Trion - Please do not ignore this post

*sigh*....

*sigh* multipost pain...

Mr TrickDempsey,


Would you kindly care to explain why EU players have to pay over $12 more for 500 bits less than NA players?

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Originally Posted by Deunan

Not so humorous. Jump to 1:29 for further insight and understanding in what's going on here and in B2P and F2P gaming industry in general:

http://youtu.be/oVSqhTCASHw

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1:36:30 sounded so familiar.

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Originally Posted by TrickDempsey

Let's discuss shields, shall we?

Any time you make a change to base stats on items, you are always balancing the time and resource investment of existing established players with those of new and learning players. (Someone who is a top-level gear vendor has a very different set of priorities than someone who is still making progress through the story and pursuits.)

The gear vendor sees statistical anomalies as an opportunity to capitalize. "OP" weapons and gear become the target of desire and exploitation. They seek out people who do not know the value of what they have, they acquire it, and then sell the goods to another player at an increased price. This is the game of "buy low; sell high" and it is a wonderful and exciting game for those who play it.

Conversely, players making progress through the game have a very different experience. They are seeking higher rarities and higher numbers. The chase for them hinges on the opening of every lockbox an the defeat of every boss. The instant an orange item appears in their rewards box, they reach the climax of their experience. The moment when they open their inventory and compare that gear to their previous gear is the most pivotal moment in their daily or weekly gaming experience.

When that piece of gear, that legendary gear that they've slaved for, is inferior to the green or blue they already have, they have a negative experience. They have a negative experience that quite commonly directly causes them to leave the game. When the shields were wrong, this experience happened every single day to quite a few players. It's a terrible gaming experience, and we're not going to encourage it to continue.

With the update to shields, to correct high rarity gear with low rarity stats, we only improved inventory items. We're not going to maintain a negative experience for most our players so that a select few may maintain a competitive advantage.

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Ok, I'm just going to ignore all the stuff about traders cause it assumes they are all jerks who are looking to trick people.:o
Actually on topic, you do realize you've had the unintended effect of causing the thing you say you were fixing. Now all Orange shields are just better, except Vs. You understand this makes no sense right? Now if you get an orange shield it rules, unless its the best kind, then its the worst possible orange.
I gotta believe that this is because you never compared IV and V shields before fixing the "typo". Listen to everyone responding. That was NOT a typo but obvious from experience intended. I never felt more like the original team that made the game left then watching people trying to explain this to you guys.....

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Originally Posted by Deunan

Not so humorous. Jump to 1:29 for further insight and understanding in what's going on here and in B2P and F2P gaming industry in general:

http://youtu.be/oVSqhTCASHw

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A video that should be watched at the next Trion/ Defiance Meeting for sure! Make sure to hit 1 hour 29 minutes in it cause It tells exactly what most people think about trying to Moniterize Teens, and "Whales".

When you put money before your artistic integrity and principles, then its time for you to close your doors.

After watching that video, it appears as though some people missed that "How to Minimize Backlash" seminar that they mentioned.

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Originally Posted by N3gativeCr33p

After watching that video, it appears as though some people missed that "How to Minimize Backlash" seminar that they mentioned.

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Or they caught it, but it was too much work to care that much.

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Originally Posted by N3gativeCr33p

After watching that video, it appears as though some people missed that "How to Minimize Backlash" seminar that they mentioned.

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I thought that was rather poignant. I can't say I agreed with everything they were saying to the letter (the gaming industry is (and needs to be) a business first and foremost), but having a lot of customer service in my background, a lot of these companies certainly need to learn how to treat their playerbase better.

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Originally Posted by BJWyler

I thought that was rather poignant. I can't say I agreed with everything they were saying to the letter (the gaming industry is (and needs to be) a business first and foremost), but having a lot of customer service in my background, a lot of these companies certainly need to learn how to treat their playerbase better.

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You're missing the point. They aren't saying game developers shouldn't discuss or think about how to monetize their player base. They're talking about how it's reached a point where monetizing them becomes the overriding purpose to the point that it subverts game design and development so that objectively bad game design elements are introduced solely to further monetize big consumers of microtransactions. Those game design elements by nature are ones that treat the rest of the player base negatively and as irrelevant. That's part of John Bain's point when he talks about what has to happen to game design to make that business model work. They're saying that if you can't figure out how to monetize your players without doing that, you don't deserve their support and IMO they are absolutely correct in that regard.