XP Disabler is in LOTRO store on Bullroarer

[Cindir]

Another long post full of unsubstantiated fiction pretending to be fact.
If you threw the odd bit of truth in people may even believe you.

And as you will doubtless contest this assertion, please prove your statements. .... No need to invent "facts" to back it up.

Damojo, you almost always never respond to my actual questions to you. Please try to actually answer me.

1. How are these three items not facts?:

• Turbine could not finish the instances in time to be released with the expansion.
• Turbine could not finish the RoR expansion on time.
• Turbine could not finish the ROI instances on time to release with ROI.

Comment: Obviously, if they invested in more development staff they could do these three things. Yes, it would be expensive and they would have to hire several people at least. But if a few years ago they had done so, they could have been on time in these things.

2. How are these not facts?:

• The Dragoich Raid is bugged and they have not fixed it for many, many months. Yes they have tried.
• There have been no improvements for a long time to housing, mail, kinship systems - items players have asked for.
• We have had lag issues for about a year, since Update 6. Fact: Several players have posted they cannot play now due to how severe this lag is for them.

Which of the above are not facts? Damojo?

Maybe they are not profitable enough to do it (which I doubt) but ifTurbine invested in more staff they could address all of these things. I believe they did in fact hire one more QA or Dev. staff recently.

I am not expecting Turbine to be perfect, make a perfect game, or do magic. I just hope we will get a better and better game. To me, more investment will lead to a better game.

I said nothing about numbers of staff. Why would I, since I do not know. And yes, I am saying what I believe. Damojo, I have no need to prove anything to you. I can write what I believe, not only what what I can prove. Sometimes I will be wrong. I can tell what I say bothers you - but get over it. Or just keep arguing with me - but please keep it polite and civil. You feel a need to post about me, and often do it insultingly - while I am not focusing on you but just speaking about the game. Maybe don't let something someone says on the internet get to you.

[Damojo]

Damojo, you almost always never respond to my actual questions to you. Please try to actually answer me.

I'm done with this thread, but as you have asked specifically for a response, I will provide one.


1. How are these three items not facts?:

• Turbine could not finish the instances in time to be released with the expansion.
• Turbine could not finish the RoR expansion on time.
• Turbine could not finish the ROI instances on time to release with ROI.

Comment: Obviously, if they invested in more development staff they could do these three things. Yes, it would be expensive and they would have to hire several people at least. But if a few years ago they had done so, they could have been on time in these things.

You have rephrased. What you said was "Currently, we just see they do not have enough staff to develop the expansion on time, and to include any instances when it is released". With regard to instances, we don't know why they are not shipping. Someone posted on the forums a day or so ago that this may be due to Turbine wanting another release, and the associated publicity, quickly after ROR. I find this reason very plausible. Anyway i digress, there is no reason to assume that the instances are not shipping due to staff shortages, we simply don't know. With regard to ROR, I believe we had most of the functionality at day 1 of beta, and a full set not long after. But the quality wasn't there and neither were some of the playability requirements. There are any number of reasons why these things happened, again we simply don't know. They could have shipped the product, but chose not to. I make no comment about ROI, I wasn't around and I won't speculate.

The point is, as I say, we have no idea why these things happened. And yet you state that all these things are due to staff shortages, and further develop this as a result of lack of investment. I have no idea how much Turbine invests, I bet you don't either. How can you state that it's all down to lack of investment?

2. How are these not facts?:

• The Dragoich Raid is bugged and they have not fixed it for many, many months. Yes they have tried.
• There have been no improvements for a long time to housing, mail, kinship systems - items players have asked for.
• We have had lag issues for about a year, since Update 6. Fact: Several players have posted they cannot play now due to how severe this lag is for them.

Which of the above are not facts? Damojo?

The raid is being worked on. As is the lag. I have been in IT all my working life, sometimes it takes YEARS to fix bugs, and it's not usually a case of throwing bodies at a problem to fix it quicker. Microsoft is still fixing operating systems that have been around for years. All software has bugs, that's just a fact we have to deal with. So they are working on it. There is no silver bullet, no magic wand. Anyone who programs will tell you that usually the hardest part of bug-fixing is to find the bug, the fix is usually the easier part. But again, you state, categorically, that this is due to lack of staff or inward investment, with no evidence. How do you know?

Improvements are a different case, there needs to be a business case that there is a clear benefit to the cost of said development. I could have a thousand developers at my disposal, there's no way i would use them to develop things which offer me as the company no benefit. But again, you claim this is all caused by lack of money and developers. You don't know this.

