Some notes on today's cert grants

People don't like paying in games that are full of cheaters, getting tens of thousands of certs for nothing is cheating. Just because it's a dev's mistake doesn't make it less annoying than someone playing with an aimbot. Same drain of fun, same removal of a desire to play because other people have an unfair advantage over you in game.

Aside from this, the game just took a massive unexpected financial hit in the midst of server merges and losing subscribers. When you are clamoring for people to keep all these certs that were given in error you are basically defunding development of the game. PS2 makes money off the store and subscriptions, the cert lottery just gave a lot of people no reason to buy SC since they can use certs to get weapons, and the people this has pissed off the most are the ones SOE most desperately wants to retain (premium subscribers with large SC purchases). Look at all of the "I spent $200 on this game and got nothing" comments in the threads, do you think losing those people is going to help keep this game going? There is no way Higby went to Ken Dopher and got permission to write off millions of dollars in future SC purchases in the name of "goodwill". SOE expects to make X dollars in SC purchases for this month, that value is now significantly less due to some developers mistake. Leaving it in place loses them real money and costs them additional subscribers that were willing to fund the game. It's bad for the future of the game for so many reasons, but people are doing mental gymnastics to try and keep their free certs.

I did vehicles a lot early on, was hard to resist the lull of the Magrider, once upon a time. HE lightning was good times, TR Waterson seemed to be attracted to explosives. Lately I've been mostly working on infantry medals, though with our pop (good ole VS Waterson) I find myself often starting with one weapon and ending up having to pull another.

Back to the topic though. Honestly, as someone who hasn't benefited from the big cert handout, I am a bit troubled by it. As I said earlier, PS2 specific SC, Auraxium, this could have easily been avoided. I wouldn't consider myself upset, but it definitely seems to be very silly. Although it's not something I plan to quit over, it seems like this is a discussion we shouldn't even be having to have, but it's not the end of the world.

I can never understand why people have to make excuses for companies that make bad mistakes. Ok so we all make mistakes from time to time, in fact I did make a bad mistake at work recently. But I rectified it, I resolved it, I made it right. I would say people have a point to make excuses for SOE if SOE makes this right and fixes the problem. But the fact that they left the servers up and running yesterday without shutting it off right away, tells us they are not fixing this mistake they've made. It should've been fixed yesterday, servers should've been taken back down yesterday. Rollbacks should've been performed, mistakes should've been corrected.

To make a mistake is one thing, to not fix the mistake is quite another. They're asking the rest of us to look the other way, and that's just rubbish.

It seems like you're replying to me, since you used the word "mistake" which is the one I threw out there. You're completely misunderstanding me if you think I'm making excuses. Perhaps it's a fault of my own, I don't get much sleep, but let me clarify.

Every bit of real-world sense would state that it goes without saying that some people would be upset by this. Even I, without sleep, can think of ways that this could have been avoided, but as to how SOE could make it right I'm not sure. If they roll back they upset one portion of the customer base to appease another. If they grant certs or whatever else to appease the base, they upset those who they just appeased. (I can't refrain from this point, but keep in mind that they did this to appease a segment of customers in the first place). They've backed themselves into a corner, and no one wants to be there. "You can make some of the people happy some of the time", etc. They have a tough decision to make, so let's just give them some time before we completely overreact. I'm not advocating overreacting, mind you, just stating that they're probably still trying to figure out what even happened.

I was responding in general the amount of players making excuses for SOE, wasn't directed at you. I actually gave SOE plenty of time to come up with a good response, in fact I didn't post anything until late last night. I waited for a SOE response, then saw Higby's posts and tweets. He flat out said they were not going to take away the extra certs that people got that they didn't deserve, that it was their mistake but what's done was done. That really wasn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted them to fix the problem, I don't want them to come out tomorrow and give everybody 10k certs to spend.

SOE doesn't have to please everybody, I'm not looking for them to please everybody. But I am looking for them to correct their mistakes. I think that's all most of us are saying, fix the mistakes, we'd rather people not get the extra certs that they don't deserve. And one of the worst ways to fix this is by handing out even more certs, cheapening what people have earned and accomplished ingame further.

Roll back. I got 3k and didn't deserve it and I probably legitimately earned near a thousand just playing yesterday, and I am happy to lose that 3k and 2 days of play if you roll back. Do it now, quickly, before we have 3 days, and a week, and 2 weeks, of playtime needing wiping. Fix the reimbursement system before trying it again or refund SC or just don't bother reimbursing - far less people cared about account wide unlocks than care about this bungled disaster and anyone with redundant purchases paid for them willingly. Roll back.

Why dont you do something about it SOE? Roll back the certs.

That's a perfectly valid argument, worthy of my "Like". I just wish this would have been handled better, I don't like it, but I'm not going to let it bother me. As to a solution, I just really don't know. I love the lively continents at prime time, and I hate how dead things are in the morning. I don't want to see anyone leave.

Do the recert already so people stop flooding the forums with posts about this FFS! That way everyone wins because it will essentially be giving people back certs. Win win. SOE seriously should have done the recert by now anyway.

I wish there was a way to donate certs to people so the ******** would die down. I would gladly give you certs if it meant you'd stop gushing all over the place. Like trying to get a baby to stop crying, only there's no pacifier and they cry just to annoy the hell out of you.

