[Silverfox13]

The verdict is in….

It’s apparent after this announcement (actually much earlier) that my opinion and choices (or lack thereof) mean nothing to SOE. I am disgusted at the complete mismanagement of this product and I was already burned by SWG. I do have some issues I would like to state (I’m not sure why as they mainly fall on blind eyes). In response to the latest post by Hassium:

Florendyl RP server.
The poll showed 76% in favor of keeping Florendyl versus 24% not to. So why in the Sam Hill (what does that really mean?) did we decide to merge it when the community clearly doesn’t want it? In-between the time that poll was run and today, the population of Florendyl has dropped about 30% with the rest of the servers dropping 10% to 30%. So at this point, it needs to be merged with the other servers in order for everyone to have a decent chance for grouping across the board and enjoy the game as intended. I did spend some time on the Florendyl talking to people and the general feeling was that while they voted to keep it, they felt it needed to be merged now. Hopefully we can get the population moving up and we can start up a RP server in the future, but unfortunately for now it needs to be merged.

Way to hold that cookie of hope out there and snatch it away at the last second. It would appear to me that you were expecting the vote to go the reverse direction. I find it disturbing that you actually didn’t put the foresight into the fact that people would actually want to role-play in a MMORPG. It’s humorous to see SOE slap all the voters (over 1000 the last time I checked) in the face and then hide it with a statement like why in Sam Hill to make light of the situation.

I find it funny that you actually are removing an environment that promotes role-playing, which almost all games of this genre are based. I understand how some of SOE’s issues revolve around profit margins, but why sell out the market base that is the creative inspiration to so many games from this market. Maybe this is the future of all MMOs, maybe the Role-playing is all but dead in games like these, only to be replaced with cussing, leet speak, and all manner of communication that has very little to do with the actual game or immersion into it. So I must commend SOE for jumping on the bandwagon of catering to the customer base that well…. You know who I’m referring to.

Team PVP
Combined peak players for both PVP Team servers is about 400 – 450. That’s just not enough population for real team PvP in a world the size of Vanguard. So for now, all the PvP servers will be merged into one with FFA as the rule set. Sometime in the future when the population is up, we will consider turning on a server for Team PvP.

Does a rule set mean that much to players? Honestly from what I have seen on my server I’d say it’s 50/50. I am on the side of feeling that it is important. It’s not because I can’t play on FFA, or that it scares me, it’s not even the fact that a portion of the community on the original FFA has shown less than desirable qualities in there postings about the subject, it is about losing choices do to SIGIL/SOE mismanagement of this game.
As I have stated before the population is a direct product of how SIGIL and then SOE has managed and corrected issues (or lack thereof) in the game. The massive amount of bugs (with the main focus being on things that prevent players from gaining/receiving xp), Lack of customer service (Yes I mean lack, having a hollow shell named GM that can do nothing but say sorry is not customer service), False promises, and lack of systems that help people group (seriously I can find groups easier in any game do to simple UI functions) is what drove the subscription base down. Now your solution is to merge servers…. Now I agree that this will help the population, but what then? I have seen 5 guilds (some small, some quite large) disappear into thin air on my main character, hundreds of characters just stopping play, all this before the server merge announcement. 25-40% more has left since the announcement, including myself. Now I am not saying I am done, but I will not commit my money monthly to a game that has so many problems, and the only way to fix them is to do away with choices of play style. Maybe I’ll be back in the future, maybe not.

In conclusion I think SOE has handled this game poorly, and it looks that they will continue to ignore there customer base in the future management (yes, you may get a vote, but it is worthless if it is ignored anyways). The product after 6+ months worth of time is still in disarray, and the population that is left is bitter and bored. The truth is that there is no fun in this game for me anymore, and it continues to be drained even further by SOE’s decisions, and you know what they say about a game that is no fun…. My advice to anyone thinking of purchasing the game, I’m not sure if it’s even worth the $12 I have seen it going for, and definitely not worth $15 a month to play. You have been warned. Well off to Fury Closed Beta, good luck to those of you who stay.