My Opinion: Why WWIIOL is dead.

depot12 · December 2012

Originally posted by axishatr
For example:

"yeah we know, when we manage to eliminate it, we will probabaly say something about it since we haven't, then it stands to reason we haven't eliminated it yet"

Mmm mmmmmm....serve me up some more customer service!

Yep. Can never just give a straight answer. Who is this MAYPOLE guy who is the CEO of CRS? Seems like they should get rid of DOC and bring back RAFTER.

Hrica · December 2012

I stil play it and love it..

axishatr · December 2012

Nothing like getting perma banned and losing a weeks worth of prepaid gaming because you ask them to reduce their sub pricing and they say it is "bashing CRS".

Just happend to someone I know.

What a bunch of babies over there. The mods/community managers are "big dick mod happy"

axishatr · December 2012

Originally posted by axishatr

Why WWIIOL (Battleground Europe) is nearly dead

Yes, I said it, WWIIOL is nearly dead. It lay on the table with IV’s in each arm, pain killers pumping through out its system, and closest family in the room over seeing the last few breaths.

It is a sad deal, but to one of the thousands of players that have “been around a while” it’s nothing of a shock. You see, WWIIOL has been dieing for YEARS. Sort of a slow death with not so many signs of pain either. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the last couple years have been pain filled. Forum rumbles, mass quitting, staff leaving, server crashing, game instability, and the ever important “shut up there is nothing wrong” attitude shoved in the player base faces during it were the neon lighted signs of the time. But before the last couple years it was pretty good times.

Enough about what we already know. Now on to the cause of this…..

These are just opinions of mine, but some pretty strong indicators turned me to writing this report and stating these items. I’m not a professional writer as you can already see, but I still wanted to point out some things that might be used yet to save some aspect of the game or some other game/community teetering on the edge of death.

CRS is ultimately responsible. There is no way around it. Its missteps, blindness, and stubbornness are the #1 reasons this game is nearly dead.

You see, in any business, you must have a solid core to work with. From this core foundation you can build an empire on. CRS had this I believe and worked on the building quite well for many years. At some point though, they fell into the thinking that they knew it all, or at least that is how they were perceived by the community, after all they were the first MMORG large scale map game developers right!!! The requests of long time players and really the overall community fell upon deaf ears. Yes, you see, CRS was not in the wrong, ever (in their own minds). They brushed it off as a “few” upset people that got killed online over and over to many times and were just venting. Yes, that’s it! It’s not us, they thought, its just those stupid people out there (our customers). “F” them, they are not programmers or marketing majors……..we are smarter then they!

Well, that perceived thinking went on for 4 years. More people barked, so that meant there just were more crazy people out there trying to kill off CRS and its ultimate game that would never die.

Wrong.

The problems that the community saw and seen coming were there and are what the game is dealing with now. CRS dug a huge hole for itself and in some respect are still blaming the community for its woes.

The lack of players does not have anything to do with lack of community support. Being around 10 years is proof enough you had support, CRS. You had builders (some didn’t even get their statues). The lack of players is directly related to your opaque and most times offensive approach to any criticisms you received about your game or your staff. Its similar to a restaurant severing bad meal after bad meal and when someone complained about the meal and the prices you yell back at them, call them names, and then shut the door on them and have someone else tape their mouths shut.

That is horrible customer service. And many many former customers were treated that way. Another horrible way to keep people around. The funny part is this, for what? To muzzle people that were pointing you in the direction of what needed to be changed. But CRS would not listen. At this point they were still not in the wrong.

You ignored HUGE game issues and perused “easy” eye candy updates hoping you’d trick people to hang around longer and help fund this “game”. You even managed to draw up some “americans” and post it all over the place to gain more people, a gamble that did not work out. Sort of like borrowing money to build on to your shop but never having the cash flow to afford the payment on the initial loan….then going in and talking the banker into a “little more money” because “we are close to turning the bend”.

WRONG. Bad gamble. You never turned the bend.

You promised and again, your promise fell short. The Americans are STILL NOT IN GAME and you are still ironing out stability issues and some sort of political axis situation with the Americans entering the real map. No Americans but the axis get new semi autos to add to all their toys already in the game for YEARS!

