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Paying Customer's Views Part II
I have in the past written about the mistreatment of paying customers and all Evony members in general. My cries of frustration were garnished by the words of Dawnseeker, who gave a well written response that satisfied me and many others and left me to sit waiting patiently for the coming of Age II, as according to his words, all our cries for change would not come until Age II.
So I wait patiently playing Age I and putting in my minimum of 3 - 4 hours per day tending to my account and vowing to myself that I will not spend more money until Age II is out and the changes that have been asked upon are implemented. While waiting I hear news of Age II beta being released and for testers to provide help to the development process. I for one did not really jump at the attempt to beta test Age II as I have been busy just keeping up with my Age I account. But, to my better judgment and an email from an Admin asking about helping with the beta test, I joined and began to help. This has been very taxing on myself as spending time in the beta test and continuing to upkeep my own account in Age I has been difficult to say the least. I have been busy building up my beta test account in order to properly test many of the functions of the game (I had beta tested Ultima Online prior to its sales release, so I did have beta testing experience). However, as of 2:00 AM -6GMT last night, my account on Age I has been suspended.
First, I would like to explain that I understand that this suspension was a part of the big violation of TOS sweep that seems to be a monthly occurrence. And I would like to point out that a game like any other game on the "market" has a bottom line. That bottom line is to create profits. I and I'm sure many like me completely understand this and are willing to provide for a game such as Evony.
-I personally have spent over $1500 U.S. and willing to spend more
-Given countless hours of time
-Provided "free" help to many other players in the form of information and problem solving (both in game and on these forums)
-Have been an advocate for the improvement and continued development of Evony as a game that is both enjoyable to the players and profitable to the developers.
But, for as much good as I do for this game and the people around me, I can be put on a suspension and possibly banned pending review. First of all, 99% of all the time I spend on my Age I account is spent doing nothing more than farming NPC's, I create troops primarily for the sole purpose of attacking level 10 npcs. I own 9 city and although the game encourages players to spend more money to attain higher ranks/titles, the game does not provide the means to properly utilize the amount of cities that is allowed. Currently, the more cities a player owns the more time that player must commit to the game in order to keep all cities at the same playing level as a city of another player that only has 1 or 2 cities. Secondly, I have been playing since the start of server 90 and have been a top player there since I began spending a large amount of money. I have since then continued to stay in the top ranks with steady growth and nothing out of the ordinary. As of last night, I have been playing on sever 90 for 4 months without any warnings, bans, or suspensions. Now, with my game play staying as steady as it has always been and without any change to my game play with the exception of beta testing Age II, I am finding myself in suspension/holiday mode. Personally I find this sort of mistreatment of a paying customer to be appalling and detrimental to the bottom line of the company of Evony, to continue growth and keep revenues flowing.
I have in many occasions pointed out and suggested solutions to the growing issues that plague Evony, but it seems words are to no avail and the trend of mistreating customers and players alike will continue. I ask that Evony reconsider their actions and come up with a proper solution to the problems or they will create an even worse problem than the current. Setting the kind of precedence that attacks customers and players rather than finding a solution to the overall problems is one that is quite a "slippery slope."
"If you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?" Thomas More, Utopia.
Evony creates a game with numerous game flaws, then punishes customers and players for coming up with solutions to Evony's problems, then creates a which hunt which punishes potentially innocent customers and players in the name of the greater good. ( ever heard of the crusades and the knights templar? )
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