I picked up pizza for the kids on Friday. I don't usually buy Dominos, but had to get something next door. I ordered online to see a 25-35 minute pickup time. Showered and got dressed, arriving there 25 minutes later. I see a monitor over the counter with three pages of names cycling though, around 10 names per page.
My name had a pizza wait time of 11 minutes when I arrived at 5:48pm. It was down to 9 minutes by 5:50, then 8 minutes at 5:51. I thought to myself, wow, this was impressive tech. Except that the countdown froze at 8 minutes until 5:59 when the pizza hit the oven. I think it was in a box by around 6:08.
It was very busy, so I'd guess that their software isn't accounting for the finite production rates of the human workers. They were all rushing about, but it's too bad their software time estimation is so bad. You'd think it would be easy to look at the rate that pizzas are hitting the oven (in pizzas/minute), and then calculate the remaining time for the queue using live production rates. Very disappointing since the initial appearance of accuracy was belied by the reality of their low quality time estimate and the frozen countdown timer.
tl;dr. Don't give exact times if they are not accurate
One family on Vancouver Island got charged $35,000 for archeologists to check for arrowheads. I've heard of archeologists in BC (same firm as the $35k one) who registered a site near where I live onto the archeology registry without the owner's knowledge, because they thought they found arrowheads. Later on, when the local First Nations archeologist looked at them, she said "They're just rocks", and tossed them.
The adage for ranchers when it comes to endangered species used to be (and still may be) "shoot, shovel, and shut up". Same with artifacts in Canada, if you're smart.
You are an idiot for making the statement "over shining a light". Please don't breed.
Regardless of any problems with the prison system, or any debate on punishment versus rehabilitation, it was not "shining a light".
When you use a laser in that manner, you turn it into a weapon with the ability to blind people. Trying to blinding people at the controls of an airplane is attempted mass murder in my books.
If he can do PLCs, I'd hire him tomorrow for water utility work. Wonder if he wants to move to Canada?
Small utilities and municipalities do not usually have in-house instrument technicians, and in some areas, the local instrument tech companies have a virtual monopoly. Every water, wastewater, and traffic light system is run with PLCs and SCADA, and it all requires constant maintenance, updating, and improvements. We probably spend 60-80k a year on our contracted instrument technicians, and we're a small utility with less than 15 staff.
As far as older workers, maybe I'm an aberration, but a 58 year old guy has a ton of experience to add, and isn't going to be job hopping. I'll get a solid 7 years, rather than a variable 1-10 years from an inexperienced 25 year old.
In many places, you cannot legally build on floodplain.
In North America, 50 years is pretty short for design standards. Bridges will normally be built for flood events in excess of 100 years. Laws where I live restrict construction inside a 200 year floodplain.
Did it occur to you that any nation capable of doing in the future will have ballistic missiles and the ability to create nuclear weapons? And that any nation capable of doing this today has large stockpiles of both?
What they are proposing is pretty safe. They need to increase the velocity to reach earth. It will take months or years, allowing for plenty of time to make measurements and corrections. They are talking about pick asteroids with orbits such that an equipment failure will ensure that it doesn't quite catch up to earth - which means it won't hit us right away.
Backyard astronomers can find asteroids that have a chance of hitting earth and identify their orbits. There will be plenty of attention on any of these, and you can't really hide an asteroid.
As for the rest of your tirade, life is a risk sport. There is a risk associated with coal emissions from refining steel here on earth, and an environmental impact from the coal and steel mines, not to mention the production chains of the explosives and fuel.
Just because you are used to existing risks doesn't make them more safe. Our current mining methods likely pose a higher risk and greater environmental and social impact, but because they are familiar, you are not evaluating the risks consistently. Admittedly, appeals to fear and ignorance have worked very for the Fox network, so at least you're picking a winning formula.
I guess slashdot is running out of nerds who post anymore. I don't post much or read many comments here anymore, but when I saw the direction this was heading, I had to log in for the first time in ages.
The first few comments I saw were like the parent comment above - a bunch of bleating from a group of pussies who are still cowering after Sept 11, 2001, waiting for the gubermint to protect them from any and all potential harm or risk.
I grew up on sci-fi, reading about the possibilities - things humanity can do if it sets out to accomplish something grand. Bike helmets didn't exist, I ate dirt, skinned my knees climbing trees, and broke bones on (unsafe by today's standards) playground equipment. I dreamed of the stars, and of people inhabiting the entire solar system one day.
