Watching the Official Forums as I do, I find myself in a unique position to observe our community.
That community inspires me to write, and as such I've put up another blog. This is a similar topic as I've posted in the past, but I think the issue comes up more today than it ever has.
Would you describe that as a unbiased view, taking into account both the players reaction, and NCSoft's efforts in what we, the players, have asked for?
It almost sounds as if it is your opinion that NCSoft deserves none of what we are giving them. That they have in fact done all they can for Lineage 2 in North America.
Dont bite the hand that feeds you? My response would be:
I believe that NCNA should give us more, yes. But even when they DO give us things, the community bites their heads off because it's not enough, or because it's not exactly the way they wanted it, and... etc, etc.
I don't think it's entirely undeserved, but I don't think the extremes that we see are deserved.
[Edit: And just to clarify, staff blogs are the views of the writer, not the Vault as a collective whole.]
After so many years it's just a cycle of violence. NCsoft-NA never really stepped up in the way that Blizzard has in regards to customer service, patched content, information dissemination, etc. and yet people are still here feeling like abused spouses with no place to go because there just aren't any other PVP games like L2 in the marketplace.
1. It's not fair for NCsoft because the bar that Blizzard has set is rather high and expecting a game that isn't the runaway hit the WoW was/is to receive the polish and constant care that WoW does is just unreasonable. L2 is a niche game. It seems to get niche game attention and care.
2. It's not fair for the subscribers because WoW doesn't offer anywhere near the visceral excitement that L2 can, so options are pretty much non-existent when it comes to meaningful MMO PVP in a fantasy setting.
The point? I don't cry for NCsoft. They made their bed, so they can sleep in it. I don't cry for L2's customer base. L2 fills a void(large scale, meaningful PVP) and that's obviously good enough for those that are still here paying the monthly fee. It's a marriage of convenience...which I plan on annulling as long as Warhammer doesn't turn out to be a complete abortion.
The point? I don't cry for NCsoft. They made their bed, so they can sleep in it. I don't cry for L2's customer base. L2 fills a void(large scale, meaningful PVP) and that's obviously good enough for those that are still here paying the monthly fee. It's a marriage of convenience...which I plan on annulling as long as Warhammer doesn't turn out to be a complete abortion.
Exactly.
What your getting is the majority of us just waiting until Warhammer or AOC or the "next" big thing. Most likely not a NCSoft product, since they've lost a fair bit of us for life or until major changes take place.
Lets be honest here too, we all know NCSoft's Lineage 2 team has put it in cruise control too... be it from budget issues with other products taking away dollars, or whatever, they sure as hell arent giving it their full undivided attention.
Watching the Official Forums as I do, I find myself in a unique position to observe our community.
You got some sort of secret superlogin the rest of us don't? :)
Anyways, I've had similar experience of the playerbase, lately it seems especially violent, its almost like the more it gets, the more violent it counter-reacts, this is probably stemming from a lot of recentment and anger thats been building over the years. Its actually funny to see the same kind of behavior almost completely mirrored in the UO community.
Is the anger misplaced? Should it, rather than being directed at NCNA, be aimed squarely at NCKr? After all, are they not the ones that dictate the rules that NCNA has to operate under?
Is the anger misplaced? Should it, rather than being directed at NCNA, be aimed squarely at NCKr? After all, are they not the ones that dictate the rules that NCNA has to operate under?
That's a common misconception. Having worked level 1 and level 2 customer support(corporate) I can attest to the fact that the most effective(and cathartic) strategy is to pummel the messenger(in those cases, me). After a while I leaned on my VP and our corportate partners until [censored] changed for the better. I was just really tired of getting reamed over the phone and I made sure they knew it.
The fact is that L2 subscribers in NA/EU will never really have an opportunity to share constructive criticism(read: spew venom) at NCKR. NCsoft NA will simply have to suffice. They can either pass the goodwill along to Korea or sit on it. At this point it really doesn't matter.
