New Vault

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Originally Posted by ransroth

That's exactly the plan for sorting IXP runes. It will also automatically sort LIs by class, rarity, and level. I'm hopeful that we can extend it to automatically sort crafting materials as well for the initial release, but someone else is handling it and I'm not sure what his timeline is like.

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Very happy to hear that. I hope that crafting mats can make it in. I have *ahem* a few of those lying about... on several characters... :rolleyes:

Regarding toggling item descriptions, will that be a global setting or will we be able to set it for individual bags? For example, have item descriptions on for the bag that contains my cosmetic items because so many of them use the same icon, but have descriptions off for my barter items since it's easy to see at a glance what's what.

I suppose if it's global I can just check/uncheck as needed (I'm assuming that the checkbox will be located on the vault window).

I am a major crafter on multiple characters as well, what I like the most is the ability to put as many things as I want into any of the chests. ( limited by total space that is )

It is taking a little getting used to, but I like the new vault very much and looking forward to the aforementioned improvements.

I also think the new vault is a step-up....once you take the time to sort stuff. It's a bit of a pain having to drag everything to other storage and then to the appropriate chest, but other than the forced alphabetizing, I think the whole thing is an improvement.

In the old system, I often couldn't fit everything of a certain class of item in one chest - or it didn't take up the whole chest. Even though I was pretty meticulous, having 7 characters regularly played left me searching for items anyway.

Being able to rename the chests is going to be the icing on the cake for me.

Two thumbs up for the new system! I shudder to look at my housing chests.... ;)

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Originally Posted by Hoppa_Joel

right now, the issue of lack of inventory space makes organizing and getting things out of the vault really hard. I had to mule out three empty bag spaces, unload half of my bank vault at a time to organize them into bags, it was a pain.

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You don't have to remove anything from the vault to move it into a bag, just right-click on an item and choose which bag to move it to from the drop down list.

Another hint to those who like things sorted together

• Put your like items together in the chests (IE hides/leathers in chest 1, etc...)
• Leave your "Sort" view on "Chest"

What you will then see when you show all your items will be all of the items in chest 1 first then all the items in chest 2, etc...... they will be sorted alphabetically within the chests for now until the update but it does give you an option for a different view instead of completely alphabetical.

Using this set up you can put the items you use most in the first chest and they will show at the top of your vault, easy to find.

I know you still hate it, just trying to help you cope until the update.

There's on good thing about it: Dragging and dropping where ever causes items to stack. That's good, but all the other changes are negative. Here's my quick list of the top problems:

1) Can't see all items. The window can be lengthened but not widened. We should be able to see all content

2) Still don't have larger bags/chests. It should be trivial to have tailor/woodworker recipes for those, other games manage it. Larger storage can be crafted at different lvls and then sold by crafters in the in-game economy. There's no excuse for not having that.

3) Can't use Shift-drag to split items. I used to be able to take a part of a stack out. Now I can't. Have to drag the whole thing, split it in my bags, and then move the unused back to the vault

4) Cant' buy extra chests with in-game money, only real world money. Turbine added all kinds of marks and new armor sets in-game, but forces us to spend real world cash to get enough space to store it. Not very nice at all.

5) Can't see all crafting items, since they created 3 diff categories. Ridiculous. Should be able to just select "crafting" and see all items.

6) Can't just list all recipes. They are split in the filter by craft and lvl, making it very hard to see all that are stored.

It's a scheme that wasn't thought through at all and ignores massive amounts of simple UI and gaming concepts. It's a failure of large proportions.

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Originally Posted by groucho42

There's on good thing about it: Dragging and dropping where ever causes items to stack. That's good, but all the other changes are negative. Here's my quick list of the top problems:

1) Can't see all items. The window can be lengthened but not widened. We should be able to see all content

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Answer to item 1:

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Originally Posted by ransroth

As you might imagine, this week has been rather crazy for me, but finally made it through this thread.

First an update on the new features - I've been able to get most of what everyone has been asking for implemented. QA has yet to take a pass through it, so it's possible that something will be found to be terribly broken and will need to be pulled, but so far so good.

