The Rathe-from the Eqlive Forum

[Ishrafael]

San Diego Better Business Bureau.

Closed Complaints
Number of complaints processed by the BBB in last 36 Months: 119
Number of complaints processed by the BBB in last 12 months: 37

Hmm....

Customer Service Issues: 42
Outcome of all complaints -
Resolved: 38; Company made every reasonable effort to
Resolve: 4

Product Quality Issues: 33
Outcome of all complaints -
Resolved: 33

I'd say it is time for the masses to talk to the BBB. /shrug.

[Duhulk]

I'm not usually a cynical guy, but a thought did occur to me. What if it's even worse than all that? What if PoT is actually done and they are simply delaying entrance to the zone to force people into some kind of asinine schedule that they've concocted; they dont' want people to finish the expansion by 'such and such' a date, period.

[BirgittePovar]

You obviously don't get how the Better Business Bureau works.

For everything that a person takes to the BBB which the company "Resolves" or "Company made every reasonable effort to Resolve", their rating with the BBB goes UP, not down.

If you have the masses take a bunch of pansy weenie problems to the BBB, Sony's reputation will skyrocket with them. I seriously doubt that this is really what you want.

And you cannot take "Sony doesn't have X done" to the BBB, they don't care about that...unless its some where written that it should be done in the product. Find where on the PoP box it is written that mobs are in the Plane of Time? That the Rathe Council is killable?

The BBB was created to keep tabs on companies with serious hardcore failures, things like taking your money and returning NOTHING. Sony has not done that, so the BBB will not do anything about them.

[Liz]

Originally posted by Mithra
zones that should have been good to go from the release date,

The clue phone is ringing and it's for you! The majority of Time is there, both a and b; the zones, the music, etc... (timea looks much cooler than timeb btw, personally hoping timeb isn't as unfun as it looks).

Is it itemized? Doubtful
Is it tuned? Doubtful
Should it be done by now? Hell Yes
Should it have been done at release? Hell NO, there's no real need to have the end zone complete upon release when you know damn well that nobody will be there for a few months. It makes perfect sense to wait, see how people do vs. elementals and tune from there. That being said, it's past the time in which is should have been done so chop chop already!

[Jokah]

Bazael , you can shut the fuck up and quit whining about shit that isn't finished, or isn't working as intended since you feel they should be able to release any stupid shit that isn't complete.

Untill this board becomes yours, you can take your --------"Honestly - theres no reason for plane of time to be finished with the release of the expansion------ line of shit and suck my ass.

Um, did you even read what he said? There is no reason for an *end expansion* zone to be finished for at least 2 months, because nobody will be in it and thus nobody will know whether or not it's working as intended. Which is a fair enough proposition, but of course in Verant's world it doesn't work.

[Merauk]

I am really disappointed this Verant flame made it to page three with no mention of:

ShadowBane rox0r's ur c0xor!

[Samus Aran]

PorSche, damnit.

As for the debate about whether or not the zones that won't be reached for a few months being finished prior to release. If SoE taking an extra month or so to work out issues with the zone gives us a better game in the end, I'm all for it. Just so long as it's done by the time we get there (ie, none of this cockblocking us with broken encounters bullshit).

[Ukerric]

Originally posted by Liz
Hell NO, there's no real need to have the end zone complete upon release when you know damn well that nobody will be there for a few months. It makes perfect sense to wait, see how people do vs. elementals and tune from there. That being said, it's past the time in which is should have been done so chop chop already!

Of course there is one reason why the end zone should be complete upon release.

It's called manpower.

If your endzone isn't "reasonably complete" by release, then you will have to dedicate resource to make it after release. Which means you have people who are going to work on said end-zone instead of:

- Working on the next expansion
- Fixing what's wrong with the expansion

Doing Plane of Time three months after the expansion is released is simply a case of "better do tomorrow what nobody'll notice isn't done today".

And it's self perpetuating. If you need one more people on the live team to finish expansion N, then you do have one less person on the team that creates expansion N+1, which means you probably won't be able to finish it in time, which means...


Unless one person can finish the entire zone in a week, that is

[eqsaelie]

Would you rather wait an extra three months for the expansion to come out so that you can spend all your time farming end-game crap from the last zone until you were so bored that you could hardly stand it, or would you rather START playing the expansion and then have the part that you can't get to yet finished while you are working your way through?

I agree, it's in bad taste for them to stall like this, but from their perspective: so what? What are ya gonna do, quit? Yeah, after you've invested hundreds of days /played you're really going to quit over a two week delay (or even two month) delay. Even if you do quit, big deal. I'm sure that $13 a month less that they make is going to drive Sony into the ground.