I can tell what I say bothers you - but get over it. Or just keep arguing with me - but please keep it polite and civil. You feel a need to post about me, and often do it insultingly - while I am not focusing on you but just speaking about the game. Maybe don't let something someone says on the internet get to you.

People quoting data and facts which are either wrong or unproven bothers me. There's nothing personal involved in anything I post here, not do I post things "insultingly" - I will unreservedly apologise right now if I have insulted you, as it is never my intention.

"I am not focusing on you but just speaking about the game. Maybe don't let something someone says on the internet get to you." - ditto.

[Cindir]

@Damojo: Thanks for a good reply. I could respond but it is too off topic. I appreciate the good reply.

[Lestache]

People quoting data and facts which are either wrong or unproven bothers me. There's nothing personal involved in anything I post here, not do I post things "insultingly" - I will unreservedly apologise right now if I have insulted you, as it is never my intention.

Misrepresented or incorrect facts bother me, too. However, given that a key fact was only available to those in Beta, you might've cut some people some slack in your earlier statement. As Cindir said earlier, not everyone is in Beta or has access to it - those quoting the $30/month were doing so based on the facts to the best of their knowledge.

[Niwashi]

The post by Sapience is in the beta forum. The testers had no idea that the intent was for it to count down differently. We'll see what tomorrows beta build brings in the way of actual changes.

However, we have been told that it is not SUPPOSED to work this way.

We have not been told whether the timer is supposed to be based on character log-in time or actual use time, but we have been told that it is NOT supposed to be calendar time. When the next iteration of the Beta comes out we have been asked to retest this feature and see if it is now working properly. (Whatever "properly" turns out to be.)

That's good to hear. 168 hours of game time (especially if it turns out to be 168 hours of using the effect) is far more palatable than 7 days of calendar time. With that sort of duration, I can even accept it being per-character. I'd pay 700 TP for each of my main characters in exchange for getting to play that character the way I like for 168 hours.

This is exactly why new things being tested should only be discussed on the beta forums, someone misinterprets something and everyone assumes it's set in stone and that's the way it is.

And that's the reason why non-disclosure agreements exist on things like beta tests. But when the NDA is lifted, that generally means things are getting near enough to completion that Turbine isn't expecting to make many more significant changes. I'm not certain whether even going live counts as being set in stone (or if so, it's perhaps sandstone), since they can still make changes even then, but very late in Beta, after the NDA has been lifted, they're getting near enough to final release to be worth expanding the discussion to everyone.

In this case, it appears to have been useful in turning up a problem. I don't agree that this was a case where "someone misinterprets something" as there wasn't a misinterpretation involved, simply a description of how it currently worked. There was outcry over the fact that people don't like the way it was working. Turbine is now changing it. Apparently they'd intended it to be game-time instead of calendar time, but the fact that they hadn't changed it (or commented on it) before the complaints started suggests it's those complaints that drew their attention to the fact that it isn't working as they intended it to. So perhaps some people got upset when (from their own perspective) they really didn't need to, but the end result of that (unnecessary?) outrage is that a problem was found and is being fixed before it's deployed.

There's a difference between having some feedback and deliberate misinformation, which is what we are seeing here.
The oft-quoted $30 is based on price and duration on beta.

Reference price, we have the following from Turbine via Sapience "Just a quick reminder that Beta is Beta. As such everything about it, including store pricing, is subject to change before going live.". This was posted a whole week ago on Sep 28th, not in beta but here in live, in this very thread. But people still quote this number as gospel. Reference duration, it's clear from the beta discussion that the 7 days should be game time, not real time. So the $30 is complete rubbish. And most of those quoting it know it is.

The only time anyone equated these to $30 per character was before anyone shared that info from the beta discussion. So no, it wasn't rubbish, nor deliberate misinformation, it was valid according to the only information people had at the time. If later information changes the results for the better, then great, but don't villanize people for not having information they had no access to having.

[Darmokk]

Mixing real world time and game time is a bad idea.

I understand it has to be done for some things like repeatable daily quests, but anything longer is a really bad idea. I don't want the standing of my account to erode away if I don't log in for a while.

A MMO is a second world that I log into when I have time and feel like it. The whole point is that I find my account and my characters to be the same regardless of how much real time has passed (within reason, of course there are code changes).

