First Ever Mount on the Marketplace!

SmokeJumper wrote:

/THANK

Bug Report:
Since today's patch, I can no longer see ANY of the mount particle effects even though they're turned on. The most noticeable is the lack of particle effects around the feet of these quasi-cat things. This issue applies to my blue Ulteran mount and the other mounts (which I'm watching other people ride).
Is this intentional? Or do you change it so now we're forced to use the terrible and buggy Shaders 3.0 in order to actually see our mounts properly?

Fyranaer@Everfrost wrote:

This ^^^^.

Grimknight@Kithicor wrote:

Got my vote.

Dareena@Lucan DLere wrote:

Sorry the particles were never suppose to stay on the feet, only show up when running. And the blue mount was suppose to have particles that matched his blue glowing cracked skin area. The Black was a bug particle test that got into the build. We did have the particles on there for about half a day to see how they looked, but the black one looked liked pig pen, and having the particles all the time took away from the mount. It was not suppose to be in the build. When we shot the video the particles were right, then when we saw them in game they had the test particles still on.
They are working like the promo video now and what was originally intented.

Shame.
I preffered the black crackle around the feet rather than the little white-ish puff balls I get now.

Kain-UK wrote:

I agree, I actually have far less want to buy the item now than previously... that particle was one of the major draw points.
Lucky I didn't.
Still, 25 bucks is 15 bucks too expensive.
Micro means small.
Not Macro. Which means big, considering our sub is 15$ a month, nothing over 15$ can really be considered a *micro* transaction.

covic wrote:

Wow. Now Covic, I understand that you're just the messenger and everything doesn't all fall onto you. But this whole mount situation is starting to annoy me. I defended the SC mounts since I really see them as new LoN mounts that are being sold through an alternative path. Yet let's recap how well SOE's track record is with these mounts.
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1) Feather Fall: Per the web article's initial language, the mounts were to include a Feather Fall mechanic. Though it wasn't called out by name, the verbal description of the ability is pin point correct.
Result: After about half a day of selling the mounts, and potentially seeing that the whole Feather Fall ability was the main point of most objections over the SC mount, SOE altered the online article to remove this language. Now the SC mount description from the game never mentioned Feather Fall, but we're already looking at a situation of mixed messages. All together, the game interpretation is considered correct and the original web interpretation is considered wrong. No refunds are offered on mounts that had been already purchased.
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2) Heirloom: It was initially unclear about where or not the mounts would be No Trade as per the standard LoN mounts. After various arguements, SOE clarified in the message board thread that they would be Heirloom and wouldn't include an Attuneable restriction. (To my knowledge, this wasn't ever clarified in the online web article.)
Result: Now after Tuesday's GU 56 patch, the mounts have been changed to Heirloom Attuneable. After complaints on the message board thread, SOE clarified that the Attuneable function was in error. In theory, it should finally be corrected in the next Hotfix. So from what I can see, the only way people could even know what was going on would be to follow a single SOE forum thread. Otherwise they'd be frustrated and clueless. Also it's never been clarified when the next Hotfix is going live. Based on the usual SOE pattern, I'm guessing next Tuesday. This means that the Heirloom mounts won't have been functioning correctly for 1.5 weeks before they were fixed. No refunds have been offered on mounts that had been already purchased.
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3) Mount Appearances: If people really paid attention to already incorrect online article, then they would have noticed a link to a video of the new mounts. Should those people have done so, then they would have observed the mounts in their post GU 56 state. Yet for everyone else that actually took the foolish time to view the mounts in-game, which is a standard EQ2 procedure, then these perspective buyers would have seen a different appearance. These new mounts had a constant particle effect around their feet. Also the blue Ulteran mount had a kind of funky black particle effect appearance. While the blue mount appearance was usual, I'd also consider it to be one of the appeals of the product.
Result: Now after Tuesday's GU 56 patch, the mounts have lost their feet particle effects. Yes, they'll show a little bit when the mounts are running around. Yet the particle effects are nothing like they were before and vastly different from those shown in the SC dressing room. As if this isn't bad enough, the signature black particles of the blue mount have been altered to blue and white effects that are trying to mimic a frost effect. All together, the customers have been subject to a bait and switch situation. From Covic's response, was the entire customer base expected to have gone online and clicked a link in a web article which had already been proven as inaccurate? As of this moment, no refunds have been offered for these purchased mounts.
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Now I completely understand that Covic is just the messenger in this latest snag with the whole SC mount situation. I'm not blaming him personally since he's just in charge of animation and isn't response with making sure that the various sources of public information are accurate.
Yet having said that, SOE is responsible as a company to make sure that the products being sold are matching their description. I'm in sales and easily understand the concept. If I ever had the nerve to try to pull a bait and switch situation, I'd be hung out to dry and obligated to provide the customer with the correct product to resolve the situation. Yes, the various online agreements for the game do state that things can change and will. We have no real recourse as customers. But having said that, I was getting the impression that SOE had plans to introduce other special SC promotional sale items in the future. They would likely be a good source of additional revenue for the company.
Who would buy a future SC promotional item after the way that these initial SC mounts have been handled so far? I liked the mounts and was seriously considering making a future purchase if SOE offered a similar situation in the future. Yet after all of the various "bugs" that have occured, do I truly have faith in SOE that my product will be delivered as described? It's one thing to alter and change an in-game item for mechanics reasons or if it has the exact appearance of another item. However it's quite a different situation if these in-game changes are made on items which people have spent additional money on through the SC Marketplace. To be honest, it starts to make a customer feel like they're being a bit cheated and will likely make them resentful of future products that are being offered by the seller.

