Paying for Patches?

[peterrjg]

OK then, let me ask you this: how regular are Funcom supposed to be at adding new content?

They add stuff all the time.

Maybe our definition of content differs.

[___________Yorkforce]

Think of it this way ..

You walk into a bakery in hopes of buying a cake.

In front of you there is a whole cake for $40.

Unfortunatly its only half baked so you buy a slice from that cake for $10.

But the cake was so nice so you return when the cake has been baked.

But the baker will only sell it to you for $40 excluding the slice you ate before.

Nice for the baker huh? he just made $10 on you.

Lets put it another way.

You walk into McDonalds.

You want to buy a happy meal for $5 which has with it a cheese burger , a milkshake and some fries.

Unfortuntaly the cheese burger and fries arent done yet so you buy the milkshake for $1.

After drinking the milkshake , you return to the counter to buy the rest of the happymeal , but McDonalds want $5 for it excluding the milkshake.

If your stupid enough to fall for these scams , then you will create a brand new trend within the online gaming market , soon you will find that subscription fees pay for your *access* to the game only , but you will have to pay for bug fixes , *promised* content etc etc seperatly.

Go here

http://nwn.bioware.com/

They sold a product for £40 , lots of you have probably heard of it. Neverwinter Nights.

They dont charge subscription , they just had the one off payment for thier product , there were bugs , and guess what .. they fix them .. for free .. why? cos they have sold a product which wasnt quite up to scratch so they are making every effort to FIX it, so that any future products they sell will have a good reputation behind them thus .. more sales.

They are even adding content to thier product .. all for the included price of £40.

So ok this isnt a MMORPG , of course there are added costs , but going back to the bakery .. you gonna pay for the gas the baker used to cook the cake? , you gonna pay to get inside his shop?

Its not about how much money you have , its about principle , its about making a promise and sticking to it, its about respecting your customers.
Its not about cheap tricks to make a quick buck.

[___________Villianic]

I will gladly pay for expansion packs that offer new content to the game.

I do NOT want to have to pay for a PATCH that gives content that should have been in game a while ago.

AO's trying to make money, but they should try FIXING the problems they have NOW so even more people don't leave, not making new, and 100% guaranteed BUGGY expansion packs.

They're gonna release the expansion, it will be buggy, and the people who are already tired of the bugs, etc.. will give up & leave for the new games. Funcom should focus on actually fixing the problems now.

[_______________Sware]

Not even mentioning that "Land Control" was promised before the launch of AO.

Oh I just did...

[______________Zaduda]

"OK then, let me ask you this: how regular are Funcom supposed to be at adding new content?"

*me laughs himself silly*

You mean microphones?

You mean Wen wens (has anyone actually got them to work yet? half of them dont seem to)?

Have you tried creating weapons?


Half the content they put in doesnt work. They should fix whats ingame before adding new stuff. Or at least putting out a list of weapon constructors that *DO* work.





Funcom is about to lose customers. Its not me being nasty, its the truth. They lost customers after 6 months into the game when there was an awful patch, and now their gonna lose customers as more and more MMORPGs come out. There is a deluge out there of MMORPGs, and if just one of them gives better customer service than FC (which is most likely) then players here will be attracted to it like flies to dog dirt...

FC knows this, and they came up with the Shadowlands idea (not convincingly announced days after SWG's slated release of Winter)
Now their adding a booster pack?



They will claim to you, that you dont have to BUY the Shadowlands expansion (or have they changed their story ALREADY? I remember the exact Announcement post clearly stating players wouldnt have to buy Shadowlands to continue playing)

But let me ask you this.

What happens when you go to a mission terminal and it reads
"Mission in Jobe" and half the team has the expansion and the other half doesnt?

What happens when you need a new buff to continue levelling, that is only included in the expansion? An expansion you dont have.

What happens when someone shoots you with a gun that the player has from the booster pack?




Im not saying FC are wrong to create an Expansion pack, but they *will* do their damndest to make you buy it, even if it includes decieving you that you dont have to buy it, only weeks later to find that you cant play the game properly without it.

And also how much of this booster pack and Expansion will contain stuff that doesnt work?


