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Why I cancelled my subscription

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Jul 24, 2010 unpocoloco link
Hi!

My game handle is unpocoloco. I've been playing for about a year now.

I have spent quite bit of time playing VO and working on behalf of TGFT, the guild I belong to. I am the person responsible for TGFT's new website design and implementation at http://www.tgft.org/ I was also a member of the guild council. My levels were 10/10/10/11/12, if I remember correctly, which is no great shakes by comparison to the likes of Ecka or tsreknor, but certainly respectable.

I said all that to say this: I have had a firm commitment to VO and the guild and have invested heavily of my time, effort, and professional expertise to the game and my guild.

I have quit for the following reasons:

The game has progressively and consistently penalized anyone whose sole desire is to trade and mine with no interest in PvP.

The trade nerf, the increasing bias towards the nefarious desires and constant whining of the pie-rats, the breaking of things I valued in-game, the mass exodus of valuable, highly-skilled and experienced players in protest over your destruction of the game they loved, all have led me to the reluctant decision that the only way you are going to get a clue is for me to vote with my feet.

You have consistently broken or screwed up everything I have enjoyed doing. You all ruined static queening by making the escort bots fly around docilely without fighting back once attacked. This turned static queening into something about as interesting and challenging as shooting koi in a fishpond with a shotgun.

You removed the /msg irc active command, which allowed me to search for my friends who I had evangelized the game to, but hadn't buddied up with me yet. Plus, it deprived me of valuable intel concerning what rats were in-game.

I will keep in touch with my fellow guildies to track what you all are doing with the game, but until such time as you stop kissing the collective asses of the pirate community, I have no intention of resubscribing.

I had fun at first. I loved the game and talked it up to every one of my game-playing friends. The way things are now, I never would have stuck with it more than a month.

So in conclusion, I hope that you will come to your senses before you finally kill the game that I used to love. In the mean time, I will be playing EVE Online or ANY other game that isn't constantly being screw up by the devs!

unpocoloco
Jul 24, 2010 tarenty link
I'm sorry to see you go, unpocoloco.
Jul 24, 2010 Maalik link
Everything is impermanent. People change. What used to make sense and what used to be fun will not always remain fun or sensible. I think that it is rather unfortunate that some people expect an internet game to be some strange sort of exception to this. And, anyway, in the dynamic nature of the world, it is never completely clear what exactly it was that created those situations we remember enjoying.

All of the changes made to VO by Guild Software appear to be done in an earnest effort to improve the game. And, indeed, it is undeniable that some great strides have been made. So why start publicly espousing anger and hatred when we know from experience that this only makes the game less tolerable for those who do wish to remain? What do you think there is to gain from derision and disrespect?
Jul 24, 2010 diqrtvpe link
While it may not be completely clear what created the enjoyable situations we remember, lots of people have made it pretty clear that the state of the in-game economy has made it impossible for them to enjoy the game anymore. As poco mentioned, many people left because of it. It was an important step towards a more dynamic economy, but it was also a step backwards in terms of fun for many.

The way I see it, poco isn't espousing anger and hatred so much as he is enumerating to the devs the things that have driven him from the game, and presumably others as well. A lot of it might be stuff they've heard before and are well aware of. Some of it might not be. It also might indicate milestones that would bring groups of people back into the game, such as finally managing to make a fun, working economy (which they have been trying hard to achieve, and have been making improvements on). I view this as getting something good (feedback) out of something bad (someone unsubbing). But then, I'm not a dev.