Which is worse - mining the asteroid belt or open pit mines in sensitive areas? I fully recognize that sci-fi has as much fantasy as science, but I recall novels from the 1980s that included LEO refining of asteroids, followed by dropping the materials down to earth by shaping them into gliders or capsules similar to those used in the Mercury program. There should be enough silica waste to make some heat-resistant tiles up there, and the metal can be foamed or made hollow to drop the density.
If the first few comments are representative of today's/. audience, no wonder CmdrTaco bailed.
Gates applauds Indian rich guy for sharing wealth: 4.2010 - saying that the norm in the US is 20% and that US benefactors need to give more along the lines of 40% ~ 50% while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.
Please provide a reference for your claim.
According to Businessweek, Bill Gates has given $28 billion out of a net worth of $59 billion, placing him second on the list after Warren Buffett. That appears to be considerably higher than 1-2%.
Everyone makes mistakes. That apology was merely the first step in rebuilding trust. Turbine will have to tread carefully for a while to come, as many of their players will remain watchful, if not outright suspicious should anything similar arise in the future.
I'm taking it at face value, unless given evidence otherwise. It's not 100% for me either, but it got them into the 80's or 90's for now. When I compare Turbine's response to almost any other organization that has made a mistake that affected me, it was faster, and more complete.
They're trying. Hard. And I appreciate that. So while I criticised them for doing something stupid (and would do so again in the future if necessary), I will also make sure to applaud them for doing the right thing without much of a delay.
Ever look at the UID range of most comments? It's pretty sad when the lowest UID of any commenter to this story is in the 50k range. I rarely comment anymore, and apart from stories that directly interest or affect me, and rarely read the comments either. Most of the time, I don't even log in, just scan the front page, and carry on with my day.
I think that management had a rosy picture in their minds, that was dispelled by the cruel, harsh light of reality. The original post appears to only live in Google's cache. Unclassy.
Get More FREE Turbine Points with New Offer Wall! April 12, 2010 Want to get your hands on more Turbine Points? Visit my.ddo.com/getpoints, log in, and check out the latest offers from our friends at SuperRewards. Simply complete a qualifying offer and SuperRewards will credit your account with Turbine Points* to use in the DDO Store! This new feature is just another way for players to get points in addition to earning them in-game or buying them directly. Unlike earning or buying points, however, players may complete offers right on the website and do not need to be logged into the game.
This new feature is an addition to our current DDO Store system and does not replace the existing ways you already get points. We will continue to add new offer providers and payment methods in the coming months - if you have a preferred payment method, we’ll probably support it. For now, the fastest and easiest way to get guaranteed points is still to buy them in the DDO Store directly from Turbine.
Enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. What is the offer wall? A. The offer wall at my.ddo.com is a feature that allows players to earn Turbine Points for completing offers from various Offer Vendors.
Q. What’s an offer? A. An offer is an advertisement for a product or service that typically requires you to perform an action. That may include registering for a newsletter, signing up for a subscription service, or buying a product. Offers may also include market research such as surveys, online focus groups, and more.
Q. Do I have to do this? A. Of course not! This system is provided as a service to those who would like more Turbine points and who prefer not to pay for them in the traditional fashion.
Q. What about my personal information? Is it safe? A. We do not share any personal information with the offer vendor other than an anonymous unique ID and an e-mail address for your receipt to be sent to. This information is not transmitted unless you participate in the offer wall system. You may be (and probably will be) asked to provide additional information to complete an offer. Turbine has no way to control what happens with that information or how it is handled. We recommend that you use your discretion when signing up for offers. As always, protecting your privacy requires vigilance.
Q. I have a problem with X Offer or Y Offer Advertiser. What do I do? A. Turbine provides no direct support for issues with our offer providers. If you have an issue with something related to the offer system please direct your inquiries to the Offer Vendor.
Q. Who is the Offer Vendor? A. Our first partner in this program is SuperRewards. Their support information may be found at http://www.srpoints.com/help
Because Turbine was weak, they didn't have the resources or knowledge to go with a quiet and subtle way of selling you out, so they fucked up and chose a crass and obvious one.
Fernando also mentioned that Update 4 will include as-yet-unspecified "Character Bank Upgrades" and the ability to announce certain accomplishments in DDO to your Facebook feed. He also mentioned that Turbine will soon announce details of a deal with a third-party vendor to allow players to earn Turbine Points through some kind of "offer-based payment options", which means you'll do something like take a short survey for some commercial entity and earn Turbine Points in return (Netflix does something very similar to this.)
