2015/07/31

Interview with Greg, the PR manager from Wartune

I had a chat with Greg, a Wartune PR manager from Proficient City who is responsible for communication between Wartune publisher and the players.

Me: Hey Greg! I'm happy I can finally talk to someone who knows the game and not just says "sorry, I can't help". Can we talk about the recent patch? People find it's terrible, full of bugs, increased the game time and take away a lot of rewards. What do you think?

Greg: As always, we want to make the game just better. What piece in particular do you have a problem with?

Me: The biggest problem is dimensions. No more bound balens, much less offerings, no more reapers, rare treasures, loot is much worse. To top it off, now it takes 2 more times daily than before :(

Greg: Hmm, can we calculate this into balens, please? How much loot did you get before the patch?

Me: I got like 300-400 bound balens, bunch of eudaemon enchant item, rare loots like blessing of good, at least one offering per day.. Total value of like 1000 balens daily, I guess.

Greg: And what do you get now?

Me: Like 5-6000 crystal shard, 1500-2000 will shards, got only 2 offerings so far found 3 mines, and there is a bunch of mahra and sepulcrum and I don't need those.

Greg: I see. So you got 1500 balen from mines in a week, that's only 100 bb per day But 5000 crystals, x 0.4 balen = 2000 balens, 1500 x 1 = 1500 balens. So now you get goodies worth 3600 balens each day instead of the previous 1000.

Me: Um, never calculated like that, but you are right. But no lvl 9 resist event anyway, and I needed the eudaemon enchant items very much too.

Greg: We will add a level 9 resist event eventually. And even if not, you will have so much resist gems, you can make them. About the eudaemon enchant I see the logs, last XGB you bought enough blue crystals to max most of your eudaemons items to lvl 9 blue, right?

Me: Um, yes, okay reapers are not so important anymore. But dimensions still take 2 more times than before!

Greg: Well, we just calculated you earn loot worth 3600 balens daily. What if I say, spend only the same time as before, and earn only 1800 balens per day in dimensions. And to compensate you, I give you a dungeon where you earn goodies worth 32000 balens weekly at the cost of only 1 hour?

Me: Ah, well, that would be a perfect compensation!

Greg: Ok, we already did that. It's called Narrenda's remains. Reward is 600 vulcan hammer, and like 200 or more vulcan's stithy. With the biggest discount, and coupons used, you could buy these for 40 balens each. Now you get it for free. 32K value weekly. So before the patch, you could make 7k balen value from dim weekly. Now, in the same time, you can make 12k balen value, and you get an additional 32k value (only if you are strong enough - but even if you can do only 1st boss, the loot is still decent). Doesn't sound to me a big nerf

Me: Now it looks much better Greg, thanks. But you took away wild shop! And I don't earn bound balens to buy the stuff in Mystery shop!

Greg: What do you miss from Wild shop?

Me: The fashion cores and the good luck charms, of course!

Greg: You still doing cloth events?

Me: No, since you took away rewards from there as well :(

Greg: As I see, you have lvl 9 clothes already. So why do you care? You don't need more rage, so higher level clothes would be worthless to you anyway.

Me: Ok, you right. Still, the stuff in mystery shop, I would need bound balens for those!

Greg: As I see, you have over 20k bound balens saved up. Also, I see in the log you bought divinity souls, eud diamonds, will crystals, some vulcan hammer and other goodies already, which you couldn't have gotten eariler. So whats the problem? Even if you run out of bb eventually, in 1-2 months, you got a truckload of useful treasure.

Me: Well, you are right in that too. Still, I hope there will be some ways to get more bound balens in the future. But here are other issues: removal of grim reaper title, reseting cards (and causing people the loss of 6-8 months of efforts), and the nerf of Lord of Time!

Greg: The grim reaper yes, we removed, but we added a bunch of new titles instead. I know it wont comfort you to lose the gathering of 1 year, but in the end, you will get more HP than you would have with grim reaper. The card reset, we never realized how much we took away. I know in games like Doomlord, (who love players too much to my taste) they would just take the database before the patch, check who had how many cards, and send everyone proper compensation. But you know our policy: we never compensate individually, too much trouble.

Me: That's sad, Greg :( But at least you were honest, which I don't see often from Wartune publishers.

Greg: About Lord of Time. We didn't make it worse. It just the same as before. Yes, there is no altar of enoblement anymore - so this skill is just obsolete. You save 375 balens monthly. 

Me: It would have saved me a lot of time!

Greg: Start the blitz, and check back a half hour later, as before. And about game time reduction, hope you are not doing maps anymore, you get enough crystals from dimensions. And honestly - but please, don't put this into the interview - if I were you, I would just make a script which completes the dimension for you. It's damn simple and primitive now, I'm sure there is someone in the community who could do that.