Working in a programming field, adding feather fall to these mounts would take a month maybe more of coding and testing.
That's why it wasn't just added. It really is not that simple.
Having said that, I AM disappointed that it is not there. I can't speak for the refunds as I did not buy one and thus am not effected by that.
The rest of the points above me? I completely agree with. We have too many SOE folks not paying attention and small issues keep seeping through. The mounts have been a PR bomb and it's a shame. I would imagine the devs all knew how they would divide the community and having all the issues with them hasn't helped that fact.

Dareena@Lucan DLere wrote:

I would.

Granted, I would be singing a different tune if the ATTUNABLE attribute wasn’t a mistake, but it was a mistake and is being removed. In fact, I would buy a lot more items if they removed the ATTUNABLE attribute from more SC items. /hint

I bought one mount already. It's rare to actually find a mount which exactly matches my main's color scheme. With that in mind, I don't regret my purchase.
Yet having said that, SOE has changed their tune multiple times already as they keep discovering "bugs" and "errors". That's my major issue. If they have some kind of different promo SC item two months from now, will I have the confidence to purchase one? That's questionable. I might buy one after the SC item has been available for at least a couple of weeks. By that time, all of the various changes and alterations should have already gone through.
Is that the kind of customer opinion that SOE is looking for? I doubt it. So far their track record with these mounts have encouraged a "wait and see" attitude with me. From talking to others, appearantly I'm not the only one who feels that way. Refusing to buy a new product initially because you expect to be jacked around is not a positive thing. Yet until SOE starts to provide a clean and consistent track record on their future SC items, people are going to wait for a bit while they hedge their bets.

found another issue with the prowler on my feamle highelf alt.
Its still ok while standing still but gets realy bad when moving oder jumping. Feels like the chars is trying to do the splits on the mount:



The issue itself is not limited to highelf(soga) chars. Tried a few illusions and switchung soga/non-soga modells with the result that highelf-soga femals seem to have the biggest issues, followed by the non-soga model and halfelf-models. Both darkelf-models semm to be working ok and don't show any signs of the issue with the other models.

vexrm wrote:

how can you work "in a programming field" and not understand object oriented behavior that feather fall is most likely a 1 bit switch that can be turned on and off by some intern and put it in the next live nerf patch. An intern is probably handling these things which is why the SC mount is yet to be what $OE says it will.
What i am disappointed about is this SC mount has gotten more dev response than any other thread on these forums, and many other threads have much greater merit.

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Are you serious? A one bit switch? Man, I laugh at this if you think that's all it takes. First you are assuming that they coded the feather fall as a seperate object that can be added to anything. That might be the case, I don't know what their code looks like, but I'm assuming it's spaghetti string by now as all code becomes.
Let's assume you're right and it really IS that easy and that this is the highest priority thing to do.
So you get the request in. Let's say smoke jumper goes to rothgar and goes "Okay we NEED this today."
Rothgar will code the change, if it's simple it might take an hour or so to get the right code up, get the change in, and do a basic test.
Then the code is in and it needs built in an internal test machine. That's a few hours there.
Internal QA looks at it, tests it out a bit, and passes it. One day is gone.
Then it goes into the next hot fix on the server.
So that's a week.
Then some strange bug occurs that if you're in Dark Light Woods using a certian video card your cat mount will suddenly appear upside down.
Seriously, testing takes time. To do this right I'd give it a month before we get it. It's not just "bam it's fixed." Users that expect it to be done in an hour or less because it's such a simple change make my life hell. We rush that simple change through and suddenly something even worse is broken.
I respect their decision to go "Sorry, mistake." and not rush a change through development. I don't agree with the no refunds, but to go "it's a simple bit switch" is just showing your ignorance of the development lifecycle and how complicated and messed up programming can be.

covic wrote:

Wow. I have to say as a strong supporter of SOE selling these mounts, I am very disappointed. In making my decision of which mount to buy in the SC store, I did what most would do. View the mounts in dressing room to see what would match my outfit/s best. This is truly rediculous. I won't say DOOOOM or that I am going to quit a sub over it but the very least SOE should do is offer us our SC back. I can understand not wanting to let loose with our RL cash but they could at least allow people to turn in their cats and recover their station cash.
It seems even when you try to support something good from SOE they find a way to anger all sides of the arguement. Epic Fail.

I know most people bought the mount by looking at the preview window. So I think it is fair to push the particles back on which are the ones we had at launch of the mount until they were changed with Halas. I will talk to my particle guy today and get those rebuilt.
Thanks for the feed back.

I actually only purchased the mount because it stated in the advertisment that it had Feather Fall enabled on it. It is slower than the one I was using but that bonus made it worth the cash to me.
Now that has been removed and redacted from the web page about it... how does one go about getting their money back?

covic wrote:

Good news. Since the new "turn mount models off" setting was added, the animation seems much better I now feel like a Dirge running around really fast.

I agree first and foremost we couldve used some dev response on the whole mystic/fury mythic nerf thread, but posting on topic I also bought the blue cat mount and I bought it when the preview window said it had reduced falling damage/featherfall either turn this effect on or make it so that people can get a refund as I bought a different object than the one that was advertised and which I wanted to buy.
This is not unlike fraud, people pay money (in this case real money) for something which didnt deliver what was advertised.
It's like buying a full hd tv and getting a hd ready.

covic wrote:

Thank you for the quick and reasonable response about this issue.