Can we talk about the ten ton elephant in the room?

Putok

Zenimax,
Like many, I'm wondering what will be done to repair the ruined economy and make things right for those of us who neither exploited directly nor took advantage of the situation to get a lifetime supply of epic and legendary tempers on the cheap, but that isn't the elephant I'm speaking of. I was a bit disappointed that it was over 24 hours from the first videos of the exploit being posted for action to be taken. I was shocked and disturbed when it was revealed that this bug had been reported in the opening days of th game, and possibly as far back as beta. To me, this is indicative of a systematic problem.

To be frank, from where I'm sitting, this launch appears to have been gross mismanaged. The response to gamebreaking bugs has been at best glacial in speed, customer service has been at best nonexistent, and communication has been absolutely awful. It feels like you just don't have a good handle on the game, and lack the resources to make it work properly.

I love this game at its core. Up until just about two weeks ago, it was the best MMO launch I have participated in. Since then, it has become far and away the most disappointing.

Can you please give me a reason to trust you enough to give you $15 next month? I really, really want you to, but the QC, CS, communication, and project management I've seen thus far are honestly poor by F2P standards.

I realize my words are harsh, but I don't this they're unfair. Zenimax, you NEED to get your stuff together and pull a complete 180 over the next two weeks or you will lose my business, and the business of many others.

Sincerely,
A disheartened customer and fan

WhiteQueen

+1

nanaki90

bugs are killing it for me and i too assumed they would handle the bigger bugs much faster and smoother.
Most of the bigger bugs have been around since the launch 2 weeks ago and if they are this slow at launch how slow will they be in a few months? Looking at the patch notes is quite depressing, several hours maintenance every week for a handfull of fixes. There cant be many hidden fixes either as none of the big bugs vanished without beeing mentioned in the patch notes or forums

o_0

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

Noth

nanaki90 wrote: »

bugs are killing it for me and i too assumed they would handle the bigger bugs much faster and smoother.
Most of the bigger bugs have been around since the launch 2 weeks ago and if they are this slow at launch how slow will they be in a few months? Looking at the patch notes is quite depressing, several hours maintenance every week for a handfull of fixes. There cant be many hidden fixes either as none of the big bugs vanished without beeing mentioned in the patch notes or forums

Number of bug fixes per patch depends solely on how easy a bug is to pin down and fix. Even replacing a missing comma can take a long time. Now if they have to remove and then re-write code and make sure that new code doesn't have new new bugs, it will take even longer.

JesinCrowe

Nyah, if they handle it now, it will be a nonissue in a few months and especially so if they give a nice big permaban to the dupers.

Etchesketch

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

Exactly.

Just once I would like to see a company have the stones to actually track the duped items and delete every last speck of it as well as not just banning, but completely deleting the accounts of everyone involved.

I wonder how much appreciation from honest players a truly customer oriented game would get.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Can I have your stuff?

Putok

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

I've played MMOs for over a decade, including WoW from launch until two years ago. I know that stuff happens. Generally, they all address it by permabanning all the dupers, and deleting any obviously duped items.

However, that is not my biggest concern, my biggest concern is a bit broader in scope, as stated in the OP.

o_0

If only every item had a hidden unique identifier, then based on that if an item is duped it would be as simple as running a query for items sharing that same unique identifier. But there I go again, making sense. Bad me.

Putok

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Can I have your stuff?

If I don't resub, sure.

Torasi

I have a small amount of wisdom on this subject. Big communities, make better economies. The more people that participate in a community, the better the economy of said community.

babylon

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

It would be helpful if they banned the exploiters though, if they exploit once and get away with it you know they'll exploit again.

o_0

babylon wrote: »

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

It would be helpful if they banned the exploiters though, if they exploit once and get away with it you know they'll exploit again.

I'm sure they do but most don't use their main account when doing these exploits to avoid the ban, using different accounts with different account information and even to the extent of spoofing a different IP as to not get their main account even linked via IP or same payment information etc... The ones that do dupe on their main accounts are the ones that get banned then complain they did nothing wrong. but most the major duping botting is done on these "fake" accounts.

babylon

o_0 wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

It would be helpful if they banned the exploiters though, if they exploit once and get away with it you know they'll exploit again.