What a mess. More people leave. Less people come and stay. Your employees start to get nervous and leave (move on to better things).

Now we get to the point where the business cannot even do the work anymore because times are so bad. CRS begs those that they nearly choked out 4 years prior (the squads) to help manage, control, and train the flow of new people to the game. The bad thing is that this flow of noobs from the terrible placements of advertising (limited) brought in the worst assortment of people maybe in the history of the game. Numbers of retained people had to be horribly low, as they were never published. From my understanding maybe 1 out of 100 or so stayed and ended up paying some sort of sub costs. But at least you can brag and post graphs (terrible graphs) about number of new people inflow.

This leads to that lovely sub costs. The highest anywhere. Did we mention all the sever issues and dropped promises?? Now we want to charge $17.99 for it. Yeah, we know, you COULD get it cheaper….you just got to sign up for a year or so and that way CRS could burn through you money fast still trying to pay that intial loan from the crazy banker off on the gamble that did not “turn the bend”.

Yes, that’s it. Help us pay for our mistakes and just deal with a game that isn’t running well. DON’T YOU WANT YOUR GAME TO LIVE!!!!!! (that come back got old quick).

So, some still pay and hope for better days. Several hopeful “this will save us” tries were made (that china mess and RA) but the reality of it all and something that was known by all involved is that the numbers were failing, miserably. It was dieing and dieing fast.

So, as the game is laid down on the ER bed….and its breath is slow and heavy panic sets in on the family. Suddenly confession is a good idea. Maybe it will save them. Maybe having everyone donate will bring a miracle. Maybe more money will save it now. Maybe. Maybe not.

But, money will only save jobs for a while. The end is near. We all will pass in time. This game is just going to beat us all at it. Money is not going to save it. Numbers would but CRS has chased all the good ones away. New younger kids don’t want this type of play. Not in mass numbers anyways. Plus, it’s really nothing new. It’s the same game and same graphics just in a different box and different map area. It’s the same thing you cannot sell on WWIIOL Campaign side…..but you’ve masked it well.

Maybe trying to break neck market to some short attention span kids will keep the oxygen on another year, but at sometime it might be best to let it pass. It would be more humane. Better for the family. Better for the community.

You guys let the game die 4 years ago. I commend you for trying to save it now that is so close to being dead. I imagine all family do that when their close ones go or are close to going. I’ve seen it in my family. But I say just let it go. Maybe that’s what it wants.

You should have listened to your community earlier and been more open to them earlier. Not chased squads away and killed squad play. You should have had a better community leader and customer support team….since the customers pay your wage and pay for your hobby of making this game and making it work and stay working. You should muzzled DOC and kept him from the eyes of the public and the ears of them to. He’s one of the most rude and asinine people I’ve ever talked to at times and really made your company look horrible in the forums, on the main page, and in gamers forums. I personally had 15 people hooked on this game that all left directly because of DOCs posts.

Now all of a sudden you want to show everyone where you are at and why you need what you are asking of them. Partially because that is the legal way to ask for donations and show disclosure, but the other part is now you are starting to get it. The community was not so dumb after all.

I hope praying or whatever you are doing now saves your game. I still cannot believe you are now begging for more money from those that you’ve treated so poorly over the years. I also cannot believe you’ve gotten suckers to stick their heads out to give money. Maybe your new community guy is doing his job. Maybe not.

If things fail I hope CRS learns from it on their next venture. Nazi Zombie Reign or whatever is in the works. Keep the sub cost low so people can afford it and continue to afford it. $18 is to much and asking for a whole year commitment is to much also. Don’t chase people away and don’t act like a dictatorship to your concerned customers. Gagging them only makes them more upset and less likely to ever help you in the future. It did in my case.

S! Good luck

Still on the table, barely breathing.

They've tried F2P (little late) and its helped server population (aka easy targets for the paying subs to kill) but it appears that those F2P accounts are not rolling over to paying customers. They are running $9.99 again for NEW and RETURNING cusotmers but its my knowledge from certain individuals close to crs that those specials are not working even close to where they hoped they would. Now, we are incorporating a "hero" program where if you don't mind spending $18 a month you can up your pledge to save this game by going to $30 per month to be a "builder hero". Yep, thats right, $30 a month.

