lani
GameAmp Staff
Posts: 570
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Credibility: 28 pts
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| Rule-set choices and other madness |
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The 'Open Beta' has closed.
After about 24 hours of spawn-point ganking aka Free For All PvP, a rule-set which will not be an option when game goes live by the way, the File Planet paid subscribers only 'Open Beta' has closed down. In less than a week, people who pre-ordered their game and handed over the additional early-starter fee priced at one-third of a month will be allowed their 6 day head start.
Yes it's 6 days now. Apparently overcharging you with a third of a month subscritpion was a bit too much even for the money grabbing Funcom of today. But this topic is about other ways how Funcom is trying to make SOE look like a customer oriented organization by comparison.
Funcom has chosen to offer us the players / customers three flavors of game-play through Server Rule-sets.
These being:
"Normal"
"PVP"
"RP PVP"
Normal seems to be what anyone else normally calls PVE.
PVP is actually limited PVP to tavern brawls and contestable area's later in the game. For which you may thank your lucky stars, considering the many, many, many exploitable map features in the game.
RP PVP is the same as PVP but you're supposed to moderate yourself. No, it's not Aquilonians vs Stygians. That would be RVR, this is RP PVP. You can "Roleplay" a raving maniac randomly attacking fellow tribesmen, in certain area's of course.
So, why no RP PVE? That's what the community apparently has been wondering for over half a year. Clicky Either Funcom assumes Roleplaying is still considered normal or they think it's better to have Roleplayers scattered across the various 'normal as in PVE' servers and ridiculed for there ways everywhere. Maybe they think having Roleplayers scattered around will somehow enhance the overal standard of communities.
This would be less annoying if there were no RP rule-set at all. Many games have no dedicated RP server, though the more successful ones do. Note that no other game ever had an "RP PVP" server without an "RP PVE" option though. It's odd. It makes no sense. When seen in lights of other Funcom weirdness, like that not-so-open Beta, it makes you wonder what happened to the Funcom that learned harsh lessons from their Anarchy Online launch.
As you may have guessed from this rant so far, I'm partial to an RP rule-set, preferably PVE. I'll probably end up rolling a character on the RP PVP server as I understand the PVP not to be unavoidable and might on occasion be fun.
What's really worrying me though is the whole way this Open Beta has been handled. I'm not complaining about FilePlanet's part by the way. They probably enforced that FP only bit (though other sites got to hand out keys for the event as well) and I can understand it from their end.
What I don't understand however is Funcom's crappy performance all round in this event. Seriously, this is less than a month from Launch. This should have been the Grand Rehersal before the curtains go up for real. If this is the quality of service one can expect from the Live Team come May 23rd, or hopefully 17th for the overpaying early-access folks, I'm worried.
Piss poor communication to the community at large, confusion all around about the game client. Corrections and amendments to statements et al. Not to mention a general shutdown of Beta with official notice taking more than an hour to show on the launcher. Dammit, I want my launcher to give accurate information. If I wanted outdate / bogus information on server status I'd still be playing Vanguard.
Ok, so I was expecting the Beta event to shutdown around the time it did, it galls me it was handled so crappily. It also galls me to realize the way Network/Serverside lag was so horrid this last weekend. Way too reminiscent of AO's "glory days". After their horrible start, AO actually got one of the best in-game and out-game Customer Support organizations out there, largely volunteer based I might add.
Currently Funcom support needed more time than the Open Beta was live to answer petitions sent on day one. The client links to a support page that at the moment
links to a redirect page. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
I of all people know how support and live operations are generally an afterthought and get the short end of the budget in most corps, but if there was one corp I thought had learned the hard lesson there, it'd be Funcom. Sadly those people don't seem to work there anymore.
I'll still be having fun with this game, but it's starting to look more and more like a second Vanguard to me. Better / more stable game but Funcom seems to be as hard headed when it comes to repeating mistakes as SOE has shown itself to be with SWG.
Never mind my ranting. The game's lovely and really enjoyable, provided your PC can handle it. I'm just crotchety about Funcom's Customer Service policies.
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| 05/11/08 12:35 |
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Ataxia
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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Lani, can you honestly say ANY games CS was great in the early days of a game?
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| 05/11/08 16:22 |
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Phedre_D
GameAmp Staff
Posts: 433
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Credibility: 26 pts
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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The PVP craziness is really weird. RVR would make sense, but is not there. PVP is a bit limited in general, so maybe they hope all RP-ers go there. Weirdness all round.
But I happily worked my self through Vnaguard's release. The only game I never even got to work after it got released was Dark and Light. I don't really mind the chaos. I do mind the whiners that no doubt will cry foul over everything. As long as I can switch off general chat I will be oke.
Also I hope there will be at least one AoC forum out there that will not be a whine and flame fest. Of course GameAmp would be one, but I suspect nobody will actually be here to really talk shop.
***FEELS KINDA NAKED WITHOUT A SIGGIE***
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| 05/12/08 11:00 |
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lani
GameAmp Staff
Posts: 570
Joined: 09/08/2005
Credibility: 28 pts
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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| QUOTE | | Lani, can you honestly say ANY games CS was great in the early days of a game? |
Besides EQ-2, WOW, LotrO, DDO, GuildWars and Tabula Rasa you mean?
To be honest, I'm downgrading from 'great' to 'good' as there is no such thing as great Customer Service. That's not possible in an affordable budget.
But I'll shut up about Funcom as Phe's subtly hintign I shoudl stop whining :-)
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| 05/12/08 16:07 |
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Ataxia
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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Guess I've just had very bad exp. with CS early on lol...
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| 05/12/08 16:56 |
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lani
GameAmp Staff
Posts: 570
Joined: 09/08/2005
Credibility: 28 pts
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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I think you're talking about Customer Support, whereas I'm thinking about Customer Service. That isn't nit-picking, Support is but one branch of Service really. So is 'Community Management' and Pre-Sales. Most often the toko isn't run by someone from Support but from Marketing or Sales. Good for budgets that, bad for quality of service.
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| 05/12/08 17:13 |
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Ataxia
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| RE: Rule-set choices and other madness |
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Aye, was thinking you meant support XD.
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| 05/12/08 17:54 |
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