Turbine appear to have been looking at this as a good thing, another option for players. Perhaps with more careful implementation next time (if there is a next time), it could become what they hoped it would.
I think it was pretty fast, and an appropriate response. The wall came down. They said the words "we apologize".
I hope they don't make the same mistake twice, or allow any other major goof-ups like this to take place. I want to keep playing this game for a long time to come, and more mistakes like that could be fatal to the game.
Search is promised for this year. Finally. There have been bug fixes with the monthly updates - mass heal was just fixed last week.
They appear to be trying and making progress. I would expect to see more this year, since the extra revenue from going Free to Play has only started to appear in the past 6 months, and it takes time to ramp up development.
Ideally, Turbine's goal should be to extract as much money from premium players like me as they obtain from VIPs. There are two ways to do this, but only one keeps me in the game.
So far, the Turbine store contains mostly perks that are not necessary to enjoy the game. If that changes, and I need to spend real-life money to buy items to play the game, I'm gone. However, if they release compelling new content like the best of the existing packs (Desert, etc), I'll keep spending.
The DDO Forums damn-near literally exploded yesterday over this issue. Turbine got the message loud and clear, and saw that people were ready to vote with their wallets.
I don't expect altruism from a corporation, but I expect someone with my credit card information to be trustworthy, and to partner with trustworthy firms. This is a huge step in the right direction, and is helping restore my confidence in Turbine.
I would suggest that the typical Facebook user is quite different from a typical DDO player. Most of the people in my guild are in their 30's or older, many are very tech savvy. Compare that with Facebook, where the typical user wouldn't even understand how they are being compromised by those offers.
Learn to read then. From the DDO site, emphasis added:
There were also technical issues that raised valid questions about security. Overall it was a poor user experience that was not up to our standards, and for this we apologize.
Sure, I would have phrased it differently, but you can bet that the corporate drone who approved this debacle in the first place died a little inside even thinking about those words.
While not a perfect apology, it is good enough for me.
Other ways to pay? Certainly. But nothing should have been sent to the scammers just from viewing a page hosted on Turbine's site. That was a severely bad implementation problem. The other problem was Turbine associating with a company like SuperScamSpamRewards in the first place.
There are 3 type of account on DDO. VIP is a regular monthly subscription that gets access to all content and most account features, along with 500 Turbine Points each month. Free to Play pays nothing, can access a good subset of content up to around level 12 (level 20 is the cap). F2P players can grind and earn Turbine Points by playing (somewhere around 25 turbine points per hour I believe) with which they can also buy content packs. Premium players are F2P players who have bought Turbine Points, or VIPs who let their subscription lapse.
During PAX, there was a sale on DDO of almost 7000 Turbine Points for $50. Since most content packs range from around 250 to 1000 Turbine Points (the best ones come on sale for 500-750 points every few months), that is enough to keep a casual gamer like me busy for many many months. You can't find value like that on many other MMOs.
Thank-you Turbine, for bringing down the Wall so quickly in response to customer concerns, and for apologizing to DDO players. That helps immensely.
Apologies are few and far between these days, and it is refreshing whenever a corporation actually says they are sorry.
I enjoy playing DDO, and I hope that the apology will help mitigate the harm to the game caused by this incident, and I also hope that the game population will continue to grow.
Turbine has announced that they are dropping the wall, and they also apologized to their players.
That only took a day or so from when the Offer Wall was introduced, which is reasonably fast by corporate standards.
Thanks Turbine, for listening to the players, and for the apology. You make a great game, and I hope to continue playing it well into the future.
Full text of the announcement:
Turbine’s slogan is “Powered by Our Fans." That means more than just words to us. It’s a promise. We pride ourselves on listening closely to you, our players, and working with you to do what’s right.
Turbine is continually looking for ways to stretch the boundaries of pricing and commerce models in our games. That’s the kind of thinking that lead to Founder’s pricing in LOTRO and the launch of Free-to-Play in DDO. We’re always focused on providing the best possible value to the widest group of players, but not if it compromises our relationship with our fans.
Recently, we opened an Offer Wall with a selection of ads that got a strong negative response. There were also technical issues that raised valid questions about security. Overall it was a poor user experience that was not up to our standards, and for this we apologize.