[Trilwych]

There's a difference between having some feedback and deliberate misinformation, which is what we are seeing here.
The oft-quoted $30 is based on price and duration on beta.

Reference price, we have the following from Turbine via Sapience "Just a quick reminder that Beta is Beta. As such everything about it, including store pricing, is subject to change before going live.". This was posted a whole week ago on Sep 28th, not in beta but here in live, in this very thread. But people still quote this number as gospel. Reference duration, it's clear from the beta discussion that the 7 days should be game time, not real time. So the $30 is complete rubbish. And most of those quoting it know it is.

This is the reason these discussions should be in beta. To stop misconceptions and malicious misinformation.

Fair point. I rarely visit the forums anymore, though--

This is not true at all - the bold part. I for one did not know until right now that it was meant to not be in real time. How could I have known? No one until now has stated in this thread that the intention for the item was not to be in real time.

This does not make sense, saying "it's clear from the beta discussion that the 7 days should be game time" because most of us do not have access to the beta forum. It's like saying: everyone should know that information since its written in the classified government documents that few people have access to.

Unless I missed it no one has said until now (a few posts before this) that the item will not be in real time. Everything we said was based on the only information we had. I am glad Turbine is not pricing this at such a ridiculous cost.

I don't have access to Bullroarer, and on the Riders of Rohan Discussion board, I see no threads about the XP disabler except the one I posted back in July. So I'd have never known about this in any shape or form unless someone posted to General, beta/misconceptions and all. There's a line between necessary awareness and malicious misinformation... And I highly doubt Turbine took any effort to make the thing known so more testers could look at it and say the real-time timer was wrong. Sometimes noise needs to be made to see if something is WAI.

I don't suppose anything has changed by now?

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[Thoroval]

I don't suppose anything has changed by now?

After additional testing by myself and others, it is confirmed the item currently expires in real time. Sapience has stated on the beta boards that the intent is to expire in game time, so I and others have /bugged it.

[Boraxxe]

After additional testing by myself and others, it is confirmed the item currently expires in real time. Sapience has stated on the beta boards that the intent is to expire in game time, so I and others have /bugged it.

Just to clarify terms here:

When you say "real time" you mean actual calender days. So "7 days" = buy on Tuesday, expires on the following Tuesday.

When you say "game time" you mean actual played hours. So "7 days" = lasts for 168 played hours.

True?

[Crell_1]

Just to clarify terms here:

When you say "real time" you mean actual calender days. So "7 days" = buy on Tuesday, expires on the following Tuesday.

When you say "game time" you mean actual played hours. So "7 days" = lasts for 168 played hours.

True?

Correct for 'Real Time'

There's still the lingering question of whether or not game time (And thus Sapience's statement) is meant to be 'time logged in on the character' OR 'time that the NO XP BUFF is active'. That's something else we've yet to get a response on.

[Boraxxe]

Correct for 'Real Time'

There's still the lingering question of whether or not game time (And thus Sapience's statement) is meant to be 'time logged in on the character' OR 'time that the NO XP BUFF is active'. That's something else we've yet to get a response on.

Ah, that would make a big difference (if it's something we have to pay for).

[John_Webb]

Correct for 'Real Time'

There's still the lingering question of whether or not game time (And thus Sapience's statement) is meant to be 'time logged in on the character' OR 'time that the NO XP BUFF is active'. That's something else we've yet to get a response on.

I take it as exactly what he said Game time logged into the character with the Item.
That would still be a lot of time on the Item 168 hours of logged in time.

Use time or active buff time would be the way it should/would have been
phrased otherwise...of course allowing for Turbines inconsistent communications.

I would think if it only counted while logged in and active not doing crafting or grey mobs
role playing etc it almost becomes a permenant item and that I would believe definetly was not
Turbines intention as it would lead to fewer sales.

[RicardoFurriel]

Where did Amlug's post go?

*wonders*

[NickStern]

Where did Amlug's post go?

*wonders*

That was in the Bete forum not here...
At least I did not see the post here.

[RicardoFurriel]

That was in the Bete forum not here...
At least I did not see the post here.

I read it and I'm not in Beta. Just wondering...

[Sapience]

Just thought I'd update everyone. The XP disabler will not release with Riders of Rohan. Beta testers confirmed it was not working as we intended and we have also decided to make additional changes to the item based on feedback from testers.

While we don't have a reliable ETA for when it will be available, our current hope is that we can get it to you before the end of the year.