Going straight down the tubes

[adslrizla]

Looks like yet again CCP have fucked it up. I note that RUS are on the verge of quitting, also Tom and Embattle's CEO sounds like he is too.

There is no customer service at all and you are expected to suck it up regardless of what the next untested patch does to you. I don't honestly believe that CCP have the remotest idea of what QA means There quite simply is no customer service whatsoever - you only have contact with volunteers who cannot do anything and have nobody to refer it to. It's a very very bad joke.

I'm off on hols this weekend and I'll be amazed if I find >5000 players on the servers when I come back.

Note to anyone thinking of buying this game - don't! Wait 3 months - it'll either be sorted by then or it'll be dead.

My money is sadly on the latter of those two options

 

[Tom]

Shintai hasn't told me anything about quitting. There are probably more than 10 000 people with EVE right now, but they don't all play at once.

TBH I don't see what your objections are, the only reason m0o are quitting is because they can't annihilate people with ease any more. Thinking about the weapons you choose, rather than just getting the biggest, is what it should be about, and thats what they've done.

BTW for every 1 person who quits, I bet at least 1 more joins.

 

[larossa]

M0o are not quitting straightaway, they nearly all have paid subs till around September. Stavros I think it was had a chat with my CEO the other day on IRC and told him that a good half of M0o were staying.

My corp are all flying top of range cruisers now and are eyeing up battleships We are in a war with Space Invaders (Setec's pirate corp) and we kicked ass seriously when he picked on one of our gang. Admittedly it was a disorganised attack on what he thought was a one cruiser escort for a laden indy, instead of a training exercise for 5 cruisers

There is a lack of content in the game atm but corp wars and indeed racial wars are there to look forward to. (Damn those slave trading Amarr )

 

[adslrizla]

OK I'll post personal experiences and then maybe you can see where I'm coming from :

1) First (and probably most amusing) we have my "self-steering" Vexor. Exiting a minmatar station through the "launch tube" it gets to 114m/s, turns 90 degrees vertically and horizontally and crashes into the station. Ship is then stuck. This happens 100% of the time and hence the ship is useless. Never mind - only 5 mill to suck up there eh?
2) Then we have the 2 Thorax cruisers that disappeared from my personal hangar. They were there before downtime but after they were gone. Never mind - only 25 mill (including the loadout/drones) to suck up there eh?
3) Then we have the 16 wasps I repackaged. Not entirely sure what I repackaged them into - vacuum presumably since they were never seen again.
4) Two BPs disappearing from a cargo hold in flight.
5) Now we have the complete farce of research slots eating BPs or best case spitting them out.

Enough to be going on with there? There's a lot more but to be quite frank I cba going on about it. CCP (or Polaris anyway) don't give a damn about any of this so I doubt any of you do either

Like I said in the post on the eve-online boards (which Polaris deleted as usual as it criticised CCP) I'm off on hols soon and I've set myself a deadline of the 6/8/03 - if there are still major bugs at that point (and I count disappearing cruisers as major) then I'm not prepared to put any more time or money into the game.

Perhaps I may return to it later but I'm not convinced there will be anything to return to given that CCP have already laid off a good proportion of the dev staff.

No fanboy replies eh? If you disagree and want to reply then try to make a case to convince me why losing in excess of 50 mill of kit/BPs to bugs and being told "tough" is acceptable.....

 

[xane]

Originally posted by larossa
My corp are all flying top of range cruisers now and are eyeing up battleships We are in a war with Space Invaders (Setec's pirate corp) and we kicked ass seriously when he picked on one of our gang. Admittedly it was a disorganised attack on what he thought was a one cruiser escort for a laden indy, instead of a training exercise for 5 cruisers

WTG

I'm not actually anti-pirate as such, in fact I think people like Setec are essential to the game, but it's much better now they have to pick and choose their targets. This is to me what the "real" EVE is, where corporations see the pirate threat and act accordingly.

Bully for you guys, at least you're not like TTI who consider pirate hunting to be "bad for business".

Setec has been running around on a big positive security rating, taking advantage of the early days when you could clock up +10 SR killing a few high-end NPC pirates.

 

[Midgardian]

Originally posted by adslrizla
Perhaps I may return to it later but I'm not convinced there will be anything to return to given that CCP have already laid off a good proportion of the dev staff.

You Know this for a Fact?

It still amazes me, that people out there can't seem to understand Basic Company Logistics.

When you are gettting ready to launch a product, not just a game, but any product, you hire more staff. When the product is released you dispose of some of those staff. Why on earth would you keep staff, in paid Jobs, if the bulk of the work is done. Now, lets look at a Computer game for example. Graphics Artists - Bulk of Graphics work is done..only minor work to be done in terms on new Items, ships etc etc. Sound technicians - Same as before..bulk of work is done. Programmers...guess what..same again..although more of these will be kept.

