WST -- Ill-conceived.

Your ability to miss the point is remarkable.

Incorrect TonyV. The Incarnate Systems is the End Game of CoH and the next stage of character development or advancement. None of those ridiculous examples are synonymous. Your frivolous attempts at deflection are becoming childish.


Do you purposely miss key points to make your posts look relevant?

1. I am not hurt by the required teaming. I made a post earlier stating I lead my own STF this weekend. However, I'm also able to see outside my own agenda.

2. I refuse to explain how the Incarnate Systems is special or how it's advancement is special. This is so effing obvious it's amazing you are even that obtuse. You are a borderline troll.

It's not my problem. Like I said, I am not hurt by the WSF and required teaming. The problem lies with the poor implementation and design of the incarnate system. I do not care if TonyV is able to grasp that concept or not.


If you are all for adding options, then you should cease your attempts at belittling and trolling those that are attempting to provide feedback about the lack of solo options.

Most of the rage and anguish shown in this thread/topic does not come from proponents of more options...quite the opposite really. The majority of childish behavior originates from posters who are myopic and refuse to look outside their own little world or basement...whatever.

If the restrictions the marketing department is putting on communications prevents the developers (or the marketing department) from verifying to their customers asking for a feature that said feature is in the works and will, eventually, be added, then the marketing department, whose job is to "sell" the company and the product to present and prospective customers, is failing at its function.

Customer says "I want X."
Salesman says "We'll have X pretty soon."
Marketing says "No! Don't say that!"

How does this scenario make sense to anyone?

At a university.

To TonyV and Clouded: I used the word "broken" metaphorically, speaking of my gaming experience. I never claimed any system was broken. I said my experience was "broken", and if I expected the developers to "fix" it, I had to let them know that it was broken. Otherwise I'm just sitting around with a broken toy expecting it to magically fix itself.

Exactly. This is standard operating procedure. Just because it's some people's pet issue du'jour doesn't warrant a change in how they (widely recognized as one of the most communicative MMO Dev teams in the industry) disseminate information.

None...Sales=Marketing. What we have is

Customer "I want x"
Devs "We'll look into it"
Cust. "I WANT X"
Dev "Yeah...we heard you when you said that 5 mins ago. That's why we said 'We're looking into it'"
Cust "I WANT X OR I'M LEAVING"
Dev "..."

Obviously you have very simple grasp of how the world of competitive business works. Even the smallest piece of info, no matter how vague or simple it might seem to you, leaked or confirmed without the approval of the higher-ups or marketing can lead to a major cluster[censored] for a company, trust me I seen this happen before. Maybe I didn't make the meaning clear with my example, but they don't want to confirm anything because it will give insight to the competition to what Paragon Studios is doing, and as a business you never want your competitors to know what you're future plans are, regardless if it's viewed as something simple or not, and also not wanting to having to deal with the customer backlash should they fail to deliver on what was leaked or confirmed.

Yes I work for an ISP. I know a lot of new features that can be implemented for the next year or so. If someone ask me something about it, all I can say is something like BS said. It is up to marketing to do their job which is to release information to attract people. It is not up to the developers.

If I/developer said something without marketing approval it could get horrendously bad. Let's say they say i20 we are bringing in solo content for incarnates. i20 comes around but it is not there due to unforeseen issues, well all those people who were promised the world are now pissed it did not come.

I do not know about you, but from my experience I would rather be in the position that they are in now, than the later.

Thank you this, sums up how businesses work with releasing information.

In and of itself, it does not. Heck, I've accused the devs of being short-sighted, insufficiently wary of incremental design, arithmetically challenged, lacking in eloquence, and sometimes inexplicable. But generally respectfully, to the extent that this is possible. I don't generally accuse them of being uncaring, absentee, spiteful, emotionally driven, wishy-washy, or confused. I can prove they sometimes can't add: that's an objective complaint. I can't prove they are confused about what they actually want, and there's no evidence that this is true: to state that suggests that the only way the devs' actions are comprehensible is if they are random, when they simply may have an alternate point of view.

It can be inciteful besides when someone reading actually agrees at least in principle with an action that is being claimed to be nonsensical.

I respec the devs enough to believe the devs have the best interests of the game in mind, and that they have goals that are usually consistent with that. I don't generally question their motives. I respect the devs enough to believe that they are generally attempting to balance the competing interests of the playerbase, and that is an impossible task to optimally satisfy in most cases; when they make compromises I assume that those compromises were with the full knowledge that many would see those compromises as merely contradictory. I don't give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to implementation, if implementation sucks then it sucks.