Poco, one small comment on what you said. I went static queening a few days ago, and while the escorts are sometimes as docile and dull as you describe, about half the time they're quite responsive to attacks. Also, instead of swarming around you they now stick closer to the queen, and only fire on you when you approach, which makes them easier to deal with en masse but also harder to kill (because they're moving pretty damn fast). I think they have made some progress on fixing static queen escort brokenness, though it is odd that they work sometimes and not others.
Jul 24, 2010 peytros link
Hi

My in game name is Peytros i have been playing for about 2 and a half years now

I have spent quiet a bit of time playing VO and working on behalf of CHRN I am not the person responsible for http://www.kharonsshores.com/forum/ that would be Impavid. I am also a member of the guild council. My levels are 11/10//something/something/something which is no great shakes by comparison to Maalik or yoda, but certainly respectable.

I said all that to say this: I have had a firm commitment to VO and the guild and have invested heavily of my time, effort, and unprofessional expertise to the game and my guild.

I have quit (jk) for the following reasons

The trade nerf, the increasing bias towards the nefariously awesome desires and constant reasonably well thought out ideals of the pirates, the fixing of things I valued in-game, the mass exodus of of stupid whiney newb carebears players in protest over your destruction of the game they loved (aka hello kitty island adventure , all have led me to the reluctant decision that the only way you are going to get a clue is for me to vote with my feet which is why i returned.

You have consistently broken or screwed up everything I have not enjoyed doing. You all accidently ruined static queening by making the escort bots fly around docilely without fighting back once attacked. This turned static queening into something about as interesting and challenging as shooting koi in a fishpond with a shotgun which i know is a short term problem with trying to constantly improve the way bots work.

You removed the /msg irc active command, which allowed me to search for my friends who I had evangelized the game to, but hadn't buddied up with me yet. Plus, it deprived me of valuable intel concerning what traders were in-game. but allows me to now trade stealthly

I will keep in touch with my fellow guildies to track what you all are doing with the game, please keep kissing the collective asses of the pirate community, because they have the best suggestions

I had fun at first. I loved the game and talked it up to every one of my game-playing friends. The way things are now, I will never unsub

So in conclusion, I hope you keep doing what you're doing which is making a space COMBAT game more and more fun.

peytros
Jul 24, 2010 Whistler link
"As poco mentioned, many people left because of it."

Please point out where he mentioned this.

poco, do you read the developer's News posts? There's a reason for each action.

"I will be playing EVE Online or ANY other game that isn't constantly being screw up by the devs!"

Er, EVE is probably not going to fit your criterion. I suppose EVE won't be screwed up by Guild software, though. They have their own gigantic team dedicated to screwing things up.
Jul 24, 2010 diqrtvpe link
On rereading, I admit he didn't explicitly state it, but I took his talking about "the mass exodus of valuable, highly-skilled and experienced players" to mean those leaving either directly or indirectly due to the economic redux. My apologies if I misinterpreted.
Jul 24, 2010 Whistler link
Well at least you've quoted his hyperbole correctly now.
Jul 25, 2010 Maalik link
Flatly listing changes that have driven you away is valuable feedback but saying that the devs made these changes to kowtow to the "nefarious desires and constant whining of the pie-rats" is something quite different. It smacks too much of the old "pirates are griefers/making people quit" poison that we've finally grown out of only now in the OP's estimation the devs are fools who've been tricked by the evildoers to perpetrate their deeds for them. Maybe that's an unfair over-reading, but given history... I'm a bit sensitive here. :(

Outside of that, describing an intentionality in the disappearance of the fun feels disrespectful, or, at the very least, angry. But maybe that doesn't matter.

I just don't think you can honestly say that if the devs hadn't made those changes that there's no chance that you would not have burned out anyway.
Jul 25, 2010 diqrtvpe link
Oh, yeah. I definitely agree with you there. Sorry, I guess I mistook what your initial post was really aimed at. The concept that the devs are pandering to the pirates in all their recent changes is pretty silly, and about on the same level as the concept that they're pandering to the traders. It was the nation-space turrets before, it's the APL now, and things were kinda rough when they were first changed but there's been constant tweaking to make it better. And I strongly believe that both changes were net positives for the game. (I picked those two just because they were the most polarizing ones in recent memory that I could immediately think of)

I also agree that saying the devs are intentionally breaking the game to make it less fun is ridiculous. Disrespectful as well, perhaps, but also indicative of a skewed view of the situation. If the game isn't fun people won't play it and they won't be able to make it anymore. The devs are trying to make it the best game they can, and saying that they're sabotaging it just doesn't make sense.