You will be able to resize the vault (and shared storage) horizontally, rename chests, and turn off item name display.

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Originally Posted by groucho42

2) Still don't have larger bags/chests. It should be trivial to have tailor/woodworker recipes for those, other games manage it. Larger storage can be crafted at different lvls and then sold by crafters in the in-game economy. There's no excuse for not having that.

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This isn't other games, that said the chests in the vault are as big as you have spaces.

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Originally Posted by groucho42

3) Can't use Shift-drag to split items. I used to be able to take a part of a stack out. Now I can't. Have to drag the whole thing, split it in my bags, and then move the unused back to the vault

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I agree, we need this back

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Originally Posted by groucho42

4) Cant' buy extra chests with in-game money, only real world money. Turbine added all kinds of marks and new armor sets in-game, but forces us to spend real world cash to get enough space to store it. Not very nice at all.

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The game is a business, no one is forcing you to keep those sets, in fact they gave you a wardrobe to put them in.

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Originally Posted by groucho42

5) Can't see all crafting items, since they created 3 diff categories. Ridiculous. Should be able to just select "crafting" and see all items.

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Just put all your crafting stuff in one bag and when you choose that bag, you can see them all.

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Originally Posted by groucho42

6) Can't just list all recipes. They are split in the filter by craft and lvl, making it very hard to see all that are stored.

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Same solution as the last point

I get the feeling you just want to be mad at it so I am sure you won't take anyone's suggestions but I tried.

Chiming in because I want to.. The new vault sucks.

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Originally Posted by DreagonMK

Chiming in because I want to.. The new vault sucks.

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http://images.cheezburger.com/comple...d504eb222a.jpg

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Originally Posted by groucho42

3) Can't use Shift-drag to split items. I used to be able to take a part of a stack out. Now I can't. Have to drag the whole thing, split it in my bags, and then move the unused back to the vault

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This is my biggest gripe with the new vault, if this could be added them i will be happy too live with everything else about the vault. When crafting its a must to be able to do this some items need 4 of one item 10 of another etc so being able to open a inventory bag and drag whats need by shift drag and take what i want from stack made life nice and easy... Now i have to take the whole stack into my inventory then split there then put it back in the vault again, time consuming and very annoying.

New vault bites, i want my old one back asap !

@ransroth

I don't care how much tweaking you do, there is nothing "smart" about Auto-Sorting when manual sorting isn't an option. The "smartest" thing you can add to auto-sort is an OFF button.

We pay for entertainment, not frustration. What if the manufacturer of your car just came by your house one day and changed your vehicle over to ethanol only, because they own corn fields and it's "Good for business". Well, I guess you had better just get a bike, cuz nobody is forcing you to drive right? I mean you could just "get used to it" and find yourself a station that sells ethanol, and really you shouldn't be complaining because "some people actually think it's a good idea".

I have read every post in this thread, and I have tried using the new vault, and I actually think my point had been made very well by other posters and that there was no need to say anything else really since:

1) It's clear you either don't care or aren't listening any more
2) "It's never going back to classic" <- Personally I love this attitude, it never fails to provide epic lulz when people who think they are in control put their foot down, then admit they were wrong.
3) "The new system is so much better"

But then....

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Originally Posted by ransroth

The game is a business.

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What is your point exactly? Nobody is forcing us to pay you? You're right. I hope for your sake the new players in F2P increases Turbine's cash flow enough to keep the game going because if it were up to the people that have been supporting the "business" that is LOTRO, and by extension *your* job, we'd have fired your *** for this mess well before this disaster made it live. You should have found a system people could work with in beta, and finished it *in beta* before pushing it onto the community at a time when everything else was getting thrown into the air. You can push out a half-finished critical game system in a rush, but the fixes for said system are "still going through Q/A"? Really?

I suppose however, you don't really have much to worry about though, right? It's not like an MMO ever actually died over major changes while ignoring the core community.

