Game is bleeding bad. Its barely holding on to the steam top 10 and will most likely drop out of it this week.
Twitch viewership has disappeared. It now has less viewers than BDO. Thats not a good look no matter how you fanboys want to spin it.
None of this is a good look for amazon. This game was supposed to showcase Amazon’s amazing tech, game engine and twitch integration. I doubt amazon wanted to make a MMO that ends up having less players than Rust,BDO,Genshin impact, FFS even maplestory has more viewers on twitch consistently than New world.
The game will slowly bleed about 500 players a day. Lost ark will absolutely destroy the rest of the player base. Its f2p so why not try lost ark? Furthermore 15 seconds playing lost ark will make you cry because the combat is so fluid and the game feels so good to play you will slap yourself because you have forgotten how good a game could be.
The game is moving into the direction we knew about way before this happened. We knew about dungeon mutations from datamining even before release. We know about PVP instanced arenas and tournaments are coming next. We know dungeon finder is coming.
This is going to be another mediocre MMO, which isn’t bad, but not good either. So right now they have to bring something new, epic, to keep us interested. I like dungeon mutations, but it’s still about stupid orbs - and orbs are something nobody asked for.
We knew about mutated dungeons, new territories, weapons, etc. We DIDN’T KNOW about adding new GS grind on top of current GS grind without adding new content except mutated dungeons. We still don’t know if we would have an expansion, because of absence of the roadmap. And we even don’t know what will be in the February patch.
People most definitely didn’t know that any gear they currently own below 600GS will be trash come the release if you want to keep up with current progression. There are few of us that are able to 600GS all slots (ignoring using voidbent) and I have charged players a lot of coin for 595-599 gear that was really good, but not good enough.
While EU Consumer Law is quite strong, context would be everything in such an attempt to claim a refund. While server shutdown may be a clear cut case, what about server reduction and gameplay change?
If you now have to wait 5 minutes to log on to a player queue, is the game substantially different and you could claim a refund on the basis the product is not available? I would think that would fail. What about waiting 10 minutes? An hour?
What about maintenance - if they had maintenance that was always primetime EU, could you claim you are unable to use the product? Or if they add a patch that provides good rewards to customers logging in at certain times of the day and EU customers are generally unable to login?
What if the whole game changes to a subscription model, or existing resources are moved to future DLC areas?
Then the examples already given, AGS would work out how many EU players are left, keep a server open for <2 years based on purchase if it was cheaper to do so, or issue the refund if that was cheaper than 2 years of server costs.
I’m not coming at you aggressively with hypotheticals, just wondering how far EUCL would stretch.
Actually… they can. When you buy the game, you dont own it. You are paying for the license to play it. You agree to that when you accept the TOS.
2.4 Limited License. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to download, install, access, and use the Game Clients and associated Game Content only for your personal, non-commercial purposes.
and
4.1 Ownership. The Games, including the Game Clients, Game Services, Game Content, and all related data such as In-Game Items, marketing and advertising materials, lore, characters, character names and likenesses, catch phrases, artwork, etc., are our and our licensors’ intellectual property. All right, title, and interest in the Games are reserved and retained by us and our licensors.
I think forced is too strong of a word. However, when AGS shut down Crucible, they did offer refunds for money spent through Steam for a limited time. It’s one reason I’m still willing to support NW through the store, even though I’m pessimistic about the long term.
Maybe the mutations will be fun, I don’t know. I wasn’t too hopeful about the new expertise system, but I’m really enjoying it.
On the other hand, trashing gear under 600 is a massive mistake. Given rng, that’s a slap in the face to crafters and to people who have purchased gear just under 600. There is no logical reason to keep us from upgrading 590+ gear. It’s a horrible change.
Also, please rethink raising housing taxes to their previous levels. 20 percent was a ridiculously high tax rate to begin with. Too many companies will not lower taxes after the rates are reverted, meaning our taxes will be 3-4xs higher than before. I believe house taxes should stay at their current rates, but certainly no higher than 5 percent.
*Edited to add: AGS, what do you think will happen to your store furniture sales if many of us are forced to shutter our homes?
Ok, ok posting steam charts was a stupid move from the op but I think apart from that he still named some points to be concerned about:
-All gear nerfed down to expertise level scaling
-Everything under 600 un-upgradable and now worthless
-No priority or urgency to fix combat desync/OPR/weapons
-More Orbs to grind.
-Housing taxes going back up
I really think that these things have the potential to drive even more casual players away from the game.
It’s not a bug, it’s the issue with the whole netcode. It’s on another level of problems that are tuned during the game design not with a later patch, because everything is built into the netcode. Just accept it as is, because everyone’s experiencing this.