However, and this is a response to Whistler as well, I personally know several people who specifically cited the trade nerf as their reason for quitting. The paradigm shift was huge, and it was suddenly impossible to even remotely approach the kinds of profits that were available before. Which isn't a bad thing, but it also became impossible to do much work on a route, because two moth-loads tanked most routes. So the profit was gone, and the amount of work required went way up. It makes sense that some people would no longer be willing to put in the time. As I said before, it was an important and necessary step, but to pretend that it didn't cause problems and people leaving is disingenuous.
Jul 25, 2010 Whistler link
My concern was the hyperbole. I don't doubt that some people left, but to claim mass-exodus is a bit much.

Trading was BROKEN. The huge profits that were possible were not at all conducive to the more realistic economy that has been planned for so long. Yes it is exciting to be a multi-billionaire, but it was not in keeping with the overall direction of the game. The game is evolving into what it was meant to be, and some people are going to drop out along the way. That's just how it is with change. I think the devs are quite respectful of player's opinions, be they pirates or traders.
Jul 25, 2010 Maalik link
I was never able to understand why some found it so horrible but I suppose that this doesn't mean that they didn't honestly feel that way about it.
Jul 25, 2010 sinclair44 link
I haven't played VO extensively in years, so I don't have enough context to add much to the discussion, other than this.

I work for a very high-profile website. We have a vision for where the site is going, and we constantly make revisions and refinements towards that goal. We honestly want to build the best possible site for our users. However, every time we change anything major, people bitch and complain (usually much less constructively than this thread). They don't give the changes a chance to see that yes, really, it is better in the long run. We know what we're doing, but people are loathe to give us that chance.

So my gut reaction here is to trust the VO devs. They've brought us this far; they know what they're doing. I trust that they're bringing the game to a better place, even if it isn't apparent where that might be in their long-term vision. I give them the benefit of the doubt that yes, really, it is better in the long run.

I hope one day I'll finally have the free time again to renew my subscription and see how far the devs have taken VO.
Jul 25, 2010 incarnate link
You have consistently broken or screwed up everything I have enjoyed doing. You all ruined static queening by making the escort bots fly around docilely without fighting back once attacked. This turned static queening into something about as interesting and challenging as shooting koi in a fishpond with a shotgun.

Er, what? According to our ticket system, the static queen defense issue was fixed over five months ago. We allocated resources to solving that early this year. If it's still an issue, I hadn't heard about it.

So in conclusion, I hope that you will come to your senses before you finally kill the game that I used to love. In the mean time, I will be playing EVE Online or ANY other game that isn't constantly being screw up by the devs!

I'm genuinely glad that you liked the game, at any period in time. But this sort of self-righteous BS is not likely to influence our direction in any way. If you wanted to try and change something, this is not how to do it.

Ironically, I've been wishing we had more vocal traders giving constructive feedback on Suggestions. Ecka gives a trading perspective to threads occasionally, as do a few others, but the trade contingent has historically not been nearly as visible as the PvP contingent. I'm aware that my changes have broken some things, but a list of things that people miss about trade gameplay, and why, would go a hell of a lot farther than any rant about "blah blah devs love pirates and are ruining the world". There is middle ground to be found, like experimenting with the falloff curves to allow more "route discovery" enjoyment, or occasionally having "demand spikes" that temporarily alter the falloff curves in random locations. But it's constructive feedback that makes change possible, not sulking bitterness.

