Greetings everyone, young and old, and let me begin to regale you with a tale of old. It starts off with an excited and very enthusiastic beta tester. He is very happy about this game he is testing, Crimecraft. He finds over 150 screenshots of glitches and problems. Floating gold bars to weird fountain speeds, he finds it all and documents it. He joins a team of people and goes around with them to test the game. Eventually, as the game draws towards the close of beta and the "gold" product hits the street, people start to argue about the direction of the game. The beta tester, trusting in Vogster to deliver a shinning product, has absolute faith in the development team, and defends the game viciously, with almost religious fervor. He wins some fights, and is happy to see whiners go. But as the months press on, this loyal customer gets worried. Crimecraft is not getting better as fast as was promised. Things are still broken from the beta. He becomes jaded and starts spewing the same hate as others, then leaves because he realizes he is acting like a child because of a video game. Months go by. He returns and finds that things have improved, but not the way they should have. The game is still fun, but broken none-the-less. But he has fun playing with people in game. He joins a gang and starts to play tournaments. But he leaves the game for almost two months because of courses, work, and a well-deserved vacation. He comes back and the game he remembers so fondly before is changing for the worse.

To those whom this may concern. I have been playing this game since almost the start, and I am one of less than five players (as far as I know) who still play this game since the beta. Ever since Revenant jumped ship and took all of the beta community with him to APB, this game has gone from bad to worse, to better, to horrible. I really must say that I am very disappointed with the lack of a key plan. This year should have been filled with mountains of bug fixes, some awesome new content (but not mountains of it), and the same commitment to balanced gameplay that you made so long ago. Instead problems with lag keep on increasing. Players can't even start the game because the launcher has failed to connect them to the game. Random accusations of lagging, player abuse, thievery, and stupid drama fill the landscape of Sunrise City. I know in some part I have caused some of it on the forums, and probably lost more friends than I gained. But regardless of this fact this remains: the commitment to balanced and well planned patches has been lacking since the beginning.

The recent changes to make materials and weapons available on the Black Market is in direct violation to the commitment made long ago that players of Crimecraft could not buy skill or power. While one can argue that a brand new person still sucks at Crimecraft, if they buy a four slot gun and the best mods available with their cash, they suck a lot less when they have the percentages to back them up. This, coupled with the fact that higher level players are now stooping down more than ever to join any PvP match simply makes the game skill-less to most players. In addition to that, the new combination of Electric shield and PED simply makes camping a much more lucrative play-style. Couple that with the lack of reloading on the run, and Crimecraft has turned into a very boring, slow, and campy game.

And the very minimal nerf to the grenade launcher does not help that fact. Couple that with the Cuprese nerf, and it the testers and Vogster seem not nearly thorough enough in there testings. Compiled upon this is the nerf to the sniper rifle's scope. Judging by the accompanying nerfs, it seems that the three were supposed to balance each other out. The grenade launcher however, can still kill both snipers and CF users quite easily. The balance to sniper and counter-sniper weapons, just seems to be inane. It almost appears to me as if this was done just to signify to users that the testers were doing something. Though I am probably wrong this kind of thing isn't so far-fetched to most consumers and is not consistent with the promise of constant testing and reevaluation of combat that was promised to the player base. While thankfully the sniper and Cuprese nerfs are being slightly unnerfed, I am still disappointed in what was supposed to be a balanced update.

Not only that, but the continuing amounts of server lag is intolerable. While we were promised less lag with the policy of fully private PvE, it seems ridiculous to hide the fact that the PvP segments were being split into many more categories. Not only has finding a game become almost impossible for ones rating range, but as Tushy elegantly displayed, level 50's in high ratings are the ones who suffer this patch. As it has been said many times before, and will likely be said many times again, the Developers through whatever means necessary need to communicate with players their intentions in the patch for fixes and adjustments. I am not talking about releasing all features; I mean that significant changes to gameplay need to be released before they hit and cause mass anger. The PvE change I was willing to except and experiment with: the PvP change I was not ready for.

I am sad to say that over the year this has been the trend with Vogster, which has been recently growing worse and worse. I will not be held waiting for another year.

In short for those who prefer tl;dr, I am not amused.

Last Edited on: Sep 08 2010 11:56 PM UTC (Feb 10 2012, 10:48am GMT)

I've been around since the first beta opened up from Fileplanet, and there really isnt anything I disagree with in this letter.

I remember the days of NBR's making the bots ignore you for 10 seconds at a time, those were the good old days *sigh*

Edit: I know my forum join date says differently, I completely neglected the forums for no real apparent reason- whoops.

Last Edited on: Aug 31 2010 12:45 AM UTC (Feb 10 2012, 10:48am GMT)

  They're really hurting the OGs and loyal consistent player base they once had by continually adding things that did not solve previous problems, but are here solely to attract the attention of new potential customers. But the way things are going, even the new ones may come to find that this game is slowly becoming generic (sorry to be a broken record).