Me: I don't use any scripts, but if you say so, maybe you should just add a blitz dimension option instead :) Anyway, I think you are right in some things. We got more than what was taken away. But players would be much more happy, if balen mines and offerings would be more common in dimensions, and the Lord of Time would work with this acceleration things. Thanks for the honest explanation, I hope it will happen more often from now on!

Greg: You welcome, anytime!


Although this interview have shed light on some things, the sad fact is, that Greg DOESN'T EXIST. This is only an imaginary interview I made up to comfort my friend, Nono, who was so pissed off with the recent nerfs that he said he will quit. Sadly, proficient city or R2Games has not a single employee who can (or want) to do ANYTHING to make Wartune better. Still, just a conversion like the above (where I get no promise of anything!) could make the players feel a bit better. By explaining things. Do not think I want to defend Wartune developers in the above article. I hate what they do as much as you do. I just wanted to show that maybe the glass is half-full, and not half-empty. 

Nono, the reason why I wrote this is not because I can't do Narrenda without you, or because I spent  an hour yesterday to get this magnificent loot:

Not even because I will prolly quit as well without you. But because I would hate to lose a good friend :(

15 comments:

  1. I can identify with you, cuz I'm like the friend who says am quitting as a result of all these recent major nerfs.
    I tried to convince friends on WT to join me on League of Angels because of all the major advantages that outweigh
    what WT could offer but none of them were willing to concede with me. :(
    And because of that, I'm stuck on both games. Recent patch took out alot of purpose from doing team and party battles
    like treasure maps. I also helped friends on my server to explain why the drastic patch nerf so many aspects of the game:
    http://forum.r2games.com/showthread.php?182637-Why-the-MAJOR-nerf-Anyone-got-any-clues-Or-do-they-want-whale-casher-only-to-play

    This interview should instead demand the need for the manager to justify the aloof communication of Wartune publishers with the players.
    Who are the audience that these patch are designed to benefit from?
    Why the need to rollback previous patch which introduces awesome events and rewards in dimensions that would really
    give worth to players that were able to complete the dimension as well?
    Was there a mistake that they made in previous that hinder their profits?
    How do they find out if the player base enjoy the recent patch or not?
    What's the use of honor if there isn't a shop to spend it?
    How do players benefit from guild blessing that reward players with 1 mahra / sepulcrum?

    I bet they are not able to answer all these taboo questions.

    Remember that dimension rewards will benefit all players, in such a way that
    there will not need to be a nerf on them since everyone are able to benefit equally from them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The initial problem was alrdy foreseen when marriage update was only meant for players with unbound balens.
    No one actually bothered with Wilds shop, and everything is just tagged with a balen price instead of making them
    available and obtainable in some way of grinding. No more realistic goals that can improve player strength; and rewards from quest and dailies are useless and redundant so much so that the time to do them is just not justifiable.
    There's still too much emphasis on value of virtual items and how to make players gamble for them rather than delivering better game experience - that this animated and highly appealing graphical game seem to be promising ever since we step into it and set the expectation for us.

    Somehow, I felt strangely that league of angels was developed from all the major mistakes as a result of the tragedy that happen on Wartune even though the graphics and player experience aren't fully met to expectations. All the other aspects (mainly reward system, inherit system, blitz system, levelling system) have been fulfilled much as we would have want it to happen on WT.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sry, edit* no one actually bothered with mystery shops

      Delete
    2. Thanks for your post! I did play LoA too for a while. Many things were better there, but the basics did not change. I recommend when you try a new game, make sure its not a Chinese development.

      Delete
  3. hello, i'm the player fair is talking about (thanks Miklos :) )

    and i have explained in 2rgames forum, LOA is perhaps a better game, but i will flee it now, because it's published by r2games.
    Yes, i reached the point of non wanting to play ANY game where i can see R2games, 7Road, Prof City.
    when it started, wartune wasn't not so bugged and the memory leak didn't exist (yes, i'm sure of it, i could let my computer online the whole night with it and come back the next day with the same amount of memory used)
    it seems that they can give enough developer team when the game is still growing in people to manage it nicely.
    but with the time, less people come and my guess is, the best developer are sent to another project, who will interest new or old whale (their main target).
    after that, they will still add some new function to still get same profit from existing player base, but won't care too much of other problem, as they imagine player are so addict anyway that they will still play it (some also because they invested too much already)
    that's why i won't try LOA. because i don't have faith in the future of any of their game.