This game was horrendously bugged when it came out. Every patch has new bugs in it. I want someone to quote me right now.
The Expansion will have huge bugs in it.
And you'll all moan. Heck, there might be another 12.6 patch bug waiting in Expansion that makes half the games population leave all over again

FC have lied about apartments.
They've lied about what would be in the game upon release (they claimed apartments would work fully, and also claimed degredation and upkeep of weapons/tools etc was ingame along with lots of other features that werent, along with Jobe)

They will lie about Expansion.
You *will* need to buy it,
it *will* be bugged,
there *will* be stuff in it that doesnt work and doesnt do anything

There probably are good things in it, but i wont be buying it, or playing this game by then. Ive had too much bad Customer Service to put myself through more of the same.

[___________Yorkforce]

Now this is interesting.

http://ebgames.com/ebx/categories/pr...p?pf_id=228047

$19.99 for the patch erm i mean *booster pack* kinda funny that the special addition of the *full* game is $19.99 too.

Has the penny dropped yet?

[______________Mysaad]

Ever buy an expansion pack? You paid for a patch.

[____________andertec]

LevRivers is right about forcing people into buying this and the imbalance of not having it =, as an example if you are level 200 ........

[UnknownPlayer] [Fleat] Will the booster pack also bring a higher LVL cap.. like 250? 300? for the 'older' players?
[gaute] No new level cap. If we do that, it will be done in the Shadowlands. If Scott wants, we can come back at a later time and talk about that. (Sucker-upper-attempt )

Also realise that if your not PvPing, this booster pack won t bring much to you and that if you do like pvping, you wont really have a choice to buy it to have the same advantages as the others you play with. (yes, I know they stated that you could participate even without it, but disvavantages have been stated as well).


Btw, how imbalancing do you think its is to have someone who purshased a Booster pack have skill advantages over those who didn t?

[UnknownPlayer] [Solarax] As for my question, I'd like to ask how you intend to separate those who have bought the booster from those who haven't? Organizations are bound to consist of members both with and without the pack as well as the controllable terrain being part of the current landscape and accessible to everyone.
[gaute] Important question!
[gaute] The main distinction is going to be in if you can BUILD or not.
[gaute] If you can build, we hope to give you personal skill bonuses from your tower type, and org skill bonuses from the controller. (these "advantages" being defined by the leaders of the org.)
[gaute] Everyone gets to participate in the combat, but you wont basically see all there is.
[gaute] We will try to patch a "basic" set of towers for everyone to see, but visually it might become more pleasing to the booster pack owners. (If we don’t invent something smart so that everyone can see more or less the same)...

[_______________Sjoko]

Originally posted by andertec
Are we paying a monthly subscription rate to MS to get new features in at the moment? No, we are paying for the software.

There is a difference between paying for a service and paying for a software!

Yes there's a difference. For software you pay once and that's it. For a subscription you pay pr month, where in this case you pay for playing on the server, pay for patches, pay for someone to answer you and pay to play.

The paralell however between having win98 and have to pay for win98se and having ao without boosterpack and have to pay for the boosterpack is the same. (the paralell being that you pay for upgrades and fixes)

With shadowlands it's another story, shadowlands is a pack to try and attract more people to the game (because of other coming mmorpgs, SWG to mention one example) and also keep on the playerbase they have already. In other words to keep us interested. (which also means more money to FC).

[____________andertec]

Originally posted by Sjoko


Yes there's a difference. For software you pay once and that's it. For a subscription you pay pr month, where in this case you pay for playing on the server, pay for patches, pay for someone to answer you and pay to play.

"pay for patches", you yourself just said monthly subscriptions include payment for patches.

The paralell however between having win98 and have to pay for win98se and having ao without boosterpack and have to pay for the boosterpack is the same. (the paralell being that you pay for upgrades and fixes)

Uhm, in the case you mention above, a service pack was available to add 99% of the functionnality of win98se to win98osr for free on the MS website. Yes, free!

With shadowlands it's another story, shadowlands is a pack to try and attract more people to the game (because of other coming mmorpgs, SWG to mention one example) and also keep on the playerbase they have already. In other words to keep us interested. (which also means more money to FC).