And what of these posts that the vets are making? New people are going to come in, read them, and realize that even the people who have played this for a helluva long time and love the game are pissed.

Tushy and Rekas both have it right. They've said it all in their own way. What is Vogster going to do to rectify the upset? Add more aesthetics in hopes that we might be distracted?

Fix it and keep us informed, otherwise the displeasure will only grow because all we have are images of reps and devs spinning in their chairs, twiddling their thumbs. You guys are losing too much here.

Very nice post Rekas (Y).

great post. the things laid out here are awesome! good job

Very good post Rekas.

I've only been around for as long as my forum account creation date implies but I've watched gameplay get tuned down to exactly what you describe - I can't but hope that our collective feedback has been noted with capital letters.

All points valid, Rekas. The devs apparently just dont listen, even to their OG crew, put a lot of cash in this game and Ive seen NOTHING of what I ever envisioned this game to be crime & storywise either. Only reason Im still here is cause of the people I play this game with, ONLY REASON and when they leave I will leave...and hey that day might not be so far away if these patches keeps coming up with fail!!

Last Edited on: Aug 31 2010 04:13 PM UTC (Feb 10 2012, 10:48am GMT)

Although I have not been around since the beta. I have been around long enough to know what seems to work and what does not.  As well as what the community needs in order to be happy, and enjoy the game they do and did love. Every day more players lose faith in the game they so once loved. I just hope the devs wake up before the veterns become just another cc legend.

Goood Post Rekas !!

Thank you Termx for unlocking this thread.  I appreciate your reconsideration of my thread. With that said, who else has opinions on this topic?

Totaly agree Rekas.

Long time no see all.

started on my other account a few weeks after release and seen the rise and decline cc has made.

Love the game and what the devs have done with the new patch , but the rentable dura bull they changed.........(this would have been filtered anyway)........... I mean why change a good system, just increase the prices to make the item permanent ?? The rent option is great for any low level player they change gear in a few weeks anyway but @ lvl 40-50 it is the worst thought up idea ever. A complete gearset is so frikkin expensive ingame, 3 weapons 15 attachements, 4 clothing items, just to duraskin the weapons and clothes for a month would cost a minimum of 52GB if u shoot, to play cheap 46GB but only if you mainly knife cause else the duraskins for the guns will lift it way up.

So..... if u play a load a month you have pump in quite some cash to make sure the stuff doesn't break and if u play any less it is not a good bang for bucks and you have to make a load of sacrifices on learning, using chems or bullets.

so 100 GB subscription

52 GB it is a shooter so lets call that the minimum

---------------

152 GB aka what? 8 $ or so just to get you going.

The free to play gamers had a chance of getting an ingame gearset that came close to the subscribed players, and they had to cut a quite few conrners on itemstats due to ingame handycaps. The f2p fiends I have are all starting to notice they are way outbalanced atm and the changes and gap becomes larger and clearer by the day. And a set allready hardly lasts 2 levels around lvl 33 -34 and 36 - up due to the lack of jobs. My prognosis is due to what the higher lvl free guys are experiencing they will be force to quit in the long run.

Now, of course I could be wrong about things..... maybe I am just one of a few that expect more out of a game then items that suck you dry of cash but never become fully yours. And Im I just 1 of few with friends who play free and feel the ever increasing setback they have over premium and deluxe members. Yet I don't think so.

On the color change......ZOMG..... what happend to the slick fully colored attachement?? Did someone mixed up some of the disaproved beta files in the patch?? like super lame, I changed an attachement on my grey, white themed Exeter Marquis and now I have a barf green silencer which I can not customize. *Facepalm*

Dear developers, I hope you read forum post and otherwise moderators sounds some bells or the alarm, and please review some of the changed. Didn't you hear APB is dying because of the same kind of system you just introduced. Just adjust the prices and make an item like 50GB to make it dura for an eternity, 20 bucks REALLIFE cash per set (there are 4 items people will get anyhow (most will change a set every 10th level) thats 80$ without the subscription if you play the game with eternal clothing dura only.......and 140$ for one year subscribed with the mentioned that should be enough of a profit. Right!? this is (*****)

I you ask these prices better deliver a game that is worth the ammount of dollars you want to receive. That means get the load of glitches, issues and whatevermore out that have allways been in the game. (empty but unuseable augslots reset, uberhigh ping glitch player kick, chick knife and hitbox advantage, empty pawnbroker/mailbox windows, not recognizing ID and player allready ingame issue, the most useless item ever aka pistol, either rebalance or make new skills, dualwield or pistol frenzy, or just drop the item from the game in total. No one beside the job hunters and low levelers use it. etc. etc.) Srry guys, had to get this off my chest.........I vote for a recap.
 

Last but not least the changes made to the chemist proffesions made it to simple + the compensation hardly covered 1 bought unique formula. Who ever did the calculations on that has to spend more ingame.... 153 formula's gone *sigh* imiss the days

Last Edited on: Sep 09 2010 01:58 AM UTC (Feb 10 2012, 10:48am GMT)