    i never was a big spender in game (but not a free player either, i stopped VIP a long time ago and just bought the covenant i wanted). to compensate it, i'm a "doing everything i can" to still stay on top. so i manage to reach 2 account at 2kk BR while spending more and less nothing the last year. but for that, i indeed need to do the most i could. so i was doing tok, spire, arena, elemental, wilds, all WB, guild boss and dim (that one was the most time consuming after last patch...)
    you could say : why not spiking some part ? because it's not the way i'm playing. i need to do it the best i can, or i don't feel it worth doing it.
    before patch, having to wait hours for necro, cat, purg, campaign, sylph exp, was a big pain. so i was really happy they added the speed function with Lord of Time. a few sec to do them all was what i asked from them for a long time : a way to reduce playing time. so when it didn't worked after last maintenance, i never was so angry.
    i waited to get just an answer after that : is it a bug or not ?
    knowing the week end was close, i expected them to give no answer and put that back to next week. that's what they did and that sealing my choice. They can't communicate. it's like they think consumer are enemies
    I'm fed up to fight AGAINST them and not playing their game.

    even if they change Lord of time back, it won't change my decision. i just don't have faith anymore in them or their game.
    - when Mega bug post on forum was added, i posted many. all are still there (just one who corrected itself... they did nothing)
    - memory leak destroy the playing game (can even affect titan, class war) and they did nothing about it. it's even worst with each new patch
    - many server beg for merge and they now say they won't accept new post about it, developers will decide alone
    - for new dim, people are begging to have a way to avoid fight as it's what increase the time of that feature. i doubt they will do anything about it.
    - many feature have bug for years now (arena, cross guild battle, ...)

    for me, they try to get as much as they can from wartune player but aren't really invest into it. they are just adding new stuff to make people stay and pay

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dude, League of Angels is hosted by GTArcade.
      R2 is the main host for Wartune.

      Delete
    2. I play on loa.amzgame.com, there are so many other host for LoA.
      The real problem is that R2 games platform will never communicate with their players,
      but in most cases, other website hosts do communicate with their players.
      So do give it a second thought.

      Delete
    3. On kongregate, League of angel is published by r2games. so i'm sure they have something to do with it :)
      it's enough for me to avoid it

      Delete
    4. I'm said my post couldn't change Nono's decision to continue playing, but I understand him very well. It just saddens me that 7Road did many things right, why they do totally wrong the obvious. But the question is not so difficult.

      I'm watching now (again) Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise. He lives the same day every day, fighting aliens, and does it better each day, but something always go wrong.
      Imagine how Chinese game development works. They dont bother investing huge amount of time and money into market research, design, testing etc. They look around, check which is the best Chinese game, steal it, and imrpove it. (R2Games chief himself admitted this). There is no lawsuit: the original company just makes a new game too, steals back the good ideas, and improve it further. They just have a fast development, but cant make it professionally. They already improved many aspects what other games failed. Addictive game, constant goals, challenges, urge to buy balens etc. And now they are on a field which is not tested by anyone. Keeping the players.

      Delete
    5. you HAVE to skip some events in this game, else you become stressed. This game is ALL about maximize rewards in few time.
      if you not happy for r2, stop to cash.
      whining for rewards is a nosense, some items are rare now (bb, charms), others are more common (hammers, crystals). rewards are never a problem, every event always give us some nice rewards, EFnm excluded :)

      Delete
    6. those events with bad rewards, or bad rewards for time required, are the events to skip.

      Delete
    7. Yes I agree that, but very hard to skip events, we are just addicted :)

      Delete
  4. i admire ur decision for finally quitting this game and i hope i have that courage or dedication to leave this game as well, im also one of the people who was really mad about them changing the lord of time, its been a long time since the last time i got mad with R2, but im certain when i leaving this game i will walk the same path as u ( woild not playing any chinese game anymore even tho im a chinese myself but born in indonesia )

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. honestly, stoping isn't so hard when you are REALLY angry ^^
      i will just help Fair on week end for Remains (as no other team can beat 2nd boss on our server so far). I know too well that's it's thanks to Fairlight and Dragnolia that i could be so high. It's the only real challenge on game (still not easy, but doable)
      but the constant grinding everyday is now behind me.
      i still follow forum, wondering what they will do with Lord of time mess.
      but when i see the 3nd bugged merge in a row, i'm really not confident. they knew it would happen, and they did nothing ... a merge mean some people will stop. a bug merge will mean MORE people will stop

      that's another reason i'm not confident in Wartune future. they aren't even doing the NORMAL maintenance. now each week, you can be afraid of what new bug will happen.

      Delete
  5. In case you wanted to find the GDC Conference ($100,000 whales)

    http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1016417/-100-000-Whales-An

    ReplyDelete