Hello, everyone,
It's been a long couple of weeks. Not everything in our recent updates has gone perfectly, but hey, life isn't perfect. One of the wonderful things about being a constantly evolving MMORPG is that we can fix things, and we have always committed to doing so. This often takes longer than most of you would like, but we eventually make it happen. Please bear with us as we find a happy medium with our latest content, too.
I think some of your frustration comes from the fact that you don't really know how the process works. The community is very good at letting us know what's broken/unbalanced/etc. in the game, but many of you don't know what happens after that. In the ideal case, tickets come in to the CS department, which then alerts the game team and QA team. It gets checked out, officially filed as a bug, and then we wait. Depending on the severity of the bug, we rank it accordingly. The more critical the bug, the more often we check in on it with the developer. (*poke poke*)
We have a whole bug database with all the issues listed at varying stages of fixes and review. Admittedly, sometimes it takes a bug a very long time to get looked at, but rest assured that it is there. As often as we can, we provide fixes to both new and old bugs (like the recent Bomb Arrow fix). There is always a juggling act being done with the developer's time and personpower in this regard.
The above process is "ideal" because we have a proper paper trail and filing system for it, and it's much easier to resurface than trying to find a forum link. That's not to say we ignore forums, though, because we do create bug reports based on what we read there. Even if we miss a thread for a day or two, we do sweeps at least once a week for current threads (which are also passed along to the developer).
Sometimes there is criticism that we aren't responding to every thread, and at times, this is fair. We do try to chime in at least once on constructive, well-written threads when possible. Often what's going on, like with this week, is that we're just crazy busy reading all the threads and trying to work toward a solution. It can appear like we've "abandoned" the forums when, in actuality, we're working double-time behind the scenes to move everything along as quickly as possible. I do extend my apologies for when this is the case. Below are just some of the many threads that we have been following & collecting feedback from:
http://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336206-OS-CSRs-GMshttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336268-The-New-Patch-Are-You-EVER-Gonna-Fix-ithttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336262-I-refuse-to-be-treated-like-thishttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336176-5-Years-More-Tears-A-logical-fix-to-what-has-becomehttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336275-Stop-Arguing-Stop-Complaining-Not-Effectivehttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336146-Broken-set-effecthttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336159-Decreased-Value-on-your-old-weaponhttp://www.outspark.com/forums/showthread.php?336138-5-year-anniversary-ballons...and more.
Speaking of working behind the scenes, I'd also like to send a shout out to our QA team, who rarely gets acknowledgement. They work up to the last minute (and then some) checking everything they can. Yes, sometimes group-reliant issues are harder to test and things can be missed, but it's not for lack of trying! If you knew everything they've caught over the years, you'd be impressed!
Anyway, there have also been some comments that people would like to know which issues we have been championing lately. Here is a list of some of the things that Outspark has regularly brought up (or will be soon) and will continue to bring up in the future:
- Remaining Karen issues- Sets & other gear affected by recent update
- Helga difficulty (and other monsters in 85-97 quest range)- High-level repeatable quests (in progress)- High-level armor issues (almost done!)- High-level jewelry (still under review)- Gold sink- Guild tournament abuse- Better ways to deal with spammers- Broken quests (regularly)- Possible PVP gem tweaks
- Lucky House improvements- Various skill glitches (all classes)- Tons of random "this would be nice/a great idea for ____" ideas from community- Whichever class is up for tweaks next- Other things that escape my mind at the moment
As one final note, we've seen several comments along the lines of "as long as I can get one socket on my old weapons, I'll be happy." Many of you have noticed that your old weapons received one locked socket along with the recent Weapon Gem update. There IS a high possibility that there will be a way to unlock it in the future, but you'll just have to stay tuned for updates to that one. In the meantime, please remember that gems are just small bonuses for your weapons, not the new standard by which to determine their value.
Time for me to get back to everything I just wrote about! I hope to see you all in-game at an event soon. Keep submitting your entries for the Nostalgia Bomb event, too, which will be part of the big Anniversary Dance Party! (Click here for details)
Linear Mode
