Silver > Gold

[Xev]

This summer is shaping up to be unexpectedly profitable and for a second it occurred to me to get a sub to my currently favorite game and enjoy all those things I've been missing by being Silver.

Like paying, monthly, to get a wonky connection. Or, enjoying the total void that is CO tech support as I try to squeeze my dollar's worth out of them every time I get long strings of lag spikes.

Great game, I've said it over and over. And I plan to keep on trying to play it. But nah, even if I was lighting cigars with $100 bills I wouldn't pay for a CO sub just out of principle. I wouldn't pay for HBO if I only got a good picture when I was lucky, either. Wouldn't pay to get poked in the eye with a sharp stick...

The list goes on but the point is... In CO today, Silver > Gold.

How there can be any discussion on what needs to be fixed with CO and not have bad connectivity be at a dominating place at the top of the list is beyond me. Who cares about the programming when you can't even run the program except when the stars are in proper alignment.

I don't like it when people are trashing my fun time or my fun time toys and I'm not trying to do that. CO is a good game. Just venting some.

[dwturducken]

I've been doing the surveys as a way to accumulate Zen, trying to see how much I can accomplish without spending any money. The game is still new to me, so I haven't run out of content, yet, which is what seems to be the most frequent complaint on their forum. I'm bouncing between Canada and Millennium City, at the moment, with a little Southwest for flavor. I managed to accumulate enough Zen to buy a couple of extra costume slots, so that feels a little less... "Claustrophobic" is the word that springs to mind, but I don't know if that's really the one I'm looking for.

So far, I have to agree with you. I haven't reached the point where it feels like "work," but there does seem to be more freedom to the Silver side.

[Xev]

I'm just in disbelief that it's possible to have a connection as bad as what I've had often, lately. It took me nearly 10 minutes just to log on 4 guys to collect dailies yesterday. Doing a trace route, I had packets timing out on the first/middle/third pings on the last hop so I know Perfect World doesn't block trace route and I know they were losing data packets on their server.

I never received any offer of help or even recognition that I have a problem in the times and different channels that I've used to tried to get some help. I'm Silver, but I spend money on the game too. I've never posted a flamey post here and I've always been courteous with them too.

So yeah, as a Silver customer I don't feel so used and abused. As a subscriber my expectations start with #1 that I can consistently log in with a good connection. If #1 isn't there then the rest is moot.

If I'd have been subscribed the last 4 months and then all the sudden this happens and all I get back is "well, that's CO.." Whoooo boy would I be HOT! And then bummed.. and then I'd start looking for another game. I imagine.

[dwturducken]

There is a lot of hate and discontent on the CO forum about this issue. I wasn't really paying much attention before Jack said, "Call me," but it does seem to be getting worse before it gets better. The latest was the authentication server going flaky for a few hours, last night.

The consensus appears to be that the problems really started getting more pronounced and frequent around Neverwinter going into open beta. They even had a major equipment failure either the day it went live or the day after. They coincidentally released a major expansion for Star Trek Online the same day, and all three games run on the same physical machine. (If any of this is a repeat from me, I apologize; I never know how much someone here visits the forum Over There. )

Evidently, STO has been having a couple of issues of its own, plus PWE can't seem to figure out recurring billing, right now. Frequently, attempts by Champions players to get resolution through customer service are more difficult than similar efforts by players of the other games, which is odd, since you only make one account for all three games.

I like the Star Trek game, but I think I'm going to limit my Zen farming to Champs. It's taking up more of my time than I really can afford, sometimes.

[Super Firebug]

Evidently, STO has been having a couple of issues of its own, plus PWE can't seem to figure out recurring billing, right now. Frequently, attempts by Champions players to get resolution through customer service are more difficult than similar efforts by players of the other games, which is odd, since you only make one account for all three games.

This reminds me. I have both CO and STO on the same account. I sometimes get an account-inactivity email from one game or the other, if I don't sign on for a length of time. Will signing onto one game prevent inactivity notices from both, or do I have to log into each game on the same account? Thanks for any help.

[dwturducken]

Ya got me on that one. Since it's just a Perfect World account, either one should do it. Honestly, if it's that kind of situation, I'd fire up Star Trek and check out the new content.

[Xev]

I've got a second CO account that I've only logged onto a few times and I never check the e-mail account associated with it. Was expecting to see an inactivity notice when checking just now, but nope. Never got one.

