Letter to MA: Textures on Clothes - Undermining confidence in the platform

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on this support case I'm about to submit - what I've written fair?/OK?

Someone recently said I deserved "Thick Skin" award for putting up with Mindark for 10 years. Well the reality is that every so often I get really hacked off with them (well, doesn't everyone?) and have a bit of a moan. I'm only human after all. Anyhow this is what I've written. CC and please.

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Recent Breaking of Textures and Clothing appearance

One of the nice things about the new avatar system was that (finally) we didn't have to have avatars and clothes that were mirrored down the centre line and therefore lacked any kind of asymmetry. In fact during an interview, one of the MindArk artists highlighted this as being one of the more significant improvements/features of the new system.

For quite some time since, the new system has had some really nice asymmetrical clothes therefore, however recently this has been broken for a number of clothing items and/or textures. Please jump to before and after examples below for where clothes rendering has gone wrong/back to the old (bad/old fashioned) system of symmetrical texturing.

In all seriousness, is there any chance that this could be fixed? I appreciate the sentiment of "it's only clothes, it doesn't matter/is low priority" however allow me to explain why this is not the case and why changes/bugs like these undermine the entire aim/credibility of a game such as Project Entropia.

The simple reality is that if you bought a jacket from a high street store, put it away then took it out the next day, only to find the design or style had changed overnight you'd be fairly unhappy and, most likely, ask the store for a refund.

Clothes in Entropia only serve a purpose based on their appearance and, if that appearance changes after the time of sale/creation, they cease to serve that purpose and become useless items. Not many people like to invest much money in an item that could become useless at any moment. It would be like buying a radio that all reviews say is likely to break within 3 weeks of usage. Not only would you not buy that radio, but you would also avoid purchasing from that brand/company in the future. However it is regular investments like these that MindArk depend upon in order to sustain their business.

The same is true of Entropia. As a real cash economy, players are required to place faith in MindArk that their purchases of in game items will be worthwhile. If MindArk are seen to be rendering items useless, be this deliberately, carelessly or via the introduction of (and lack of safeguarding practices against) bugs, players will be cautious to invest in items and warn others not to do so either. This in turn would not only have a knock on effect to deposits but also to game play and through that, a deterioration in frequency of engagement.

As is well known, the majority of players will not profit financially or withdraw money from Entropia therefore an incentive for most players to invest and engage in the game must come entirely from rewards purchasable via in game cash or loot. If said rewards are likely to become useless however this defeats the object of obtaining them and with it, the point (for many people) in playing a game.

In short, if there is no perceived worthwhile reward (clothes, apartments, furniture, pets, other non-essential/luxury items or even profit), there is little reason in playing. If there is no reason to play, then there is no Entropia. If there is no Entropia, there is no Mindark and if there is no Mindark, there is no paycheque.

As a final point, aside from being something the majority of players could invest their rewards in, there is a minority who choose to craft and texture clothes as their in game profession of choice. For them, the equivalent of a good hunting loot is to produce an item of clothing they find visually appealing. For the appearance of said item to then randomly change a few weeks down the line is a little like recalling a 1000ped hunting loot and replacing it with a 100ped loot a few weeks later. Somehow, this doesn't seem a viable game mechanic... or basis for a solid economy for that matter.

Thanks for listening
Wistrel Chianti

 

Don't worry, the pics are there too. Several pages of examples in fact! Some containing multiple stages/examples of what-the-fuck'ery? per item. But I'm not going to post them here though. It took me ages to compile everything and would take even longer to post/layout on here. Sadly, MA are not paying me to find and report bugs to them. Would be nice cause it takes ages.

Anyhow thanks for the feedback, if people think its fair comment I'll send the support case in the morning, Hopefully Ulf will pick it up. He's being pretty chatty about the Space situation I've been reporting on and seems to be generally "on the case" and interested in getting stuff fixed.

Wistrel

 

OK just an up date on this. I've had a pretty good response from the support staff on this report and the case has now been closed awaiting staff to have enough time to look into the fixes. So watch this space... maybe we will see a change... if not I'll probably give up.

I have some confidence as at least some of my other bug reports have been fixed. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Ideally I think I'd prefer a support system where cases remain open until fixed... however I understand, depending on the model of support they are using they may well have a sort of secondary system, ie people report things and once confirmed or enough info has been provided the case is closed and the bug goes into a work list which will be addressed as and when resources allow for it.

Anyhow I'll report back if anything more happens on this in future vu's
Wistrel