Eh wtf I thought I was quoting, but that isn't so. I was respondint to posts 56-58 that can be summed up with:

58 Re: No subject Jul 13, 13:31 Overon

Translation: "Bla bla bla, monkeys, evolution ,gay marrage"
HUH?

.
57. Re: No subject Jul 13, 13:27 Fausticle

Wow. We're all good little indoctrinated socialists, aren't we?

Flinging around the word "Corporate" as though ALL Corporations are "Evil and Greedy" is just plain nonsense.

Are their "Evil and greedy" companies? Sure. And Flagship falls into that category via their ridiculous pricing scheme. A model that thankfully failed.

But remember... a LOT of these "Corporations" (And privately held companies) provide YOU with a JOB. The Next time your "Professor from a University" or your "Typical Main Stream Media Journalist" get's on his / her political soap box, please remind them of that fact.

Translation: "Bla bla bla, monkeys, evolution ,gay marrage"

=========================

Apologies for the quoting. I can't ever make bluesnews forum posts quote the way I intend.

This comment was edited on Sep 7, 21:23.

The implication is that the original poster - wtf_man - is simply rehashing the same conservative talking points that have pretty much wrecked our country. Fausticle is implying that defending corporations is up there with, and largely associated with people who get bent out of shape about evolution, gay marriage, and so on.

I'm inclined to agree with him, but there are some -not a lot of, I think - financial conservatives who loathe the bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging social conservative side. To my mind, the social conservatives and the finacial conservatives are equally superstitious, but that's an argument for another day.

PS I summon Derek Smart. Derek Smart! (and for a third time) Derek Smart!

Vitriol and fanboism is alive and well on the interwebs everywhere.

Oh, I'm sorry. Next time I'll run everything by you before posting, would that suit you better?

Can you cc: me on those updates, Creston? I really should be watching over you.
Where's that jerk Bronco?
Up to no good :o,
Ray

-----
I'm looking for some alien toilet to park my bricks; who's first?
http://www.flagshipped.com/
I love you, mom.

pretty sure they never said that. they did say there would be bug fixes and changes every month, but actual content would be quarterly.

They said, and I'm paraphrasing, that they'd release small content every month. And by small content, they referred to "An extra character class. Or some new monsters."

And then every three months they'd do a huge update, like a whole new area, etc.

unless they said that at some point before it was released and in stone in which case it was pointless bringing it up.

Oh, I'm sorry. Next time I'll run everything by you before posting, would that suit you better?

Creston

JohnnyRotten I am and admirer of your posts and the one you made is eloquent. Very well put.

Dammit Overon, I expect vitriol and/or fanboi'sm here at BN. I'm very disappointed in you.

(But thanks for the compliment)

- J

This comment was edited on Jul 17, 00:35.

JohnnyRotten I am and admirer of your posts and the one you made is eloquent. Very well put.

This comment was edited on Jul 16, 15:48.

Creston, although post 70 is right in every way, you worded it in a very elitist way, are you just a very angry person? For the sake of yourself you should try to chill out a bit.

Remember that, at first, it was going to be MONTHLY content updates, and HUGE updates every quarter. Did they actually make ANY of those updates, apart from that Stonehenge shit?

pretty sure they never said that. they did say there would be bug fixes and changes every month, but actual content would be quarterly.

unless they said that at some point before it was released and in stone in which case it was pointless bringing it up.

Monday passes, and no word from FSS.

A list of some things that Flagship should have known:

When you position your product as a spiritual successor to a hugely success product (D2), and you want to supplant that product, you need to deliver something that takes the original product in a revolutionary, not evolutionary direction. It needs to be bigger, faster, brighter, louder, badder, harder, flashier - pick your adjective. If you’re going to deliver a clone, and a weak sister clone (IMHO) at that, while you’ve been out selling it as sci-fi D3, you’re in deep trouble.

Hubris is not something you want to project when trying to sell your product unless you are delivering the best product of all time, and maybe not even then. Humility sells, hubris angers.

Selling a game at the normal full cost and then expecting a monthly subscription fee to overcome the artificial barriers (inventory, game modes, etc) that you put into place isn’t a value proposition for the customer. Unless you’ve built an incredible product, they’ll simply walk away. This is why everyone else goes with the expansion pack model. You box up the value proposition and then get it in front of the customer. The customer’s perception is that now I’ve gotten the game PLUS, as opposed to the general preception of Flagships model, which is full price game MINUS.

Positioning a product as both SP and MP, and then throwing the SP players under the bus (I refer you to FSS’s Bogustus’s statement on the matter) isn’t good business. Those customers will have little-to-no incentive to purchase anything from you again.

You don’t promise quarterly content upgrades, and not deliver them, and then worse, start telling people the next quarterly update will be done when it’s done. One might argue that the quarterly update was the only real value proposition to subscribing, i.e., the only non artificial barrier placed between the full box price PLUS and the full box price MINUS customers. When you don’t deliver, your paying PLUS customers tend to get a wee bit upset, and your MINUS customers turn the flame on.