We do have tons of more pressing issues to talk about. Stop flooding the forums with your emo angst. Control yourself. Remind yourself you're an adult and that just because you're on the internet, it does not mean you can unleash your inner brat whenever something doesn't suit you. They messed up on this, but they're are doing a good job of keeping this game interesting and fun so far for the rest of us still engaged with it. If you can't forgive and forget, then just say goodbye stop nagging the rest of us who are still interested in the game and can't wait to see how it unfolds in the coming months and years. Look at the longview. So far so good imo.

At the end of the day, if you can't enjoy the thing that's supposed to be a hobby or a past time, stop doing it. Playing a video game isn't a job or a necessity. If you're mad leave already. We get it. It's like all of you are writing suicide notes, but the day never comes because you keep postponing. Either do it or don't, stop attention seeking. No one cares about how big a temper tantrum you can throw in an online video game forum. It's done already.

P.S. For Cereal do the recert top priority. This double purchase cert debacle just underscores the need for it even more. I know a lot of people who have been waiting for this for months now because they wasted certs on dumb things they dont even use anymore. It will allow people some semblance of balance in this whole situation, even though it won't be good enough for the crybabies. Get er done Higby, et al.

"Look at all of the "I spent $200 on this game and got nothing" comments in the threads, do you think losing those people is going to help keep this game going? "

As I said in another now closed thread, I was ready to support the game for the "four years plan".
So basically SOE lost yesterday 300 dollars.
It's perhaps not much, but this will not be compensated with the money the bingo certs winners won't spend.

"I would gladly give you certs..."

No, thanks, character building by serious gaming is (was) a very important part of this game.
There are many different kind of playing, but for me "fun" means always "serious" gaming.

Stay, or go. Just do it already and stop flooding the forums. The rest of you too make your goodbye posts in this thread get it over with. Don't linger around expecting a different outcome it won't happen.

Hey, I just got 3 free certs for my Terran character, thanks SOE !

"Stay, or go. Just do it already and stop flooding the forums."

Sorry, but I don't talk to brown noses.

It's called hyperbole. In other words by means of exaggeration I meant to ridicule how low you all have come with these adolescent scrawls. I did not mean it literally. I was not really offering to give you certs so no need to respond with "No thanks". That's why I put the word "IF" and the conditional "could" in the same sentence. *sigh*

You could take your own advice and stop flooding the forums with troll posts like this. You shouldn't expect a different outcome, because people are rightfully upset.

Well I for one would be happy to see them fix this mess by doing something as simple as below at least it may escape this mess with some integrity:

Replace all cert point lottery gains with equivalent weapon tokens (even a code to unlock)

They know how much they gave out so just remove and replace with a token

Weapons do not break the game as they are sidegrades

Free certs break the game as they upgrade the sidegrades

As a paying member myself and spending a fair amount so far I would not be upset by this plus everyone is a winner because sony still gets to sell SC for the cosmetics.

Love the game by the way but my faith has been seriously tested because of this mess. I dont like the idea of someone having any advantage over people that may have actually earned those upgrades (again weapons are side grades, full nano, ammo belts, reload times, explosives, vehicle armour, combat chassis's need i go on are not)

While I feel that the reaction is overly heated from some, I can understand why some feel that the refunds are excessive from some places. While some form of reimbursement was due, I feel that other ways could have been better.

1) Either the wasted SC was refunded in the same amount of SC + a little added bonus of sorry SC. I would have gladly spent the SC on XP Boosts rather than the certs I got. The simplest and, I feel, the most straight forward.

2) If the refunds had to be done in terms of certs, they should have been scaled down depending on character. I'm thinking:

- Primary Character (Highest BR) - 25% Cert Refund
- Secondary Character (2nd Highest BR) - 50% Cert Refund
- Tertiary Character and below (3rd Highest BR or lower) - 100% Cert Refund
Cert gain for any character is capped at (BR * 250) refund for any specific character. That means, for example, a character with BR40 cannot have more than 10,000 Certs refund.

Thus this rewards the players for what they intended initially; investment towards secondary characters.

Otherwise the straight 2 Certs for 1SC is not thought out well. Otherwise the best course of action at the point is a rethink, rollback and refund by better methods.

It's not a troll post. You're just crying over spilled milk. They're not going to reverse their decision because that would equally cause an uproar. The best solution is to grant the recertification. It's time to move on. Lingering over how things should have been is trolling. Do you see me crying about how this got nerfed and how I wished it got rolled back? Nope. It's futile and childish. You're an adult (for the most part you could be a teenager I don't know). Part of being an adult is accepting that things won't go your way, and that you have to compromise at every step of the way eventually if you want some semblance of peace in your life.

Fair enough you stated your opinions, but restating them over and over again in an attempt to get what you want in a video game is borderline demented. It's not healthy, and the rest of us are really not in the mood to hear the same thing rehashed over and over again when there's a lot more to talk about in this game. Our focus should be on the future of the game like the test server stuff for Indar and the other stuff they're going to be adding to make sure that doesn't get effed up as well. Be a part of the solution. Contribute!

So a few people got lots of certs. Who cares? An outfit full of low BR players can probably neutralize that one or few players with a coordinated effort. It's not game breaking in the least bit. Unfair? Yup. Then again it's unfair that people win the lottery while the rest of us have to grind day in and day out just to scrape by and dream of having a better life.

With all the issues yesterdays cert grant has caused the developer who started this thread ignores it so far, and tweets about an episode of command center. All those who still feel strongly about this issue & feel it has not been resolved, please go here & tell him so.

-thank you.