Time to get some things cleared up
Well the news finally reached me.........we are gettng ready to go to vanguard. I have 4 accounts in HZ and will be dropping 2 of them to get 2 vanguard accounts, thus enabling us to play with our friends.
My wife and are the the LAST of any of the remaining non-employee alpha 2 players still in the game, to the best of my knowledge. Hell I did not even know at the time what alpha even was as it was my first game I ever tested. So why this note? Well as far as __I__am concerned HZ owes me, so I wanted to get it from the horses mouth and "hear" it personally. you have my address on file.
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My wife and I eventually STOPPED making suggestions, as __ALL__ we warned about on the boards in early beta ,in the focus group and even later on __Happened__. Sadly we have a 100% track record. But like so often we were told and I quote "..you have to trust us , we are professionals and KNOW what we are doing...we have done this before..." so what did I know? after all I am over 50, i had never tested a game and have only been a nurse for 25+ yrs........... *raises an eyebrow*
So let's have a quick review of some minor issues that cost HZ Money, after all profitability and numbers of accounts is the bottom line.........AE ddid not listen, tulga did not listen neither did the other folks but maybe you and your team WILL....
1. My wife told em (along with the other women) just how UGLY the beginning costume for female chars was of all races vs. the color of the mens and that most of the women would quit over it at the end of beta and the beginning of launch over this "insignificant" issue.__over 500+ acccounts lost__
2. That making gates cost was a big mistake and people would quit over it. __500-750 accounts lost??__
3. Making promises and NOT keeping them would cost ya __2K++ accounts lost?__<--and not over major issues, just minor ones...like the promise to fix the sconces on the dwarven homes, the windmills NOT turning for the grindstones etc etc. It is usally not major issues that comprises the final straw that breaks the camels' backs, just the little things. Of course for us in Azure Twlight that telport was never put in like promised even tho we offered to build one, since they Can be built despite the newplayers lack of knowledge about this fact. All sorts of manufactured reasons were given for that lack.<--I had a programmer look into this at the time and the reasons given by AE and later Tulga. "hogwash" he told me..............
4. Azure Twlight should have gotten other properties during merge we HAD the numbers. By the numbers we OUTbid em all....however, bids did NOT take, plots were not credited to the owners for pledging, gold disappeared out of banks. Of course there was some reimbursement but well After the fact. Over 150 people quit the guild and the game over that one, with 1-3 accounts apiece. Am I bitter about this? you betcha at the time, but what REALLY gripped me was that we were TOLD it was FIXED but it WASN't!! *more lost income* that did not count of course those who left after not getting back their plots which after merge many doubled? in price that those players no longer had....oh well...but then all those illicit funds had to get gotten out of the economy and We had to pay the price i guess....
5. We told the design staff early on that the design team needed to be ABLE to place pricing caps on anything in this game NPC OR Player and were called communists on the boards at the time. *shrugs* That there were gready NONaltrusic people that would eventually corner the markets and ultimately dominate the economy directly or indirectly thru illicit funds generated probably shortly after launch and that AE needed to be able to pinpoint ever single copper generated.....*coughs politely*....DUH.......and since this was NOT done by launch, the economy was trashed in less than 90 days......and the "little people" would pay the price of it when the populations Dropped.<--something is wrong with the picture when a toon is 30th lvl and wearing 5th lvl gear or less cuase they canot AFFORD the players prices. __that cost around 1k in accounts Minimum__
6. It is NOT our fault (the players) that the engine for this game was never completed and the orginating company of it went banrupt before it was finished and no one was willing to put the money into it to complete OR get another one. But HZ took its pound of flesh out of us all as a result. There are not many people willing to pay for an ongoing game still in beta.
7. We told em that the people that would keep this game afloat were paying ADULTS thru multiple accounts....most all the people WE knew were __OVER__ 25 yrs old and had a minimal of 2 accounts, that the design staff needed to listen to the people that really mattered. But we were told..."our statistics show that the average age of over 80% of the player base was less than 20 yrs old"...so what happened?? SOMEONE(s) up there in the clouds listened, made the game harder for all the kiddies....and where are they now?....well they sure AREN't here and WE got left with their mess!! __that cost ya at least 1-2k in accounts__ (so who were WE that never posted on the boards cuase no one wanted to Waste their precious game time defending their points of view with some loud mouthed Kid? lawyers, doctors, nurses, retired professionals, programmers, corperate sales people, military people, network specialists, information aecialists, brokers, independent business owners, plumbers, electricians last but not least husbands and wifes, mother and fathers, grandparents....you name it the ONLY kid we knew that played was our youngest child of 7 and with parental supervision at that. kiddies that for whom mommy and daddy were paying their acounts were NOT part of OUR crowd.!! (too bad I no longer have all those addresses and letters...lightening and power surges took care of that tho I CAN show you the paper work for the insurance reimbursment by god).
