Streamer priority confirmed. PoE is free to play, so play it for free, but Boycott GGG.

GGG! How about an MTX divided cape, kind of like the ribbon mobs in the Solaris/Lunaris temples, but with more splits so the flaps resemble streamers?

"Streamer Privilege": Get ahead of the crowd with this commemorative cape.

Make it available in various colors, 150 points each and also have one or two special designs that drop sparkling, multicolored particles as you run and the streamers are flapping about. 250 points. Now those would be capes to behold!

Chris's weekly Q&A sessions have been an interesting way to do some rebuilding. They may not bring back dollars right away, but they are spending real time and effort to engage players. A distraction from the issues? Maybe, but as far as players go, it is a good one.

It is hard for me not to see it all as damage control. Which is perfectly fine as long as people are aware that this attempt to return to visibility and not just flitting accountability is a reaction and thus to some degree forced if not coerced.

The fact that it's being done by way of streamers doesn't really assuage either hahahaha.

But I guess His voice is too strong now to be delivered unfiltered and alone. Interviews are rarely as unstructured as they try to appear but that doesn't mean they're not earnest or elucidating.

I still think the real game is reading between the lines but the risk with that is picking the wrong lines. Beats taking obvious spin at face value though.

Interesting but not surprising that it took a dramatic change to the individual experience to incur significant revenue loss rather than these more easily swept away breaches of conduct. I suppose one does lead to the other in some vague way: they were overconfident with this thread's topic; they largely got away with it; they remained overconfident and yet again tested players' limits, but this time with the gameplay itself; they apparently didnt get away with it. But like I said that is only a vague connection.

I think the real connective tissue here is in both cases a company that has been running this same game for a decade or so has made some pretty rookie mistakes that resulted in self-goals. Although that is only when said rookie is overconfident and unwilling to listen to feedback. Oddly enough that isn't the sort of rookie GGG was. They were if anything hesitant and very open to feedback. In short they had an unusually strong bond with their players early on -- the cynic in me knows why; the optimist doesn't want to hear it thank you very much.

So it's almost like they've gone from one type of rookie, one type of amateurism, to another. At no point did I get a sense that GGG was a mature, comfortable company delivering its product with confidence and reliability. Perhaps I am not alone on that.

And I don't really think that is their fault. PoE was always going to be a blazing comet and even its devs, its creators and "owners", were going to be dragged along for the ride.

I really do love re-watching that 2011 gamingplanet.co.nz video showcasing a very young, very eager GGG. Oh, you had no idea what was going to happen. What was going to happen...to you.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

So it's almost like they've gone from one type of rookie, one type of amateurism, to another. At no point did I get a sense that GGG was a mature, comfortable company delivering its product with confidence and reliability. Perhaps I am not alone on that.

And I don't really think that is their fault. PoE was always going to be a blazing comet and even its devs, its creators and "owners", were going to be dragged along for the ride.

Eh, they're the ones who settled on a quarterly release schedule and scope creeping their expansions + staff to the point it got. Which is to say they put themselves under some serious pressure and crunch, which opens the door to decisions, actions, and statements prone to...whatever you want to call the last 6 months.

Thanks Charan.

Clearly in the last month Chris/GGG has shown a different face to the community and each of us will spin that change towards the outcome we want to express. I've only been playing since April of 2014 and have none of your first-hand experience with the early game, GGG and Chris. My tendency is to take a business oriented perspective because I come out of that senior management environment. many growing companies make missteps, some serious and others less so. Usually it takes a significant customer/public outcry to create a true wakeup call for top managers. When that happens customers get to decide if the change is real, the public face of the company is genuine and if the changes benefit them as customers. I do not know if Chris is genuine in his communications efforts of late or if he is papering over stuff to buy time and good will. You are probably a better judge of that.

At this point I give him the benefit of the doubt. I think he has recognized that he and GGG have made some serious missteps. Some long sought changes to gameplay seem to be manifesting. More might be coming sooner rather than later. He seems to be talking to the forums more and Reddit less? Idk, I don't go there.

If Chris is faking it, we will all know soon enough and the hole he dug for the company will get much bigger. I like the game enough to let him keep trying while I keep playing. I'm mostly playing Standard this league; the Excavations aren't interesting enough to overcome the leveling, leveling, leveling boredom. The streamer issue is less relevant to me since I don't watch any of them. I just play for fun.

Running a $70 million USD company is hard to do. Running one that has customers who you know and who know you makes it even more difficult. I trust that Chris wants POE to continue to be successful and have happy players while at the same time he tries to stay focused on his vision for the game. A vision that has evolved over the years as resources and staff have grown. I imagine him sitting at his desk thinking: "If only they could see what is coming in POE2, they would be amazed!"