I totally agree, except it should bring new elements to the game. Everything that was promised at launch or soon after as a patch, should be patched in and not sold! (some elements of Shadowland are considered pathc material, some not)

[Kuro]

Originally posted by andertec

I totally agree, except it should bring new elements to the game. Everything that was promised at launch or soon after as a patch, should be patched in and not sold! (some elements of Shadowland are considered pathc material, some not)

You lost me there. The only thing mentioned in the Shadowlands expansion that had ever been mentioned prior to release was the City of Jobe. Since FC went on to say the City of Jobe would have the portal into the Shadowlands, that leads me to believe that the City of Jobe would be open to everyone to visit as it is the transition point between normal RK and Shadowland RK.

Your continued insistance that the booster pack is material that 'was promised at launch or soon after as a patch' really confuses me because of this quote:

Originally posted by andertec

If they would a delivered what they promised as far as taking over outpost and guards changing, as a patch, most would welcome this boster pack functionnality as new stuff, but since we never got what we were told as patch, we all feel played with.

Erm...You acknowledge that capturing outposts and guards changing allegiance is what was promised. How does that begin to resemble what we've been told will be in the booster packs? New graphics and sound is never promised to anyone outside of buying expansion packs as well (most of EQ's expansion packs, AC's Dark Majesty, and UO's 3rd Dawn all contained upgrades to the graphics system and aren't offered for free).

So please explain how completely new functionality that has never been mentioned before is something you consider patch material?

[Abecus]

There are many threads like this so i am just stating again that i do not like this pay-for-patch idea.

What they said they were going to give us they didn't, to a certain extent, Just because they used clever wording in there legal document still does not give them the right to charge us AO gamers for content, updated graphics and new forms of play.

See the thing is they now how much we thrive on updates. They know how much we thrive for change. They know how much we thrive for more content. And then comes along some clever idiot
( hehe i like that oxymoron) at FC and thinks to himslef and explains to his greedy buisness partners "Hey we can make more money this way by charging them for the things they thrive on".

I am sure that some of the main developers, animators, programmers and such of AO were not pleased with this idea for they knew the repercutions this would have in the AO communtiy both in the present and future. I praise the ones who fought this idea /bow.



There you go lilnymph I changed the "Promises" statement

[lilnymph]

I would just like to state I have just dug out the box to my copy of AO, and nowhere on it does it even mention in passing land control. and everything it DOES mention was in the game at release, so could someone please direct me to the place on the box where all these hundreds of broken promises where made? And possibly lend me the equipment needed to read from microdots?

husg

lilnymph

[____________andertec]

Originally posted by lilnymph
I would just like to state I have just dug out the box to my copy of AO, and nowhere on it does it even mention in passing land control. and everything it DOES mention was in the game at release, so could someone please direct me to the place on the box where all these hundreds of broken promises where made? And possibly lend me the equipment needed to read from microdots?

husg

lilnymph

For one:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Auto-generated content, individually tailored to each player s talents and skills - in addition to player-generated quests
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another about choosing skin color and somethign about a story that can be affected by players.

Taking over territories was mention in FAQ s on the old AO website as well as in interviews, etc. Maybe you remeber a Envision section the website before xmas?

[____________andertec]

Originally posted by Kuroshio



Erm...You acknowledge that capturing outposts and guards changing allegiance is what was promised. How does that begin to resemble what we've been told will be in the booster packs? New graphics and sound is never promised to anyone outside of buying expansion packs as well (most of EQ's expansion packs, AC's Dark Majesty, and UO's 3rd Dawn all contained upgrades to the graphics system and aren't offered for free).

So please explain how completely new functionality that has never been mentioned before is something you consider patch material?

The point I am trying to make is, that we were promised certain functionality that are still not in game. These features are things that are eagerly awaited since the game launched.

Therefor, taking a feature that is ingame, and expanding the idea further and selling it as a booster pack is a respectable practice.

What I don t consider an acceptable practice, is never delivering a feature, expanding into a new idea and selling it when the feauture you were eagerly awaiting, where never delivered.

Guild housing is mentionned below too, another flagrant feature promised that is missing after 13 months in production. Reading this again, it makes me think they will redesign all missing features and sell them as booster packs.

