Neverwinter, Champions, and STO Dropping XXMP Chat Support - MMORPG.com

System · August 2019

Neverwinter, Champions, and STO Dropping XXMP Chat Support - MMORPG.com

In a series of posts from Arc Games, form Admin abassadorkael announced the sunset of XXMP chat support.

Tiller · August 2019

Mostly due to the outrage trolls spamming political BS into chat. It's gotten bad. Most of those people weren't even playing the games, just spamming stuff to start flame wars.

vegetableoil · August 2019

Dropped Foundry, Drooped weekend store, dropped xmpp, they really want to run games barebones with nothing.

Mowzer · August 2019

vegetableoil said:

Dropped Foundry, Drooped weekend store, dropped xmpp, they really want to run games barebones with nothing.

I would hardly call dropping XMPP running barbones.

Gruug · August 2019

vegetableoil said:

Dropped Foundry, Drooped weekend store, dropped xmpp, they really want to run games barebones with nothing.

That's "free to play" for ya.

Po_gg · August 2019

Mowzer said:

vegetableoil said:

Dropped Foundry, Drooped weekend store, dropped xmpp, they really want to run games barebones with nothing.

I would hardly call dropping XMPP running barbones.

Call it what you like, the direction is clearly there... (I'd add the dropped subscription to the list as well, but wouldn't be totally accurate since they didn't have full control in that decision)

They have issues (if any at all*) with something, and simply flush it entirely, as the easiest solution.

*Many called bull on the official "because of the goldspammers" reasoning already.

Trolls and spammers are almost exclusively reside in Neverwinter, while the main source of the xxmp access is through CO and STO (lifetime). Aligned with that distinction, it's moderately used in CO (it has the oldest chat from the three) and in STO fleets, while the access of Neverwinter players is more of an accident, and as I've heard barely and randomly works at all. Definitely not common.

Still, they "blame" the spammers, and their solution is to remove the system - and not just from Neverwinter, from all three.

More plausible reason is the pure laziness on their part, like in Foundry's case.

No surprise you can see the uproar in both CO and STO, while just a shrug and yawn in Neverwinter...

ed: for the record, I don't use xxmp, and thus unaffected by this change. I just agree with vegetableoil's list, the direction really is visible.

Sovrath · August 2019

Po_gg said:

More plausible reason is the pure laziness on their part, like in Foundry's case.

I highly doubt it's "laziness" other than this is the lazy argument given by players when game developers do something they don't like.

Po_gg · August 2019

Sovrath said:
I highly doubt it's "laziness" other than this is the lazy argument given by players when game developers do something they don't like.

Except they said so themselves... they dropped the Foundry because it was too much work for them to maintain it, and they didn't want to fix it either.

They also said at Mod16 (Neverwinter) they're watering down the classes and add the scaling because it will be easier for them later.

I could quote Turbine at HD, and at the stat changes, and the skill "revamp".

I could quote Funcom too...

It ain't about what players think, devs don't even care to say they do changes to make their own lives easier, regardless of what the players think or need.

Hell, Sapience once even said they were counting on the leave of a part of raiders but they did it anyway since the change was making their work smoother on the long run.

Sovrath · August 2019

Po_gg said:

Sovrath said:
I highly doubt it's "laziness" other than this is the lazy argument given by players when game developers do something they don't like.

Except they said so themselves... they dropped the Foundry because it was too much work for them to maintain it, and they didn't want to fix it either.
They also said at Mod16 (Neverwinter) they're watering down the classes and add the scaling because it will be easier for them later.
I could quote Turbine at HD, and at the stat changes, and the skill "revamp".
I could quote Funcom too...

It ain't about what players think, devs don't even care to say they do changes to make their own lives easier, regardless of what the players think or need.
Hell, Sapience once even said they were counting on the leave of a part of raiders but they did it anyway since the change was making their work smoother on the long run.

That's not laziness.

There are a lot of things I don't do anymore because I can either use my time for those things or use my time for "other things." I don't consider myself lazy for making choices on how best to use the time I have with the resources I have. I think others do the same on a daily basis.

From what I've read, and you can correct me if this is wrong, the person who was responsible for foundry left and it was all old code. They had to make a decision on whether to continue and decided not to support it. Not lazy but making choices.