My wife and I were joking about the problems with LOTRO that extend far before this. She had said that she thinks I've hated the game for a long time, and that's why I seldom play anymore, I suggested that "I don't actually hate the game every day"; she said: "Yeah, just on the days you play it." She's right. I like the "idea" of LOTRO, but not your way of doing it.

Since I often read that the developers feel forum posters that complain about changes to the game rarely have any constructive criticism (i.e. something useful to say), let me finish with this:

Find a way to offer an option as close as possible to what was previously available, so the people that don't like what you have done (i.e. *your customers*) can fall back on something acceptable until the new system is sufficiently "tweaked". In all reality, if the new system really was so much better, why do so many people (i.e. everyone) hate it so much? I don't remember all this vitriol on the forum about the new mounts panel when it was offered, or the idea & execution of shared storage. Those are examples of listening to your customers and doing it the right way. ;}

If there is any more useful advice given in this thread, I honestly haven't seen it.

Thanks for reading, and I hope my post was at least more entertaining for you than using the new inventory system was for me.

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Originally Posted by Toastysoul

@ransroth

<stuff>

But then....

<Misquote removed>

What is your point exactly? <rant>

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What you quoted was NOT said by Ransroth, it was said by me if you read my post you will see that there are no quotes around what I said and what he said is inside it's own quote so my point is you can now let your righteous indignation dissipate and chill out unless you want to attack me this time.

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Originally Posted by Unique

What you quoted was NOT said by Ransroth, it was said by me if you read my post you will see that there are no quotes around what I said and what he said is inside it's own quote so my point is you can now let your righteous indignation dissipate and chill out unless you want to attack me this time.

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Other than mis-attributing a quote, nothing toastysoul said is out of line. The analogy isn't great, but then again, it's hard to come up with great analogies all the time. And there is a little hyperbole thrown in, as well as a large amount of sarcasm, but his position and angle are solid.

It is clear, based on what I read on the live forums, and what I had read in the BETA forums, that this change was not going to be well received when it hit live. I, as well as many other BETA participants begged and pleaded with the devs to change it back, but the powers that be decided to stubbornly push forward, despite all the extremely negative feedback it was getting.

Ransroth is a dev, a programmer, and probably has only limited input on the decision making process. That's done levels above him, and he has to make do with what he is given and the tasks placed before him. We can't pin this on him, it's not his fault. He's done amazing work getting the vault to the state it's in now, and I believe he will eventually get the vault to an acceptable state for everyone.

Being one who has to do all the real work, and have a public face, he has to keep the company line (we aren't going back, we are going forward with this regardless of what our customers think), he has to be enthusiastic about it publicly (The new system is so much better).

We as customers have the right to speak up when a company we do business with makes a radical change we don't like. And if they choose not to listen to us, we can make a choice with our wallets and spend our money elsewhere. Given this is one of all around best developed MMOs on the market, and the only one with this IP, the only choice for a someone who wants to play a LoTR based MMO is this one. So we either pay or we don't play (that's not really true anymore with the f2p pricing scheme).

It is bad development to rush out a critical system half done, and especially bad to replace a fully functioning system with a half-done, rushed system. I am having a hard time figuring out why they had to change the UI in order to upgrade the back-end. Good programming practices tell you to separate front end from back end (that's called object oriented design). The back-end should be completely separate from the UI. And with the UI they already had in place, it should have been easy to add those last 2 bags as bags in the old vault system, and add another button to the bottom of the main vault box for 'Open Wardrobe".

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Originally Posted by macdadg

Other than mis-attributing a quote, nothing toastysoul said is out of line.

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It's hyperbole, plain and simple. Saying that Turbine doesn't listen to its players is a load of BS and anyone who tries to say it with a straight face isn't actually fooling anyone but themselves. One thing I can promise you is that no one at Turbine listens to hyperbole and Jack McFarland-like howler monkey hysterics.

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Originally Posted by Ayrolen

It's hyperbole, plain and simple. Saying that Turbine doesn't listen to its players is a load of BS and anyone who tries to say it with a straight face isn't actually fooling anyone but themselves. One thing I can promise you is that no one at Turbine listens to hyperbole and Jack McFarland-like howler monkey hysterics.