In short: if you can't reach the puppeteer...curb stomp their marionette. The guy pulling the strings will get the message.
Artie's opinion aside, if you had the chance to vent to NCKr, would you?
Do you think it would mean less vitriol directed at the staff of NCNA??
Would I? No. I would imagine, given previous experience, that NCsoft as a whole is about as agile as a Winnebago so what's the point? Blizzard was pensive(being kind), but NCsoft is **** near glacier-like when it comes to fixing bugs and implementing changes. Stuff takes years to fix and there's no reason to believe that any of the changes are a response to player input.
That's me though, contrary to what appears to popular belief I am of the opinion that most of the people who are left in L2 really do enjoy the game and want it to do well. Hell, they're still here in the forums talking daily about how to fix it aren't they? If that isn't dedication in the face of adversity then I don't know what is. Most rational people would have given up after falling through the water and getting stuck under rocks after the 5th time. L2 players? No way baby, they're in it to win it. They'll see it through until water no longer makes you do a prat fall and then some.
So yeah, they(L2 players) seem like good peeps that want L2 to carry on. If they got some timely word from Korea as to where the game was going and some feedback in regards to whether or not their(the player's) ideas were being read and maybe even implemented, then yes there might be less venom. I guess. Meh, Hell if I know. I just feel bad. A lot of people care about this game and it's sad to see how things have developed since I left a few years ago. All these posts and you know **** well that nothing will come of it. All the ideas and goodwill that has been shared is just going to sit here until someone turns the lights off. Deaf ears one way or another I guess. Maybe all the good ideas have been stored away for the last four years and they're going to be implemented in Aion...
I do think you're making Blizzard sound better than they really are. I played WoW for 8 months when it first came out, and some bugs that were there never got fixed till I quit. Came back 2 years later, just to read patch notes from a week earlier saying they fixed some of the bugs that plagued the game way-back-when.
It was funny really, sitting there looking at the patch notes saying to my friends, "Why did it take them over 2 years to fix that?"
I'd simply be happy if they'd take care of our ascii friends, but even that is beyond them.. and that is purely a NCSoft NA problem, nothing at all to do with Korea.
I talked to one the other day, who said he had been in these two specific catacomb rooms for about 140 days straight, minus going out to resign 7signs. (Rotating in and out new characters, and over leveled characters)
I was amazed personally. Almost 5 months at it, every day, all day, and he was still there. Some things almost make you want to give up hope and that was **** close to it right there.
You seem to think for some reason we should be greatful they are allowing us to play this game.
As if this is some gift, some blessing bestowed upon us by NCsoft.
No.
Its a buisness.
They are being payed.
The customers arent happy.
They come here to complain.
We're feeding them, not them feeding us. If we dont pay, they dont have a product that generates income and then they wont have any meat with their rice.
The point? I don't cry for NCsoft. They made their bed, so they can sleep in it. I don't cry for L2's customer base. L2 fills a void(large scale, meaningful PVP) and that's obviously good enough for those that are still here paying the monthly fee. It's a marriage of convenience...which I plan on annulling as long as Warhammer doesn't turn out to be a complete abortion.
Exactly.
What your getting is the majority of us just waiting until Warhammer or AOC or the "next" big thing. Most likely not a NCSoft product, since they've lost a fair bit of us for life or until major changes take place.
Lets be honest here too, we all know NCSoft's Lineage 2 team has put it in cruise control too... be it from budget issues with other products taking away dollars, or whatever, they sure as hell arent giving it their full undivided attention.
Im curious, where and how do you come up with the "most of us" figures?
I would imagine that most of NCNA customer service for this game does wish that things would get fixed. It is constantly mentioned that NCNA does not have the autonomy to actually do its own thing. I wonder why?