Oddly, a big part of what made me "fix" the sale-timing issue (thus "nerfing" trading) was a desire to get capships in the game more quickly, and knowing the timing/price-drop issue would only become more insane as we started to have trading ships with thousands of cu of cargo. The resulting inflation would only be worse for the game. Unfortunately, my taking on that "fix" was badly timed with other, unforeseeable company.. stuff, resulting in an economy with the holes patched, but some of the excitement also removed.

It's a bit funny that if I hate trade gameplay so much, that over the last couple of months I've spent more personal development time hand-tweaking freakin' trade routes than anything else. And not just to grayspace, but between nations, up by Deneb, and other locations.

Most of the decisions that are attributed to my siding with "pirates" (such as, safer routes being less financially advantageous than more dangerous routes) were made in the 1990s. So I guess I was playing favorites before the game existed. Or something.

Lastly, the past year (particularly last year) has definitely not been according to any plan of mine. I'm still not really comfortable discussing it, and I'm sure from the outside it just looks like I flaked out (again) and wandered off from all the stuff I said around this time in '09. That said.. too bad. I'm doing everything I can with what I have, throwing it all at the wall and hoping something sticks (business-side) to put the company and game on better footing and let me do what I actually want (like, game design, instead of conference calls with giant OEMs). If the results in the meantime aren't enough for people, or don't at least merit some constructive discussion, then yes, they should go play EVE or whatever other title gives them satisfaction. And I wish them well.
Jul 25, 2010 Phaserlight link
According to our ticket system, the static queen defense issue was fixed over five months ago.

I think the problem is the escort does nothing to defend themselves as long as you don't attack the queen directly, making it easy to pick them off one by one as they are following. I've heard the same goes for the leviathan if you kill off the support/queens before taking the mission.
Jul 25, 2010 meridian link
Regarding static queen defenses:
The bots escorting the queen used to all attack anyone who did any damage to the queen or any of the bots. It was challenging, but made for great fun in groups.

It was broken a long ways back where the bots would only attack once the queen was dead. The fix you are referring to, Inc, made it so that the bots would attack once the queen's shields were down (and maybe if some minimum amount of damage was done to the shields?), but the bots still would do nothing when the bots themselves were attacked.

It seems there was a change a couple weeks ago (and I'm not sure it was deliberate by the devs) where the bots occasionally all become hostile toward the player when a bot is attacked, but the bots only attack while the player is in-range and continue to follow the queen. Since the queen moves so fast it requires almost constant turboing from the player to keep up. The bots still do not swarm the player like they used to (unless the queen is dead).

The problem from the player's perspective is that yes, you made a partial fix over five months ago, but there is not any insight as to whether there are still some additional bugs the devs still need to work out or if it is considered completely fixed in the eyes of the devs (or even if the current behavior is considered a bug or not).

I considered asking about an update on where things were at with the static queen defenses issue about a month ago but didn't when I couldn't find the original topic that reported the bug.
Jul 25, 2010 diqrtvpe link
I agree that the trade change was necessary. I think it's best that I leave it at that. :P

EDIT: And everything I was about to write about static queen defenses was covered beautifully by meridian.
Jul 25, 2010 Death Fluffy link
"Ironically, I've been wishing we had more vocal traders giving constructive feedback on Suggestions. Ecka gives a trading perspective to threads occasionally, as do a few others, but the trade contingent has historically not been nearly as visible as the PvP contingent. I'm aware that my changes have broken some things, but a list of things that people miss about trade gameplay, and why, would go a hell of a lot farther than any rant about "blah blah devs love pirates and are ruining the world". There is middle ground to be found, like experimenting with the falloff curves to allow more "route discovery" enjoyment, or occasionally having "demand spikes" that temporarily alter the falloff curves in random locations. But it's constructive feedback that makes change possible, not sulking bitterness."

