Fungistratus:  Thank you for your post.  It is a breath of fresh air to read of someone who played the game in an earlier incarnation noticing and appreciating the improvements to the game since launch.

Chryses:  I concur with others here who found your post most encouraging and well done, and I welcome your being a realist who takes a game and enjoys it for what it has.  Myself I rushed my main character to 50, per se (3 months), but I say rushed because I did not do ToOs to get there and instead leveled almost entirely on CP from 20-50. 

End game at this point is helping others.  I usually go help someone with an instance as that's just a good natured thing to do in supporting Tabula Rasa and encouraging good community.  I love the game though it has changed in drastic ways that I do not find encouraging to my playstyle (so I am having to adapt ^^) and to me the developers need to separate bug fixes from the class changes so we do not wait so long for the bug fixes.

Ikavadas:  Soldier I need to know how you can do what you are doing to Tabula Rasa when you know this will not help gaming overall.  In fact I find it absolutely appauling that you and many other betas find a need to disparage any game you are bored or otherwise disappointed with.  Hear me out this is constructive criticism.

Betas get an opportunity to play before most others and they also tend to be a clique, many coming into the beta circle need referral from another beta player which forms a commradery, a bond.  So I am asking, please do not abuse that privilege, any of you.

At this point betas you participated and gave input, you did your job.  The company made promises on that basis of course, but promises do not always pan out and your history as beta players yields this as true game after game.

What it appears many of you betas have forgotten is that you are a gamer first not an employee, even if only by appearance or how the entire situation characterized via the legal agreements and the way the developers appeared to regard you (and how that all played out in your head).  The reason for the beta, and even alpha, privilege is so the company can get firsthand reaction from a gamer.  You are one of us and as one of us we hope you'll encourage gaming from the many possible ways that people game and not from a linear idea of what games must have or need as though all gaming revolves around the beta's ideas in a vacuum.  I say this because your disappointment is more regarding suggestions made and appearing to have fallen on deaf ears than on promises broken since that's the normal course of every game as it evolves passed the beta players and you as a beta player know this.

Ikavads there is accuracy to what you've said however this accuracy doesn't mean the developers or anyone else at NCSoft made an error, nor that Tabula Rasa is "crap."  However it does mean they, like so many other games, are likely not "bending over" (for lack of a better phrase) for the betas or the rest of the player base, as no other game has either (UO, SWG, AO, even EQ has this gripe from some part of the ex-player base).

Point being Ikavadas that if you and the rest of the betas who've spoken up at a variety of sites feel so strongly about Tabula Rasa and/or any other game developers not being responsive to the gaming market time and time again then disparaging those games on fansites will not change this situation in the slightest and only hurts gaming as a whole.

I'd strongly suggest you and your friends consider why the companies treat people in this manner and I believe your collective minds will come up with a solution that you can instead seek to promote using your beta resume as a credential, something that benefits the entire online subscription consumer market.

Otherwise please, just enjoy whatever game you've moved on to, the rest of us would like to appreciate what we do about whatever game we play for whatever reasons we choose since our interest is gaming and these actions of ours promote that interest which benefits all gamers and gaming more than any griping about any game ever will.

Ikavadas I do hope you consider what I have said for its candor, that you understand and appreciate that gaming as an industry suffers every time a member of the beta tester "cartel" speaks out negatively of any game on a fansite.  I do wish you luck with whatever you are playing today.

Cheers.

P.S.  I am not suggesting a ultrapositive position or to ignore issues with the game, however escalating them to the point I have seen from betas of a more personal emotional lashing out at the game helps no one, no matter what game it is.  I do know you guys wouldn't be this effected by it if not for your expectations and emotional immersion in the game at the time you honestly loved it.

Though I don't appreciate the names you've been using and can understand their banning etc....

I've had an issue with the whole subscription thing as a matter of principle and I've discussed it in threads etc.

You see I went to PlayNC to discuss it and their customer support, which from what I have been told doesn't deal with anything like this, decides to start classifying and stating policies and basically won't even hear me out.  Well I did the ask for a supervisor routine and the supervisor, though cordial and appearing to listen actually didn't listen at all.  Apparently they felt that saying "I've escalated your ticket to the most apporporiate group" was sufficient even after I asked "what group?  What is the name of the group?" to which they replied "there is nothing else we can do and we won't be replying to this thread any further."

Of course I called the Secretary of State in Texas and got the address to send a letter to the president.  2 weeks passes after sending the letter and not even an acknowledgment of receipt.  Please understand it's not that anyone has to do what I set forth and instead it's merely knowing you have a shot to be heard even if they don't agree or do it. 

So today I call the support number someone gave me for NC Interactive in Austin, a number that information for Texas was unable to provide me.  Well of course I explain I sent a letter addressed to Mr. Kim and would like to know if it had been received.  I figured I'd be put on hold and customer service would forward me to his office where a secretary or assistant would let me know the answer and that's that.

Customer service however instead asks me what the letter is about (I guess they handle the affairs of the president of the company too) I hesitated and repeated my question, and then mistakenly elaborated explaining i had a support ticket however (trying to recover) this isn't about the support ticket.  Of course now they want the number and explain they'll read the ticket entirely to see how they can assist me. 

Low and behold they read it and argue with me, they then accuse me of taking a tone with them and begin yelling at me.  I did not yell back, did not swear, did not do anything to provoke any of this. 