Based on your feedback, we’re stepping away from the ‘Offer’ category for now. We’ll keep exploring alternate ways for players who want points to get them. We’ll also continue to innovate in pricing and accessibility because that’s who we are. As of today, the Offer Wall is coming down. We’ll collect all the feedback we’ve received over the last few days and will use it to guide future decisions.
Finally, there was a lot of speculation about how information such as your username or e-mail address was being used by our commerce partners. Ultimately we chose to pass the e-mail address to our commerce partners in the URL to facilitate e-mailing receipts to players. It went no further than that. Neither PlaySpan nor Super Rewards passed the information on. It was stored in the user database only and not transmitted to any of the companies who advertised via Super Rewards. Players who visited the page did not expose any new information to PlaySpan (our in-game store provider) that they did not already have.
Even though this implementation did not constitute a technical breach of our privacy policy, we certainly understand the concerns that have been communicated to us and how seriously players take their privacy. As a result, the Super Rewards team has already removed the e-mail addresses from their user database. If we decide to return to the Offer category in the future we will certainly work with our partners to implement a better system than the one we tried this week.
Your calculations need to look forward as well. I have over $50 in Turbine Points (non-tradeable currency that can only be used in the Turbine store to buy adventure packs and account features) just sitting there waiting to be spent. I can now play all of the best content in the game until the servers are shut down without spending another penny. I've been playing for six months so far, and in another six months, the cost of my own account ($130) will be less than $11 per month, and dropping. Unless they release enough compelling content that I end up burning through my stockpile, I might be able to get my average spending into the $5-8 a month range in 2011. Since I've been buying content on sale as I go, and have not even entered most of the mid-high level content I bought (Gianthold, Vale of Twilight, etc), I fully anticipate that I might finish 2010 with what I've already bought.
The cost of F2P can really add up for people who want some of the optional stuff from the store, like trinkets that improve the loot from chests, character rebuilds, or potions that increase XP earned by 20% for a few hours. Apart from a shared bank and an additional character slot, I only spend money on adventure packs. Here is a guide to playing for "free", written by a gamer. It is theoretically possible to play without spending a penny, but I have more money than time. So far I have found it well worthwhile, and I really like Turbine's model with the exception of this latest act of stupidity.
Two accounts, and I wasn't planning on sinking any more money in until this fall at the earliest. My goal was to keep my own account between $10-15 per month, and I'll be back on track shortly. I have $50 worth of points just sitting in my account, waiting for sales on the content that I haven't already purchased. The "lure in new players" approach worked quite well. The problem is, so did more recent approach of "piss them off by associating with internet marketing scumbags".
I have watched my brother-in-law play WoW and many other MMOs, and they don't appeal to me at all, with the cartoony graphics and gameplay. The only thing that got me playing was the connection to something I enjoyed playing 20 years ago. When I stop playing DDO, I'll probably go back to Freeciv.
Turbine's in dire financial straits. I have no insider information, but it's pretty obvious.
Obvious to who? There have been regular updates to DDO on schedule since going free to play, and their revenue went up by 500% since going free to play. The number of subscribers has doubled, and I don't think that even includes the pay-to-play people such as me, who spend as much or more each month on buying content packs as a subscriber would. As long as they keep releasing content, they'll keep the revenue stream alive from people like me.
LOTRO is the second most popular US MMO, and it has some great expansions, including the new Moria one that just came out... It's like World of Warcraft only done *right*. But that's not going to last, for the same reason AC and DDO died.
{princess bride}Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.{/princess bride}
DDO went free after it slowly decayed. It's probably on the downswing from that huge influx right now.
Don't think so. But then, why look for real numbers when you can just spout FUD and pull stuff out of your ass.
What Turbine needs to do is make a new "boxed collection" every 6 months and sell it in stores for $20. That would keep the new players flowing in and might -- MIGHT -- save them.
You might not have heard, but brick and mortar games stores already have a few nails in the coffin, and could soon go the way of the arcade, the video store, and the buggy whip manufacturer. Ever heard of Steam?
And I have no doubt this spyware thing is a misunderstanding or exaggeration of the facts.
Just by viewing a page on a Turbine site, DDO players have confirmed (by inspecting packets) that the account name and email address were transmitted from the "Offer Wall" page. Add the pre-fetching comment here, and you might be able to see the problem. Sure, my password and credit card were not transmitted, and I only browse with NoScript, but I am probably not representative of the most vulnerable portions of the player base.