There is no hope for existing long term customers for getting a relief in subscription pricing. Tries by the community to ask and sometimes beg for $9.99 across the board LONG TERM have been ignored or silenced. Again, told by someone close to crs, $9.99 won't pay the bills. However they still have no fear over banning people that don't lick them in and out...

I argue that maybe making the sub more affordable for a 10+ year old game would bring in MORE paying customers and STAYING customers without pressure of returning and never being able to leave or unsub.....because you will lose your $9.99 rate. Just make it $9.99 all the time for everyone and try it.....

What have they got to lose?

Abyssuss · December 2012

Died ages ago, it's going through rigor mortis now (Jacking up subs,begging for community to find new suckers, I mean players)

OtotheJ · December 2012

How can you ask a player for almost $30 a month to play a game?

When you get to that point in the road you have failed to make a product that should be marketed any longer, pretty simple.

Deuce6 · December 2012

Oh the days of the K98 sight being off and who can forget "The Bertrix" (the most Panzers you've ever seen). I guess not much has changed.

Zbus · December 2012

God I wish these guys who love the game now could see how it was played by those of us who where there from the start OJ.

Its hard to explain to them what it was like to know your AO and what squads you went up against. Hell as one of the 101st starting members I could tell you which squad was in our AO by looking at my kill list and in most cases after finding out who we where up against what tactics they would use. Yes for those who dont know this squads used to have a grudgeing respect for each other and the ability to admire the effort even in a loseing fight with regard to how much preperation and effort your foe put into ousting you out of a town.

Dang it I miss those 2 or 3 week long slugouts over cities like twerp. I miss seeing a sea of tags poping from a FB with a 100 plus tanks,supporting inf. FB defense, supply cuts, Cap you name it. I miss my brit gren of which i am sure I am still in the top 10 on kills even after all these years of not playing. I miss tracking the 94th and setting up ATG traps in the middle of no place to tear into those giant tank runs they did across country. I miss screwing up SGs simul caps by being in that one depot or AB they needed to finish the cap.But most of all I miss the squads mine and my foe's that made the game so interesting, enjoyable and personal to me as a player.

I really wish CRS would have taken note of all the warnings squads gave them about the HC/AO system and how it would effect the game, if they had we wouldnt be here today talking about the death throws of a dieing game. SAD SAD SAD

Whacko · December 2012

Originally posted by Deuce6
Oh the days of the K98 sight being off and who can forget "The Bertrix" (the most Panzers you've ever seen). I guess not much has changed.

I worked my ass off to resupply as many as we could, the allies cried a damn river over that.

Granted it did help that the ABs were so close.

Abyssuss · December 2012

Been on the server not so long ago and its almost dead, there's more players on a bf3 map, kind of interesting considering they have a f2p option that hardly anyone uses

david06 · December 2012

Originally posted by Abyssuss Been on the server not so long ago and its almost dead, there's more players on a bf3 map, kind of interesting considering they have a f2p option that hardly anyone uses

I resubscribed recently and unfortunately the server is very dull outside of a few select times. There's some variation depending on the campaign state but the most action is probably on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons(US eastern time) and depending on how things go the period extends late in to the evening.

The worst part is that if some people manage to get the map active and moving during off-hours then the next day the forums are usually filled with complaints about that time zone and how those players are killing the game and other nonsense. The game needs more activity, not less and you have a portion of the remaining subscribers still clamoring for more rules to slow the game down.

RobbHood · December 2012

Well. I played for many years, starting from day 1. Canada Corps, then we became 3CD. I have had conversations on TS with all the RATS and private battles with DOC thru PM's. He actually told me to take a break from the game. I'm still on that break, going on 4 years now. (Remember DOC's years of insisting the 109 flight model was perfect? Anyone remember the eventual discovery it had an invisible third wing that gave it super lift and performance?)

Motormouth begged me to come back, said I couold get a free t-shirt.

Back in the day, the game was awesome. Back before HC and forced AO's, when ya had to pay attention. Squads shaped the flow of the map.