I then stated calmly as I had been throughout this situation:  "Sir I currently own the entire GuildWars series and though that's not much whatever fraction of your paycheck it pays, it does pay.  You see sir without us old gamer adults who purchased the original Ultima Series played on an Apple II and who put Richard Garriott and computer gaming on the map you'd have no customers to sell to and without customers you'd have no business, we are the foundation, so it appears it is you taking a tone with me.  Now if you will remember I had said this isn't about the support ticket and my call is merely to find out if my letter to Mr. Kim had been received or not.  For all I know it was lost in the mail." 

To which he replied "Mr. Kim is the head of a large multi-national corporation and you are expecting a response from him?"  I then explained "A response no, an acknowledgment of receipt from he or someone close to him, from his office, however would be reasonable.  If I write the president of IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, or Steve Jobs or any other multi-national corporation generally their office, a secretary or assistant thereof, will send me an acknowledgment of receipt and many times includes a thank you for writing with an explanation I may not receive a response due to the president's schedule." 

He then explains that "Customer service is as high as you go, everything goes through us, there is no response you will get from any group or anyone and your letter came here to our office, this is your entire recourse." I explained I have others and he hung up.  Imagine that, the answer to my question regarding my letter is now stated by this customer service person but not to answer me and instead to trouble me as it was addressed to Mr. Kim personally.  The customer service representative  didn't say they read it however, yet he also didn't say it went to Mr. Kim and I didn't send it to customer support or anyone there.  So it appears to me that Customer Service is running NC Interactive by being the communications firewall for every facet of NC Interactive including the president of the company.

People may disagree, may post wonderful experiences they had with PlayNC Customer Service and that's all well and good, the trouble is that for those of us who have had the misfortune of poor treatment the company has made sure we have no remedy.  You see I contacted the Secretary of State again to find out who NC Interactive's agent is for service of process and it's a lawyer firm in Texas, who I of course looked up again and guess what another lawyer firm is their agent for service of process.  I called NC Interactive's agent and made an effort to explain the situation to which he replied "send us whatever you want and we'll hand it to our designated person at NC Interactive to forward on as they see fit.  I can't make sure it gets to who you address it to."   When I asked if they could get it to the president they explained "that's priviledged so I can't discuss that."

In reviewing the situation it occurred to me that PlayNC/NC Interactive markets to people who aren't of voting age and thus their generic responses and treatment of customers, due to most being under voting age, is explained.  They assume that since this demographic generally has little respect for authority and likely isn't politically active due to their lack of right to vote that they are essentially incapable of doing anything about it.  This is an obviously accurate assumption since when you point out a game bug many in that game will say "the company won't do anythinng about it anyway."  So I began contacting politicians and lobbying for changes to the laws that allow companies to set up in this manner as it appears to me there is a need for kids to be protected.  I don't believe businesses should be regulated however to me a company that sets itself up this way that also is exploiting those with no political power is not a legitimate business and therefore ever regulation possible should be thrown at them. 

Of course they could self regulate to avoid being regulated, meaning they might actually have to set forth a gamer's "Bill of Rights" which we essentially subscribe to regarding our account and is sole and separate from the EULA yet has weight in their actions as far as not treating us inapproriately and respecting simple business etiquette in how they communicate with us.  They have it for airlines where one passenger can get a ticket for 40 bucks to fly once in a year to remind them of the value of customers and it only makes sense where people can spend 180 dollars with a company on one subscribed title that there should be some reminder of the value of the customer in that industry as well.

It makes me mad that a company would set itself up to be able to exploit children (and their parents through the child if they are paying the subscription fees) and offer customer service that treats kids with answers like "I escalated your ticket to the most appropriate group" and opening letters addressed to the president of the company.  They know those under voting age are essentially without any rights in the matter, and this is irrespective of their "must be over 18 to subscribe" because they know who they are marketing to and is buying their product even with customer service that would have put most businesses out of business, kids.

So to you who has an issue and is trying to figure out what to do join the club as it is obvious PlayNC customer support likes their power and isn't going to change a thing.

Thank you for reading this if it should happen not to be removed for some reason.  I wish good luck to anyone who has trouble with gaming companies in general (and it appears this issue is common amongst them all, so this is actually industry wide and that to me makes it more important to do something about).

I do apologize to anyone who takes any sort of offense as none was intended,

Josh

Originally posted by Nomatica

Something that urks me, i played the trial and i soloed everything, from outpost to everything it was fast and easy. I asked in chat does this game get any harder, and the majority said no. It was bassically a solo fest. But why? Why do mmorpgs today hate player interaction? Why is this game so easy to play? Even though it was Sci-FI it still felt like i was playing another WoW. And the worst part of it all is that it was EASIER then WoW. WoW was like EQ classic hardmode compared to Tabula rasa. I didnt have to interact with another soul and no other soul in TR wanted to interact with any one else.

But why? Why pay money when you can play a single player game and get more interaction out of NPCs then you do players. you would think a 40 year old virgin you lives in a make believe castle would know better.

Actually i hear the new update is not so easy, and people are calling it "forced grouping" when in fact it is merely tthe developer  making the game meet their original design ideas.  So you may be in for a big surprise should you play again after the latest patch comes out.  I hear it can be played on the test server.  Maybe someone who subscribed and plays regular can speak to this more accurately.