1/2 of the month..

[noddy]

We're going on the second straight week of this issue, SSG. I trust you all are working on it, and hopefully will have some resolutions in the immediate future. It's not the end of the world for me, I'll come online knock out a raid (thru crippling lag) and log off and do real life stuff.

At this point though, that is half the month of a VIP subscription wasted because the heinous performance. Big deal, only $15 or whatever the montly price is idk. But there needs to be compensation for this. And I hope IF you guys decide to offer the players something for putting up with this, that it isn't a royal slap in the face. (5 potions of barskin or something else utterly useless).

It's been nice taking a forced break from the game, but I would like to return eventually to finish my last 4 lives. Please do your playerbase right.

 

[Gordo]

I've mentioned this and agree. There is the "principle" of providing compensation to paying customers and the "need" of receiving it (by the customer). SSG assumes there is no need to do the former for as long as this has gone on. Their motto is "caveat emptor" which is a BBB type of business practice.

 

[noddy]

I've mentioned this and agree. There is the "principle" of providing compensation to paying customers and the "need" of receiving it (by the customer). SSG assumes there is no need to do the former for as long as this has gone on. Their motto is "caveat emptor" which is a BBB type of business practice.

It is the right thing to do, I don't NEED anything from them. But they are quickly forcing out people from a very small population game. Not a good look.

 

[5 Other People]

I'll cheer compensation, but keep in mind, b/c they haven't fixed the issue, any compensation that drives players to the game will make the issue worse...so we are getting cart ahead of horse, a bit.

 

[noddy]

I'll cheer compensation, but keep in mind, b/c they haven't fixed the issue, any compensation that drives players to the game will make the issue worse...so we are getting cart ahead of horse, a bit.

True, but generally speaking, payment (compensation in this case) is only presented after the job is complete (game being playable).

 

[Gordo]

To me, it's simply more about public relations and customer service. Own the mistakes of the past (almost) 20 years and be sincere in how you understand you are bleeding customer loyalty because of your mistakes. WOTC, Daybreak, whomever... Someone needs to step in and make a serious announcement about "how this is not going to happen anymore, we are deeply sorry for how we have managed this, and the future looks bright...." That's how you run a business.

 

[Yeet]

As if.

SSG has had years to do the so-called right things by their player base.

They have a long standing track record where they don't. Considering their established modus operandi, they won't.

They underperformed last season. They will not meet fiscal goals this season. They cannot afford to give away 'free digital items' to their paying customers, it simply isn't fiscally responsible when they are bleeding cash.

The concept of positive customer interactions, accountability, communication, and responsiveness are alien to this team.

The most they might do is turn Nights Revel on over Xmas like they did last year. So yes, we will get MORE LAG thru the busiest time of the year. Yay!

 

[5 Other People]

SSG bought itself a lot of ill will with MD lotto rares. Plus lag issues while they are actively promoting 64-bit Cormyr is convenient timing.

If they can fix the lag, the compensation could come in unwinding the MD rares issue...thereby buying good will without giving away the farm. for even more good will they could add a few porting options to MD and reduce red named hit points by 10-15%.

 

[Verran]

The concept of positive customer interactions, accountability, communication, and responsiveness are alien to this team.

And that is just plain sad.

Literally a week before this started I was checking out vecna (for the sweet mount) and myth (for eladrin which I needed soon for race completionist and the sorc variant which is fun). Decided I was going to go with the highest bundles - heck I haven't spent a lot of money in the last few months on DDO and they gotta get paid for their work. I was a software dev myself..

Yeah.. that sentiment didn't last. Right now I am a the point where I am adamant that they will see no money from me for at least half a year if we get no compensation. And I mean serious compensation, not turning on an event. Not because I cannot afford it. Because I hate the idea of supporting them. They simply do not deserve my money for this catastrophe of management.

Problems happen in games, sometimes even serious problems such as this. I've been on the other side of this plenty of times, in software more serious then games. I've had to take phone calls from 200+ customers phoning in at the same time, loosing sales because our system was down. I know what stressful situations means, where you are at fault (well, technically not me specifically, but you don't tell that to customers - you apologize and give them your best estimations).