It is a niche game, so why try and capture fast action players who have so much more, and better, fast action shooters out there? You will NEVEF get them. Go back a bunch of steps.

I personally don't like all the moble spawn-instant army mechanics. But I could live with a compromise. Tone it down a bit. Make it a sim again.

Draw back all the players who like stuff like coordinating the air to cover a 30 min. trek from town A to attack town B. Draw attention with a feigned attack on town C. Maybe an alpha-bravo attack to tie up enemy elements.

Send fighter cover to hunt bombers hunting your armor. If only AO's are attackable, then there is not much hunting, just mindless fur balls by stat whores. Stats (kills. K/D etc... ) are stupid in real time. It creates a game within the game. The sim part gets lost. If ya want stats, release them after victory is decided.

The RATS fixed alot of gamy issues, with capping for example, but went too far trying to make the game more then it could be, more then a niche game.

Why is/are strat bombing gone, squads gone, AO's forced, mobile spawning too easy?

If players don't like taking the time and effort to plan and pull off an attack that takes 40 minutes to drive there, and stay alive while doing it, then a was sim is not there game. But the current game is a mix of ideas that hold no real numbers and attrack even less.

Get all the war sim fans back, stay true to your war sim roots and let the game be what it was meant to be. a niche game, a true war sim.

Brig. Gen. (Ret) Robhood, Third Canadian Division, Commanded RCAF

"Always on Target"

Hodo · December 2012

Robbhood is right.

I used to play for years till I was permabanned for organizing a walkout on the Axis side. I am a proud member of the 1st Fallschirmjager or just 1FJ for short. I remember when Dutchmon (FlyingDutchmon) was the 1FJ leader, and Raftrey was the XO. I also remember the great debate with DOC over the 109. And also the Spitfire, and P38, and the German SMG... Oh that last one was my favorite.

DOC was so set on saying the German SMG was fine, nothing was wrong with it. But the players had posted videos of it firing backwards. That was SOOO much fun. Or when DOC insisted the Tiger was perfect, yet you could kill it with a 25mm Cmle AA gun from the front.

But the game was a great concept, it is a shame that poor development decisions kill it for me. I checked back in a few months ago when it went free to play, found I was still banned, I just went around that. And seen what had changed in the 5 years since I left. And I can say it hasnt improved any. Which is sad, even though I no longer play I still wished for the game they advertised back in 2000. I still have the original game manual.

axishatr · January 2013

Well the game is dead for sure now. They just gave the controls to marketing and pr to xoom the ugly troll.

I'm moving my virtual flag to half staff right now. What a horrible decision. That guy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack and he's going to fight for the game survival? Yeah, he's the biggest troll I know.

Loser.

da da daaaaaaa da da daaaaaaa (taps)

depot12 · January 2013

Well the Rapid Assault server seems to be permanently offline. You know, the big kahuna that they said was going to save the company. They could have at least made it a North Africa map or something to make it a little interesting.

Im glad because DOC wanted to dumb down the vehicle operations and add 3rd person views and make it more arcade like. Seriously the vehicles and physics model is one of the absolute strong points of the product but I guess the ADHD crowd can't be bothered to put some time into learning how to drive a tank. Pathetic

Check lagus.org/webmap: Low Population

Hodo · January 2013

Originally posted by depot12
Well the Rapid Assault server seems to be permanently offline. You know, the big kahuna that they said was going to save the company. They could have at least made it a North Africa map or something to make it a little interesting.

Im glad because DOC wanted to dumb down the vehicle operations and add 3rd person views and make it more arcade like. Seriously the vehicles and physics model is one of the absolute strong points of the product but I guess the ADHD crowd can't be bothered to put some time into learning how to drive a tank. Pathetic

Check lagus.org/webmap: Low Population

True the tank combat with its few flaws was the best in a MMO I have seen ever.

swindlers · January 2013

When has CRS ever accomplished a goal other than surviving?

Africa? Fail

TOE's? Fail

10 yr "announcement"? Fail

Kickstarter? Fail

New "subscription drive" with fancy title? Fail

The only people they're fooling with their catchy "new" ideas, word useage for promotions, are the same 10 people that come back every time. In a few months they'll all be gone again after realizing they've come back to even less than what there was before.

