Unsustainable level

[Aiteal]

Which empty promises?

ahh you know
this sort of thing

As I said in one of my first posts in this thread, the solutions that we're looking into involve more people than just us and so we can't give you ETAs on their behalf. As soon as we know when they can deliver to us we'll know when we can deliver to you and we'll pass that on through the news.

 

[eble@work]

the mod replied to my PM about the locking, he seems ok though and gave some good reasons and i can understand why. I have replied back though with some questions

I am a little worried though, WHA is the forum for Warhammer, neither mythic nor Goa have any"official" forums.

And i see the WHA site uses advertising as most do to keep costs down.

Mythic is more likely to release information first on WHA then any other forum first. Even though the Mod says they are impartial and none affiliated, i do think that they will get more per advertising and referrals due to the number of impressions and visitors from postings from WAR devs and News items.

So they might not want to upset the apple cart, as it might means less revenue from them if Mythic withhold or delay news on WHA first.

They do not seem like that though, but its in the back of my mind.

Also requiel Ian C being a MOd probably doesn't help

Eble

 

[DeathsBows]

redone it for you

Originally Posted by IainC_Goa
Much of what will be different is already common knowledge. For example EU players will not have access to exactly the same level of ingame customer support as US players. Also patches and updates will be released 4 months later in Europe than the US. Those two items alone account for the majority of the issues that most people had about DAoC in Europe.

Additionally I've been responding to some individual points on the Freddyshouse WAR forums as you can see in this thread. I don't post anymore in the DAoC section of Freddyshouse because I cba to be stepping on the toes of my colleagues who are still on that project.

We aren't in a position yet to lay out all of the operational details of how we will be running WAR, it's too early to announce things like server info, billing details and so forth until all the english people have left (fucked off) from dyvet. You should however be able to get some idea of how big a project this is for us and how much we are prepared to go over dead bodies to make it work by the fact that we moved the company
to a different country in order to be able to hire the hundreds of additional people (for the same price 10 french workers would of cost, wonder where that is) required to run WAR properly. To all intents and purposes we set up a new company several times the size of the original Goa DAoC team specifically to handle WAR ( means they got 7 people now instead of 1)and to ensure that it has all the resources it needs to be the failure in Europe that it deserves to be.

he wont reply he though

 

[Raven]

Anyway its gone way past the point of no return now anyway even if GOA did stick to their promises it would make very little difference to most people.

They have a track record of being utterly useless in every possible way, what do they expect, praise? Unless they stop making fuck ups that are easily avoided they will continue to be considered a joke. Word is spreading nicely in WoW with regard to how useless they are and the hype is starting to cool already.

 

[rampant]

i wonder what would happen if mythic/ea bought GOA???

 

[Flimgoblin]

ahh you know
this sort of thing

Hrm, I thought Roaken had posted about how the solutions just weren't feasible? no?

You've got a point there that they've not really done anything to stop the population becoming "unsustainable" but I'm not sure exactly what they could have done. People say "advertise more", "market more" like it's some kind of silver bullet, but unfortunately GOA are a business and even if they were able to (e.g.) get william shatner to wax lyrical on telly about how great a game daoc is and how the Dyvet server is the best - how many people do you think would be enticed by it to play a 5 year old game which unfortunately doesn't have anywhere near as nice a newbie experience as something like WoW.

I appreciate you're all sad about the effective demise of a once vibrant server cluster, I am too, but I'm really not sure what GOA could have done in the past couple of years to avert that.

(Obviously it would have helped if there weren't things like the Prydwen crash, but alas predicting the future is still an inexact science)

 

[Aiteal]

Hrm, I thought Roaken had posted about how the solutions just weren't feasible? no?

Financially feasible?
Because there are any number of technically feasible solutions.

but unfortunately GOA are a business

They are
and the first rule is the customer is king
string the customer along with empty promises and it will come back and bite you in the arse
despite the fact that the GoA WAR servers will be 70 odd miles down the road from me
I'll be playing on the US servers
I'm not egostistical enough to think that me boycotting GoA servers will have any real impact on their bottom line come WaR's release, but they wont get another penny from me

 

[Flimgoblin]

Financially feasible?
Because there are any number of technically feasible solutions.



They are
and the first rule is the customer is king
string the customer along with empty promises and it will come back and bite you in the arse
despite the fact that the GoA WAR servers will be 70 odd miles down the road from me
I'll be playing on the US servers
I'm not egostistical enough to think that me boycotting GoA servers will have any real impact on their bottom line come WaR's release, but they wont get another penny from me

Actually the first rule of business is "don't go out of business" "Don't piss off the customer" is usually a vital part of that of course. You're going into McDonalds and demanding a fillet steak. It's technically feasible for them to order in a fillet steak and cook it for you, but it's not their business.