As a player among the player base I generally enjoy this game very much. Then there are days where the plagues of this game drive me up the walls. What is my recourse? I have gone red to fix a problem, but this hurts me. I have petitioned regulary to see no fix, so this still hurts me. I ignore it which still hurts me. We complain because we like the game and want to see it made better. Unfortuneately we are not often able to see it being fixed. It almost seems that new content is added to make us forget about the problems. However NC soft is not a very good magician because the slight of hand trick is not working.
The customer service we do recieve leaves much to be desired. Questions are asked and are rarely answered or if the question is not liked it gets a lock. I find it funny how if questions are asked that NC Soft doesnt want to answer they either ignore it or lock the thread.
Customer service for accounts is also pretty bad. I couldnt remember my ncsoft password and submitted a ticket. Several days later a response was sent to me asking for my information. Luckily I had all of it but an old credit card number which I sent to them. You would think that would be enough, it wasnt. I spent the next week emailing back and forth with NC soft about it. I finally had to get mean before any action was taken by them to fix the situation. I am a patient person, and do not get angry very easily. They tried the first and suceeded in the second.
All this adds up to my belief that changes need to be made in NCNA. They have a loyal customer base who is paying them for a service. Are they providing the service? Yes, but it could be so much better. Do we moan a lot? Yes, but it is because so much promised isnt done. In the end we wont see any response to this thread, and it will be pages and pages of useless dialouge between players. Kind of like mine.
Maybe I missed it, but ALL gamers are pretty much ALWAYS waiting for the next big thing. L2 is what, 3 years old now? Its only natural that people are chomping at the bit for a new game to try out. If AOC and Warhammer SURVIVE for 3 years, THEIR players will be looking for the next big thing. And once people get into AOC and Warhammer, there will be people saying "Omg..L3 is coming out soon! Its gotta be better than this!"
This is just how it works. If you DONT like the way the game is going, by all means, cancel your subscription. But sitting here and whining over and over about the same **** thing is NOT improving the situation. We hear it all the time here, how telling NCNA does nothing to change the situation, so WHY KEEP TELLING THEM. If you want to see change, send a word to support saying WHY you are canceling your account, and then cancel it. Words dont do crap, only money talks at this point.
View all the board catagories and see how many are just waiting for Warhammer or AoC. You'll find the % is extremely high.
Even on these boards, enough people have said that they are just waiting for the next thing.
Yes, and i'm one of them unfortunately :confused:
I think that one of the main reasons of this anger from NCNA's customers (paying customers, Jay, that's what we are, we feed NCSoft, and not the other way around ;)) is the disappointment and the frustration.
Like i've said many times, L2 is a great game, probably the best one there is right now, but, to quote someone from the board (Sovrath i think), "they could have done so much better with the game they have and the time they had"...
Everyone sees the potential of this game, and it's so frustrating to see that not even half of this potential is correctly utilized for a Western audiance.
A lot of features in L2 are just eye candy, because for the average player these features are just unattainable.
I know that, by saying that, someone (Spud ?) will probably tell me to "go play WoW you carebear", well, guess what ? Many have done just that, and this is exactly the problem...
It leaves L2 with only a niche market and very few players, and, of course, very few NCNA attention (which is absolutely normal from a business point of view).
And this adds to the frustration, because most of us think "if they cared just a bit more about us and listened just a bit more to us (how long do we still need to wait for those Server Transfers, are they really making a scholar study on the patience of MMO's players or what ?), this game would draw hundreds of thousands of players and then get the proper attention it deserves from its creators"...
Maybe I missed it, but ALL gamers are pretty much ALWAYS waiting for the next big thing. L2 is what, 3 years old now? Its only natural that people are chomping at the bit for a new game to try out. If AOC and Warhammer SURVIVE for 3 years, THEIR players will be looking for the next big thing. And once people get into AOC and Warhammer, there will be people saying "Omg..L3 is coming out soon! Its gotta be better than this!"
Thats entirely incorrect and utter BS.