Congrats on 10 yrs though........

Denizzje · January 2013

The game has seen better days, that is something which nobody, including CRS can and will not deny. However I disagree with the general consensus here that the game is dead. I and many other players still enjoy the game on a daily basis. We still enjoy the battles, I enjoy being in the HC, I just started to learn to fly a bit. And especially during weekends we have big battles again. Yes, I bolded the again.

When I resubscribed in August 2012I nearly got an heart attack. I thought my favorite game was about to die. It sometimes felt like playing on a 8 player CoD server. Luckily a week later the rats awoke and put in f2p which I think pulled the game through these months. Now from what I see things seem to be normalising. Usually the 3 and sometimes 4 AOs again during primetime is a sign that things are improving.

Now I agree that the rats made mistakes, and I think the most crucial one was/is their pricing sheme. Atleast they are fixing it now and I have good hopes that in a few months the game would be back on its track where it was supposed to go to.

Now there is one thing I cannot understand at all. Some people here have made it like a job, or a crusade, to badmouth this game on this forum. Saying the plug should be pulled. Do you ever consider the players who still have fun in the game? The new ones checking it out and liking it, despite its apperant flaws? I think you are basing your opinion on outdated 'views' (can't find the right word) from when you last played the game. And if you really don't like it, why invest so much time in saying how bad it is, just based on your own experiences. I mean I do not like Heroes and Generals at ALL except its graphics, but I don't go around on forums badmouthing it at every oppertunity .

david06 · January 2013

Posted by Denizzje on 1/08/13 at 4:56:17 PM
Now there is one thing I cannot understand at all. Some people here have made it like a job, or a crusade, to badmouth this game on this forum. Saying the plug should be pulled. Do you ever consider the players who still have fun in the game? The new ones checking it out and liking it, despite its apperant flaws? I think you are basing your opinion on outdated 'views' (can't find the right word) from when you last played the game. And if you really don't like it, why invest so much time in saying how bad it is, just based on your own experiences. I mean I do not like Heroes and Generals at ALL except its graphics, but I don't go around on forums badmouthing it at every oppertunity .

Cornered Rat Software played the "small developer, niche game, no one else would this" sympathy card for years. They had "builder" programs that ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Lots of people helped out.

What did they do? They spent a year on the China project, and then 18+ months on Rapid Assault. Were you in the forums when they made the RA announcement? Some of the builders who had dropped $2000 were completely surprised and they were furious. There are people out there now who gave a lot of money to help out the game, to help out the community and they got burned. They may never donate money like that again to anything because of their experience with CRS.

Look at some of the failed kickstarters out there, like Alpha Colony. It failed by $28. Sure it's a different genre and by an unknown developer but imagine if just a little bit of the money people have donated to CRS went somewhere else. What's better, giving $30 to support Rapid Assault(which CRS has shut down without any notice) or buying a game like Xenonauts? Maybe Evochron Mercenary if you're in to space-sims(another neglected genre)?

It's not some vendetta. A bunch of former subscribers are simply saying that they're a bad company with bad business practices, and there are other indie developers out there more deserving of patronage. I may recommend the game when it gets ownership that wants to advance WW2online instead of spending all it's effort on side projects.

argel · January 2013

But it is a vendetta David. Perhaps not for you personally but for depot12, axishatr, Hodo and all the others it really is personal. They hate Doc, they hate Xoom, they hate CRS and they actively want the game to fail because they feel slighted about past decisions and events. With 20/20 hindsight they may have been proved right on some things, but I was there in 05 and the game was in need of something - whether anyone cares to admit it or not - to funnel players towards a common objective. I was in 40comm and it was hard for a squad with 15-20 online to play because you were either subservient to the whims of another squad or you didn't have the numbers to win many fights. That wasn't a one-off, that was every night and we lost a bunch of guys through that.

I figure if you asked almost everyone back in 05 what they enjoyed most it would be when they as a squad could take part in a major battle with lots of bluetags and greentags while retaining some of their own independence. CRS made a decision to implement AO's and I still think the game's decline has centred around other things, rather than that one. AO's were necessary - in some form - because without them new players didn't even see 10% of the game's potential before walking away. Whether we like it or not, that was the case.

