This Is Going To Be A Great MMO

ArchivedUser

Rhoqaro said:

I really appreciate your faith and passion in this project, @Krojak. I wish I could blindly trust Intrepid as much as you do. I personally like their style, their ideas and the direction in which they are working. Alas, that's not enough to give me confidence that everything is going to be alright for sure.

You ask me to bet, and indeed I'm betting. I am backing the project, and I am doing it with joy, since I want to help ideas like this one to become a reality, to concretely shape the future of MMORPG and how we think about online gaming. Personally, I'm not too worried about my money either: I am sure that I'm supporting a dream, more than purchasing a product, and I'm okay with that. Even if everything would eventually fail, I won't regret my choice. In my opinion, this kind of reward is worth the risk.

Anyway, I don't agree with you, when you say that Intrepid should be trusted just because they gives us a good feeling. In my opinion, that's the worst stance we (as supporters) could maintain, if our goal is to see this project succeed. 

Please, bear this in mind: the last thing I desire is to attack you, or to seem aggressive or opinionated. You are an amazing member of this community, helpful and caring, and you earned my respect. I am bringing my point to everyone's attention because I believe blind optimism may lead any project directly to its grave.
I've already seen a smaller, but very promising game sink miserably, for reasons frightfully similar. The most faithful members of that community were just unshakably sure that everything was going to be alright. No choice from developers team could ever be wrong, since they were working with such dedication. This supporters were so certain in their belief, that all criticism got quietly ignored, left behind, mockingly commented.
There's no reason to be afraid, everything is going to be alright!

Unfortunately, the project failed. Ironically, some of reasons leading to that were extensively expressed on the forums, but ultimately left unheard. Needless to say that it was quite a shock for me and for many others, since we believed in the project with all our hearts. 

This is why I cannot accept to just sit back, relax and enjoy a faithful wait.
I'm not implying that I'm pessimist regard all this.
I'm not saying things will inevitably fail.
I'm not declaring that I have all the answers, that I'm right and everyone else is wrong. 
My point is that this community should be vigilant, and highlight everything that may represent a danger for AoC. Things tends spontaneously to chaos, it is known. This is why criticism is so important: it can help Intrepid avoid derailing, due to reasons they ignore but that may be foreseen by someone among us.

I try doing my best to make my voice be heard, disapproving when I feel compelled to, always in a constructive way. And I beg, with all my heart, all the most faithful member of this forum to do the same: don't let your affection towards the game prevent your rationality from analyze what's going on. Always try to look at AoC from a broader point of view, farther than your attached one, envisaging how every choice may influence its future. 

Don't pity those who doubt these Jockeys, but try to understand them.
For without their criticism, this dream will never be more than a dream.

Wow. I read your first paragraph and was all set to say "Whaaaa???"

Then I kept reading (yay, me!), and I gotta say, I agree with you on most points; I read your quote from @Krojak and, even with that quote, I still don't think his belief or enthusiasm are blind. Just my .02/worth.

However, I still must agree with what you've said, and yes, I also believe it is our responsibility to hold IS to the standard they've already set with us, should that ever be necessary.

I actually hope it won't be, but missteps can happen. The good? They appear to be willing, even grudgingly, to say "Oops. Recovering now."

That helps to confirm the hope, I think.

ArchivedUser

ArchivedUser

I will say that I have learned one lesson though....

Prior to SOE Live 2014, I had a bunch of guild logo stickers made... 


Yeah...  *sigh*
I'm waiting for Ashes to come out before I get any new ones made. 

ArchivedUser

Rumbleforge said:

I will say that I have learned one lesson though....

Prior to SOE Live 2014, I had a bunch of guild logo stickers made... 


Yeah...  *sigh*
I'm waiting for Ashes to come out before I get any new ones made. 

Now I want an AWWWW button!

ArchivedUser

send me one when my bats come by

ArchivedUser

nagash said:

send me one when my bats come by

I would gladly give you one... or two... or three... 
For all the good they do me now, I might as well use them to patch holes. 

ArchivedUser

Rumbleforge said:

I will say that I have learned one lesson though....
Prior to SOE Live 2014, I had a bunch of guild logo stickers made.

This makes me pretty sad, for a number of reasons.

Isende said:

I actually hope it won't be, but missteps can happen. The good? They appear to be willing, even grudgingly, to say "Oops. Recovering now."

Of course. I'm aware that the unexpected may always come, and I like to think that developers will be determined and resolute enough to overcome them all. I'm also glad about how Intrepid is behaving in regards to transparency (I'm still waiting for an official declaration about the situation with the summer backing campaign, but I'm sure clarifications will soon come).

What scares me the most, anyway, is always how fast bad advertising may spread starting from an apparently no-big-deal, as the above mentioned event, ending up by quickly becoming a major issue to be deal with. Once you give people a reason to attack you, it's quite easy to be marked as a liar, a crook, a thief. Such accusations are always magnified and often exaggerated, but it's not easy to deal with them on the internet. Especially when, in the process, you also have to fight against an army of detractors, haters and trolls willing only to add fuel to the fire.

These kind of situations may be very hard, if not impossible, to be reversed once triggered. This is why, I believe, to prevent them is better than trying to recover from them. This is also the reason why I truly hope that Intrepid has learned from what happened, striving to be as more accurate and coherent as possible from now on.

We all saw how much a minor phrasing carelessness may be harmful. Just think about all the time they invested, deciding how to deal with the wave of indignation on the forum! Regardless our stance towards that resentment, it's clear that turmoils like that should be always avoided, if possible. Keep stumbling into this kind of misunderstandings, being forced to invest resources to assess them, is way worse than trying to avoid them in the first place.

I really hope that Intrepid will develop a well thought-out public relations strategy. That could really help.

ArchivedUser

I have high hopes for this game, but I also have a healthy level of skepticism.  So far we have seen very little in the way of concrete gameplay mechanics and we're relying on the devs to communicate their vision.  @Diura has done a great job of cataloging this information, but I have seen a ton of speculation/assertions on this forum about what this game will be.  In the absence of conflicting information from IS it's easy to let our imaginations run wild, setting up AoC as our own personal ideal of an MMO, but that can lead to a big disappointment as we learn more about the game.  

Like I said, I am hopeful that this game will be a great experience, and I anxiously await each drop of information from IS.