Slashdot Mirror
I picked up pizza for the kids on Friday. I don't usually buy Dominos, but had to get something next door. I ordered online to see a 25-35 minute pickup time. Showered and got dressed, arriving there 25 minutes later. I see a monitor over the counter with three pages of names cycling though, around 10 names per page.
My name had a pizza wait time of 11 minutes when I arrived at 5:48pm. It was down to 9 minutes by 5:50, then 8 minutes at 5:51. I thought to myself, wow, this was impressive tech. Except that the countdown froze at 8 minutes until 5:59 when the pizza hit the oven. I think it was in a box by around 6:08.
It was very busy, so I'd guess that their software isn't accounting for the finite production rates of the human workers. They were all rushing about, but it's too bad their software time estimation is so bad. You'd think it would be easy to look at the rate that pizzas are hitting the oven (in pizzas/minute), and then calculate the remaining time for the queue using live production rates. Very disappointing since the initial appearance of accuracy was belied by the reality of their low quality time estimate and the frozen countdown timer.
tl;dr. Don't give exact times if they are not accurate
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/19/bc-diggingbill.html
One family on Vancouver Island got charged $35,000 for archeologists to check for arrowheads. I've heard of archeologists in BC (same firm as the $35k one) who registered a site near where I live onto the archeology registry without the owner's knowledge, because they thought they found arrowheads. Later on, when the local First Nations archeologist looked at them, she said "They're just rocks", and tossed them.
The adage for ranchers when it comes to endangered species used to be (and still may be) "shoot, shovel, and shut up". Same with artifacts in Canada, if you're smart.
You are an idiot for making the statement "over shining a light". Please don't breed.
Regardless of any problems with the prison system, or any debate on punishment versus rehabilitation, it was not "shining a light".
When you use a laser in that manner, you turn it into a weapon with the ability to blind people. Trying to blinding people at the controls of an airplane is attempted mass murder in my books.
If he can do PLCs, I'd hire him tomorrow for water utility work. Wonder if he wants to move to Canada?
Small utilities and municipalities do not usually have in-house instrument technicians, and in some areas, the local instrument tech companies have a virtual monopoly. Every water, wastewater, and traffic light system is run with PLCs and SCADA, and it all requires constant maintenance, updating, and improvements. We probably spend 60-80k a year on our contracted instrument technicians, and we're a small utility with less than 15 staff.
As far as older workers, maybe I'm an aberration, but a 58 year old guy has a ton of experience to add, and isn't going to be job hopping. I'll get a solid 7 years, rather than a variable 1-10 years from an inexperienced 25 year old.
It's the person behind the camera that matters. Get some training, read and learn the basics, and most importantly, practice.
photo.net is a good starting point.
In many places, you cannot legally build on floodplain.
In North America, 50 years is pretty short for design standards. Bridges will normally be built for flood events in excess of 100 years. Laws where I live restrict construction inside a 200 year floodplain.
Did it occur to you that any nation capable of doing in the future will have ballistic missiles and the ability to create nuclear weapons? And that any nation capable of doing this today has large stockpiles of both?
Fearmonger much?
What they are proposing is pretty safe. They need to increase the velocity to reach earth. It will take months or years, allowing for plenty of time to make measurements and corrections. They are talking about pick asteroids with orbits such that an equipment failure will ensure that it doesn't quite catch up to earth - which means it won't hit us right away.
Backyard astronomers can find asteroids that have a chance of hitting earth and identify their orbits. There will be plenty of attention on any of these, and you can't really hide an asteroid.
As for the rest of your tirade, life is a risk sport. There is a risk associated with coal emissions from refining steel here on earth, and an environmental impact from the coal and steel mines, not to mention the production chains of the explosives and fuel.
Just because you are used to existing risks doesn't make them more safe. Our current mining methods likely pose a higher risk and greater environmental and social impact, but because they are familiar, you are not evaluating the risks consistently. Admittedly, appeals to fear and ignorance have worked very for the Fox network, so at least you're picking a winning formula.
I guess slashdot is running out of nerds who post anymore. I don't post much or read many comments here anymore, but when I saw the direction this was heading, I had to log in for the first time in ages.
The first few comments I saw were like the parent comment above - a bunch of bleating from a group of pussies who are still cowering after Sept 11, 2001, waiting for the gubermint to protect them from any and all potential harm or risk.
