You know there is a percentage of new players that come to the forums first, maybe only 10% maybe 20%. They come to see Guides, or Best Loadouts, strategy, or tactics. Some come because they already figured out to make a game like this really enjoyable they should join a Outfit. Instead they come here and see the ridiculous Doom and Gloom posts. Now I have no issue with these content of these posts, they do list most of the time actual issues with the game, actual bugs, exploits, content, and optimization, and the feedback is appreciated. Anyone who was in Beta knows the Devs and Smedley do read these forums, read PSU, and read reddit and watch youtube. The problem I have with these posts is your self entitlement to a Nostradamous like prophet who believes that the game will die a mere 3 months after release (despite being SOE's most profitable and most active MMO). Irregardless the only thing you Doom posters achieve is showing the community your level of maturity but more importantly you mange to maybe scare new players away with your posts which ironically is the the very thing your trying to prevent with your posts. Seriously guys, grow up and show some maturity with your posts, list your issues/concerns about the game is a organized respectful manner, a new player will look at it with respect and understanding, as well as the devs, and you will mange not to scare away a potential player who will then recruit 1 to 5 of his friends.
I dont think that its so much the tone of the posts are doom and gloom, but that theres a doom and gloom feeling being created by the sheer number of posts about bugs being created. I honestly feel a large part of this hysteria has been created by SOE and their lack of response to the crash exploit. People have spent quite a bit of their money on this product and dont want to have a bug that destroys their game experience ignored for a week just because its the holidays and most of SOE is out on vacation. The lack of action or communication has been very frustrating in my opinion.
I think what drives new players away from the game might have more to do with things like: Lack of a meta cert grinding no tutorial excessive bugs hackers pathetic optimization/game performance/rendering other stuff Didn't you say yourself that only the minority even comes to the forums anyway?
Lack of Meta - Being a formr PS1 player I agree, and has been repsonded to by the Devs as something their working on and have big plans for. Cert Grinding - Its a MMO, a F2P MMO....did you expect it to be easy and SOE not make money off of Boosts or memberships? No Tutorial - I agree, though some come to the forums first (hence my 1st post) Excessive Bugs - The game is a 1.5 months old...theres never been a MMO without alot of bugs at release (or atleast any major one) Hackers - A issue but on Mattherson we see very few and apparently on Miller they see very few, a issue but not gam breaking. Also responded to by Devs and they are in the works to fix this issue or have better prevention methods. Optimization/Perf/Rendering - A big issue, and Higby, and Smedley have REPEATEDLY posted they know and it is issue #1 for them and are working on it, and have posted a major patch in January. Point is these are issues, that should be posted in constructive manner, not a "PS2 IS going to die if not fixed" posts that does scare new players away.
You would think they would have maybe thought about these things before releasing the game. How long did they have to develop it? Cert Grinding - Takes too long. Games are not a job. You can't buy certs and the upgrades are not upgrades. Every weapon feels pretty much the same, and looks the same. Big problem. They should have fixed a lot of the bugs during beta. They released the game too soon. We'll see how they do with optimization/rendering. Again, this should have been done during BETA. I hope they can fix this game before it's too late, but I am doubting it at this point. This game has never felt much like a Planetside game to me - and I think a lot of people feel the same way.