Do you think WoW players are "waiting" for th next big thing? Hell no.
Certain games hit you right where you want, and you want to stay. However, the company screws it up SO BAD that you frankly cant. You still love the game.
Numerous examples abound... such as Ultima Online (A game I played in Alpha, Beta, and Live until, yeah you guessed it), Shadowbane (A game that those who played it adored, until UBISoft screwed the pooch), etc etc.
This is just how it works. If you DONT like the way the game is going, by all means, cancel your subscription. But sitting here and whining over and over about the same **** thing is NOT improving the situation. We hear it all the time here, how telling NCNA does nothing to change the situation, so WHY KEEP TELLING THEM. If you want to see change, send a word to support saying WHY you are canceling your account, and then cancel it. Words dont do crap, only money talks at this point.
You think our money means anything to them? Thats just silly.
At this point, the number of farmer accounts far outweighs the number of player accounts. Thus the reason NCSoft dosent even attempt to ban them anymore. Unless you think a ascii warrior staying in the same room for *5* months straight is unique. (Which its not..feel free to ask any of them, they'll tell you straight out)
You ask why keep telling them. I think the answer is glaringly obvious. We love the game. We want to keep playing it. We wish someone, ANYONE, would get off their [censored] and actually do something about the issues this game has and you'd see a complete turn around in how people react to NCSoft on this board.
Certain games hit you right where you want, and you want to stay. However, the company screws it up SO BAD that you frankly cant. You still love the game.
Numerous examples abound... such as Ultima Online (A game I played in Alpha, Beta, and Live until, yeah you guessed it), Shadowbane (A game that those who played it adored, until UBISoft screwed the pooch), etc etc.
not only the mmorpg genre. FPS and RTS games too.
Anyway. just because you start playign another game doesn't mean you have to abandon an old one. I play multiple games, I like a bit of variety. (no WoW is not one of them, in case anyone was wondering)
Maybe I missed it, but ALL gamers are pretty much ALWAYS waiting for the next big thing. L2 is what, 3 years old now? Its only natural that people are chomping at the bit for a new game to try out. If AOC and Warhammer SURVIVE for 3 years, THEIR players will be looking for the next big thing. And once people get into AOC and Warhammer, there will be people saying "Omg..L3 is coming out soon! Its gotta be better than this!"
Say that to the CS players, how old is it now, hmm? How many big FPS games have there been after it, hmm?
We're tearing NC a new one because the game has potential to last for several years, IF they step up and start actually working on it. If they continue on this current path, you'll see more and more players leave way before AoC or WAR is out.
At this point, the number of farmer accounts far outweighs the number of player accounts. Thus the reason NCSoft dosent even attempt to ban them anymore.
Unless you think a ascii warrior staying in the same room for *5* months straight is unique. (Which its not..feel free to ask any of them, they'll tell you straight out)
Yeah, that's the sad truth, you can talk to them and they dont even have to hide anymore, that shows how much NCNA absolutely doesnt care about them...
A few weeks ago i received a "friend request" on my MSN account, and i found myself talking to a girl from China who was openly admitting to work for one of *those* companies :p
I told her that i wasnt really interested in what she sold, but she was very friendly and everything, not hiding at all, and we still talk from time to time ! She's a really nice person, and cute too, if her avatar is really her :o
I guess they're just a part of the game now, we have to accept it or... go play WoW :)
I did not claim that WoW was bot-free, i just wanted to use the famous sentence most of the fanboys here use when they wanna tell us (very intelligently) that we're supposed to like L2 the way it is or go to hell :)
wow is not bot-free like so many people claim. a lot of them just hide in instances where they aren't seen by the normal players.
Which makes them not nearly as much of a issue as it is here, where player hunting spots are limited and a level 40-60 player cant do anything when they bring down level 80's :P
Some of us its not a issue, but others? I'd hate to try to get a cat room as a new or semi new player without S grade friends heh.