If you constantly over promise and then constantly under deliver, you need to spend time mending fences, and not playing the victim. After awhile, even the most ardent fanboi is going to realize how much s/he’s been screwed, and who the victim really is.

When you’ve damaged, bent, and outright broken the trust relationship between yourself and your customers this badly, you need to go out the way to re-establish it. You don’t pretend nothing’s wrong, you don’t pretend its business as usual, and you never, ever, let rumors get out of hand (I refer you to the current situation)*.

* As a corollary, don’t let your forum moderator grunts make light of a situation which is perceived to be serious by the community. It’s unprofessional, and it reflects badly on your company (who, after all, hired/contracted the moderators).

And last, but not least, the cake is a lie.

To forestall the usual false dichotomy choices of what would you rather have, X or Y (broken game or no game, working MP/no SP or broken both, etc, etc, ad naseum), don’t bother. Complex problems rarely solve down to a binary set, unless the person trying to solve the problem has deliberately chosen to wear blinders.

Also, I’m not in interested in hearing about how it’s not FSS’s fault, they really are the victim here because they were a “small company” with “limited resources” and a “limited budget”. Hey, no kidding. It wasn’t like they pulled these facts out of a hat the day before they pushed the epic fail that the release version was out the door. They knew these facts before they even started the project. Any failure because of “small company”, “limited resources” and/or “limited budget” is still a failure of FSS’s, not random chance, or bad luck. Bad planning, bad management, and a lack of vision brought them to today.

Remember that, at first, it was going to be MONTHLY content updates, and HUGE updates every quarter. Did they actually make ANY of those updates, apart from that Stonehenge shit?

Damm Creston, I forgot about that. Good point. I also recall several people on BN saying how difficult it was to be to deliver on that promise, and the fanboi's going into automatic denial mode.

Also something that is becoming more prevalent on Blue's News...the newest generation of gamers seem to be spoiled, crass and shallow.

Most of the people on this site have been gamers since the 70s or the 80s, imbecile.

Coincidentally, those were ALSO the people who said, right from the start, that the whole "You're RENTING content for 10 bucks a month, we're under NO OBLIGATION to actually DELIVER that content and you can pay us 150 dollars now with again NO OBLIGATION on our side to actually deliver anything, oh and we're going to have in game ads, ALONG with our 50 dollar game AND monthly subscription fee" was nothing but a way to make as much money as fast as possible before Roper and his homos fled the sinking ship.
(Jesus, long run on sentence alert...)

And guess what? We were all right. What's wrong kid, got tricked into spending 150 bucks for nothing? Or are you now frantically refreshing the online services page, hoping that that unsubscribe button will be put back soon?

Maybe next time you'll listen, huh?

Here, let me throw you a freebie. Call your credit card company and tell them to no longer allow the monthly charge. Problem solved.

Next time, listen to your elders.

Now fuck off.

Creston

This comment was edited on Jul 14, 23:52.

the promised-but-never-delivered quarterly content updates

Remember that, at first, it was going to be MONTHLY content updates, and HUGE updates every quarter. Did they actually make ANY of those updates, apart from that Stonehenge shit?

Anyone who was paying for this crap after 2 months is just really deluded, and must believe in some fairy tale that people are "inherently good" or something?

Creston

I'm amazed they kept the scam going as long as they did, but they probably figured they had bled the entire community as dry as it was going to get.

For all those who paid a monthly fee and kept defending Bill Roper's honesty : How ya feel about ol' Bill now?

Creston

It's Monday and you still cannot take thirty seconds from stuffing all your suitcases with Founders' money to announce anything.

People still can't un-subscribe.

Bravo, your company takes the cake. Amazing.
Bravo, Flagship employees, you're all *ssh*l*s!
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c58/dragoneyes001/BRkorea2copy.jpg

...,
Ray

-----
I'm looking for some alien toilet to park my bricks; who's first?
http://www.flagshipped.com/
I love you, mom.

Sacred 2 should be out around September '08, check that out till D3 comes out.

Oh well, too bad about Mythos though, I was really looking forward to that game. I guess Ill have to wait for D3 for my Action RPG fix now.

A sad day

Also something that is becoming more prevalent on Blue's News...the newest generation of gamers seem to be spoiled, crass and shallow.

How on Earth do you define or separate the newest generation of gamers from the rest? Nowhere can you determine how long any particular poster has been playing games, nor how old they are. Your statement is simply bollocks.

People are more vocal of their opinions than they were many years ago because the internet has expanded considerably, as has the number of gamers. People also have high expectations after having played so many great games over the years - I still frequently compare games with the original Half-Life, Unreal Tournament or Final Fantasy VII. I'm happy to see a company like Flagship go under when they pushed for a business model that worked against the interests of gamers. I was also annoyed by their outright lies in the press, which have recently been exposed. They didn't treat gamers with any respect and as such I have none for them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Founder of the "I Hate Smiley Fitz" society

Remember: Riley has autism. He has trouble communicating, and in an overstimulating
environment, he can get frightened and run away, leaving his parents frantic. - Auburn

What's great about Flagship failing?


Other companies will be much, much more reluctant to move to a monthly fee without offering a single damn thing that requires it.