This is a load of fucking bull shit Inc. We have given feed back and either been ignored or ridiculed to the point of attaining the attitude of why fucking bother. We gave you our in depth analysis and opinions of the drop off curve early on in the economic changes. The biggest part of trade enjoyment for me is in finding the premium route. If I've tanked it in one moth load, I've got to find another. If I am going to have to look for a new trade after each and every trip, then why go through the effort of finding the best? I'll just go with the items that I know sell well between station type a & b and work my way through the systems. I do not find this fun. Nor do I find it fun to run a route from Odia to Sol 2 to make as much as I could just doing the afore mentioned method. All of these things I have made very clear and very vocally multiple times in the past.

As to the trader / pirate conflict on the forums. I was pirated a hell of a lot more and by some of the legends like kalb, Swag Man, Azumi, Solution (though I think he just killed me) before the economic changes were made because I was actually trading. Now if I feel like getting pirated I just fly an empty taur at H2 and drop mines on the guy who chases. That said, everyone knows I play both sides. Its never been a secret since my first exodus from VO. Traders feel pirates are favored, pirates feel traders are favored. Waahhhhhhhhh Waaahhhhh! The shit flows both ways. Everyone can just get the fuck over it. The biggest problem on this forum that fortunately seems to have subsided except for the case of Alloh, was that for a certain period of time, anyone that posted a view that conflicted with the 'in groups' stand got absolutely hammered from multiple directions. To this I say the devs and their supposed moderators have done a piss poor job of maintaining an atmosphere where people feel comfortable posting their thoughts and opinions on the game regardless of how well thought out or idiotic they may be.

I personally have unsubscribed and resubscribed multiple times over the incomplete state of the game. When you fixed the problem with hive escort did you make an announcement? If its been consistently broken why would I bother trying again in the last 5 months?

Frankly, I don't really enjoy VO the way I used to. Do I want VO to go back to the days when you could milk a same system route up to 200,000 cube per station and get maximum profit? Of course not. But I do want to feel like I'm accomplishing something with my time. I frankly don't trade anymore except to experiment with new changes. All I log on to do is a bit of masturbating with the Border Skirmishes and check to verify that B8 is still empty 9 out of 10 times I log in.

My pirate is unsubscribed because I'm tired of killing voys. There aren't enough active traders to make it interesting enough for him to log in. The few players I have seen in moths are most often new and working up their standing and once that is accomplished will move on to something else rather than trade.

Edit: So you can just shove that whole 'pushing the fault back on them' thing up your ass Inc.
Jul 25, 2010 peytros link
tbh i think the big problem here is the discrepency between traders and the devs as to what trade should look like in vendetta 2.0 I have seen a lot of negative posts about how you can't solo trade in a behemoth in grey cause its too dangerous and not worth the risk and blah blah. I have also seen some very constructive posts about how group trade should bring in a lot more money then solo trade and working together to make a PLAYER ONLY convoy would be a lot more benneficial.

From a gameplay perspective I think it would be interesting if a group of players would put together a trade convoy of varrying items (i;e not all the moths/taurs/whatever all have porn in them) to see how that works out
Jul 25, 2010 shlimazel link
Unpocoloco, real shame to see you go. I'll definitely miss you. I sympathize with the complaints you have heartily and hope you find something else that satisfies you.

I agree, Fluffy. I have also more or less stopped playing of late, pretty much because I find the game dead boring. There's nothing to attain, no upgrades to gain access to that mean anything, no missions to perform that have any real interest or depth. I also am sick of seeing pirates getting everything they want, something that has gone on all along for as long as I can remember and certainly didn't "happen before the game existed". I'm not even sure what you mean by that, Incarnate.

"We have given feed back and either been ignored or ridiculed to the point of attaining the attitude of why fucking bother."

This. I feel the same way, and I know a lot of others who do as well.

If some of the stuff the devs have been talking about in the newest update post emerges, I think I'd probably be motivated to start playing again, because I want to play this game. It's the only good game of its kind, and probably the only MMO I would want to play. As it stands right now, though, it's just not a game I can justify spending my time and money on, so I'm afraid I won't be.