Alas technically feasible might well apply to character transfers or whatever, but even that wouldn't save Dyvet. I think given the amount of self-harm this community's done to itself over the years the only way to have saved it would have been to pay people to play, if you want to write a business case for that I'd be very interested to see it.

 

[scorge]

Hrm, I thought Roaken had posted about how the solutions just weren't feasible? no?

You've got a point there that they've not really done anything to stop the population becoming "unsustainable" but I'm not sure exactly what they could have done. People say "advertise more", "market more" like it's some kind of silver bullet, but unfortunately GOA are a business and even if they were able to (e.g.) get william shatner to wax lyrical on telly about how great a game daoc is and how the Dyvet server is the best - how many people do you think would be enticed by it to play a 5 year old game which unfortunately doesn't have anywhere near as nice a newbie experience as something like WoW.

I appreciate you're all sad about the effective demise of a once vibrant server cluster, I am too, but I'm really not sure what GOA could have done in the past couple of years to avert that.

(Obviously it would have helped if there weren't things like the Prydwen crash, but alas predicting the future is still an inexact science)

I think it would of helped in the beginning if GOA gave the same amount of resource to the English servers as the did the French and German ones. They obviously decide for some odd reason that the English servers where to risky to incest in.

Patching at the same time also didnot help the EU English side of things, made a lot of people go US to get the latest content. They have learnt there lesson on that, but its yet to be seen how they handle their first patch.

you will notice that Iain doesn't really answer any of the difficult questions, put to him, but chooses the ones that have the less negative impact e.g.

EU Server or NA Server? - Page 3 - Warhammer Forums

you might not get that with GOA, check it out ---

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/general-discussion18/223639-fraud-investigation.html

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/gen...124-alliance-leicester-blocking-payments.html

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/general-discussion18/223839-payment-site-down.html

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/general-discussion18/223878-wtf-has-happened-my-account.html

Those reports aren't quite accurate, there are no fraud investigations into Bibit (a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the company that handles our billing for DAoC). What instead happened is that a lot of banks and building societies have started demanding additional checks on payments abroad - especially on recurring charges. I'd be amazed if any bank could say that 'there are fraud investigations into Goa' as was suggested in a couple of those threads. Our customers don't pay us directly and neither do the credit card companies, all charges are to Bibit. Goa doesn't appear anywhere in that process as far as the banks are concerned..

There is a small hardcore of posters who take every opportunity to bash us and who will twist any news to make things somehow our fault. This is simply another example of that.

Answer

I did not see one Community manager reply in any of those threads that this was not the case? why not? Why didn't you communicate that to your customers? Why didn't you put something on your website to say that they might be problems with payments? Players can only go on what there banks tell them.

I am not bashing GoA, and you cant blame the players for inaccurate info when you don't correct it yourself, couldn't be bothered?

So what your saying is that your payment gateway Bibit didnt know of the additional checks required for foreign reaccuring payments and as a result some payments got refused, why do you use them then. where they the cheapest to use?

I wont include the thread about GoA "accidentally" taking money out of closed accounts, that wasn't fraud then, that was the players fault for subscribing? I know GoA gave the money back, shouldn't of happened in the first place though. Or did bibit take the money out instead?

I am not twisting anything the facts are in the threads...

Again GOA do not communicate to there players properly, Roaken doesn't help and enforces this belief because he is afraid to post due to flames or awkward questions.

Flim you said:

You've got a point there that they've not really done anything to stop the population becoming "unsustainable" but I'm not sure exactly what they could have done.

Are the German servers unsustainable, are the French servers unsustainable, is there population as bad as ours? May be they could have done the same ..

The game is not going to last for ever, i understand that. Its the way GOA treated the English servers, especially these last 2 years. In the end all the good work Requiel did, and he did do a lot of good work dont forget that, was marred by the end result and it has slightly tarnished him in what he now says.

I have nothing against Requiel, and he is in between a rock and a hard place. One side its GoA who pay him at the other side its his Players, he is bound to get flamed. Do not forget though his loyalties lie with GOA, not the players, even though its us who indirectly pay his wage, it is in his best interests to keep players in the game, that way his job is secure. No English players no English community manager.....