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Hyperbole and sarcasm are typically over-used, but when used correctly, can be very effective.

They do listen, eventually. It just takes a long time for player feedback to get through to the powers that be that a decision they made was wrong. Look how long it took to get rid of radiance. We got that in MoM, and it was just said in a devchat that it will eventually be going away.

They listen to what they want to listen too. When they get drops in subscriptions and the main reason people cite for leaving is radiance, LIs, and now the vault, the dollar signs disappear and the executives finally feel the tremor in the force the devs have been telling them was going to happen was actually happening.

I complained in Beta about it. I will tag the post here on the live boards too, as I am also not happy with the new layout as well. I will not mention the other things, as this is just a post about the Vault, but it seems there is a pattern with "fixing things" that do NOT need to be fixed.

Do not waist your time "fixing things" and put the time/money in developing something else for LOTRO. I was skimming over some of the posts, someone suggested an option for a "classic view". That sounds like a good option, not only for the Vault, but also for Kin list and Vitals.

I hope you get the picture, as we all do not play at the same resolution. I myself have plenty of room playing at 2560 x 1600.

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Originally Posted by ButchieBoy

I complained in Beta about it. I will tag the post here on the live boards too, as I am also not happy with the new layout as well. I will not mention the other things, as this is just a post about the Vault, but it seems there is a pattern with "fixing things" that do NOT need to be fixed.

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Actually, if you'd bothered to read any of Ransroth's posts in beta, you'd know that the change was for server performance reasons. Opening and closing the previous vault with all of its separate bags was hard on the server. In the past did you ever walk up to the Vaultmaster, try to open your vault and sit there twiddling your thumbs for several seconds waiting for it to open while 20 other people were trying to do the same thing? That's the kind of stuff they're trying to avoid to improve the game for us.

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2) Still don't have larger bags/chests. It should be trivial to have tailor/woodworker recipes for those, other games manage it. Larger storage can be crafted at different lvls and then sold by crafters in the in-game economy. There's no excuse for not having that.

This isn't other games, that said the chests in the vault are as big as you have spaces.

3) Can't use Shift-drag to split items. I used to be able to take a part of a stack out. Now I can't. Have to drag the whole thing, split it in my bags, and then move the unused back to the vault

I agree, we need this back

4) Cant' buy extra chests with in-game money, only real world money. Turbine added all kinds of marks and new armor sets in-game, but forces us to spend real world cash to get enough space to store it. Not very nice at all.

The game is a business, no one is forcing you to keep those sets, in fact they gave you a wardrobe to put them in.

5) Can't see all crafting items, since they created 3 diff categories. Ridiculous. Should be able to just select "crafting" and see all items.

Just put all your crafting stuff in one bag and when you choose that bag, you can see them all.

6) Can't just list all recipes. They are split in the filter by craft and lvl, making it very hard to see all that are stored.

Same solution as the last point

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I saw the following in Unique's post. It seems the dev deleted his/her own message, but after Unique posted a reply. I'd just like to add: The developer doesn't see to get two key thing:
1) Competition
2) Creating happy customers

and how those two things are linked in order to provide salaries for Turbine employees. They need to internalize that those of us who give precise opinions aren't shouting "we hate change" or "everything's wrong", we're providing constructive criticism to help the game be more enjoyable and compete better in the market place.

She thinks to think that multiple armor sets are for "wardrobe" only. As an example, the Turtle's acid damage has just been bumped way up. Those of us who have an acid mitigation set don't have them as wardrobe items, they're to wear when fighting Turtle. We need them in chests. Another example? How about rad, where the regular running armor that's best doesn't have 120 rad but we need the extra set for running BG. Now you've added more sets from the Classic Skirmish Vendor, plus all the Skirmish Marks (which aren't "wardrobe"). We need more space. You've forced that.

One of the pleasures of mmorpgs in game experience (that leads to more customers...) is the in game economy. To brush off the many requests about improving that is just short sighted. I have a lot of gold. A good company would think of ways for me to spend it in-game, on crafted bags, for example, to keep the economy moving and add more fun.