I grew up on sci-fi, reading about the possibilities - things humanity can do if it sets out to accomplish something grand. Bike helmets didn't exist, I ate dirt, skinned my knees climbing trees, and broke bones on (unsafe by today's standards) playground equipment. I dreamed of the stars, and of people inhabiting the entire solar system one day.
Which is worse - mining the asteroid belt or open pit mines in sensitive areas? I fully recognize that sci-fi has as much fantasy as science, but I recall novels from the 1980s that included LEO refining of asteroids, followed by dropping the materials down to earth by shaping them into gliders or capsules similar to those used in the Mercury program. There should be enough silica waste to make some heat-resistant tiles up there, and the metal can be foamed or made hollow to drop the density.
If the first few comments are representative of today's /. audience, no wonder CmdrTaco bailed.
Gates applauds Indian rich guy for sharing wealth: 4.2010 - saying that the norm in the US is 20% and that US benefactors need to give more along the lines of 40% ~ 50% while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.
Please provide a reference for your claim.
According to Businessweek, Bill Gates has given $28 billion out of a net worth of $59 billion, placing him second on the list after Warren Buffett. That appears to be considerably higher than 1-2%.
Everyone makes mistakes. That apology was merely the first step in rebuilding trust. Turbine will have to tread carefully for a while to come, as many of their players will remain watchful, if not outright suspicious should anything similar arise in the future.
I'm taking it at face value, unless given evidence otherwise. It's not 100% for me either, but it got them into the 80's or 90's for now. When I compare Turbine's response to almost any other organization that has made a mistake that affected me, it was faster, and more complete.
They're trying. Hard. And I appreciate that. So while I criticised them for doing something stupid (and would do so again in the future if necessary), I will also make sure to applaud them for doing the right thing without much of a delay.
Ever look at the UID range of most comments? It's pretty sad when the lowest UID of any commenter to this story is in the 50k range. I rarely comment anymore, and apart from stories that directly interest or affect me, and rarely read the comments either. Most of the time, I don't even log in, just scan the front page, and carry on with my day.
I think that management had a rosy picture in their minds, that was dispelled by the cruel, harsh light of reality. The original post appears to only live in Google's cache. Unclassy.
Here's the full link from the DDO forums front page (obtained from google cache):
Have you sought professional help? You should, really.
Because Turbine was weak, they didn't have the resources or knowledge to go with a quiet and subtle way of selling you out, so they fucked up and chose a crass and obvious one.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. I think someone screwed up in finance or marketing. An interview with the executive producer in March 2010 referenced this as follows:
Turbine appear to have been looking at this as a good thing, another option for players. Perhaps with more careful implementation next time (if there is a next time), it could become what they hoped it would.
I think it was pretty fast, and an appropriate response. The wall came down. They said the words "we apologize".
I hope they don't make the same mistake twice, or allow any other major goof-ups like this to take place. I want to keep playing this game for a long time to come, and more mistakes like that could be fatal to the game.
Search is promised for this year. Finally. There have been bug fixes with the monthly updates - mass heal was just fixed last week.
They appear to be trying and making progress. I would expect to see more this year, since the extra revenue from going Free to Play has only started to appear in the past 6 months, and it takes time to ramp up development.
Ideally, Turbine's goal should be to extract as much money from premium players like me as they obtain from VIPs. There are two ways to do this, but only one keeps me in the game.
So far, the Turbine store contains mostly perks that are not necessary to enjoy the game. If that changes, and I need to spend real-life money to buy items to play the game, I'm gone. However, if they release compelling new content like the best of the existing packs (Desert, etc), I'll keep spending.
The DDO Forums damn-near literally exploded yesterday over this issue. Turbine got the message loud and clear, and saw that people were ready to vote with their wallets.
I don't expect altruism from a corporation, but I expect someone with my credit card information to be trustworthy, and to partner with trustworthy firms. This is a huge step in the right direction, and is helping restore my confidence in Turbine.
I would suggest that the typical Facebook user is quite different from a typical DDO player. Most of the people in my guild are in their 30's or older, many are very tech savvy. Compare that with Facebook, where the typical user wouldn't even understand how they are being compromised by those offers.
Learn to read then. From the DDO site, emphasis added:
Sure, I would have phrased it differently, but you can bet that the corporate drone who approved this debacle in the first place died a little inside even thinking about those words.