 

[Aiteal]

Alas technically feasible might well apply to character transfers or whatever, but even that wouldn't save Dyvet.

we all know Dyvet is dead

GoA's reputation however did not have to die with it in the eyes of so many of it's former customers

Req choose to explain things away as "seasonal dips", deny there was a problem, kinda accept there was a problem and tell us there were a number of solutions being worked on, but he couldn't quite say what they were as one (the prefered solution) would be very popular with us but not 100% possible, the fall back solution was possible, but would be "less popular"

Then fack off leaving some other poor sod to tell us that fack all was going to be done



We'll have to agree to disagree I guess

These days I'm happy playing on a server with ingame support, a perfectly acceptable ping, a thriving community that enjoys everything from zerg vs zerg, 8 vs 8 and solo/small man action with csr's that don't do stupid arse things like spawn mobs on "duellers"

Funny thing was, a few months back I appealed a bug with the dragon-quest, was messaged 15minutes later by a CSR who contacted me whilst I was at an "organised duelling" event on the island, sorted my problem, then kept daring me to challenge a RR9 Valk who was looking for a duel at the solo zone

and I thought to myself

the grass certainly is much greener when I don't have to rely on a shite support system that takes days/weeks to sort problems and CSR's who would spawn mobs on me because a few hours fun at a community organised event would contravene the "spirit of the game"

 

[Raven]

Pretty much sums it up Aiteal, repped.

 

[Raven]

Alas technically feasible might well apply to character transfers or whatever, but even that wouldn't save Dyvet.

That isn't the point, we all know dyvet is long dead but there are still a lot of people (myself included) that wouldn't hesitate to renew my subs if it was clustered with the German or French cluster. That IS technically feasible its just GOA don't want to invest a few days doing it. heck it probably doesn't even take a few days, they could do it in an extended patch day like before i imagine.

GOA really should do the decent thing and let the people who have paid for their existence for the last 5-6 years decide. Not spout even more bullshit.

Obviously there would be a few die hard people that don't want to cluster, for the simple reason of it being in German but to be honest it would be in GOAs best interests to please the majority right now, their future depends on keeping the EU MMO player base happy, not fobbing them off.

 

[scorge]

That isn't the point, we all know dyvet is long dead but there are still a lot of people (myself included) that wouldn't hesitate to renew my subs if it was clustered with the German or French cluster. That IS technically feasible its just GOA don't want to invest a few days doing it. heck it probably doesn't even take a few days, they could do it in an extended patch day like before i imagine.

GOA really should do the decent thing and let the people who have paid for their existence for the last 5-6 years decide. Not spout even more bullshit.

Obviously there would be a few die hard people that don't want to cluster, for the simple reason of it being in German but to be honest it would be in GOAs best interests to please the majority right now, their future depends on keeping the EU MMO player base happy, not fobbing them off.

Goa cant though, think about it, the must have an English cluster, if they abandon it before WAR its a lot of negative publicity...

 

[Flimgoblin]

Are the German servers unsustainable, are the French servers unsustainable, is there population as bad as ours? May be they could have done the same ..

The game is not going to last for ever, i understand that. Its the way GOA treated the English servers, especially these last 2 years. In the end all the good work Requiel did, and he did do a lot of good work dont forget that, was marred by the end result and it has slightly tarnished him in what he now says.

What exactly was different with the German and French servers?

More players in the first place and less options for the players to jump ship? I can't think of anything else, except maybe that the Prydwen crash didn't happen to a German or French server.

The people playing in German don't have any option other than their servers, the people playing in English have always had the chance to jump ship to the US (and a fair chunk of people started on the US version before the european english version was available).

I'm really not sure what else they could have done (given budgets, etc. and the futility of trying to advertise a 4/5 year old game) to slow the inevitable population decline.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Req choose to explain things away as "seasonal dips", deny there was a problem, kinda accept there was a problem and tell us there were a number of solutions being worked on, but he couldn't quite say what they were as one (the prefered solution) would be very popular with us but not 100% possible, the fall back solution was possible, but would be "less popular"

At that time there had been a dip in US population every summer, with a recovery every autumn. Same again on the EU servers but starting and recovering later.
(generally the recovery was around the time of the expansion)

Just that year (just after cluster, release of Darkness Rising) the recovery didn't happen on Dyvet, after which IIRC the "seasonal dip" wasn't mentioned again except by people quoting him a year after the fact...

The preferred solution was explained later as being multi-language clustering, so you could still play in english. This wasn't possible. I'm pretty sure the fall back was to change the language of the server, which would have been rather unpopular and possibly even breaking their contract (it'd mean they were no longer supplying a european english server), but I guess that wasn't thought about when it was first announced.

Yeah it sucks that neither plans hinted at came to fruition, still if he'd not mentioned them at all you'd have grumbled as much about the lack of communication (cf. now for example).

 

[Flimgoblin]

Goa cant though, think about it, the must have an English cluster, if they abandon it before WAR its a lot of negative publicity...

They might also be required by their license to run an english language server.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Obviously there would be a few die hard people that don't want to cluster, for the simple reason of it being in German but to be honest it would be in GOAs best interests to please the majority right now, their future depends on keeping the EU MMO player base happy, not fobbing them off.

I think (effectively) shutting down the english daoc server would fobb off quite a bit of the MMO player base - anyone who's got a closed account is still potentially able to come back and play, they probably won't but if you take that option away from them it's not going to win you any favours.

