Behind the Content: Big Bang Developer Interview

Oh, and one more "disjointedness", unrelated to quests:

I have a new skill called "Ground Smash". Would you expect something with that name to be the most useful skill for hunting flying mobs? Yet it is. Makes sense you'd hit more stirges and crows by shaking the ground than by swinging your sword in the air, right?
Oh, and you can also jump-cast Ground Smash...

That kinda pisses me off for some reason>.>. Why not just call it "Purple Smoke" at least THAT would be more correct

There is already much confusion and the PR over the months does nothing in terms of proactivity.

They have failed in preparing any Mapler for Big Bang, and this includes the failure to give a solid release date within reasonable time. Those resets on sale on Black Friday really threw everyone for a loop on whether or not there would be a free SP reset. Now how are people supposed to prepare?

Why do you tell people about coming skill removal/changes/additions but not tell them in advance that they will be given the opportunity to reallocate their SP, assuming that's even going to happen? That SP reset sale could look like a scam depending on how things go, and should the worse case scenario come up, I want to see Nexon legally punished for it if the possibility exists.

No, they don't have to give away an SP reset come Big Bang, but if they do, they should refund every person who bought SP resets.

No, they don't have to give away an SP reset come Big Bang, but if they do, they should refund every person who bought SP resets.

Technically, they don't have to do anything. But if they don't give out an SP reset after Big Bang, you can be for damn sure that a vast majority of current players will quit. There will be an SP reset. There absolutely has to be.

not giving free full resets is bad for nexon. I mean characters already level 150+ are basically screwed out of some key skills, like brawlers for example: they either lose 20% hp (10%?) or they lose crits. Not only that, but they would be significantly weakend in comparison to other characters due to lack of powering up skills from prior jobs like the extra % added to old skills.

Screwing your fanbase over isn't quite what a company needs...

Technically, they don't have to do anything. But if they don't give out an SP reset after Big Bang, you can be for damn sure that a vast majority of current players will quit. There will be an SP reset. There absolutely has to be.

I agree with what you say and I am fairly certain we will get resets. But to show that nothing is certain: In another mmorpg, Dragonica, they actualy did not give out any free resets after a major revamping. It took the community months to get them to admit they had given some asian versions of the game free resets, and to get them to do the same there. In the end they got the reset, but the company actually tried to pull a fast one.

Technically, they don't have to do anything. But if they don't give out an SP reset after Big Bang, you can be for damn sure that a vast majority of current players will quit. There will be an SP reset. There absolutely has to be.

And what if Nexon launches a 70% SP reset campaign? They already did a 30% SP reset sale which will be at most 4 weeks before BB. That is incredibly shady already. What's to stop them from going worse? What if that 'vast majority' that would be expected to quit barely buys NX? Would it be a worthwhile gamble from a business perspective if everyone is basically forced to buy SP?

This situation really doesn't settle me well.

Why does it look so much like insider trading? They know in advance SP resets may be worthless come BB if they give full resets. Giving a 'sale' to try to get as many virtual goods purchased right before the good will be considered worthless echoes the concerns of insider trading. Been a while since I briefed up on the relevant laws. Fiel says they can technically get away with it. I'm assuming he's not referring to the terms of service since a contract could be voided by a court.

Months?

Pretty sure that after months, everyone will either have quit or bought SP resets.

The SP sale was a scam no matter how you look at it. Even if they don't intend to give away SP resets, expecting people to do enough of their homework to know how many resets and which job they will need, is absurd. Saying, "Well, you should have bought them on Black Friday" would be worse PR than just not saying anything in response to whatever public outcry comes up.

I must admit that I don't know whether I'll need any SP resets yet. Haven't done the math, how many SP freed up from removed skills (or lowered-max skills) vs. how many needed for new and useful skills. I figure I'll have plenty of time to do that during the BB patch

Why does it look so much like insider trading? They know in advance SP resets may be worthless come BB if they give full resets. Giving a 'sale' to try to get as many virtual goods purchased right before the good will be considered worthless echoes the concerns of insider trading. Been a while since I briefed up on the relevant laws. Fiel says they can technically get away with it. I'm assuming he's not referring to the terms of service since a contract could be voided by a court.

I do not think it falls under insider trading, and sadly I doubt what they did is even remotely illegal. We can all agree that is macabre business practise though, and had I been prone to optimism I would have guessed it to be just a bad misstake caused by uninformed employees. Wait, thats not really any better now is it? A company managed by such oblivious apes would almost be as bad as one run by shady crooks. We can't win playing this particular game.

"Do not attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

"Do not attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

Right you are sir. However it makes no difference if they are malicious or stupid. We all loose regardless.

I think my hype for this Big Bang just died. Ah well, there's always the technical help section.

More useless "We did it first" By Nexon America

Oh, nexon, You can stop pretending you developed the big bang content, we're happy with you just copy-pasting it and giving it to us. As long as you don't screw it up.

Some of unnecessary and inconvenient game systems have been removed

That'll be the monster book then.

The GDT seem to be in a delusional state where they think they created the Big Bang.

That'll be the monster book then.

The GDT seem to be in a delusional state where they think they created the Big Bang.

Gotta claim somethin'.

Oh, and one more "disjointedness", unrelated to quests:

I have a new skill called "Ground Smash". Would you expect something with that name to be the most useful skill for hunting flying mobs? Yet it is. Makes sense you'd hit more stirges and crows by shaking the ground than by swinging your sword in the air, right?
Oh, and you can also jump-cast Ground Smash...

This. If it's gonna hit flying enemies, at least make the animation show staglamites coming up out of the ground instead of having some sort of purple flare.

<insert something witty that's along the lines of "Tell me something I don't know" here>

not giving free full resets is bad for nexon. I mean characters already level 150+ are basically screwed out of some key skills, like brawlers for example: they either lose 20% hp (10%?) or they lose crits. Not only that, but they would be significantly weakend in comparison to other characters due to lack of powering up skills from prior jobs like the extra % added to old skills.

Screwing your fanbase over isn't quite what a company needs...

Obviously they need to reset the skills that got removed/reduced, as long as they can manage that, my skill build should be ok, on 1st-3rd job anyway. I would like a reset for my 4th job skills in light of the changed skills, but I could probably get by without it, since I'll have 20 SP of Divine Charge reset.

Seeing as how this is Nexon we're talking about here, they're going to screw up the SP reset one way or another by either not giving us one or by messing up the number of SP returned like they did in JMS. I'm not expecting much either way.

I love Nexon's uncanny ability to say much yet say nothing at the same time.

The article uses terms such as 'new skill's, 'balancing', 'restrucure of the underlying mechanics' yet they don't really explain any of these. What underlying mechanics did you guys have a problem with? Tell us a story about an issue. You speak of player feedback and needs being addressed. What are these needs you speak of? Give an example.Did you guys even read anything?

Crappy hype is crappy.

not giving free full resets is bad for nexon. I mean characters already level 150+ are basically screwed out of some key skills, like brawlers for example: they either lose 20% hp (10%?) or they lose crits. Not only that, but they would be significantly weakend in comparison to other characters due to lack of powering up skills from prior jobs like the extra % added to old skills.

Screwing your fanbase over isn't quite what a company needs...

We just had a black friday sale where they made a ton of players work together to 'earn' sales that only a few of said players would actually benefit from to prevent the usual sales slowdown that occurs in anticipation of a sale.

Nexon's already demonstrated that their screwing skills are on the same tier as that of a 1st class gigolo.