I'm sure they do but most don't use their main account when doing these exploits to avoid the ban, using different accounts with different account information and even to the extent of spoofing a different IP as to not get their main account even linked via IP or same payment information etc... The ones that do dupe on their main accounts are the ones that get banned then complain they did nothing wrong. but most the major duping botting is done on these "fake" accounts.

There will be a trail of money or items they can follow though, to hunt down the actual accounts that are benefiting from the exploiting. I hope they get those guys properly.

Blackwidow

Look at the bank as a good example of a bad design.

You can constantly switch characters and loot the bank, which happens to be the best place to find motifs.

It did not used to be this way in the beta. This was changed right before game launch.

Why?

The only reason I know this is because I was forced to make 4 "bank characters" to hold all my items. Once or twice a day I was forced to go through all my bank characters to empty my real bank, just so I could play my other real characters.

Of course when I did this, my 4 bank characters were always in the bank. So, when I logged on to them, I would do as anyone would, I would loot the chests in the bank before switching characters.

I would usually find at least one motif a day this way.

Now imagine someone who just did this all day long. They could make so much money it would be unthinkable. I would never do that, but I'm sure a lot of people would.

Sad thing is, this is not even a bug. This is how the game is designed.

Swampster

I have to say, while in general I've really been enjoying the game.. I'm wary about how it's being managed at present. I did set my account up for a 6 monthly sub cycle initially.. but sadly I've reduced that to the monthly cycle now, as at present I'm not convinced that Zenimax can deliver.

My experience of customer service has been out right abysmal, it's been in the ordrer of 'worst I've experienced' in any MMO I've played thus far... and that REALLY IS poor!

As for not doing anything about exploiters.. there's really no excuse, if there's a will there's definitely a way of tracking and dealing with people who cheat. I have seen it done retrospectively en masse in other MMO's. It simply boils down to what ZOS deem to be important/acceptable.

o_0

babylon wrote: »

o_0 wrote: »

babylon wrote: »

o_0 wrote: »

In every MMO there is duping, and this same question is asked on what will be done to fix the economy, and in every situation it's the same. Nothing. They will try to fix the exploit, and let time sort out the rest. Then another dupe exploit will be found, abused, and we will rinse and repeat the same process.

It would be helpful if they banned the exploiters though, if they exploit once and get away with it you know they'll exploit again.

I'm sure they do but most don't use their main account when doing these exploits to avoid the ban, using different accounts with different account information and even to the extent of spoofing a different IP as to not get their main account even linked via IP or same payment information etc... The ones that do dupe on their main accounts are the ones that get banned then complain they did nothing wrong. but most the major duping botting is done on these "fake" accounts.

There will be a trail of money or items they can follow though, to hunt down the actual accounts that are benefiting from the exploiting. I hope they get those guys properly.

But then you have the problem at what point during the laundering process do these items end up in the hands of legitimate players through a sale etc.... And proving those involved in the transfers of the duped items were involved or even aware. Banning the original holders makes sense, but at a certain point all they can really do is delete the items and worst case scenario a legitimate player is out the money they spent for the duped item.

Arreyanne

I really diubt they have a way to track these items. Hell they can't even give people that got the bank bug there stuff back. So with that in mind you really think they are going to dig through, if they do have a tracking system, to find exploiters.

Putok

Swampster wrote: »

I have to say, while in general I've really been enjoying the game.. I'm wary about how it's being managed at present. I did set my account up for a 6 monthly sub cycle initially.. but sadly I've reduced that to the monthly cycle now, as at present I'm not convinced that Zenimax can deliver.

My experience of customer service has been out right abysmal, it's been in the ordrer of 'worst I've experienced' in any MMO I've played thus far... and that REALLY IS poor!

As for not doing anything about exploiters.. there's really no excuse, if there's a will there's definitely a way of tracking and dealing with people who cheat. I have seen it done retrospectively en masse in other MMO's. It simply boils down to what ZOS deem to be important/acceptable.

I agree entirely. They've said at this point all exploiters are getting perma-banned, as I expected they would be, but my concern is that this specific issue is nothing more than a reflection of how things are being handled in general. There are several people who have stated that they reported this bug in February's open beta. Videos were up on the 16th. Not a peep from Zenimax about the actual issue until this afternoon, and they have still been less than transparent.