I think they should have prioritised certain other things during that period to support AO's, namely commander tools and an improved FB system, but the key thing is that they wanted to succeed and grow the company and the game, not kill it for old players. You can't realistically blame them for a decision made 7-8 years ago that still hasn't finished the game off yet can you? I agree it's different and needs some critical fixes to get out of the current mess, but it's still more playable than ever given credit for on here.

I also think it may have been you David who made the point about a natural decline in numbers playing? I think that's spot on. There's competition from hundreds of other sources now, and PC's realistically cost 3x the price of a console that can do the same job, is less intrusive and has no compatibility issues. I personally don't own one but I'm in the tiny minority there and realistically a gaming PC capable of handling top level graphics is beyond many casual players' budgets. With CRS needing a reasonably high spec (now that's definitely something they should have controlled a little better) for such outdated GFX, it's another reason why people just give up before they get started.

The price thing may be too little too late but it's good that they've acknowledged it was wrong. It's just a shame they didn't do that back in 08/09 when the game was at a crossroads.

Hodo · January 2013

Originally posted by argel
But it is a vendetta David. Perhaps not for you personally but for depot12, axishatr, Hodo and all the others it really is personal. They hate Doc, they hate Xoom, they hate CRS and they actively want the game to fail because they feel slighted about past decisions and events. With 20/20 hindsight they may have been proved right on some things, but I was there in 05 and the game was in need of something - whether anyone cares to admit it or not - to funnel players towards a common objective. I was in 40comm and it was hard for a squad with 15-20 online to play because you were either subservient to the whims of another squad or you didn't have the numbers to win many fights. That wasn't a one-off, that was every night and we lost a bunch of guys through that.

I figure if you asked almost everyone back in 05 what they enjoyed most it would be when they as a squad could take part in a major battle with lots of bluetags and greentags while retaining some of their own independence. CRS made a decision to implement AO's and I still think the game's decline has centred around other things, rather than that one. AO's were necessary - in some form - because without them new players didn't even see 10% of the game's potential before walking away. Whether we like it or not, that was the case.

I think they should have prioritised certain other things during that period to support AO's, namely commander tools and an improved FB system, but the key thing is that they wanted to succeed and grow the company and the game, not kill it for old players. You can't realistically blame them for a decision made 7-8 years ago that still hasn't finished the game off yet can you? I agree it's different and needs some critical fixes to get out of the current mess, but it's still more playable than ever given credit for on here.

I also think it may have been you David who made the point about a natural decline in numbers playing? I think that's spot on. There's competition from hundreds of other sources now, and PC's realistically cost 3x the price of a console that can do the same job, is less intrusive and has no compatibility issues. I personally don't own one but I'm in the tiny minority there and realistically a gaming PC capable of handling top level graphics is beyond many casual players' budgets. With CRS needing a reasonably high spec (now that's definitely something they should have controlled a little better) for such outdated GFX, it's another reason why people just give up before they get started.

The price thing may be too little too late but it's good that they've acknowledged it was wrong. It's just a shame they didn't do that back in 08/09 when the game was at a crossroads.

Let me set the record straight.

I dont hate DOC, or XOOM I barely had any encounters with XOOM so I have no real judgment on him. DOC on the other hand I feel is a blooming ID-10T. I remember being part of the hundreds of German players who said the German SMG fired backwards back in 02, and he said "I tested it myself and it works as intended." I also remember him telling me that I dont know a thing about tanks or how they work yet I served as a M1 platoon leader and was the TC of a M1A1 Abrams. I had sent him testing documentation on how HEAT rounds worked what the affects were, and how they would affect the crew inside an enclosed environment. I remember another person who worked at Aberdene Proving Grounds sent him the SAME information, all declassified WWII test information. He told us, his sources were more reliable and that he knew what he was doing and we didnt know what we were talking about. Yet when asked to site his sources he listed a bunch of poorly written books from the 1960s.

I would have been less critical of the man if he would have just came out and said he was wrong or that the game engine couldnt do those kind of calculations without serrious server load. That would have been fine, but instead of admitting error he belittles the players. I also remember when he was told by GOPHER to stay off the forums because of his attitude.