The number of people who would resubscribe to the european servers if you clustered Dyvet and made it in german might be reasonably high - how many would stick around longer than a month or two? How many have already rerolled on Avalon or Merlin?

 

[ford prefect]

They might also be required by their license to run an english language server.

Yes, they are required to run an english laungauge server under their licence from mythic. That has been stated by IainC and Roaken over the past few months, so Dyvet will not be shut down unless they can re-negotiate the licence with Mythic, which seems unlikely, or they would have done that a long time ago. Their licence seems to be filled with a lot of restrictions on what they can and cannot do.

 

[Aiteal]

Yeah it sucks that neither plans hinted at came to fruition, still if he'd not mentioned them at all you'd have grumbled as much about the lack of communication (cf. now for example).

Like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Personally, I feel that "hinting" (as you put it) at solutions, then doing fack all is low down and dishonest when dealing with paying customers.

But I've learned my lesson as far as trusting Req or GoA is concerned, they will never get another penny from me.

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

What Aiteal said.

Still thinking about the www.goa-no-thanks.org domain where we can gather all the data and present it to a wider audience.

Then MJ amd IanC can moan all day long about the bad publicity they deserve.

We asked for a merger or a char transfer, some oftered to pay for a char transfer. We had people here who stated that it is a achievable task and we had Requiel who was just lying about everything and pissing the remaining player base off with some SotG crap that wasn't justified.

 

[Roaken]

Actually all Requiel did was to tell the community that we were looking into our options. These options turned out not to be either technically possible or viable. Point the finger all you want but there are no more options we can give you, the only thing to solve the Dyvet population issue would be players coming back and new players coming into the game.

 

[Castus]

Actually all Requiel did was to tell the community that we were looking into our options. These options turned out not to be either technically possible or viable. Point the finger all you want but there are no more options we can give you, the only thing to solve the Dyvet population issue would be players coming back and new players coming into the game.

And you are doing what to achieve this?

<insert tumbleweed here>

 

[scorge]

Actually all Requiel did was to tell the community that we were looking into our options. These options turned out not to be either technically possible or viable. Point the finger all you want but there are no more options we can give you, the only thing to solve the Dyvet population issue would be players coming back and new players coming into the game.

When did you know these were not viable options, and why didn't you let us know?

 

[Sparx]

Perhaps i'm not thinking right today, perhaps i'm just in a good mood but how about taking matters in your own hands to rekindle dyvet and everyone agree a date to all log back in together and see how many of you could stay online, which in turn will have others logging in.

Sitting here blaming GOA and not yourselves is stupid when you have the power to change it

 

[Flimgoblin]

When did you know these were not viable options, and why didn't you let us know?

you mean, why didn't he post on here for example?

FreddysHouse - View Single Post - FAO Roaken

 

[TheSearcher]

i for one would go back to playing dyvet and the hours i used to put in straight away if

1. the population problem was sorted (either by players coming back or some miracle that goa sorted something)

2. if there was a merger or char transfer (still allowing me to have an english UI )

i reopened 2 acc's for a month as i had some time to spare and thought i would give option 1 ago but sad to say its not good at the moment

GOA and Mythic need to take a page out of Blizzards book as they have had great customer following and relations services for the last 10 years (my experience anyhow)

i do hope it does get sorted hate to see a great rvr game go down the pan

 

[Roaken]

And you are doing what to achieve this?

<insert tumbleweed here>

To gain more players we would need to launch a major marketting plan and strategy, but that is in the hands of our marketting department and is not a Community Manager's Job.

When did you know these were not viable options, and why didn't you let us know?

13th September 2007, 06:13 PM

 

[Sparx]

Roaken -
If many players came back in one go, would GOA be more lenient on allowing them to perhaps bend the rules? Allow them to perform meetups to duel etc?

Just thinking that could be one way to allow people back as that was a massive row back when GOA used to break up dueling circles (i am not condoning such things as it wasnt in my play style, i prefered zergs)

allow the players more freedom as it may help the repopulation

 

[ford prefect]

This is just flogging a dead horse now. If you want a good population reroll on Mythic servers. On the other hand if you like having PvE zones entirely to yourself, and you like to take low level keeps with just a few people and no interuptions, stay with Dyvet.

GoA can't shut Dyvet down simply because the licensing agreement with Mythic states that GoA have to run at least one English server, but the population issue simply won't change.

Those of us who have rerolled on Mythic server have generally found it very easy to knock out a couple of lvl 50 toons, template them and get them into RvR within a couple of weeks. Finding groups for large raids, even with the time difference is a breeze, and customer support is quick and excellent. The only downside when playing Mythic servers is on patch or maintainance days when they tend to close at roughly 2 pm GTM and open at 9 or 10 pm gmt, but that is once every couple of months and is a small price to pay for running the latest patches on a highly populated server.

 

[Sparx]

what about the people who dont want to grind again?