Oh man I just read the news on the front page of AOMH. The patch isn't going to be released until very close to the expansion pack release. This is ridiculous. I have completely lost all respect for ES. Instead of focusing a small part of their energy on getting the Set problem fixed in a TIMELY FASHION, they have put it on the back burner so that they can get the Xpack out as fast as possible and rake in the $$$ with sales. Everybody knew that Set (and Ancestors, and Mercs) was still a serious problem about 10 days after the last patch came out. And I don't believe this stuff about, "Oh ES has been working on Set, it's just taking a long time to get the patch changes done right." You want to know why I don't believe it? When this patch comes out, it is going to include ALL of the Xpack balance changes. This patch is not anything separate, it's going to be based 100% on the contents of the Xpack. When ES has completely finished work on the Xpack, only then will they toss us a patch. A while ago, some guy from ES said in an interview that there would be a patch before the Xpack. Silly us, we thought this meant sometime soon, not 2 days before the Xpack.
This is probably the worst job I've ever seen a PC game company do with patching a serious imbalance in their game. Set has been completely out of control for fully HALF of the time AoM has existed. ES you blew it. No wonder there are only 1500 people online during peak hours and 500 people during off hours. You thought the way to breathe life back into this dying game was to release an expansion for us to blow our money on, but you were wrong. The way to revive it was to balance it. People are not stupid. Even if a player is a rookie or a newbie, if they get the feeling that there is no way to truly excel at the game unless they play a screw, the game won't capture their imagination and make them excited to play.
If any moderator takes issue with my post, keep in mind that I am simply stating my personal opinion on a piece of news about AoM that is posted on the front page of your website. If that isn't "on topic" enough, let me know...
[This message has been edited by Dealer (edited 08-20-2003 @ 01:43 PM).]