So here we are almost 12 years after the launch, and I was there, a DAY 1 player in WWIIOFFLINE as it was so lovingly called. I remember the period when the server would crash every hour. I remember joking with my squad mates (1st Fallschirmjager) "Oh the server stayed up for 45min this time, its getting better!"

CRS would have had a smash hit if they had done three things 6 years ago.

1-Free to play as Riflemen (later transition into what they have now)

2-Stuck to the May 1940 invasion of France timeline.

3-Never made the Opel/Beddy/Laffly mobile spawn (MS)

Of course there is a 4th.... Parachuting dogs!

lugal · January 2013

Wow, I did not know there was another 1stFJ on the forums! !S
I think a lot of the anger towards crs stems from years of not keeping their word while we kept paying money only for the hope of more features, bug fixes, balanced tiers. But we got nothing. All those years I played, I can't tell you how sick and tired iam of seeing St.Lo and staring down stairs waiting for ei. Ah well though.
As for Xoom, I dislike him for getting killed. I did to para attempts with him as the guy organizing, only to be shot down enroute. Both times! Damm him for being a magnet for spits and huricanes.

lugal · January 2013

Damm phone.
Getting *me* killed.
*Two* para attempts

asmkm22 · January 2013

mmo's are expensive to make and keep fresh, and players have very little tollerance for mistakes. news at 11.

david06 · January 2013

Originally posted by argel
<snip>

I'm aware of the complaints about things from 2004/2005 but I didn't even begin playing the game until 2008. They've made many more recent blunders, ones which could've been easily avoided. Some of the things that they are now doing were suggested not too long ago, like finding some way to lower the subscription price, having some sort of free-to-play option, a larger emphasis and less hostility to social gaming(squads and guilds). We were all systematically told to fuck off, that we didn't know anything about business, that the game had survived this long etc.

Remember when they raised the subscription price to $17.99/month? They and their sycophants on the forums said that it didn't matter because you were poor if you couldn't afford it, and that the money would fund development of the game(lol). A lot of us said that it was disastrous, even as we relayed our experiences with trial players(who we were speaking with on teamspeak) about what the price did DOC and others told us that it wasn't open to discussion. They're charging an ultra-premium rate for a dated and bug-ridden game yet to hear them talk it's one or two fools on the in-game side chat, or the criticism on their closed forum that's keeping subscribers away.

Up until earlier last year the mantra was "Go away if you don't like this game, if you hate it so much why are you still here?" Then of course it suddenly changed, the begging began and now they can't get people to play their game for free.

Originally posted by Hodo
I also remember him telling me that I dont know a thing about tanks or how they work yet I served as a M1 platoon leader and was the TC of a M1A1 Abrams. I had sent him testing documentation on how HEAT rounds worked what the affects were, and how they would affect the crew inside an enclosed environment.
I remember another person who worked at Aberdene Proving Grounds sent him the SAME information, all declassified WWII test information. He told us, his sources were more reliable and that he knew what he was doing and we didnt know what we were talking about. Yet when asked to site his sources he listed a bunch of poorly written books from the 1960s.

Don't feel bad, I was an EOD technician while in the Army and DOC tried to lecture me on explosive effects. If I still had access to my old forum account I'd post the private message where he tried to set me straight on the game's HE shells and the way they penetrate armor. Long story short his game was right and I didn't know what I was talking about.

No worries though, it appears that XOOM is continuing the CRS tradition of extremely poor customer relations. Longtime players are trying to help them out but they keep getting sabotaged by the company's bad business decisions and attitude.

In case the pictures don't display properly, below is a player who tried to get his friends(other former players) back in the game by taking advantage of the free offer, only to find that CRS changed it from free to $4.99 without warning. When he complains and says that this will make very difficult to get his friends back, XOOM basically tells him to deal with it. The words "free loaders" and "baggage" are mentioned.

See the "If they can't afford it, we don't want them anyway" notion again? That may work with a fashion brand or luxury automobile line, things which can embrace exclusivity but not so much for a subscription service with a lot of competition.

Howdy, Stranger!

My Opinion: Why WWIIOL is dead.

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

My Opinion: Why WWIIOL is dead.

Comments