The fact that "other games" provide a better user experience is directly relevant to the size and profitability of those games. He can't even get the concepts mentioned. The idea that all crafting items will fit in one bag is silly. My cook/jeweler has more than 3 bags of crafting items. Having a sane filter is not a minor request.

I would like the game to improve. I'd like it to attract more people and help make Turbine money, also to have more people on my server. Rather than be defensive, take these suggestions, and all the people making them, to heart and understand we want to see a better UI and a more enjoyable in game experience.

Also, lets add one I forgot:
6) Can't sort runes by ixp points, only by name. I had them sorted in bags by size, to find what I wanted easier. Now I can't.

The only thing I like about the vault is the ability to sort all my items by what kind they are. So I have about 5 chests for sorting everything out. I really don't like scrolling but oh well, it's one or the other and it seems like I have more room this way even though I don't.

After buying some upgrades to the wardrobe and shared storage last night, I love the new vault even more.

I can stretch it verically so it fills the screen, and same for the wardrobe and shared. That's a LOT of space dedicated to my stuff, and no more mousing over icons to see what they really are.

THANKS Ransroth for the work on this. It's awesome!

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Originally Posted by Reillan

Try going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

It's worse.

Anyway, one thing that is terribly important to learn about the vault is the little drop-down menu at the top that lets you do sorting... it's going to be really, really helpful when trying to find certain important things. Yes, I really wish we still had the classic spaces AND this, but those spaces were a bit unwieldy, too.

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The dropdown menu for sorting would be really useful, except that the categories are often confusing. For instance, I put a legendary club in my vault. It will not show up under "weapons" and there is no category for "legendary items." In fact, it shows up under "clubs." (Oddly, I did not see a category for swords despite having several non-legendary swords in my vault.)

For the filter dropdown to be really useful, it needs a bit more work.

To be a little positive about it, I like having the name of the item next to the icon. I also like the auto-stacking that goes along with the new format. No trying to match flax colors that are a half shade apart... just drag and drop.

If I recall correctly the Vault was part of the LUI API they released. Hopefully someone will come up with something that will be flexible enough to please everyone.

I'm not a fan of the new vault.

The search/sorting features are nice, but with the old graphical-style vault I didn't need to search because I knew where everything was. Because it was sorted how I want it and not how Turbine wanted it.

Hoping the LUA scripting will be able to fix this.

I LIKE the new vault. The old setup...I spent more time searching and deciphering icons/items - with the new setup I use the sort "all" Option and I can just scroll to what I'm looking for (I learned how to alphabetize at a young age so I can just go to the item by that, cough cough) - I also like the auto stack feature - I don't know how many similar recipes or stacks of items I didn't catch before that I could have stacked and saved some space etc. due to being in a rush or whatever. *THUMBS UP* for the new vault. Could it use improving? Probably but as someone else stated I like the direction it has and might be going.

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Originally Posted by ransroth

As you might imagine, this week has been rather crazy for me, but finally made it through this thread.

First an update on the new features - I've been able to get most of what everyone has been asking for implemented. QA has yet to take a pass through it, so it's possible that something will be found to be terribly broken and will need to be pulled, but so far so good.

You will be able to resize the vault (and shared storage) horizontally, rename chests, and turn off item name display.

The major piece we weren't able to get to is manual sort. I'm sure we'll catch a lot of flak over it, but it just didn't fit in the schedule. Instead, there will be a new kind of sort that automatically sorts some items within the vault for you (for example IXP runes by value). Over time, this automatic sort can be extended to become smarter and smarter.

Manual sort is still on the list of possible improvements, but now looks like it probably won't make it to the next major update.

There are also other improvements that you haven't asked for, but I think will like a lot :).

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Yup, you're right - You're going to catch a lot of flak over it.

For a year and a half (if not more) we've lived with a max limit of 120. We were told it was simply impossible to give us more. But now that the game has a cash shop in it suddenly y'all found a way to sell us more space. How 'bout that? So turbine completely trashed the vault which, mind you, wasn't broken in the first place - and all for the love of money. It's quite disappointing actually - I expected better from Turbine. But it's clear to me that making money trumps all other concerns.

