Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "ruisen2000;507572"

Could it be that FEU might be trying to close down the game, and they're doing it by convincing us to leave the game, rather than closing it down and forcing us to leave?

If they forced us to leave, people who just bought dias will be mad. So, they try to convince us to leave by broken siege, and we'll leave on our own.

When it comes to profit, there is nobody more aware of any slight changes than FEU - and there is NO WAY that they are oblivious to the fact that broken siege is making them lose profits - bad. However, they still leave siege as it is, and keep us in the dark to let us despair. No info, nothing.

First, a broken download link so they new players cannot join, second, a private forums so that new players can't see the alternative downloading method, and now, a final push to remove players from the game...
I can't think up of any other explination for why they would intentially kill their profits.

I would assume they arent showing a decrease in profits. I only assume this because if they arent showing a decrease, why would they fix anything? Siege is one hour a day. And sure, there are plenty of people who spend money that only siege, however, the majority dont spend their money just to siege, they spend it to improve their toon for the other 23 hours a day. The ONLY way they should fix anything is if they do show a decrease in profits, otherwise "Dont fix something that isnt broke."

I think it would be a matter of how the game is doing everywhere (here, I mean "everywhere that Frogster has published it"). Because you can see that there's a pretty decent amount of RoM clients for various languages. There's the US, all the European servers, plus the Australian servers. I don't know how the game is doing overall, but just because the US isn't doing well doesn't mean the others aren't. I don't think lack of profit on our side would mean an end to RoM; it would mean an end to the US client. Whether or not that's what is happening I have no idea. There's been a lot of conspiracy-type theories over the years and none of them have held any water. (Probably someone from Frogster will eventually comment here because I know they don't like conspiracy theories...)

Seige is a very important part of the game to a very few people.
If seige really mattered to a large number of people the game would have died long ago. They run the game to keep the vast majority of the people happy and most people don't seige. If they ended seige tomorrow the game would go on just as before with just as many people. Compare the number of people who play the game with the number who seige and it isn't because seige doesn't work . If they fixed it tomorrow there would be a very small change in the number of people in seige and no new people would join the game. So no return on the money they spend fixing it.
The game is run to make a profit and there is little profit in seige. The profit is in new areas, better gear and new levels.That draws in new people and causes the old people to spend more money. That is where people will spend their money, so that is where Frogster will spend theirs.
It was very well stated before what matters more the 1 hour of seige or the other 23 hours of the day and even during that one hour a day there are as many people playing outside of seige as there are in seige.
Right now the greatest threat to seige is that Frogster looks at seige as a problem that brings in little or no money and creates constant complaints from a very small part of their game population. Seige is a lot of problems for little return on their money so that is why it isn't fixed. We are very lucky it is still part of the game.

I assume it is rather simple math. Getting rid of the most of US staff and not investing into maintaining US servers probably makes up for any player loss.

They have new, potentially more profitable titles coming out anyway so why would they bother investing into game that is doing just fine on its own. Changing forum setup, to hide negative comments from Google and new players, and moving servers, so that they are only 5 hours away from EU time, were probably the last significant investments this game will see on this side of the pond.

For totally selfish reasons, this is rather good situation for me. I tend to get addicted to things like this, but this game makes that rather hard - so I am just having fun. There is no ongoing investment and long term plans to build super-toon as that seems overkill for the game that might not be here in three months. Slowly gathering free stats, buying diamonds for gold, and not any more for cash, attempting siege here and there for a total of $0 and max 2 hours par day seems just fine.

As a free-to-play game, Runes of Magic, at this moment, is just perfect - It offers lots of content, lots of fun and no incentive to spend real money on it. The only downside is that, at some point, one of the servers will die and it will simply not be replaced any more. Please let it be Osha or Reni or anything else but Govinda.

Quoted from "aardvark3;507585"

Seige is a very important part of the game to a very few people.
If seige really mattered to a large number of people the game would have died long ago. They run the game to keep the vast majority of the people happy and most people don't seige. If they ended seige tomorrow the game would go on just as before with just as many people. Compare the number of people who play the game with the number who seige and it isn't because seige doesn't work . If they fixed it tomorrow there would be a very small change in the number of people in seige and no new people would join the game. So no return on the money they spend fixing it.
The game is run to make a profit and there is little profit in seige. The profit is in new areas, better gear and new levels.That draws in new people and causes the old people to spend more money. That is where people will spend their money, so that is where Frogster will spend theirs.
It was very well stated before what matters more the 1 hour of seige or the other 23 hours of the day and even during that one hour a day there are as many people playing outside of seige as there are in seige.
Right now the greatest threat to seige is that Frogster looks at seige as a problem that brings in little or no money and creates constant complaints from a very small part of their game population. Seige is a lot of problems for little return on their money so that is why it isn't fixed. We are very lucky it is still part of the game.

Yes the overall number of people who play siege is but a fraction of the total player base... That being said, the majority of highly geared players (people who spend money on this game) do participate in siege and see it as one of the better aspects of the game when not completely malfunctioning.

So for that reason, SW should be a high(ish) priority for Frogster. Although I don't know how much Frogster can actually do, they don't make the game, they just publish it. Runewaker is the one that should be fixing the problems.

I actually posted something just recently that reminds me of this thread.. but I reloaded the page the next morning and it had vanished overnight. However- I half expected it so I got a Print Screen of it. I posted no profanity, nothing against the rules, was actually encouraging players to not boycott diamonds, and the quoted excerpt was from the Support Site's public answer section.. though buried. A couple people I showed it to were even surprised it had vanished but I've heard repeatedly from others that Frogster doesn't like players informing eachother so I wasn't too surprised. Have a look (while you can) and see what you think of it.