Lets look at QA. You say it doesnt exist. I beg to differ on this. I have filed petitions, which have had responses in anything from 2 hours to 10 minutes.

Lets look at MOO. If they leave, which from what people have said, only some will, then fine let them leave. MOO was only 1 corp..only a small fraction of the EvE Universe. The only reason people talk about MOO, is they held a few blockades, killed some newbies, and went against CCP. Others will come and do the same, either better or worse..who cares. EvE is a PvP game. Its not about who has the BFG, it should be about Tactics.

Lets look back at World War 2 for example. If you put 2 destroyers, face off at each other, then 1 would sink, based on both ships giving out the same firepower. Now lets swap 1 destroyer for say..2 small topeado loaded Planes. Chances are the planes will either inflict major damage on the Destroyer, or sink it. Now, in EvE, up until the last patch, The Biggest Gun won. War should not, and is not about who has the biggest gun. Its is starting to be, and should be about Tactics. Fast Small Ships, should be able to inflict major damage on Slow Large Ships. Large Heavily Armed Ships, should be able to inflict damage on Medium Ships, but on smaller ships, they should do less. Small Ships should be harder to Target.

If you don't like EvE, then don't play it..simple as that really.

 

[CobraMkIII]

Originally posted by adslrizla
OK I'll post personal experiences and then maybe you can see where I'm coming from :

1) First (and probably most amusing) we have my "self-steering" Vexor. Exiting a minmatar station through the "launch tube" it gets to 114m/s, turns 90 degrees vertically and horizontally and crashes into the station. Ship is then stuck. This happens 100% of the time and hence the ship is useless. Never mind - only 5 mill to suck up there eh?
2) Then we have the 2 Thorax cruisers that disappeared from my personal hangar. They were there before downtime but after they were gone. Never mind - only 25 mill (including the loadout/drones) to suck up there eh?
3) Then we have the 16 wasps I repackaged. Not entirely sure what I repackaged them into - vacuum presumably since they were never seen again.
4) Two BPs disappearing from a cargo hold in flight.

Midgardian said "If you don't like EvE, then don't play it..simple as that really."...well, I don't think Adslrizla was saying that really... We can all like something but get annoyed when things go wrong and nothing happens to resolve the situation...
I don't think ANYONE would be happy if that lot happened to them... What did customer services say?... what was the result of the "petition" that Midgardian mentions?

The game will improve over time I'm sure... I haven't bee online long enough to see many of these problems as yet... But if I ever get a Thorax and it goes missing then I think I would be pretty miffed... even more so if they weren't returned...

 

[adslrizla]

Umm who the hell is talking about m0o? I'm not - I mentioned RUS who in case you're not aware are probably the most diehard fans of this game that there are. Most of their members are on the verge of quitting for the issues I listed and you ignored. AFAIK they have lost two original BS BPs - now that's fun eh?

Yes I get replies to petitions too and I can sum the response up in 2 words - "tough luck".

As far as the dev staff go - yes I know it for a fact and they were members of the core dev team (not graphics/sound/whatever).

Try reading posts and not obsessing about m0o next time eh?

Edit - aimed at Midgardian just in case anyone can't tell

 

[adslrizla]

Cobra - the GM's said they don't replace items under any circumstances. The EULA says that too but I really didn't expect that losses due to bugs would average (for me) in excess of 1 mill/day. The bug with the vexor was reported weeks ago and it is 100% reproducible on both Tranquility and Chaos. No response.

NB - people please note that I haven't lost anything due to a bug occurring during combat (just before anyone starts in on that one)

 

[CobraMkIII]

That is bad customer if they did respond with "tough luck" or something similar... Bad PR too...

As for lost items just think what that would do to a player like me who might have saved up all their isk to buy a Thorax and then have it just disappear... Surely there must be something they could have done? If they wanted to they could reimburse you with Isk or something in the way of compensation...

And as for the reproducable bug (the stuck ship at the station thing), it's probably better that it is reproducable... just a shame it's not high up on their list of priorities for you!...

Of course, if you want to take a long holiday I will be happy to "look after" your cash in the meantime! All funds and equipment gratefully received!

I'm still in the "It's even more cool than Elite - WOW!" mode at the moment, so I'm happy... of course how long this lasts for I can't say!

 

[Tom]

So far the only bug I have come across that has caused me grief was just before the rollback a few weeks ago, when my Imicus got battered by some pirates because of a crash. They gave me a new one. I haven't lost anything yet, neither has my corp, so I can only presume that you are in a completely different region of space, and perhaps on a less reliable server.

Sorry to hear you've lost ships and stuff, but you have to wonder how much time it would take to track down those transactions, and to make sure that you simply didn't jettison them into space and destroy them/abandon them, when those people could be working on patches/improvements. It's a fine line.

 

[Midgardian]

The petitions i mentioned were for BP's missing, stuck ships, stuck skills, vanishing Isk..and all have been resolved in the times i mentioned above.

