Alright, I took a day to clear my head, so I have a few more things I'd like to point out. Others probably have already, but I'll point them out as I go.
Here's the problem. The update is great, alright? It is. Everyone can get any eye they want on their dragons and that's amazing - I know I already have some plans and projects in the works. But here's the crux of it all, that I think many are trying to articulate:
the damage had already been done.
The eyepocalypse had come and had sparked a fire that started to burn everything to the ground. With no fixes to be had, the fire kept burning until it eventually burned itself out. Now we were left to build back up with the blackened pieces, to try and adapt to this new and flawed situation. And for
3 years, that is what everyone did. Users adapted to this shifted marketplace and figured out how to use a system that was broken so they could continue playing the game how they wanted. And
no one can fault
anyone for doing so. There were no hints that help was coming, or a fix was on the way, so everyone hunkered down and did the best with what they had. Saying that people played the gambling game and lost is wrong, since we had
no knowledge that this was, in fact, a gambling game and simply took it as a new era to adapt to.
Then, 3 years later, an update comes. But it is the equivalent of throwing water on already cold cinders. The update knocks down what we had built and flattens it completely. It does give us new supplies though, new materials and ways to build back up even faster, which is great! It's exactly what we needed!
3 years ago. Though it is good for the long run and definitely needed to happen, you
cannot fault people for feeling disappointed and even angry that all of the work they put into building a somewhat stable environment out of the burned cinders was disregarded and thrown out overnight. Yes, it is far better now, yes, it is more fair for everyone, but the
damage had already been done years ago. I can see very clearly how it could feel like a slap to the face for those who spent years doing what they could with the flawed system, because they had no other choice! There was nothing saying anywhere that this would change, so they
adapted.
And the scattersights - they are a whole different, but equally important, problem. Items are money in FR, and that is just plain truth that cannot be disputed. Nowadays, with nothing, not even fest items, remaining retired, no wonder people are clutching onto their limited assets.
Because there are no new assets being created. Scattersights are very controversial - I hated them when they were first introduced and even now I still hold a grudge against them - but it does not change the fact that this was the first retired asset to come out in
years. At this point, scattersights became akin to eggs and retired fest items, and flowed into the marketplace as something to trade with. And there is nothing wrong with this. People were not taking 'advantage' of anything, they were using what they were given so that they could make light of a bad situation.
We were told that scattersights would not be brought back, which to this day is true. Unfortunately, it no longer matters since there is a far cheaper method that guarantees you get what you want. Whether the staff meant it or not, this absolutely obliterated the value of the item to around 10% of what it was worth before. Yes, the scattersights are still retired, but it would make no difference if they were brought back, no? The damage has been done and the market people have been building for 3 years has been pushed over overnight. With staff being so adamant, as Kydoimos said, on retiring vials for good, it's obvious that they became a bank item like sprites and eggs. So to suddenly have them be rendered worthless definitely feels like a stab in the back. Because, it was heavily implied that the eye types would not be moving from breeding exclusivity, and you
cannot fault people for thinking so after 3 years of near silence on the topic. As Toska said:
Toska wrote:
Here's a
quote:
"Going forward, here's what we'd like everyone to know:
Vials of Scattersight will not be returning to the game; we still think it's important that from this point forward, natural eye types be part of the breeding system exclusively."
There is nothing here to imply that eye types would be put on the market, in fact it implies the opposite. So it's incredibly frustrating that people don't realize how much of a shock this was to many people.
All in all, it needed to happen. But any form of communication, even just a 'we're considering the eye dilemma' would have given people some hints as to what would happen. Instead, we got no warning, and a bank item has been rendered worthless and obsolete, which people have every right to be angry about. To put it into perspective, it's nearly like if they put a sprite item on the market for 10% of a sprite's actual cost, but it gives you a random sprite instead of the sprite you want. Yes, technically the sprites haven't been unretired, but there is now an item that makes them obsolete anyways, so what's the difference?
Anyways, I know I missed some points, but I know others have already covered it. I
am not saying that this update is inherently bad, just poorly communicated with seemingly unpredicted negative results. I hope this helps some people make sense of the problem more. Thank you.