8. Then jsut one of many biggies that nailed ya...(back to those promises again).....builders were __Promised__ that they would be able to help their dragon friends to build their lairs to the same extent, at least, that dragons in the guilds helped build GH's and other housing and machines for communites and private individuals. Bipeds would at least be able to gather the raw materials and do the 1st lvl of resource processing.....well that promise got trashed and at least 700 builders left the game with their multiple accounts and then so many of the dragons left becuase the work of their assistance to their friends NOW would not be returned for the complicated mess of lair construction all due to of someones's purist decisons... Well!!! so much for that one!.........now HZ has hardly got any world class builders left, and dragons and bipeds suffer alike......all for the sake of the board mongers and purists who no longer play the game *slaps forehead*...oh yes I failed to mention that more alturistic of the remaining world class builders finally figured out by that time that the hundreds of hours spent doing t1 construction was just NOT worth 100 coppers per applied unit of construction..........*sniffs-coughs politely* ummm would be be too far off to say 1k in accounts?
9. Then of course to "fix" the economy all sorts of little nasty things were devised....you know... "unofficially" to suckout the excess funds therein that should never have been there to begin with. So all of little lowbies at the time got things like: increased transport costs via teleporters, the vielo, then new and improved vielo pricing. Then new and improved vielo pricing again, new and improved pawn limits in pricing AND then better game "balanced" pricing thereafter. Although the "official" reasoning given was due to the crafter needs for reimbursement and to REgenerate a now "historical" economy. All of us lowbies Knew better...we saw it all , the rich got richer thepoor got poorer. When the little people finally got to a point in lvl and figured out WOW i can make money doing this!! it was of course time to lose it. Well since we could not afford anything anymore anyways, we just made stuff for FREE. Shared with our guild mates or gave it away to our friends or bartered our way with each other around all the nonsense. thank goodness for the guild(s) WE took care of our own with OR without the help from the gods. since we never got the needed help from on High, we relied on ourselves. in time we eventually became self supporting, self contained soloists in building, crafting and adving. So was this "finale' of game mechanics and the demise of the world community and world economy OUR fault???!!! I dont think so, after all we only lived here ...... *blinks* sorry but I cannot place a number of lost accounts on this particular morass.
10. So why have I not quit and left like so many? Well despite the treatment this game has given my wife and our small children who now no longer play, my wife and I love the game. It could be sooo much more........ hell I started playing this game cause there were __Supposed to be__ plans for lemurans.......an underwater game to commpliment the aerial game the of the dragons and we loved the idea of a water game and boats despite the fact we were never given any......
11. Castles were never introduced.....and the only one in the game that was done was the giant one.....no one "seemed" to be interested in the idea of actual construction of anything __smaller__ and more doable....*sighes* a lot of builders left from that Final challenge not being in the game.....
12. For Carmo, well we wanted things to make our area look nice....a light house...bridge to the little island...a small KEEP to be able to run to in times of "danger"...all of which we would/could have built at the time. We never asked for freebies.....ahhh well.....many more had left by that time
13. *looks at a distant Horizons* i can still SEE the UNDERwater plots found using the gm abilities we bootstrappers had figured out...how swimming was FINISHED but never released for all races, how disks were to be orginally used on ground and underwater for that magical metal that only the lemurians were to be able to dig and smelt, how the sister fields were set up but later broken, changed then left unfinsihed and scattered and how the machines out in the fields which we the little ones depended on disapeared "for the sake of *community*". the excitment we experienced when we found Where all the gms tested the processing machines on that isle and how much i looked forward to my first tatoo. How we "would" fight like in the trailor cutting a flip over our adversaries and striking from behind with our swords in individual tailored combat sequences. How we would grow our own crops, find our own wells, furnish our own homes and ride our own horses that we would train. Finally to be able to ride into the sunset on the back of a friendly dragon taking the things he needed to his lair for his use that WE had helped gather and process while we watched a beautiful sun set and moon rising above the clouds below us....these are things we saw and hoped to see......all at a now distant horizon........
But i tell ya truly ____Carmo is STILL here_____!!!
SO.............
Mr. Simmons go and take a look at Carmo. Look at TEN THOUSAND PLUS MANHOURS of REAL TIME work before the pad was put in and you will understand why i for one still stay....in the LAST of the ORGINAL guild villages in a GUILD desgnated area .......still intact and as beautiful as the day it was, when it was finished. Realize a fact therefore about human nature.....that building is a reflection of OUR OWN unique humanity...of changing our enviroment to something more astetcially pleasing. Buiding a Home and sharing is NOT an "ENDgame phenomina" but rather an intregral part of our own psyche and who we are, there at the onset. I for one will continue to play part time while working on my master crafter badge, the only badge i will ever wear. Last but not least, There HAD to be someone left who REMEMBERED the very beginning. Who remembered how it was.........and was __Supposed to be__ in a distant Horizons.
We wish you and the team the best Mr. Simmons as we hope for a better future...
Skirnir Ouija Glada and Wind Dancer,
Husband and Beloved wife
Last of the aplha players still in game.
Last remaining Azure Twlight players still playing at this time
. These guys are showing results though and as long as they keep doing that and dont make outlandish promises I'm going to give them whatever support I can.
Originally Posted by Spartikus
