only ones to acknowledge existed.) Either way, I think I was still having my fun. I spent years on Test submitting bug reports, participating in betas, offering feedback. Somewhere, buried in the old Testers Only forum there's a post from one of my forum names that offered 50 suggestions for improving the game during a particularly long server down period. Stuff like backpacks appearances on cloaks, options for hiding mounts, and stupid stuff like "Weasels!"... but the point is I'd like to think I tried to make the game better. I didn't let it bother me that my opinions meant nothing because they weren't from someone who mattered to a developer. I participated in polls I KNEW I'd never see the results of (which is kind of frustrating, for what it's worth, when you get a badly constructed, biased poll and there's not even the courtesy of seeing the final result as compensation for participating). I submitted bug reports nobody could even be troubled to acknowledge arrived. In 16 year's time, I realize, no one ever took the time to ask me, personally, "What is it you get out of the game that you've invested so much into it that might have been invested elsewhere?" Lots of players, I get it, I just felt like it was a missed opportunity because what company doesn't want to understand its customers? In short, this game has just become a habit that I've, well, tolerated over the past couple of years, because I had such a large sunk cost that it seemed silly to give it up. I wanted to keep enjoying it. But after 16 years of not even being a target customer, I've got to admit I should go play Freecell or something. The most recent changes make it impossible to have any sense of progress on alts, and frankly there is no role play left when you're dealing with numbers in the billions. You're not a Brigand, you're Iron Man or Thor or something. And the things you're fighting are anybody's guess. Color con has no real meaning, the economy is absurd even for play money, it's clear there's no real vision beyond flailing into another server to split the population you just consolidated. Nothing makes sense anymore. E.B. White has this great short story called "The Door," and when I look at the game today I hear the quote from the opening of that story... "Everything is something it is not." TL;DR - Nothing, really. Just another one bites the dust and wishes somebody cared. But I surely know better, and so do you. Thanks for playing along, I guess. "Can I have your stuff?" Sure. My three remaining accounts all expire in June. I've got a level 147 (maybe) guild on Skyfire and maybe 1MM plat there, I haven't logged in for a while so add an -ish to those numbers, and a level 112 maybe guild on Test and not even 100,000 plat (but on Test that's like 50MM Just leave me a message here and I'll try to figure it out. If my daughter chooses to continue to pay for her account, she obviously gets dibs. If June comes and goes and you didn't get a guild hall, you didn't get a guild hall My advice if I'm trying to be upbeat and constructive: People are giving you money and I'll bet that half the time, you don't even know why. You should try to find out with something besides another survey that is so one sided and bent that people just close it rather than support the lopsided conclusion. I played the game because it was an escape. I got to be all kinds of things in all kinds of situations, and I found the world immersive enough that I could imagine being there. I could spend a half hour (during some of the expansions, anyway), and feel like I was moving forward. Today I spend 10 minutes of that half hour just picking up scrolls that I can't retire fast enough, 10 minutes of it going to get harvests from house plants, and 10 minutes trying to figure out if there's actually something that any of my 9 crafters can make that somebody would want. And if there is something somebody would want, well it's another 30 minutes trying to get the rare ingredient (at a minimum). The hours of prerequisites to have the half hour of feeling like I'm moving forward on the epic? Well not so much. If you knew you were going to send us to 50 gray zones you could have at least made the effort to make those gray zones tune up to the player a little bit, and maybe drop something useful as we did it. I'm not talking raid gear, but something. Potions, adorns, some really lopsided piece of gear with like 50,000 ability mod but nothing else so you'd have to make a decision about when or if you'd use it. It was kind of OK doing the HKC stuff that I'd missed out on previously, and I was about halfway to getting that T3 hall, but the disdain for people who aren't standing around Freeport making it look interesting or joining in a group is clear and palpable on Discord and it begins to wear on you enjoying something and waiting for it to be taken away. Hearing developers say that if they had the choice to do things over that they'd never do things that you were actually grateful for... well it's their game. I was just a customer.
agree with u even if sometimes we feel connected to the game, it's just a game, and somebody else's game. they have their reasons for taking this trajectory and it's good when you realise that you don't need to follow them if you don't like what they're doing. just a customer ... even if we would want to mean a bit more take care
I don't think you can send private messages in the forums any more. Do you mean to send you a mail in game? Is there a server or a character I should send it to?
We aren't their customer anymore, please let me know if you find a viable alternative game that has a similar 'look and feel'.
Just send an in game mail to Test.Jawkins or Skyfire.Redtap and I'll log in this weekend and see if I can get it sorted.
Jawkins....I think your frustrations and sentiments are noteworthy and represent a fair amount of players right now who are feeling burned out from all the old quest grinding to get an epic update. None of us expected our epics to be handed to us or for it to be easy street....but I think I can honestly say we did not expect so much old content grinding and not a single heads up along the way last year to say...hey you might want to work on factions/old content because - well - because you can't get your epic updates without them!! ... When xpac after xpac we were moved along a progressive line then the devs put a road block up and turn us all backwards to retrace old content from years ago they forced players in a direction that should have been prewarned or better yet - skipped all together if they didn't have the resources to add new content or upgrade this old content to scale to level 100 with rewards that fit.....let's face facts....faction grinding has always been disliked....if it was an enjoyable part of this game everyone would have done all the ingame factions throughout the years - correct? If I was a dev right now I would be wiping egg off my face and apologizing for passing off subpar content and charging us for a new xpac. I honestly think as players we had very high expectations (based on RoK wepaons/quests) on what an epic weapon questline should entail and old content grinding was not what we envisioned.
I cancelled as well. Personally, I probably wouldn't have bought the expansion if it didn't have the 2.0 epic. There was no level increase, just a stat explosion. My warden did upwards of 300-400m DPS since the stat explosion made healing AAs not necessary. Reason to stay, right? Wardens are now a DPS class? Nope... couldn't find a group because I'm not a shaman. Never mind the fact that I can keep groups alive: just not a shaman, so not a healer?. Couldn't find a group on monk because the new expansion made alts near impossible to keep up with and aggro very difficult to maintain. If I mained the monk, it would likely be easier to hold aggro. No long goodbye post for me. Not nostalgic. Just moved on. Tera is providing a nice release for now, but not sure if it has enough to hold me for very long. Might just quit online gaming entirely and move onto that MMO called life.
So sorry to hear you are leaving Jawkins you were a great asset to the Test community.Great work on your houses, I loved viewing them. I wish you the best!
Thank you Kasa! Would you want to open a prestige house somewhere that I could move all of the items (that I can move, anyway) from the Museum of Antiquities into? Seems a shame to have 99.9% of the LON paintings in a house that can't be changed or republished.
I do have a house, Gorowyn Heights Magical Manor that the Museum of Antiquities could be moved into! Thank you I will take good care of your Museum! I gave you access, feel free to give access to whoever want.
Is it possible to keep your house the way it is & just make me a trustee so I could add to it & publish? Otherwise you can move it to the location Gorowyn Heights Magical Manor.
I can't blame you for leaving. I have a solid guild I raid with and I do so because I enjoy their company. In between raid nights I enjoyed solo time to catch up on ascension exp, sometimes on contested, sometimes on older heroic instances if contested was too crowded (which was most the time.) To be told the content I enjoyed playing is going to be nerfed and I must group if I want exp is a slap in the face. On our off-nights I just want my play time to be low key. I hate to be boxed into playing the only way they think it's appropriate to play. I suspect I will soon be logging on strictly to raid. I just don't like what they're converting the rest of the game into.