[UnknownPlayer] [Bates] question: how does Funcom justify charging people for a content patch they promised earlier in the game and will we be charged for other content such as guild housing in the future?
[gaute] My point is. This is NOT what we promised.
[gaute] This is something much bigger.
[gaute] The issues 1,5 years ago (omg, that’s a long time) when we talked about that, were being able to hold strongholds, (attacking guards already placed, and have them change sides.)
[gaute] I felt that was too limited, and instead of patching out something halfway, we went back to the drawing board.
[gaute] I do understand that people are "perplexed" about this. It is something different.
[gaute] But, we strongly feel this is something else than what previous discussed.
[gaute] Now as to Guild Housing. I don’t know when that will be done, or in what form it will take. I cannot promise you that you wont have to pay for extra stuff. New, totally different game play.
[gaute] I know that we have a strong Patch team still
[gaute] Working hard on making good content for you, all the time. I hope 14.5 will satisfy you that even with this much going on (Shadowlands and Land Control) we still have the ability to cater for
[gaute] our existing customers, who do not want to pay any extra!

[_______________Sjoko]

Originally posted by andertec
"pay for patches", you yourself just said monthly subscriptions include payment for patches.

In my opinion they are, however if it is something I can live without and don't fix any bugs, I'd call it an expansion. However FC called it booster pack. (Dumb choice of words if you ask me).

Uhm, in the case you mention above, a service pack was available to add 99% of the functionnality of win98se to win98osr for free on the MS website. Yes, free!

Let's not make this into a MS discussion. The point remains, it might have been a bad example but it still is there (1% left )

I totally agree, except it should bring new elements to the game. Everything that was promised at launch or soon after as a patch, should be patched in and not sold! (some elements of Shadowland are considered pathc material, some not)

If they forced us to purchase, my view would have been a totally different one. However buying these planned expansion packs aren't forced upon us.

I know what you mean that we have been promised these changes, but no place have they promised it to us for free ? Or have they ? (not sure, asking)

[Phione]

Today if this "booster" pack is something that would enlarge the game by 1/4 of its original size (such as DII's expansion, Lord of Destruction), I'd be glad to pay for it.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Sjoko

I know what you mean that we have been promised these changes, but no place have they promised it to us for free ? Or have they ? (not sure, asking)

If this was something like the ability to rent bigger apartments, I'd have a problem with it. That was something that was mentioned in the dev chats. But seeing the problems caused by the org banks and the player creatable missions, I can see them having issues with opening up yet another thing that messes with our credits

But basically, all this booster pack is offering is the ability to setup player owned 'camps'. That was never promised or mentioned anywhere. I'll buy it for a more recent hard copy of the client and for the graphics/sound updates (after a year of playing, the sound has been turned off).

If FC makes this a regular thing, I'll prolly pick a few and skip a few depending on what is being offered.

[_______________Dilox]

YES, entire games have been recoded, have you ever played WWII Online? In their 1.6 patch they rebuilt the whole game, they offered the patch on CD for $4 which is the cost of Shipping and Handling ONLY, and you download it on the day it was released. It went very smoothly, FC should take pointers from this.

[lilnymph]

Originally posted by andertec


For one:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Auto-generated content, individually tailored to each player s talents and skills - in addition to player-generated quests
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another about choosing skin color and somethign about a story that can be affected by players.

Taking over territories was mention in FAQ s on the old AO website as well as in interviews, etc. Maybe you remeber a Envision section the website before xmas?

Sorry, I had missd the bit about player-generated quests, Though it is possible for players to generate quests (ie, tell someone to go do something, then give them a reward) so FC's Lawyers could argue that one

Choosing a skin colour I believe we can do in character creation.

And taking over territories was in the envisioned section yes. Which means it was envisioned. This in no way makes it a promise to encluded it. As for FAQ's, I believe that "perfect" MMORPG, SWG, Had in one of its original FAQ's a little bit about space, which, OMG, Seems to have now been left out till its first expansion pack. This is before that game is even released.

And for another example, The club I work for has just finished a VIP lounge. Now, we always said we where going to build one, but for one reason or another, when we origianlly said we where going to build it a couple of years ago, it didn't happen (mostly planning permission). Now, its finally built, and we charge people extra to use it. So they pay to get in the club, and pay more to get in the VIP Area. Is this wrong? After all we did promise this a couple of years ago, and never mentioned at the time you would have to pay extra to get in.

Welcome to capitalism

hugs

lilnymph