We as players have been extremely vocal in clarifying our issues and problems to Eyedentity (ED), be it via the forums, in-game or in the community discord. But it seems these claims have fallen on deaf ears all too often. So this is going to be my last hoorah to at least try to let ED either respond or give us some hint that they understand the issues we’re facing with their company. So without further ado… Here we go
(p.s. This isn’t made to Bash ED or to demean their service in anyway, but this is to give them one last clear cut view on what is causing issues for us as players.So, don’t view this as a rant/insult to ED but rather an expression of our perspectives. Let me just address that I know they've stated that they don't wish to interact with people via the community discord but that again is just creating another barrier between players and staff, which is discussed later.)
It Begins
ED first takes over the server and everyone is excited, there are a few issues on the relaunch, but these were all expected and acceptable. The issues started to arise within the first week though, having multiple emergency maintenances, the most frequent of which being a maint every 2 days. Again, this was bearable at the time due to it just being the relaunch of the game, we were accepting of this (although, it was a bit insulting that they shut the game down for 10 days to make it a smooth transition but it was still one of the roughest relaunches I’ve seen. But this was okay). It started to become an issue when they were announcing events for the community, announcing the events in GMT+8, so it was reasonable to assume the time mentioned (for example, an event starting at 19:00 GMT+8) as the start of the event, should be when the event starts correct? Well that’s where we were all wrong as they started the event (Which only lasted for 1 hour) an hour earlier than the announced time, resulting in a large number of players missing out on the event entirely. But many of us still gave them the benefit of the doubt, it wasn’t until it happened for every event they were hosting that we realised, even though the events were announced in GMT+8 they were being run and handled in GMT+9. This trend continued on for a while after this, all updates and notices would mention “1330 GMT+8” but the notice would be up at “1230 GMT+8”, as if they’d come from the future itself. This isn’t a huge issue if it’s just updates that were off time wise, since it’s a small inconvenience to realise that their timing was wrong… The issue arises when limited time events are running on the wrong time, and players miss the event completely because the person announcing it didn’t convert the time to GMT+8 properly. This is just a sad display to see from the company so many people put their hope in when the transfer happened.
Settling in
Some time has passed by now, and we’ve given some time to ED to settle into hosting DN SEA. The first issue I take with this is how all the events were announced. It feels like such a lazy method, each event announcement has the bare minimum of information in it, not actually giving out any crucial details to the events and leaving most players in the dark. The most notable one to me would be to the Deathmatch announcement, which lacked the information on the following:
- Time of the event
- Game mode
- Class limitations
Without that information, I personally know many people who were hesitant to join in the event, myself included. This leads quite smoothly into the other issues that became more glaringly obvious as time went on, the lack of information that we were given from the GMs of the game. One of the most glaring examples of this would be when the “No entry with 0 FTG” mechanic was added into the game and everyone (Including Mantou) thought this was not intentional. It was only until a week or so afterwards that Tasha finally came forward and confirmed that this was intentional, giving us a reason behind it. The lack of forewarning and even the lack of information after it was implemented was frankly disgusting, it’s not as if the change was news to ED, as well as ED would have known about and consciously made this decision weeks in advance. The lack of communication here just demonstrates how little they care about us as players and each time they pull a stunt like this, it feels like our value degrades in their eyes.
But the settling in issues don’t stop there, as stated above about the lack of information, it’s happened on multiple occasions. The most recent one being the Spirit spending event, which we were not given images of the rewards until it was almost too late. Many people, again, didn’t want to participate in the event as they were unsure of what rewards they were going to get. This barrier that ED places around all of their events with the lack of information means that players are going to have to go and take a risk just to enter their events. The spending event was probably the worst example as it requires players to spend over 100k EC just to obtain the rewards, meaning that half of the players didn’t even know what they were going to receive.
There are, unfortunately, more examples of this than I dare to display in one post as I want to keep this short enough that the key points get across so, I’ll move onto the final point.
Where we are now
So, ED has settled in over the two months that they’ve been running this game and we would of thought that things would slowly improve from here but… unfortunately that was wishful thinking. A bit of a personal rant here but, all aboard.
I have nothing against Tasha, in fact, I’m glad that we’ve finally got a face for the company. It makes ED seem more human and approachable, allowing us as players to connect beyond just “company” and “players”. We can now see ED as people who work to present us a game, better than we used to be able to. The problem for me starts when it’s become painfully obvious that the main agenda of ED isn’t to promote their game but rather, it’s to promote Tasha. I’d be okay with it if they wanted to keep Tasha as the face of the company, rather I support having a friendly face for the players to communicate with… I don’t support the fact that it feels like Tasha is more important to ED than the game is. I’m sure not everyone will agree with me, but that’s something that irks me greatly.
So, at time of writing this we have just gotten the November content update, and this patch was horrendous. The reason for the patch being so abhorrently bad, wasn’t the content, but how it was delivered. We weren’t given any patch notes until roughly 1 day before the patch, in which the patch notes didn’t mention anything about the Nightmare points being reset to make way for the new Nightmare shop. It would've been fine if they added it in afterwards, before too much time passes… But we never got that, instead it was left until AFTER the server was down and no one can log in, that they told everyone that their Nightmare points would be reset. So if you were unaware of this change, there was NOTHING you could do to prevent it, as you were not informed of this AT ALL prior to it. If i’m harping on this a lot, it’s because of how infuriating it is that they just weasel their way out of a mistake and possible screw over half of their PvE population, the fact that they thought they could EDIT it in AFTER the server went down, is just reprehensible and it makes it look like they’re trying to cheat their player base. The part that annoys me the most is that if they just gave us as players patch notes PRIOR to the patch, then everything would be fine.
On Top of the lack of patch notes and poor event management, the GM presence in game has dropped to essentially 0, and there has become a barrier between the players and the GMs. Sending 1:1 tickets was fruitless as my ticket was closed without me receiving an answer, the GMs aren’t active on the forums and barely in-game, how are we meant to contact the GMs? This barrier that is created causes us as players to feel even more distant from the GMs of DN.
So, what does this mean?
Well, apart from pushing away and alienating many players within the DN SEA community, it causes a barrier between players and staff, causing the players of this game to view the staff as “unprofessional” and seemingly uninterested in the game they’re meant to be handling. Many of us are still playing DN because we do truly love the game but it feels like, out of the hosts and us we’re the only ones who do love this game. I’ve tried to make these posts before and this will be my last attempt, so I’ll make this obvious.
ED, Show us you care about us as your players. Show us that you love the game as much as we do. That’s all we ask.
For anyone who has made it this far, thank you for reading this long winded post about ED. And to any GM or staff that hopefully reads this. Don’t take your players for granted, we can’t just keep on tolerating forever. What I’ve highlighted here is just an inkling of the issues that players face but, starting here would be a great step forward.
Thank you
Tl;dr
Stop being lazy and looking for a tl;dr, read the post~
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