Post by Agai Lazen on Jan 20, 2012 0:40:05 GMT -4
About a week ago, I sent an email to popular video game critic, Angry Joe, titling it "My Favorite MMORPG Was Ruined"
Here's the letter.
Dear Angry Joe,
I am writing to you about a great game that fell prey to the greedy ploys of Corporate Commander. It is a downloadable, free-to-play mmorpg called C21. In the original closed beta test, this game was really exiting. One could tell that developer Cyberstep pulled out all the stops in it. Fully customizable robots, which almost build like Lego’s, though not on par with Chrome Hounds, but much more free and with much more variety in comparison to most other mech-base games, in both the size and shape of the parts: you can give a single robot numerous body parts, and attach a pair of arms and a booster to each of them, plus each arm can hold a weapon. Players can also modify the skin that wraps around the polygon structure of the characters, a feature which is only in one other game, also by Cyberstep. The worlds were also vast and large, each world having cities, villages, and dungeons that dotted the landscape. Each city or village would have citizens that players could take quests from to get money or parts. The cities and villages would also have their own stores, each having unique stock that can’t be bought in other cities. There would also be mission camps where players could take on missions with a party to not only get money rewards but to also rise in rank, a greater rank obviously meaning greater privileges like being able to forge or equip certain parts. When you have spare money lying around, you can take that money to the Gatcha, which is much like a capsule machine: insert a certain amount of money for a certain amount of tries and see what comes out. Many items and robots could only be acquired via the Gatcha. Players could also form a guild with their friends, and if the friends went on enough missions members from that guild would get certain perks, like a higher drop rate or bigger mission rewards. Monsters had variety too, from plant monsters that would hit player with the leaves on their heads, to giant weapons platforms, to Sephiroth-esque lords of darkness, and each one could drop parts that the players can use. At certain times, an entire horde of monsters would appear all at once, and it would be the players’ choice to crush them or at least thin out their numbers.
Then came the second beta. Mech customization, the rank system, guilds, and skin customization are unchanged. The rest, however, has been reduced to nothing, to say the least. There are no longer large worlds with cities, dungeons, and enemy bases to explore. Now there is only one city, and only one dungeon in each of the remaining four worlds. Mission bases no longer exist, and there are no citizens to take quests from. Now players have no choice but to trudge through the extremely linear and limited worlds that haven’t been destroyed by Corporate Commander’s forces. Enemy variety has become a joke, as four enemies are always present no matter what world that the player is on, and even then the power curve between the worlds is mind-bogglingly steep. It is almost impossible to get past the second world unless a player has spent cash on the game for better parts. Non-cash Gatcha has been eliminated, leaving strictly cash-payers for the little perks that they might receive. Drop rates have also decreased substantially; a player can unload hundreds of bullets, blades, and missiles on a particularly hard-to-kill enemy, and not get even the smallest drop from it.
Players have made their disdain for this clear, but all notes and emails sent to Cyberstep remain unanswered and are most likely ignored. I myself have spent real-life cash to get in-game cash that I have yet to receive, and Cyberstep reacted similarly. See the players express their outrage here: www.c21-online.com/_/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=121
I am sending you this to see if you can look at what C21 has become, and if its sacrifices are worth the extra cash. I am a mech and robot enthusiast, and have been looking for a game that satisfies both my gameplay and aesthetic tastes for as long as I was playing video games. For a while, the game that I was looking for was C21, but now that it has degenerated to the poo poo stain of its former self, I feel as much of a shell as this game has become. I then remembered your goal of reviewing games to help people spend their hard-earned money wisely, and how zealously you pursued this goal. I want to ask for your help in reviving this game to its former glory, so that me and all of the other western players can explore the mechanical cosmos like it was meant to be. I hope to receive your reply.
With great remorse,
Antonio Mariano
I'm basically asking for support, maybe Cyberstep will listen if enough voices shout out. If you don't already play the game, play it and tell Joe that there are people spending $200+ on it for content that is only DLC worthy (worth $5-$18 at best).