I'm a little curious why they send them out. They aren't wiping out inactive accounts are they? So what do they have to notify you about? That they miss you? Kinda weird. You get spammed with the notifications?

Yer not getting phished are ya..? I get phished by Guild Wars/Guild wars 2 scammers all the time. Battle.net scammers too, depending on if they're in season. Sony scammers.. Some even look almost legit.

Just a thought. If it's legit I'm curious why they bother to notify you and what the penalty is for doing nothing.

[dwturducken]

Oddly, I've never been phished. I've had my Battle.net account locked twice for "suspicious activity," and there was some kind of "security issue" with Cryptic's server (or something) that ended with me "switching" to a PWE account, but nothing transferred over. At the time, I hadn't paid anything, so I didn't pursue it with customer service. Other than that, I seem to have been pretty lucky. I haven't logged into a few games in a couple of months, and no email from any of them.

Maybe log in from a different computer, if you can, just in case. Run two or three different anti-malware programs to be sure you don't have something like a key-logger on your machine. You know, the standard stuff.

Honestly, phishing hadn't occurred to me, and it should have. Long day, I guess.

[Thunder Glove]

Really, the way Cryptic has handled CO since August just baffles me.

"Hey, guys, City of Heroes is closing in three months.  What should we do?  Since we'll basically be the #1 Superhero MMO after that, should we kick production into high gear, start working on a lot of new content and powersets, maybe even put out a Mac client, and try to grab all their customers the day it closes?" "I have a better idea.  Why don't we make more blatant cash grabs, add a couple of short-term events that disappear after a week, add no new powersets or even tweaks to existing powers, and mostly just ignore the game like we have been doing?  After all, we do have Neverwinter to work on, and there aren't many big fantasy MMOs on the market to compete with us, so let's focus on that." "...wait, what?"

Later...

"Hey, guys, City of Heroes has been closed for over six months now.  Should we do anything to commemorate that?  People are still looking for a good superhero game, and ours is coming up short for a lot of old CoH players." "I know just what to do.  Why don't we move all our games - including the new one that's getting crushed with activity - to this single Lagotron 9000 computer, so that people either can't log in or have ping times measured in minutes rather than nanoseconds?" "Um...." "Trust me, it'll be brilliant!"

[JaguarX]

Really, the way Cryptic has handled CO since August just baffles me.

"Hey, guys, City of Heroes is closing in three months.  What should we do?  Since we'll basically be the #1 Superhero MMO after that, should we kick production into high gear, start working on a lot of new content and powersets, maybe even put out a Mac client, and try to grab all their customers the day it closes?" "I have a better idea.  Why don't we make more blatant cash grabs, add a couple of short-term events that disappear after a week, add no new powersets or even tweaks to existing powers, and mostly just ignore the game like we have been doing?  After all, we do have Neverwinter to work on, and there aren't many big fantasy MMOs on the market to compete with us, so let's focus on that." "...wait, what?"

Later...

"Hey, guys, City of Heroes has been closed for over six months now.  Should we do anything to commemorate that?  People are still looking for a good superhero game, and ours is coming up short for a lot of old CoH players." "I know just what to do.  Why don't we move all our games - including the new one that's getting crushed with activity - to this single Lagotron 9000 computer, so that people either can't log in or have ping times measured in minutes rather than nanoseconds?" "Um...." "Trust me, it'll be brilliant!"

sounds like solid logic to me. ...if you did four bottles of Patron with 8 line of Columbia's finest white powder. 

[blackjak]

I'm beginning to think game companies aren't in it for the money. That makes 2 that don't want ours apparently.

[dwturducken]

I don't know if Champs is the number one spandex MMO out there...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/06/26/dcuo-has-11-million-registered-users-soe-explains-f2p-strategy/

(Yeah, I can't even hit Ctrl-V with a straight face. *pffft!*)

[Xev]

I think CO's a great game. If I wasn't having fun with it, I wouldn't bug people in game chat or here, only to complain that I wasn't having fun with it. Game time is Fun time. I did get kinda 'hate and discontent'y on this topic I think, tho. So, just wanna say sorry bout that. It's no one in the gaming industry's fault that I don't have the bandwidth to download several other games that I'd like to be playing on the side.

I still think, currently in CO, Silver > Gold and am happy to stick with Silver until they get things sorted and that's that.  : )
 
Hope Super Firebug got stuff sorted out. The e-mail account I use for most of my game accounts is kinda ancient so I get phished all the time. They even got me once! The real return address is what got me - it was really, really, close to something official.