Friday, September 19, 2003
"Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos once again raises the bar for intensity and strategic action in the MMORPG genre," said Jason Rubinstein, general manager of ubi.com. "Wolfpack listened to the Shadowbane community and incorporated many of their wishes into the game. The expansion pack provides players with a host of new features and unlocks new dangerous zones, including ruins and volcanic wastelands, which take Shadowbane to the next level."
Once again raises the bar in the MMOG genre? Shadowbane is still as unstable and buggy as the day it was released from Beta to Retail and they have the cajones' to release a retail expansion pack while ignoring the serious game stopping issues already affecting their declining user base? Apparently contrary to promises a players monthly fee no longer includes stability or bug fixes.
Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos features new high-level content, and a new race, the Nephilim, a chaotic fusion of demon and man that has arisen from the forces of darkness. In addition, the expansion provides new character classes, disciplines, an additional character slot, two new macro zones, and enhanced environmental graphics. Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos is being designed and developed by Wolfpack Studios, based in Austin, Texas, and is operated and supported by Ubisoft's online gaming division ubi.com™, among the top five gaming portals in the world.
Great, "high level content", a must have for a game that takes a week of power leveling to max out your character making it a moot point for the PvP'ers that play the game. Whether it's a level 1 grobold, or a level 100 ub3r grobold it's still boring for PvP players and just comes down to more PvE farming.
Taking into account Shadowbane's drasticly declining subscriber count which is estimated to be in the 40,000-50,000 range, one can only wager this is a last ditch effort to boost paying subscribers and return to profitability. If anything, Shadowbane didn't learn a single lesson from the Anarchy Online beta launch debacle and history repeats itself once again in MMORPG land.
Once again raises the bar in the MMOG genre? Shadowbane is still as unstable and buggy as the day it was released from Beta to Retail and they have the cajones' to release a retail expansion pack while ignoring the serious game stopping issues already affecting their declining user base? Apparently contrary to promises a players monthly fee no longer includes stability or bug fixes.
Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos features new high-level content, and a new race, the Nephilim, a chaotic fusion of demon and man that has arisen from the forces of darkness. In addition, the expansion provides new character classes, disciplines, an additional character slot, two new macro zones, and enhanced environmental graphics. Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos is being designed and developed by Wolfpack Studios, based in Austin, Texas, and is operated and supported by Ubisoft's online gaming division ubi.com™, among the top five gaming portals in the world.
Great, "high level content", a must have for a game that takes a week of power leveling to max out your character making it a moot point for the PvP'ers that play the game. Whether it's a level 1 grobold, or a level 100 ub3r grobold it's still boring for PvP players and just comes down to more PvE farming.
Taking into account Shadowbane's drasticly declining subscriber count which is estimated to be in the 40,000-50,000 range, one can only wager this is a last ditch effort to boost paying subscribers and return to profitability. If anything, Shadowbane didn't learn a single lesson from the Anarchy Online beta launch debacle and history repeats itself once again in MMORPG land.
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
In yet another unique twist to improving MMORPG customer service trends Sony Online Entertainment has announched the following:
"Greetings, There have been many improvements made within Star Wars Galaxies recently that have corrected many of the issues that have generated a large volume of Customer Service tickets. Currently, a high percentage of CSR time is spent answering solved issues, limiting their ability to spend time on unresolved issues that need immediate attention. In order to increase the response time for current customer service issues, all existing tickets will be purged from the system today. Our end goal here is to give faster response time for those who have active problems. We encourage you to resubmit any open issue you may have and we will work towards addressing it as fast as possible. Please check the website for a full post complete with details. Thanks!"
This takes the cake as they wipe hundreds of thousands of trouble tickets from their customers, many for serious issues of players like myself that have had player structures stuck, couldn't be redeeded, kept eating maintenance fees, and lets not mention the fact I've yet to get any service from Customer Service after a week in queue (Do they exist?).
"Greetings, There have been many improvements made within Star Wars Galaxies recently that have corrected many of the issues that have generated a large volume of Customer Service tickets. Currently, a high percentage of CSR time is spent answering solved issues, limiting their ability to spend time on unresolved issues that need immediate attention. In order to increase the response time for current customer service issues, all existing tickets will be purged from the system today. Our end goal here is to give faster response time for those who have active problems. We encourage you to resubmit any open issue you may have and we will work towards addressing it as fast as possible. Please check the website for a full post complete with details. Thanks!"
This takes the cake as they wipe hundreds of thousands of trouble tickets from their customers, many for serious issues of players like myself that have had player structures stuck, couldn't be redeeded, kept eating maintenance fees, and lets not mention the fact I've yet to get any service from Customer Service after a week in queue (Do they exist?).
