Blight in General

[FleshRoast]

We understand the risks of playing on Blight and choose to make our home there. Blight *is* bounced as TG "feels like it." We do have bugs that cause items to disappear or not act correctly. We've not have whole character wipes, but we know that is possible. We *have* had instances where we've had to start over in a school after reaching level 100. Customer service is not involved with this.

Quality assurance is, so that you don't have to involve Customer Service.

We do not have some of the things that Live does, such as a player economy. We choose that as well.

If you have any other questions about the Blight Test Server, I'd be happy to try and answer them for you.

[HappyFunBall]

My Blight server, and Hz game experience as a new player to the game (since May).

Before I say anything negative, I've found a number of good regulars on Blight (and many on Live), and those that have been very helpful to me in the game.

Now the 'negative'. In general with Hz, and Blight as well, I get a real disturbing sense of "ownership" and over-attachment from the users of a certain server and the game in general. Especially Blight. Many of you take this "video game" WAY too seriously. I can't stress that enough.

While I did feel totally welcomed on Blight, a couple regulars came down on me for being too negative (on Blight chat, not talking about my glorious posts here) for simply discussing bugs, problems with the game, client, engine, and so on, and mainly just asking "Has anyone been able to log in with the stand alone client in a few days"? or "is the x-fi fix done yet or has anyone found a work-around?".

I thought the ENTIRE point of the Blight server was to talk about these issues, to ask other users if they are experiencing them, to report bugs, find workarounds and so on. Almost NONE of this exists there. The "old blighters" act like it's just another live server and get offended at anyone they *quite incorrectly* assume is "coming down" on *their* game.

Instead of test-talk, people take *any* negative comment about the game, even a bug, defect, hardware incompatibility, memory leak, etc, as a sign of offence to their beloved server, game, etc. I don't care how long you've been a user, subscriber, your level, etc - If there's a bug, that's the place to test and discuss them!! I *never* insulted any users there, yet people act like I do.

I'm sick and tired of the offense some die-hard Hz fans take from new users making valid (and professional) comments, inquiries, opinions, etc about "their" game. All I read on the forums are people complaining about valid issues. I say, more power to them. If we all pretend no problems exist, then NOTHING will ever get done about them.

Now, I won't even bring up bugs I find on Blight anymore, due to this reason. It's the [edited by Dravatar] damned TEST server for christs sake, but now I'm afraid to mention *anything* that has a negative connotation to it. Thus, there's really no point to this server if this how people are going to treat it.

Instead, people just play there, and many, only there, and the last thing they want to hear about is defects. What's the point then?

Anyway, from my experience on these forums (and YES, my opinions are strong, rough, and negatively-biased, but not all of them), and on Blight and Chaos, it's been hard to find anyone who treats this as a video game, lines of code, and what it really is.

You can worship the game, the community and so forth all you want, it still doesn't change the validity of scores of posters discussing, complaining, etc, about problems. Old timers need to STOP getting so easily offended by these posts, be it from me or anyone else.

Surprisingly, I really love the game design. It's the engine, bugs, problems, the new buyout, etc, that I dislike. These realities hamper my game play, and also ruin the gaming experience for countless others - most of which I might add, quit a long time ago because they couldn't stand it anymore.

If you don't like my posts, fine. All that means is that you're a Hz zealot, and WAY too *into* this game, and don't accept the reality of the technical problems with this game.

I don't want to quit. I don't hate the game. I hate the technical problems in the code. Stop #!@^#$!@ taking offence to my posts, when that's ALL I'm saying.

I'm a paying customer too, and I have just as much right as a 3 year veteran HZ gamer to complain that I can't use my X-fi with this game - just one simple example.

Enough is enough already!!

[Magnir]

You submit a ticket about x-fi and maybe bring it up on the boards, you don't have to mention it in every other post. I think the reason for the reaction on that you bring the x-fi up quite often, so people know about it and feel that you are being excessively repeticious.

As for folks jumping on you if you bring up a bug/defect what-have-you... I have no idea where that's coming from. I regularly discuss bugs, complain about order-of-implementation (Blight is now halfway through the CONF revamp.. resources in, some bugged (can't be harvested) and none of the new forms are in so you can't harvest what was required for the old forms, this makes one of the epic spell quests absolutely impossible on Blight right now) and the (former) Development team's habits of over-reacting while fixing.

All of those I discussed last night and not one person jumped on any other person for bringing them up.

I would offer some advice, but I think that you either wouldn't take it or would get offended so this post stops here.

[FleshRoast]

I must go along with Magnir, Happy. We do discuss problems in the Blight Channel. We talk about workarounds to them.

We don't constantly whine about them and don't simply reject a workaround because we don't want to do it that way, however. Plain and simply, the players of Blight try to find and document bugs and problems in gameplay. We don't fix them. Constantly bringing up the same things repeatedly, to the players, is preaching to the choir. We know about it. We've offered what help we can, but we can't fix it. Beat the dead horse all you want to those responsible for fixing problems. Leave those that can only search for them out of it.

There is no rule that states we can't enjoy our playing time. Our testing is done gratis, and we understand that the Blight shard does not have the same up time promises live does. We understand that at any time new or old quests may not function. We are okay with all of this because that is what our community is.

You mention that you are having this problem on both Blight and Chaos. If I may suggest, when a problem seems to follow you around as this appears to be doing, perhaps the problem isn't the what is already on the shards, but what is being introduced. Your suggestion to lighten up to the veteran players of the game is a valid point. Everyone needs to step back now and again. The same can be said about the game bugs and problems of specific players. Once a point is made, no use dulling it by trying to hammer it into the skulls of people unaffected by it or unable to do anything about it.