Looking at what is on your plate, how much effort it takes to do things you want/need to do and then making informed decisions as to what is worth it and what isn't.

Po_gg · August 2019

Torval said:

Just an FYI, the protocol is XMPP not XXMP. It's an easy typo to make, but it might confuse some people.

Funny thing is, I wrote xmpp... then after posted, I noticed in the title xxmp and since I don't use it myself, just clicked on edit, replaced it and left a remark with I don't use it

Torval said:

Unfortunately it can be abused in a situation like this where anyone can make spam accounts with no real moderation or curation.

As I hear it was for CO and STO lifetime subscribers, that's why they call a foul at the whole "goldspammers" argument.

Can you imagine a spammer spending $300 (or $200 when there's a sale) on a CO or STO account, so he could (shortly, before the inevitable ban) spam in Neverwinter a bit more conveniently? Sounds unlikely... way too expensive, I believe.

Sovrath said:

That's not laziness.

There are a lot of things I don't do anymore because I can either use my time for those things or use my time for "other things." [...]

If that's the job, I do call it laziness. Sure, if you broaden the scope a lot more aspects come to play, with a lot more to concern about, might I add. Management issues, finance problems, workload handling, hell you can even widen your scope to the problems within the genre, or the slowing economy...

Bottom line is, when a dev team keeps dropping features, systems and options left and right, they are lazy. That, or there are much worse issues compared to even laziness is a bright an positive option.

Sovrath · August 2019

Po_gg said:

Torval said:

Just an FYI, the protocol is XMPP not XXMP. It's an easy typo to make, but it might confuse some people.

Funny thing is, I wrote xmpp... then after posted, I noticed in the title xxmp and since I don't use it myself, just clicked on edit, replaced it and left a remark with I don't use it

Torval said:

Unfortunately it can be abused in a situation like this where anyone can make spam accounts with no real moderation or curation.

As I hear it was for CO and STO lifetime subscribers, that's why they call a foul at the whole "goldspammers" argument.
Can you imagine a spammer spending $300 (or $200 when there's a sale) on a CO or STO account, so he could (shortly, before the inevitable ban) spam in Neverwinter a bit more conveniently? Sounds unlikely... way too expensive, I believe.

Sovrath said:

That's not laziness.

There are a lot of things I don't do anymore because I can either use my time for those things or use my time for "other things." [...]

If that's the job, I do call it laziness. Sure, if you broaden the scope a lot more aspects come to play, with a lot more to concern about, might I add. Management issues, finance problems, workload handling, hell you can even widen your scope to the problems within the genre, or the slowing economy...
Bottom line is, when a dev team keeps dropping features, systems and options left and right, they are lazy. That, or there are much worse issues compared to even laziness is a bright an positive option.

It’s their job to do what they can with what they have all the while trying to make as good game and of course staying in business.

Good on them for cutting things they can’t support and applying their resources elsewhere.

I’m not a software developer but I’ve worked for a software company. I’ve seen developers not implement things and I’ve asked “why.” And then the incredibly hard working people, people who put massive amounts of work and pride into their creations, patiently told me why.

And quite frankly you are way off.

unless you work for them and know something that we don’t.

Po_gg · August 2019

Personally I don't throw the proverbial stone on this drop either, as I said I didn't use the feature. Just as the uproar ain't about the drop itself, at least not for the majority.

Those of who used the feature often are not a really big part of the combined playerbase, and are mainly in the two "lesser" games (in PWE's eyes).

The stones are thrown for a) the reasoning about goldspammer abuse sounds fishy,

and b) as vegetableoil's list shows too, the move fits too well into a really concerning trend.

Sovrath, I had the (mis)fortune of spending plenty of years in IT, on both sides, design and development, and also maintain/operate and support. Thank god never in the game industry... more like bpm and crm for corporations.

I really like Cryptic since the time of CoH, but never on the blind fanboyism level (I hope). When they do something stupid or harmful, it's better to rub their noses into it instead of a supporting pat on their heads... With that said, I don't really care about their workload, their lack of manpower, or their financing issues - since I'm not in their management, HR, nor among their PWE overlords.

It might sound cold, but I only care about the games themselves.