Getting there with the current game continues to be an anchor they are longing to cut away, but can't. I am hoping that Chris has made a significant course correction regarding gameplay and communicating with all of those who play POE.

I think faking it is far too simple in this case. He is naturally diplomatic, and I think, believes his own words. Which isn't to say they're false or misleading. OTOH maybe that's just me insulating myself against a mastermind manipulator's possible influence. I couldn't tell you. I can say that my acrimony and contentiousness never once outlasted his ability to placate. Whether that is because I was being irrational or because he's a smooth operator, again, I have no idea.

But unlike me, GGG has words *and* actions, and I choose to listen to the latter these days. If I listen at all.

As regards the running of the company, yeah. I couldn't. I have trouble sleeping when a thousand bucks is on the line. Some people are cut out for high stress living where the fate of hundreds of lives and millions of dollars is their daily fare. I'm dead sure Chris is. But I was also dead sure he'd someday cash out as is his due and relax but that clearly didn't happen. I suspect a condition of the big sale was him sticking around to keep the goose laying those golden eggs (not the first time I've used that one, because it works) which means the pay day...wasn't really. Sure. He gets to keep working on his baby but the whole point of rearing something from birth is to someday let it go. Let others more equipped to help or grow take over and I dunno, retire and reap the rewards. Thing is, I've seen a lot of people retire fairly young and fairly rich and they've blown it. I know Chris is more than aware of this as well. So there is a sanity to staying on despite not financially needing to. Despite knowing deep down you are no longer the boss.

But I genuinely think PoE ran its course as a great game a while ago. And what a run it was. It's just sort of unnatural now to me. Like a faded movie star with way too much plastic surgery and questionable support in an inherently compromised industry. In healthier times we would have seen a true second GGG game by now. And I reckon it would have been something truly incredible. But in the age of the GaaS, sequels are rare and the aim of the game is less about making incredible things and more about making incredible numbers. Player count. Concurrency. Viewers. Revenue. There is little room for art in there.

Anyway, there are beds we make and beds we lie in. The quality of the sheets and the fluffiness of the pillows matter little when you are stuck there.

Re: self inflicted: I think that is another case of victim of circumstance. Of momentum. And inertia. But it might just come down to the possibility that they number crunched it all and figured out exactly how little each league needed to still rake in the support. We will never know that one I suspect.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Anyway, there are beds we make and beds we lie in. The quality of the sheets and the fluffiness of the pillows matter little when you are stuck there.

It is like complaining where they sleep. The landlord ever so often doing renovation and construction on the house without notice. Except you don't rent the place it is free, but you bought all the furnitures fasten securely in a particular place or position. Lamenting they can't choose to sleep somewhere else because all their lovely furnitures are there. People can't go somewhere else or do they just don't want to?

Is this the case of self inflicted injuries or victim of circumstance?

Well this is pivoting my analogy in an unfair way. The condition I set was a complete lack of freedom to leave the bed, which then invalidates its level of comfort. The gilded cage.

Remove that condition and naturally it no longer works. Then it's no longer a cage.

But if the argument became one of perceived imprisonment due to attachment to comforts and perks, then I think the gaping hole where my $20,000 or so worth of mtxes used to be is a perfect rebuke. They were an anchor about my neck, and their obliteration felt like emancipation. They once brought me such joy, such pride...but by the end they were just meaningless reminders of someone else's war in which I happened to pick a side and support that side generously.

That side lost, even though those waving its prosperous flag claim otherwise.

On 'faking it' what Chris is doing now is indistinguishable on either side of that proposition.

A) If GGG wanted to 'fake it' and placate the 'outrage' what would they do? Make the 'media rounds' - not to the gaming press but to people that players have a connection with - streamers. They would say things like, 'we hear you, we understand, we agree' then do very little to enact what players say they want.

B) If GGG truly wanted to be contrite and was willing to do what the community suggested in a good faith effort to give them what they say they want, what would they do? Make the 'media rounds' with streamers and by proxy their audience (which totals to tens of thousands of players) and gather feedback and have a back and forth, do some reflection on both sides of the issues, then compromise.

So at this point in time we have 0 way of knowing which it is. How much compromise comes in the next two patch cycles? That will be our answer.

I know damn well how much of a rock and a hard place they are between because Chris is right about a lot of the gamer psychology he talks about. With many suggestions out there it really is a "you think you want the systems to work this way but you don't" scenario because players are absolutely awful at imagining all the ways in which their 'fixes' break other things for other players with other preferences.

Time proves everything right or wrong though.

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innervation wrote:

So at this point in time we have 0 way of knowing which it is. How much compromise comes in the next two patch cycles? That will be our answer.

Time proves everything right or wrong though.

The suspense is killing me. I can't wait for 3.16 patch notes.

I think it says something about GGG though because we really have no clue as to what is going to happen or even if it is tilted towards something.