If you don't know who Angry Joe is, here's a clue.
Here's the letter.
Dear Angry Joe,
I am writing to you about a great game that fell prey to the greedy ploys of Corporate Commander. It is a downloadable, free-to-play mmorpg called C21. In the original closed beta test, this game was really exiting. One could tell that developer Cyberstep pulled out all the stops in it. Fully customizable robots, which almost build like Lego’s, though not on par with Chrome Hounds, but much more free and with much more variety in comparison to most other mech-base games, in both the size and shape of the parts: you can give a single robot numerous body parts, and attach a pair of arms and a booster to each of them, plus each arm can hold a weapon. Players can also modify the skin that wraps around the polygon structure of the characters, a feature which is only in one other game, also by Cyberstep. The worlds were also vast and large, each world having cities, villages, and dungeons that dotted the landscape. Each city or village would have citizens that players could take quests from to get money or parts. The cities and villages would also have their own stores, each having unique stock that can’t be bought in other cities. There would also be mission camps where players could take on missions with a party to not only get money rewards but to also rise in rank, a greater rank obviously meaning greater privileges like being able to forge or equip certain parts. When you have spare money lying around, you can take that money to the Gatcha, which is much like a capsule machine: insert a certain amount of money for a certain amount of tries and see what comes out. Many items and robots could only be acquired via the Gatcha. Players could also form a guild with their friends, and if the friends went on enough missions members from that guild would get certain perks, like a higher drop rate or bigger mission rewards. Monsters had variety too, from plant monsters that would hit player with the leaves on their heads, to giant weapons platforms, to Sephiroth-esque lords of darkness, and each one could drop parts that the players can use. At certain times, an entire horde of monsters would appear all at once, and it would be the players’ choice to crush them or at least thin out their numbers.
Then came the second beta. Mech customization, the rank system, guilds, and skin customization are unchanged. The rest, however, has been reduced to nothing, to say the least. There are no longer large worlds with cities, dungeons, and enemy bases to explore. Now there is only one city, and only one dungeon in each of the remaining four worlds. Mission bases no longer exist, and there are no citizens to take quests from. Now players have no choice but to trudge through the extremely linear and limited worlds that haven’t been destroyed by Corporate Commander’s forces. Enemy variety has become a joke, as four enemies are always present no matter what world that the player is on, and even then the power curve between the worlds is mind-bogglingly steep. It is almost impossible to get past the second world unless a player has spent cash on the game for better parts. Non-cash Gatcha has been eliminated, leaving strictly cash-payers for the little perks that they might receive. Drop rates have also decreased substantially; a player can unload hundreds of bullets, blades, and missiles on a particularly hard-to-kill enemy, and not get even the smallest drop from it.
Players have made their disdain for this clear, but all notes and emails sent to Cyberstep remain unanswered and are most likely ignored. I myself have spent real-life cash to get in-game cash that I have yet to receive, and Cyberstep reacted similarly. See the players express their outrage here: www.c21-online.com/_/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=121
I am sending you this to see if you can look at what C21 has become, and if its sacrifices are worth the extra cash. I am a mech and robot enthusiast, and have been looking for a game that satisfies both my gameplay and aesthetic tastes for as long as I was playing video games. For a while, the game that I was looking for was C21, but now that it has degenerated to the poo poo stain of its former self, I feel as much of a shell as this game has become. I then remembered your goal of reviewing games to help people spend their hard-earned money wisely, and how zealously you pursued this goal. I want to ask for your help in reviving this game to its former glory, so that me and all of the other western players can explore the mechanical cosmos like it was meant to be. I hope to receive your reply.
With great remorse,
Antonio Mariano
I'm basically asking for support, maybe Cyberstep will listen if enough voices shout out. If you don't already play the game, play it and tell Joe that there are people spending $200+ on it for content that is only DLC worthy (worth $5-$18 at best).
If you don't know who Angry Joe is, here's a clue.