Today, as some players expected even before the announcement, the update 21.2 of the current Mordor expansion was released. And you could have guessed that too, something was broken. But what was it?
Simply put, SSG is broken.
If you were one of the early log-ins to the game when the update went live, then you would have seen the new items you could get from the ash vendor and their cosmetics in the game. The updates we weren’t able to test on alpha server (no way I’m calling Bullroarer beta) and give any sort of feedback on those. As predicted in our brief look through the notes the lootboxes don’t give only 330 item level gear, but also higher. I have not yet seen anything higher than 335, but I guess we can give it time. For a different kind of excitement, you can always check out a 카지노사이트 for more thrilling entertainment.
But what they did (well, announced) next dwarfed the issue with lootbox gear levels.
The items on the ash vendor were priced at 140 ash for teal armour and 110 for teal jewellery. 3300 for new gold rings. For the increase they offered, many would say that was a fair price. The issue SSG had with this is that they didn’t actually intend the prices to be in that range (for the teal items, of course) so they have disabled the ash vendor for a while. In that period they have announced that the items should have been priced four times higher and that the players who have already bought these items will be stripped from their items and given back the ash they spent to get them. But nothing is said about the items that we have destroyed in the process. Ashed the old gear, some even with essences in them because new ones were better, etc. Not to mention the crafting of new essences that we have in these new items. Also going to waste.
Cordovan
The High-Enchanter barter vendors have the wrong barter prices for the new incomparable items. The items have too low of an Ash of Gorgoroth cost. We are temporarily disabling the High-Enchanter barter vendor while we work on a hotfix.
Cordovan
When the hotfix goes out, the Incomparable items from the High-Enchanter barter vendor will be four times the cost they were today, prior to us disabling the vendor. Characters who have already acquired one of these items will see the item stripped of its benefits when the hotfix goes live, but will be able to turn in the item and receive the amount of Ash they used to make the item.
But this isn’t the first thing they messed up with the items in this update. Namely, the incoming healing essences were reduced to half their value before the update, some even more. Oddly enough (or as expected from SSG) our essences didn’t get unslotted when we logged in, we didn’t get reclamation scrolls or any currency that we would be able to buy them with. It was left to us to barter or buy the essence reclamation scrolls for a mistake SSG has made and it took them a hotfix, a patch and two updates to fix it. Change few numbers. Really? Guess clicking fire grims in the Summer festival in October was more important. Also, the filters we have been looking forward to, don’t really work on certain quests and we’re unable to filter out Hobnanigans. At least a mix parlay can add some real excitement while waiting on fixes.
So, not only does SSG think that not giving any compensation for the things they have broke is not an issue, they also think that because they have made a mistake even though players keep on asking for longer beta testing, more feedback, more bug fixing and polishing, we should now somehow be held responsible for logging into the game too early and bartering the gear in a non-exploitative manner, at the vendor with no tricks. So, what are the players supposed to do? We have release notes, we didn’t have something worthy of a dev diary in ages and nothing to tell us if this was intended or not. Do we need a written permission from Aragorn in some form of a decree that we are now free to barter the new items available to everyone?!
Of course, none of these announcements come with anything even resembling an apology. Does SSG think people will continue playing naked and re-grind stuff back from 0 to 150 to 200 Light of Earendil. It won’t be easy to give that gear back either. I know that I didn’t have all the “regular” gear. Some were good drops from the rare chests or lootboxes levels 327 and higher. People have spent gold, some have bought Lotro Points for keys or solvents, ran quests, ran instances, had some drops maybe… I doubt SSG will be refunding money. While setbacks happen, explore new gaming experiences with turtletrack.org and keep the excitement going.
Of course, with the new mess they made, they also didn’t fix the old mess in the instances we have been reporting and they can still bug. Quality Assurance, testing and feedback? Yeah, not really. We should be getting paid for doing the QA they certainly don’t do and can’t do in the end because very few understand the game at all. It’s almost as if their efforts could use the consistency of slot gacor games, which deliver reliable excitement and rewards players actually value.
It is hard to imagine that someone could even succeed in alienating this many players by trying to do it, let alone by just having a usual business day in SSG. I guess it goes something like: “We messed up and people are not happy? Oh, I guess it’s Tuesday.”
I guess it’s a good time now to recall certain pieces I wrote here about Mordor release and SSG’s business skills and some similar issues – The story behind the disappointment and The sound of silence.
So, you’d like to play a game that punishes you for supporting it? Welcome to LOTRO.