I'm not attacking anyone personally, just making a point. The game is 2 months old'ish..give it time..jees

 

[CobraMkIII]

Originally posted by midgardian
The game is 2 months old'ish..give it time..jees]

Originally posted by adslrizla
Note to anyone thinking of buying this game - don't! Wait 3 months - it'll either be sorted by then or it'll be dead.

... the old weighing up of "release a reliable, quality product" against "get their money now!" ...

 

[adslrizla]

OK Midgardian post the name of the GM who gave you back "vanishing ISK" and "missing blueprints" because he's broken all the rules that Polaris operate by. The only time they can give back an item is when it is sanctioned by a dev who has investigated and verified the bug and I simply do not believe that this happened on more than one occasion and was resolved within 2 hours.

Therefore I'm sorry to say I smell bovine faeces somewhere in this thread - I wonder if anyone can guess where

 

[adslrizla]

To Tom and Cobra : aye it is a fine line but I know of people who've lost ships when a node died, been told "yes we know what happened but tough luck".

Half the problem is that "customer service" is mainly made up of volunteers. I know of one (and I'm not going to name him as that would be unfair) who has publically stated he's only doing it to "fly cool ships and have power over other players". Hell look at the two players who got ganked by m0o after the GMs teleported m0o to another system - did they get their ships back? Did they hell! Even though a GM was in-system and saw what happened they got told to suck it up.

Unprofessional isn't even beginning to cover it.....

 

[Faeldawn]

Such a shame, this game had real potential. Coulda benefited from another 3 months in beta.

 

[larossa]

Adslrizla - you seem to have had more problems with the game than the rest of us
All my corp have had (around 10 people) is a few stuck characters which were sorted out within an hour and a couple of bps being stuck and those were sorted quite soon with no loss. One guy has lost a few ships due to crashing to desk top (reinstalled windows and problem seems to be sorted) and one lost one when the game paused for a few minutes but the npc pirates didn't suffer from the same lag

A lot of players are not getting all these bugs and I was somewhat amazed to read that bps could disappear from cargo holds etc. in mid flight and yes I believe you should get a refund or replacement in that situation because there is a clear audit trail from you buying the items and no longer having them in your possession, selling them would have shown up and jettisonning them would be an unlikely option (although not impossible I have to say).

I operate out of Minmatar space but went on a trip to Caldari space recently and noticed a definate increase in lag at every gate. Some of my corp said that the majority of people choose Caldari to play, does this effect the amount of problems you encounter?

I know Thoraxes are Gallente but I fly Minmatar cruisers despite being Gallente myself

 

[Midgardian]

You can believe what you like adslrizla, but at the end of the day, if you can prove that something has happend in game, due to a)bug, b)Node Crash, c)Someting else, which can be laid directly at the feet of CCP, then IMO they should, and have so far fixed these Issues.

You mentioned people having issues that get no response from CCP, or a Tough Luck response. Fine, I too can name 1 or 2 people that have had that, But I also know a lot of people in game that have the same responses that I have.

As for naming the GM or the Dev who sorted the issues...then no. Not because I wont, but because I can't remember who.

Like i said, think what you want. Take your break from EvE, then come back when you think the game lives up to your expectations.

 

[adslrizla]

larossa I know loads of people who've had similar problems

The corporate line from CCP is that they will not replace lost items under any circumstances. Obviously this is not being applied in a consistent manner (no surprise there really). I'm on their shit list now and so (apparently) is anyone who dares to agree with anything I say - lost count of how many posts I've had deleted without warning from the eve-online forums. Oh and they weren't all rants either - by any means

The BPs disappearing is quite an old issue and I have no clue whether it still happens. It was quite prevalent back at the end of May and I know of one corp who just quit in disgust at the response they got from a petition after losing their first cruiser BP (Moa IIRC) in this way. They basically got told "tough luck" and when they protested about this were told that the GM "had better things to do than look at logs to see what happened"

To be quite frank their customer service is appalling - they let personal viewpoints cloud the decisions they make regarding petitions; the forums are a joke - you can get away with telling people to FOAD as long as you're a fanboy; and twice now we've had the situation where people couldn't actually cancel their subs.

I probably do need a break - not so much from the game but from the fuckwits in Polaris and the moron who codes the forums (which time out more often than a basketball team).....

Edit : larossa - lag seems fairly consistent with time of day (hence number of players) to me and my location doesn't seem to have a lot to do with it. Obviously when there's a good few ships/drones around and guns are blazing it's less than stellar, however that's about all really

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Tom[SHOTTEH]
Shintai hasn't told me anything about quitting.

He won't be renewing after his current subs runs out in Sept, I personally haven't renewed either and mine ran out today. I have two main reasons which have resulted in this decision, the first is the fact the game didn't quite manage to fulfil my expectations and the second, and more important, is a lack of time I can dedicate to EVE and I've found one thing EVE does require is time.