Folks, you are a captive audience. That's all there is to it.

<
"In order to ensure Plane of Time is properly tuned we must deactivate the porthole/zone leading to it, Sorry for the delay. When it is compleate we will let you know">>

Yes, I would care. I would care because that means that nobody at a multi-billion dollar company is capable of spelling the word "complete." And what the frick is a porthole? This isn't a boat.

[Kreugen]

Luclin.

Every single high end mob in the entire expansion was broken on release. Can you name one mob that was not changed in a major way? Luclin changed my view of EQ forever. I now openly hated VI's team for shoveling that shit onto all of us - fueled by private and public comments from several now ex-verant employees who were very open and critical about the way things were done at VI. My favorite quote, from a very senior and well known long time ex employee "they basically said 'well it looks pretty, ship it" In other words, they did not give one flying fuck about the content, they were selling the new graphics and cat race

PoP is a shining gem compared to that pile of shit. It was developed from the very start for the content and not some silly newb appeal gimmick like new races and graphics. Almost nothing was broken for the first month or so. And then the unfinished content was reached. Xegony was completely broken and was being happily farmed by verants perfect little beta testing pet guild that can do no wrong. It wasn't fixed until Township and we raised hell. Earth was a buggy nightmare that prevent access to ratheb. The Rathe WORKED, and then was inexplicably broken. Yes, its understandable that not everything was going to work, and yes, it was fixed fairly quickly. But after luclin, ANY mistake like that just stands out so much more. I mean, prior to luclin the big red flags were itemization. Hey look NTOV is filled with guk bottom crap. Wha wha wha. It was fixed easily enough. Rarely were encounters just flat out broke.

Point being, we wanted to just play through PoP as if we weren't beta testing every little thing. See zone, beat zone, move on. And now here we are yet again waiting on shit to get finished. That is exactly what I wanted to avoid - what I could not stomach even ONE more time from Everquest. Hurry up and wait, that's what this game is.

But anyway, ANY mistake, after what we went through in luclin, is just a great big nail in the coffin for some of us. That's why getting everything right in pop was so important. Unreasonable expectations? Shrug, that's up to you.

Personally I quit mostly because I was just flat out fucking bored all the time. It didn't have much to do with the expansion or bugs, other than the ridiculous inflation of raid sizes all but eliminating any shred of individual effort. But I've said all that already.

[Leonardoh_7th]

Hear Hear, Kruegen, especially about Luclin.

When Luclin arrived, it wasn't just the high end things, remember the new interface and bazaar that were promised on the box? Remember how many months it was before it was added (I think 6 months for the last of it?). Now, for most products, advertising something and not delivering is (a) against the law, and (b) gonna make you lose all your customers... but when it didn't in this case and people kept paying anyway, it became a way to cover their costs earlier in the development cycle... and earlier, and earlier.

I wonder which expansion it will be where they don't deliver what they promised and just never bother.... and I wonder if it will have any impact.

[Ishrafael]

Originally posted by BirgittePovar
You obviously don't get how the Better Business Bureau works.

For everything that a person takes to the BBB which the company "Resolves" or "Company made every reasonable effort to Resolve", their rating with the BBB goes UP, not down.

I stand corrected.

I think it is a shame. G'luck

[Destinae]

It burns people out to be farming the elemental planes still with no way to move forward towards time. It pisses them the fuck off that if they couldn't read beta boards they had to waste a solid week of 60 people's time working on an intentionally broken encounter to come to the conclusion that it was intentionally broken and then return to farming horribly itemized, underpowered mobs and boring ass gods.

Same situation as the emperor/vt keys, 10x more maddening.

[oni]

Originally posted by BirgittePovar
You obviously don't get how the Better Business Bureau works.

For everything that a person takes to the BBB which the company "Resolves" or "Company made every reasonable effort to Resolve", their rating with the BBB goes UP, not down.

All the BBB really does is give companys little certificates that say "Congradulations! You're not fucking anyone over!" That the marketing and PR people get boners over and use that in their schemes to promote warm fuzzys through out the customer base.

[Zorg]

The problem of companies releasing unfinished games is not specific to Everquest and SoE, it's an industry wide problem.

With MMORPGs, the problems that come from releasing a game before it's truly ready are greatly amplified it.

Of course, companies keep on doing it because the gamers who are bitching about broken and buggy games are the exact same people who are bitching that the release date on a game got pushed back a month.