(on a sidenote, if you'd try to handle something in enterprise IT the way they handled the drop of the Foundry, you'd be out of job very soon)

Sovrath · August 2019

Po_gg said:

Personally I don't throw the proverbial stone

Sovrath, I had the (mis)fortune of spending plenty of years in IT, on both sides, design and development, and also maintain/operate and support. Thank god never in the game industry... more like bpm and crm for corporations.

...

So goes back to my point: just because you don’t like what they are doing or how they are doing it, doesn’t make them lazy.

You dont have to like/agree or care but saying they are lazy is just a lazy argument.

I’d posit that, if anything, they are overworked and under appreciated. Again you don’t have to care but it’s not fair to make that statement unless you work there.

jaymesbond · August 2019

Sovrath said:
I’d posit that, if anything, they are overworked and under appreciated. Again you don’t have to care but it’s not fair to make that statement unless you work there.

How a company treats its customers tends to be similar with how it treats its employees. If there's a problem with overworking and under-appreciating developers, point your finger somewhere else.

I think the important issue isn't the removal of XMPP chat support (that's not to say it's not important to the people who used it), but it's another feature removed with, in my opinion, very dubious reasons given. I don't care what the real reasons are, but I think the more important issue lies with the overall direction of these games. "Oh, XMPP chat support was removed because of 'spam.'" Why remove it instead of fixing the spam problem? "Oh, the Foundry was removed to shift resources elsewhere." Where? "Oh, we can no longer support the feature because the person responsible for it left." Why wasn't there another person with the knowledge to continue maintaining this feature in case this ever happened?

What if there was a problem with in-game chat? What then? Would in-game chat just be disabled completely? There comes a point where you actually need to fix the problem instead of just removing things. Developers are overworked and under-appreciated? Hire more, pay them more, and have them work reasonable hours.

Tiller · August 2019

Torval said:

I'm putting the blame back on bad actors ruining it for everyone. If a bunch of users are abusing the system then I'd drop it too. It's not like they're dropping in game chat, just the ability to connect from the outside. Like I said, there are tons of stones to throw at Perfect World, but not this one.

This is exactly what it is. LOL @ everyone here once again tinfoil hating this to death. It really was as simple as they stated. It mostly came due to the whales and other folks who play their games and spend money in them complaining about the abuses. No it was not just gold sellers.

I made a thread about it in their forums warning them that "troll chat flash mobs" were an issue during the summer event, worse then I've ever seen. In kind they locked my thread like the asses they are and passed it off as game chat drama and not worth looking into. Then the masses of complaints started rolling in over the same issue from many more players as they got sick of the spam, random IMs, threats and trolling. Then ARC games got a bright idea and decided to look into who was being reported and from where, only then did the problem became clear to them that there chat system was being abused in a way they hadn't expected.

Po_gg · August 2019

Sovrath said:
I’d posit that, if anything, they are overworked and under appreciated. Again you don’t have to care but it’s not fair to make that statement unless you work there.

That road goes both ways, how you can say "they're overworked", "unless you work there"?

As for under appreciated, I don't think that's the case. Appreciation ain't a binary, on and off thing anyway, you can feel that while pointing at stupid decisions and trends still...

CO's episodic Death Rattle was really fun, and appreciated.

STO's Discovery mashup is fine, not great but ok-ish I guess, and Awakening is in the corner (looks just fine too, Patrol-heavy and tutorial revamp gives an eyebrow-raising, especially in hindsight how Neverwinter's turned out last week), with a decent looking roadmap for the near future.

Neverwinter, Undermountain is great. If Mod16 were released with only that, the content, there won't be mere appreciation, but praises even. Of course it wasn't released alone, it also had the class change (watering down, more precisely), stat change, gear change, companion system change, etc.

They're not under appreciated, current players (at least CO's and a large part of STO's - I don't play enough Neverwinter recently to judge it) are actually very supporting toward Cryptic.

Calling out bad decisions and/or potentially harmful changes instead of the dull "Well, poor chaps are so overworked, let's give'm a cheer and swallow the bad pill" way is what concerning players should do, and more often, I might add.

Not to mention Cryptic still listens, sometimes. The delay and rework on the subscription drop of CO was much appreciated for example.

Howdy, Stranger!

Neverwinter, Champions, and STO Dropping XXMP Chat Support - MMORPG.com

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Neverwinter, Champions, and STO Dropping XXMP Chat Support - MMORPG.com

Comments