That would be the boundary between sharp criticism and lack of respect for the devs. The devs know I respect them as professionals, so they don't take it personally when I say I sometimes wonder what percentage of the devs are capable of making change. I don't put words in their mouths, make false claims about what they think, what they've said, what they've implied, what they've signaled, or what they intend. I reserve my harshest criticism for what they do; I'm far more reserved and careful about commenting on what they think, or what they've implied, because unless I have first hand knowledge about it, or are very certain about it, it would be disrespectful to argue against a strawman, especially knowing as I do they are not able to respond in all cases.

"I think its a mistake to not have a solo option for Incarnate progress" is not disrespectful. "The devs lied about the Incarnate system being for 'everyone'" is kinda disrespectful. "The devs are being wishy washy about whether they are ever going to make a solo option" is also about a 6 on the disrespect-o-meter.

Maybe they don't wanna announce it until they're 100% sure it's going to be in the game. Withholding information about the ongoing development of a MMO isn't anything new. They already said they're investigating other options, be patient.

Marketing: "So Positron, is there going to be a solo option for Incarnate progress?"
Positron: "I think so."
Marketing: "What the hell does 'I think so' mean?"
Positron: "We're kicking around some ideas now, but I'm not sure if any of them will be workable. I think two look promising."
Marketing: "They look 'promising?' Yes or no: is there a committed feature frozen option in the dev pipeline?"
Positron: "Well, no."
Marketing: "Then you shut the **** up until there is."

Although technically, this conversation probably happens with production, not marketing. Marketing says:

Marketing: "So, the solo option is happening?"
Positron: "Yep: I just got it approved by production."
Marketing: "Great: shut the **** up until we can draft up a release."

And everyone here is doing their jobs exactly as they are supposed to, and exactly as just about everyone does them everywhere, from McDonalds to Google.

Here's what actually happened:

January 10th: Second Measure posts "Producer's Letter to the Community". Conversation around that post explodes into a conversation about solo options for the Incarnate system. Topic gets split off the next day to corral it off. Developers offer no response.

January 20th 10:30am: Black Scorpion posts "Strike Pack!". Makes no mention of solo options. Thread explodes into a conversation about solo options for the Incarnate system.

January 20th 3:00pm: Black Scorpion posts reply to conversation about solo options, stating the following facts:

• WST is the only way to acquire Notice of the Well right now (adding, "We understand that this means grouping.")
• Issue 20 will offer more options to acquire Notices.
• The development team is "investigating" solo options for the future.
• Players should expect MMO design to encourage teaming.

January 21st - February 7th: Developers and Marketing offer no further insights. Player base on both sides of debate delve into wild speculation. Those asking for solo options are accused of impatience, childishness, power-grubbing and whining. Those supporting current development plans are accused of elitism, arrogance, selfishness and lack of empathy.

Or (as is actually the case) I reject how the "world of competitive business" works. It shouldn't work like that, and there's no justifiable reason for it to work like that.

Yeah..that's the timeline...and in Development terms, that's about 5 minutes. Seriously, some people are behaving like the proverbial kid in the back seat on the family vacation. "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" This isn't a 90's era LPMuD where there's a couple of people running it and can whip up code on the fly. This is a corporate major market MMO. Anything they do is going to take time, including deciding to do anything at all.

Also, it doesn't matter if you like how competitive business works, or if *you* can't see a reason for the hows and whys of how it works. This game's been running in a highly competitive, crowded market for nearly 7 years now. They're doing something right. Part of why they're tightlipped (as mentioned) is simply managing the expectations of the subs. They weren't so careful in the past (and have examples from other MMOs) and know how that can blow up in their faces.

Buyer: Sure wish there was System [X] that did Task [Y] a whole lot easier

Seller: Hey we happen to be working on a Prototype System [X] that happens to make doing Task [Y] easier, should be out in a few months <- Says this without approval from marketing

Buyer: Wow that's great news, but you mentioned it won't be out in a few months. Tell you what I'll buy a few thousand units of your current model and then buy the new one when it comes out.

A few months pass by

Tech Guy: Well Protoype System [X] was a total bust, no way it can make Task [Y] any easier from before, not going to happen.

Marketing tells Seller what Tech guy tells them

Seller tells Buyer this lovely piece of news

Buyer: What do you mean it's not coming, you told me you had a working prototype. You lied to me, tricked me into buying all those units, I demand a refund!