While not a perfect apology, it is good enough for me.
Other ways to pay? Certainly. But nothing should have been sent to the scammers just from viewing a page hosted on Turbine's site. That was a severely bad implementation problem. The other problem was Turbine associating with a company like SuperScamSpamRewards in the first place.
There are 3 type of account on DDO. VIP is a regular monthly subscription that gets access to all content and most account features, along with 500 Turbine Points each month. Free to Play pays nothing, can access a good subset of content up to around level 12 (level 20 is the cap). F2P players can grind and earn Turbine Points by playing (somewhere around 25 turbine points per hour I believe) with which they can also buy content packs. Premium players are F2P players who have bought Turbine Points, or VIPs who let their subscription lapse.
During PAX, there was a sale on DDO of almost 7000 Turbine Points for $50. Since most content packs range from around 250 to 1000 Turbine Points (the best ones come on sale for 500-750 points every few months), that is enough to keep a casual gamer like me busy for many many months. You can't find value like that on many other MMOs.
Thank-you Turbine, for bringing down the Wall so quickly in response to customer concerns, and for apologizing to DDO players. That helps immensely.
Apologies are few and far between these days, and it is refreshing whenever a corporation actually says they are sorry.
I enjoy playing DDO, and I hope that the apology will help mitigate the harm to the game caused by this incident, and I also hope that the game population will continue to grow.
Turbine has announced that they are dropping the wall, and they also apologized to their players.
That only took a day or so from when the Offer Wall was introduced, which is reasonably fast by corporate standards.
Thanks Turbine, for listening to the players, and for the apology. You make a great game, and I hope to continue playing it well into the future.
Full text of the announcement:
Your calculations need to look forward as well. I have over $50 in Turbine Points (non-tradeable currency that can only be used in the Turbine store to buy adventure packs and account features) just sitting there waiting to be spent. I can now play all of the best content in the game until the servers are shut down without spending another penny. I've been playing for six months so far, and in another six months, the cost of my own account ($130) will be less than $11 per month, and dropping. Unless they release enough compelling content that I end up burning through my stockpile, I might be able to get my average spending into the $5-8 a month range in 2011. Since I've been buying content on sale as I go, and have not even entered most of the mid-high level content I bought (Gianthold, Vale of Twilight, etc), I fully anticipate that I might finish 2010 with what I've already bought.
The cost of F2P can really add up for people who want some of the optional stuff from the store, like trinkets that improve the loot from chests, character rebuilds, or potions that increase XP earned by 20% for a few hours. Apart from a shared bank and an additional character slot, I only spend money on adventure packs. Here is a guide to playing for "free", written by a gamer. It is theoretically possible to play without spending a penny, but I have more money than time. So far I have found it well worthwhile, and I really like Turbine's model with the exception of this latest act of stupidity.
Two accounts, and I wasn't planning on sinking any more money in until this fall at the earliest. My goal was to keep my own account between $10-15 per month, and I'll be back on track shortly. I have $50 worth of points just sitting in my account, waiting for sales on the content that I haven't already purchased. The "lure in new players" approach worked quite well. The problem is, so did more recent approach of "piss them off by associating with internet marketing scumbags".
I have watched my brother-in-law play WoW and many other MMOs, and they don't appeal to me at all, with the cartoony graphics and gameplay. The only thing that got me playing was the connection to something I enjoyed playing 20 years ago. When I stop playing DDO, I'll probably go back to Freeciv.
Obvious to who? There have been regular updates to DDO on schedule since going free to play, and their revenue went up by 500% since going free to play. The number of subscribers has doubled, and I don't think that even includes the pay-to-play people such as me, who spend as much or more each month on buying content packs as a subscriber would. As long as they keep releasing content, they'll keep the revenue stream alive from people like me.
{princess bride}Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.{/princess bride}
Don't think so. But then, why look for real numbers when you can just spout FUD and pull stuff out of your ass.
You might not have heard, but brick and mortar games stores already have a few nails in the coffin, and could soon go the way of the arcade, the video store, and the buggy whip manufacturer. Ever heard of Steam?
Just by viewing a page on a Turbine site, DDO players have confirmed (by inspecting packets) that the account name and email address were transmitted from the "Offer Wall" page. Add the pre-fetching comment here, and you might be able to see the problem. Sure, my password and credit card were not transmitted, and I only browse with NoScript, but I am probably not representative of the most vulnerable portions of the player base.