It also seems pretty clear that you still think you can sort all this out with a few tweaks here and there. Sadly, adding a bunch of bells and whistles to a pile of poo does nothing to improve that pile of poo - it just gets poo all over your bells and whistles.

I've read people saying that there have been many improvements since the vault premiered in beta. I disagree.

Beta day one: Lost functionality - can't see all my items and they won't stay where I put them.

Head-start day one: Functionality still lost - still can't see all my items and they still don't stay where I put them.

Honestly, I don't see where any improvements have been made to this mess at all. It's still just as dysfunctional as it was on day one in beta. I'd have been much happier to stay with the 120 max limit.

So you've managed to give us the ability to turn off item names? But they'll still be auto-sorted? I'm not sure how this will be useful in any meaningful way. You're halfway there though - just give us back the ability have stuff stay where we put it and we're golden. But instead you've invented a new "auto sort" feature? Really? Why reinvent the wheel?

Why do we keep getting these sub-par features that no one asked for instead of just getting what we asked for in the first place. You'd be done by now and everyone would be happy. Admit the new bank is a flawed idea (like radiance) and go back to the old one - stop trying to add life-support features to a dead patient.

And there are other features that we didn't ask for and you think we're going to like? Seriously? Well, you also thought we'd like an alphabetically sorted list of items so don't blame me if I'm not holding my breath.

What has been done to the vault is pretty much the straw that broke this camel's back. I was already opposed to the F2P idea but had decided I could live with it. However, what's been done to the vault goes too far. I cannot work with my vault in the condition it's currently in. I cannot play until the functionality that was taken from us is restored.

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Originally Posted by Unique

What you quoted was NOT said by Ransroth, it was said by me if you read my post you will see that there are no quotes around what I said and what he said is inside it's own quote so my point is you can now let your righteous indignation dissipate and chill out unless you want to attack me this time.

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^
http://ui05.gamespot.com/324/arguecat_2.png

Did I misquote? Yes, apparently I did. It was 4am, I had just read through 8 pages of people complaining and I didn't take the time to check my references. You don't throw out the baby with the bathwater though; my point is still very valid. Sarcasm aside, what part of what I said is really hyperbole? What happened to SWG is *not* an exaggeration, I was there for all of it, all the way through NGE (which is starting to feel like an oddly familiar tune here), even to the President of SOE "apologizing" for doing what seems to be happening now; pushing updates that most *customers* DO NOT WANT. Things are so bad, there is a community project to restore the old game. Still think that "We're never going back." is a good choice? Don't kid yourself. It's not about making so called improvements, it's about people not being able to admit when they are wrong. It's a common ailment among upper management, and I live through it every day.

There is nothing inherently evil with change, but change for change's sake is idiocy. You don't fix one broken mechanic (lag) by breaking another (vault). Personally, my vault lags still, just as much as before, if not more. The little bit of lag when opening the previous vault was for me, a non-issue. The general lag in 21st while a little better, is offset by the fact that I couldn't access my vault at all while in 21st, because "That's already in use".

The solution for vault lag is actually pretty simple. Wait for it..... Hardware upgrades. BAM! I wonder why nobody else though of it first?

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Originally Posted by Ayrolen

Saying that Turbine doesn't listen to its players is a load of BS and anyone who tries to say it with a straight face isn't actually fooling anyone but themselves.

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O Rly? Because nobody asked for manual sorting at any point in the closed beta, open beta, or live release...

[reality]
Well, I guess at least someone is trying. [hyperbole]This guy did in MS paint in 5 minutes [/hyperbole], what the dev team couldn't fit into the release schedule. Obviously UI design, and in particular coding, is not something that can be done in just a few minutes. The point is, one of the most asked for features (we won't "lose" anything we already had right? *rolleyes*) is manual sorting, and it's only on a list "possible improvements" now, and won't make it into the next major update.
[/reality]