Lets not forget that the Buyer was also dealing with the Seller's competition and mentioned this to them. Then they start looking into what Seller's company was doing, gets a vague idea about the research and Prototype System [X] and put their own spin to it. Although their guys couldn't get it to get it to do Task [Y] any easier they managed to use what they learned from their research and apply it to something completely different and thus make some major $$$ off of it.

So there you go, this is an example of what happens when you talk without approval from marketing. A seller thought he was doing something helpful to the buyer but in the end it turns out to bite the Seller in the butt and cost the Seller his job and his company a good chunk of change.

You... Posting that... Positively delicious.

There, fixed it for you.

Brilliant!

Wait, so let me get this straight. This isn't particularly affecting you, and your comments are "seeing outside your own agenda." It's not particularly affecting me, and my comment are "belittling and trolling." Okay, I see how you think this works now. I've got some bad news for you, though, Sherlock...

Yeah, I'm the deflecting troll. Keep telling yourself that.


Tell you what. Since you're soooo right and everything is soooo obvious to you, go out to one of the WST contact zones and explain how those players should be outraged that the devs are forcing them to team up, how the implementation and design of the incarnate system is so poor. Let me know how far you get with that. Oh, and be sure to call people who disagree with you "childish," "frivolous," "obtuse," "borderline troll," etc.

I'll hand it to you, it takes a LOT of gall to refer to others' "childish behavior" and the turn right around and pull out the "basement" insult in the same sentence. (For the record, I own my own three bedroom, two 1/2 bath house in the suburbs, and I fully support myself and one other person. I have a two-car garage, but alas, no basement.) As for any rational person reading this exchange, you should really go back and read the thread from the beginning to make sure you get an adequate feel for the ragequits and whatnot going on that brought me into this thread to begin with.

Just for the record, I'm not accusing anyone of impatience, childishness, power-grubbing and whining for wanting solo options. I'm accusing people of impatience, childishness, power-grubbing and whining for demanding solo options, and for threatening to quit the game over the issue. The fact that they overlap is more coincidental than anything, but I've also accused people of impatience, childishness, power-grubbing and whining when they were demanding, threatening, and ragequitting over other things as well.

I've also stated that my personal opinion on the issue is that it's not a big deal. I feel Black Scorpion is right. In an MMORPG, I think it's reasonable to expect to have to team up sometimes.

Your example would be valid if it wasn't for the fact that adding a solo option can be as simple as adding a recipe that converts shards into Notices. It might not be the best solo option, but it is a solo option, and an easy one at that.

If they actually are serious about delivering a solo option, it is, at this point, impossible for them to be unable to devise one. They are probably going to try to come up with something more creative and engaging than "craft stuff out of shards", but "craft stuff out of shards" is already the existing solo option, so expanding that to Notices of the Well is just a matter of deciding what the right amount of "grind" for them is.

That situation is about as equally probable as the devs not intending for a solo option but because of a public outcry for one they are now compelled to think of something.

If they come up with one, the praise from relieved players might overcome criticism of not having one to begin with.

That's the beauty of plausible deniability. Without being part of their planning meetings we'll never know which situation is more accurate. We can only let them know our feelings on the subject and hope it doesn't take a year or more to address them.

In other words, you don't care whether or not it unbalances the game so long as you get what you want.

There is one justifiable reason: Staying In Business. Business folks adopt these methods for simple SURVIVAL needs.

Because humans are what humans are, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time can be ruinous, no matter how much it SEEMS like it's what people want to hear.

Wanting it to be any other way will require HUMANITY to be different. You don't start that battle with businesses. That change has to happen on a different level.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

It's more that I cannot fathom a circumstance under which adding a crafting recipe option "unbalances" the game. Adding recipes to allow players to craft PvP and Purple recipes has not "unbalanced" the game. This would be no different.

As it happens, what you can or cannot fathom does not actually delineate the boundaries of what the developers have to contend with.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

That's on you, I'm afraid.

Alignment merits prove the developers already have the technology to time-gate crafting. Any argument for "unbalancing" would likely revolve around being able to acquire Notices quicker than anticipated. Time gating the craft solves the problem, and the technology to do that already exists in the game.

I'm a horribly creative person, and have actually thought about this a lot. If you want to come up with a scenario that unbalances things, feel free. I've run through a lot of ideas already, and I just don't see it.

Yeah, and it's their job to get it right the *first* time. They put it out wrong and have to change it, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be akin to ED. So I'm not surprised they haven't just tossed something out there.