Sunday, November 16, 2014

Crunch Time

If you, like me, have been saving your DDO's 8th/D&D's 40th Anniversary Card Collection cards, then you're now under a timer to crunch them or "forever" have them un-crunched.

According to this post, the crunching mechanic of the 8th Anniversary Card Collection is being "retired".  When exactly?  That does seem to be the question, as all we're told is "with release of U24".  But they don't bother giving the date for U24's release.  Not even a "scheduled to be released" date.

I find this extremely frustrating for a couple of reasons.  First of all - and most importantly - we were told that, while we could only get cards by rolling the magical D20 during the anniversary event, we would be able to crunch cards 'indefinitely' after the event had closed, as long as you had cards to crunch (which are of a limited supply).  Granted, the definition of 'indefinitely' allows the ability to set an ending, but most people took it to mean "forever" (or at least until the DDO servers are shut-down).  Now, while not out-right stated, this was implied as it was also 'suggested' that the rolling of the D20 for cards might return from time-to-time.

Second, I still occasionally see someone using the 6-year old anniversary cake.  Seeing as how we're now 2-years (and counting) past this event, it seems inconsistent that one anniversary event mechanic is allowed to continue, while another is not.  {I hate inconsistency; I would rather have a baseball umpire be consistent in his calling of strikes - even if they are not actual strikes - then to be inconsistent; at least consistency is repeatable and learn-able.  Unless, of course, the only consistency is being inconsistent...}

Third, why has no actual calendar date been given?  Only a cryptic foreshadowing of "when U24 is released".  Really?  That's all you can tell us?  I mean, come on - we all know that release dates are subject to revision, so why not give us a target date?  They basically did the same thing when they announced the shutting-down of "my.ddo" - using words like "soon" and "sometime in May".  Do I have until the end of November?  Or maybe it'll be before Thanksgiving?  Or are they going to wait until the last week of December?

Go ahead, be vague on a specific date, but at least give us a target or tell us we'll have at least "x" many days/weeks, because crunching takes planning - especially when the rewards are BtC, not BtA - and planning takes time.

Now, of course there is speculation that they are doing this because of the un-spoken exploit of duplication.  And that may be valid, but we'll never know because exploits are not to be discussed in the fora (sorry, "forums").  So don't expect any official confirmation, because it is highly unlikely one will ever be given.

Still, Turbine needs to learn how to better handle these kinds of announcements.  Giving cryptic, ethereal, nebulous deadlines like "soon" are frustrating.

{A game company that frustrates its player-base?  That's unprecedented.}

8 comments:

  1. I never had or had seen any of these cards so I'm not worried! :D

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  2. The "magical D20" and 'cruncher' device were (are?) in your "red box" anniversary gift from earlier this year. If you never rolled the D20, you can still get cards from other players (originally, you were supposed to be able to even sell them on the AH, but there was a bug that prevented them from showing up, if you were searching for them, so they officially disabled being able to put them on the AH). I'll let you borrow mine, if you want - you can double click on the cards to add them to your image gallery.

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  3. I agree about the date. Lay it out there.

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  4. I agree with ya. I'm going to have some issues my self as I using these as needed type of thing and I wasn't worried about an "expiration." Now, I'm going to have to spend a good amount of time not playing and trying to figure out who can use what and get those cards crunched down.

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  5. Last time I was on, I never saw a red box... Maybe I missed it because I didn't log on during the event?

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  6. Hmmm...best as I can recall, it automatically showed up in the backpack of the first toon you logged in with (on any given server). So...maybe one of your other toons has it?? Not sure when they stopped giving them out; the birthday even was back in early March, so I suppose if you didn't log in at all from early March through (guessing) April, it's possible you missed it.

    No matter, you should still have an image gallery on your UI, and I am keeping (1) of each card that I have, so like I said - you can borrow them to add to your image gallery.

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  7. Wakkawakkawakka WAKKAAAAA

    I won't be available to log into the game for a while. Doctors don't know what's wrong with my sisters mum yet. We shall see I spoze!

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  8. Yes, yes & yes!

    Also, regarding the handling of announcements - I only know about it because someone mentioned it in chat. I don't read the forums ( sorry - fora :P ) so I think they need to extend their notification process

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