Cz: I hope what I am writing to you goes beyond you, your supervisors and possibly to the CEO of Funcom.
You guys have made very successful come back after initial release with bugs and I give you my humble gratitude. I love playing AO and despite the nerfs, I force myself to look forward to the possible future patches that may bring about good news.
However, if I may get to the point:
You will never be as successful as some of the multi-player games if you continues to do MAJOR changes [and I mean dramatic stuffs like this for example] to the game structure that effect hundreds of players if not thousands.
Take it like this, we are your meal ticket and we are the reason you guys still doing okay. You can not make us all happy but with enough brains power at your HQ, I am sure you can keep the game stable [I don't mean bugs, I meant the game play/life in AO] and do creative but gradual changes.
I am not sure if you are getting hundreds of new players after each patch but I am sure you are losing fifty to one hundred players every time you change something as big as this.
Cz, personally I give you credit for putting up with our craps but you guys really need to think about this [the part “to ensure that it stays as valuable as it is now,”] as you may very well lose another customer like myself and when I do go, I don't go alone....as there are others that share my point of view. Post up a poll on how many people like this idea and how many doesn't and see for yourself! (Even put an option on how many people leaving AO just because of this.)
As for your "Recruit a friend program," my question is...doesn't really work when you keep losing players?
Markt
Advisor of Rebels