The one thing I would never ever do? Leave customers in the dark. You inform people, you give them your best guess. You have information in an easily readable form for those who aren't too savy and you go into details for those who know their stuff. You have a website dedicated to showing the status of your servers.

And even if you have nothing positive to report, you report what you are doing to try and fix things. Customers hearing that you are pulling overtime in the middle of the night and try your best to get things going might still get angry, but they at least feel heard. They realize that while yes, they are having a bad time, so are you and you are actively trying to fix that, for both of you. That is not rocket science.

And when things eventually calm down you have a discussion about what went wrong and you post the results of what you learned and what you will do better next time. You at least try to give your customers back the confidence that they can rely in you, by showing what went wrong, what you learned and how you will improve. And for the love of god you compensate them.

Whenever our software went down, the whole month was free - even if it was just one hour of downtime. Yes it cost us. But less then loosing the customer. Seems they will have to learn that lesson the hard way.

 

[dozensnakes]

SSG bought itself a lot of ill will with MD lotto rares. Plus lag issues while they are actively promoting 64-bit Cormyr is convenient timing.

If they can fix the lag, the compensation could come in unwinding the MD rares issue...thereby buying good will without giving away the farm. for even more good will they could add a few porting options to MD and reduce red named hit points by 10-15%.

At least to me the bigger issue about the drop rates is the lack of transparency.
That said putting raid bosses in an explorer area, then scaling the rewards to normal difficulty seems a bit off.

 

[Yeet]

The one thing I would never ever do? Leave customers in the dark.

This seems to be one of the biggest issues players have with team DDO. I have read this phrase, in variations ... for years.

Team LoTR has Orion, who communicates and has been well received for all the reasons you state.

What can you do when something like this has been expressed ad naseum for well over a decade, with no change?

I stopped paying them as well, and like yourself, am adamant that I will never give this company another $ until they change.

 

[GeneralDiomedes]

Bit of unfortunate timing on lag, as they should be spending developer resources on making sure we can all transfer to 64-bit.

Hopefully the real root cause is that more people are playing

 

[Yeet]

At least to me the bigger issue about the drop rates is the lack of transparency.
That said putting raid bosses in an explorer area, then scaling the rewards to normal difficulty seems a bit off.

They released content ... and the gotcha was that they DID NOT ANNOUNCE WITH THE EXPANSION SALES that there would be an ultra-rare unobtanium loot list.

How well would the pack have sold if they had communicate that up front?

It's deceptive, and people are understandably angry. And right to be so. With no way to refund the content, it creates massive ill will.

 

[Yeet]

Bit of unfortunate timing on lag, as they should be spending developer resources on making sure we can all transfer to 64-bit.

Hopefully the real root cause is that more people are playing

The fact is ... 64 bit is still theory. We have no clue what they are intending or what the outcome will be. False hope does no good.

 

[Rusty_helmet]

Queue the 5 elixirs of undiscovery…

 

[RTN]

I've been here since shortly after it launched. Communication has generally been pretty bad, but it's been really bad for years now. Maybe they are just in over their heads and can't admit it to us. Maybe they just don't respect us enough to communicate with us clearly and consistently. Probably, it's a mixture of these things. But it certainly doesn't give me good feelings towards this game. A bunch of people I play with nearly left a year ago. I'm starting to feel like we should revisit that conversation again.

 

[Yeet]

The communication has been a long standing issue. What you are expressing is what I see as part of the normal curve of interaction with SSG ...

1. Discover the game and love playing for numerous reasons.
2. Support the game and company.
3. Have an issue, and get ignored. Or gaslit, told that it's your fault.
4. Come to the forums to discuss it, and get laughed at, mocked and torn down.
5. Play the game, still finding things to love about it.
6. Encounter other issues, and realize you have no voice or support, so make no effort.
7. Understanding that the dev team harbors zero respect for players, stop supporting the game financially.
9. Stop communicating on the forums, because who has time to get screamed at for saying 'ssg could do better.'
9. Watch friends leave.
10. Still play the game and wonder why.

It's here where people either begin to leave, play less or take breaks.

 

[Mobius]

The performance issues have been getting progressively worse & have spread across multiple servers. I reached a point Sunday where it actually felt better to quit playing rather than flail against things that were out of my control.