Rants tag

Rants, ruminations, and rambling remarks from my mad, muddled, meandering mind.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Day 14 - In which I Relate Something That Upsets Me

It is sad that this comes up the same day that I wrote my DAW post. (Also, the procrastination bug hit me again regarding the 20 Days thing, sorry.)
 Oh yeah, we all get a Tauntaun Pet. © BioWare
Unfortunately, this is the perfect day to cover this. BioWare announced earlier today that all currently active accounts with a level 50 character will be getting a free 30 days at the end of their current billing period. Even though I have been paying and playing regularly since the headstart, because I have chosen to explore multiple alts and storylines, I do not have a level 50 character. Therefore, I am excluded from this reward for "loyalty."

As I have on occasion in the past, I was going to rail against elitist behavior in the gaming community, the idea that a certain way of playing is superior to others. The PvPers who think that PvE is Stoopid and vice-versa. The folks who think the "the game doesn't even start until endgame." I play frequently and for long periods of time, almost every evening, in fact. My style of play happens to differ from all the rest. FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been known to rant about other playstyles myself. I try not to do that any more. As long as other players are enjoying themselves, who am I to say they are wrong.
My EPEEN is huge, but I am so lonely. ©Blizzard
The elitist jerks (hey, they use that term without irony, so will I) who tell other players, "L2P n00b or GTFO," can suck it, as far as I am concerned. But it's one thing coming from other players, it's another thing entirely when the game company slaps a set of loyal customers in the face and says essentially, "You fuckin' suck," however inadvertent that slap is.

I am withholding long-term judgment, assuming this was a not-well-thought-out scheme on the part of BioWare, and that they will fix it. But there are other games on the horizon, and since BioWare has shown no loyalty to me, I see no current need to show any loyalty to them.

4 comments:

  1. Edit: Ok, the first version of this comment was perhaps a wee bit over the top...

    I do have one 50, so I don't have a horse in this race. That said...imo limiting the reward to players with a level 50 toon, even though they know damn well who has been subbed since launch and they know damn well a lot of those players don't have a 50, and calling it a "loyalty reward" is absolutely insulting.

    They are basically saying "if you aren't in the endgame yet you don't deserve a free month regardless of how long you have been playing." Which is a pretty ironic stance to take in an MMO that is much more about the leveling game than the end game.

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  2. Aww, I didn't see anything worng with it. :P

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  3. Not to put too fine a point on it, but lets look at some numbers. BW has bandied about the 200 hour figure for storyline completion/max level. Its been 125 days since launch. So "loyal customers" are those who spend at least 100 minutes a day playing a single character. Seems legit. :-p

    Of course I think they recently expanded this to include anyone who had Legacy level 6 and above....which basically softened the curve a bit but was still crappy.

    Honestly, this is just a poorly thought out scheme. Either you give free time to everyone or not at all. Another rookie move by Bioware....

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    1. Yes, As I commented on your post, I still have a ton of work (because that is what it will be) to get my own toons to Legacy 6 as well as help Sctrz, who frankly doesn't have the same level of free time time as me this week. Nevermind that we've both ben playing quite a bit or the fact that we are PAYING customers, and have been since before launch.

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