May 19, Emergency Maintenance

[Talolan]

I think you're flat wrong. Given that Crytic and Perfect World have both said there will be no wipes, and that all purchases will be treated as though the game is live.

The idea of "Open Beta" in the new F2P MMO world is a lie. Its a lie so they can put a game out there and make money off it it before its done and expect everybody to just say "well you had to expect problems, it was in beta." There will not be a "launch" for Neverwinter. They will not scale up their marketing hype machine for that big "launch day." The game is out now. One day, they'll put out one of their content modules and say "open beta is over, this marks that Neverwinter is live."

Things they've already confirmed: there will be no wipes, the cash shop is open, the first post-release content update is on the way (module 1), the "founders" program is ending soon (even Star Wars' founders program lasted about 4 months post-release). That is not the profile of a beta. That is the profile of a released product.

I have no problem with a F2P game spending 2 years in "Open beta" if they want to (and trust me, somebody will), but they lose all benefit of the doubt that the beta for an actual paid launch title would get.

[Roxanne]

I have to say I agree with Talo 100 percent. If they did do a wipe, they would have to reimburse the players who have spent actual money in the shops. In my mind if they did not do that, they would be swindling their customers. I'm sure that they would not do that because of the reputation they would gain. I personally would feel betrayed and just a "little" angry. I'd never play a game put out by them.

Anyway, I don't know why they call this "open beta" when it's clearly not a beta of any kind.

Btw Talo, I played your quest last night and I really enjoyed it! I'll write a review later

[Talolan]

If they did do a wipe, they would have to reimburse the players who have spent actual money in the shops. In my mind if they did not do that, they would be swindling their customers.

They have said repeatedly since "open beta" launched that there will be no character wipes (the 7 hour wipe on Sunday is something different), and that all Cash Shop/Zen purchases are real and will be treated as real. They won't steal your money from you.

[Roxanne]

If they did do a wipe, they would have to reimburse the players who have spent actual money in the shops. In my mind if they did not do that, they would be swindling their customers.

They have said repeatedly since "open beta" launched that there will be no character wipes (the 7 hour wipe on Sunday is something different), and that all Cash Shop/Zen purchases are real and will be treated as real. They won't steal your money from you.

Was just thinking about Imaultis' post. I do trust that they would not do that. 'Cause I'd come up to their offices a lay down some Roxanne Justice

[Imaultis]

They have said repeatedly since "open beta" launched that there will be no character wipes (the 7 hour wipe on Sunday is something different), and that all Cash Shop/Zen purchases are real and will be treated as real. They won't steal your money from you.

My mistake. I wasn't aware that they had released a statement saying there would be no wipes.

But I still hold to the fact that this is not a massive company screw up. It's not possible for a software designer to anticipate every underhanded thing its users will do to get an edge. I believe this is just another case of a few bad apples...yada yada.

[Talolan]

The problem here, as Skorj pointed out, is that this exploit has existed the entirety of the open beta, and came over from their previous game Star Trek Online.

[Imaultis]

I don't know what the developers were thinking. Perhaps they thought they fixed it and were wrong.

Either way, I hate when people find an exploit (clearly not how the game was intended to work) and run with it to unfairly get ahead vs. playing the game how it was intended and simply putting forth some effort toward building their character.

I don't believe I'll ever side with the exploiter over the company.

[Talolan]

I'm sure quite a few of them have gotten banned.

Ban Hammer.

[Lakasha]

Agreed... and I really do hope that if they know who was exploiting that they perma banned them. I know I got some in game mail from people trying to sell AD to me. I am guessing if they just check the accounts of people sending out spam like that they will find most of their exploiters.

[Talolan]

Yeah, I'm getting AD spam mail in game every day now.