Quoted from "paleflower;507590"

I actually posted something just recently that reminds me of this thread.. but I reloaded the page the next morning and it had vanished overnight. However- I half expected it so I got a Print Screen of it. I posted no profanity, nothing against the rules, was actually encouraging players to not boycott diamonds, and the quoted excerpt was from the Support Site's public answer section.. though buried. A couple people I showed it to were even surprised it had vanished but I've heard repeatedly from others that Frogster doesn't like players informing eachother so I wasn't too surprised. Have a look (while you can) and see what you think of it.

index.php?page=Attachment&attachmentID=3899

Oh and forgot to mention, in regards to siege itself.. I heard a great suggestion: Frogster ought to make a Siege Test Server, basically just siege every couple hrs which would give them faster, time-targeted feedback for testing out bug fixes and changes before adding them to the live game instead of waiting on one siege a day's feedback. Not to mention making a WHOLE LOT of players very very happy that they get to do siege whenever they are on, instead of missing it due to work/other time constraints.

Quoted from "paleflower;507592"

Oh and forgot to mention, in regards to siege itself.. I heard a great suggestion: Frogster ought to make a Siege Test Server, basically just siege every couple hrs which would give them faster, time-targeted feedback for testing out bug fixes and changes before adding them to the live game instead of waiting on one siege a day's feedback. Not to mention making a WHOLE LOT of players very very happy that they get to do siege whenever they are on, instead of missing it due to work/other time constraints.

and considering US siege starts at 5 AM EU time, it might be tough for any GMs to be around to witness the madness and tail -f the logs.

You can judge Frogster's level of concern by their quick response to this thread and their response of fixing Siege promptly when they broke Siege by moving the servers to a cheap server farm.

Quoted from "Xyrrth;507596"

You can judge Frogster's level of concern by their quick response to this thread and their response of fixing Siege promptly when they broke Siege by moving the servers to a cheap server farm.

How would they respond to a thread that was started at 4am? >.> Do you work at 4am? X_X

If you guys think for a bit..EU is the middle man..Runewaker does all the coding,programming..FEU are the producers of the game..so don't blame the middle man..something to think about hmmmm?

I miss Rodatas' tin-foil hat pictures. Really, guys, this is just a little into wacky-uncle-who-lives-in-the-attic territory.

Siege is not the entire game, yes there are people who log in just for siege, but most people I know are on for several hours before siege starts and often a couple after it. It's still normal to fight for daily item in some areas, and doesn't get anywhere near empty till 5am or so.

The biggest issue I have with the OP's theory that froggy's trying to drive people out of the game, is that that theory assumes players are stupid.
Think about it, if you rent an apartment and the management refuses to fix any problems, Do you move to the apartment next door in the same building, deal with the same owners and same management? No, you move to a completely different building with different owners and management

Frogster would be putting themselves in that same position if they attempted to drive payers out. People would say 'oh new game, that looks neat, oh wait never mind, it's frogster'

Quoted from "vfwiffo;507615"

I miss Rodatas' tin-foil hat pictures. Really, guys, this is just a little into wacky-uncle-who-lives-in-the-attic territory.

That is how I felt when I was reading the first page.

I don't mind conspiracies that are possible but when they are close to it impossible. I tend to just put on my own tin-foil hat and just stare.

its the aliens fault. totally.

but seriously
for those of you that are in the workforce, who have daily jobs look around you at work every now and then. is everyone busy giving 100%? all day long every day? probably not. from my 20 yrs of experience working various jobs in various fields in various states, most people seem to give max, about 40% of their attention to thier job. average. thats why i have said it for years and years you just cant find good help anymore. theyll fix it when they get around to it, after this pic uploads to facebook, and this post to twitter, and that new funny vid on youtube is done.

I'm not trying to troll or instigate, but I think some searching around the web will still show Runes of Magic to be one of(if not the) most popular F2P MMO on the market.

Quoted from "vfwiffo;507615"

I miss Rodatas' tin-foil hat pictures. Really, guys, this is just a little into wacky-uncle-who-lives-in-the-attic territory.

You know, I was thinking that at first, but then the more I thought, the more I couldn't really discredit it. I mean, FEU closed down FA, then they fired off the majority of American moderators, then the GMs stopped coming, then they moved the servers to some backwater area, then stuff started breaking, and it's not being repaired... really, how far down on the priorities list do we have to slip before you start to wonder if they really just don't give a @#$& anymore?

Quoted from "Silenteye7;507657"

You know, I was thinking that at first, but then the more I thought, the more I couldn't really discredit it. I mean, FEU closed down FA, then they fired off the majority of American moderators, then the GMs stopped coming, then they moved the servers to some backwater area, then stuff started breaking, and it's not being repaired... really, how far down on the priorities list do we have to slip before you start to wonder if they really just don't give a @#$& anymore?

Whether one is happy with the way game is managed or not, the premise here in OP is that "FEU might be trying to close down the game, and they're doing it by convincing us to leave the game". And that is truther-territorry tin-foilhattery.

I don't recall all that much happiness with the way the game was managed back when it was in US frogs hand. I do recall constant "why can't we be managed more like those lucky guys at EU?" comments.

Quoted from "vfwiffo;507666"

I do recall constant "why can't we be managed more like those lucky guys at EU?" comments.

"Be careful what you wish for ... you just might get it."