And now EME just keeps silent and dodges any query about the Elin armor changes. How's that for their first major blunder as a starting game company? And the game hasn't been launched yet.
This is what scares me the most, and what is at the moment most prompting me to ask for a refund. The actual issue of the Elin Armor is a client side fix, but what I find more concerning then anything is what appears to be a great disrespect for your fanbase when you won't answer their questions or give them any sort of answers what so ever. It's just not something good game devs or publishers do, a good game dev will respond, in some fashion, to their player base. But twiddling your thumbs and just wanting the problem to "go away" is not something a good game dev should do, ever.
They're kind of just coming off as children in denial to me at this point, and if they don't say SOMETHING about it before release, I'm just going to cancel my pre-order, because who knows how many various other issues they'll choose to ignore.
I dont plan to cancel my preorder but i dont think i will stick around for long. Even with this elin stuff the game is at least something different. I think all in all i would try an see what there is to see in the game an then move on. That is unless they really pull something else with this kind of quality, quest text being gibberish, changing the new armors in some way to better fit their idea of what we as westerners want. Or something along those lines. At most i see my self playing this game for two to three months.
Now if they did come out an talk to us about it, i would be more inclined to stick around and keep giving them my money. If the game ends up being over hyped an all they have is good graphics an some decent action combat though, i doubt i will make it through the first month.
I will pick up blade an soul if thats the case, at least that one has an interesting story line.
I don't like the idea of paying a developer who's not willing to talk to their player base, who blatantly ignores them, won't provide answers and what almost kind of feels like is looking down them as if anyone who plays a certain class in a game THEY chose to localize is scum.
Yea, and its not like they are so busy that they dont have time, there are plenty of threads where a dev or even the head of this company have posted. One wasnt even all that long ago, of course the post where the head guy posted was nothing more then a worship thread about how they love him.
Flattery will get you everything i guess.
But like i said i dont see my self playing for very long after release anyway. The combat is nice and the characters look neat but i fear there isnt enough hold me for more then a couple months. All in all the game is just something to do until something better comes out. I dont see it ever being a real successful mainstream mmo like they want. It just doesnt have enough to do it to compete with games coming out, seems like they should have just stuck with their anime niche markets an it would have done fine.
Absolutely nothing. People can be as over dramatic as they want to be about whatever issue they want, regardless of its impact on various sectors of the game.
If I had to place a bet, I would bet that most people don't care enough to leave the game over it, and EME knows that. Players finicky enough to leave over something like this are likely players that would not belong to the stable core playerbase of the game in the long run - that core is what sustains an MMO even a decade after its release, and are what games really need to survive. People have stuck around in other games over much greater injustices that actually affected gameplay in a serious way.
I can appreciate the plight, as I've been very frustrated by cosmetic issues in other MMOs over the years, but in the grand scheme of things, this is incredibly minor. For Pete's sake, I've had to live with a chestpiece that distorted/made my character's torso geometry *disappear*, and I still play that game even though it took months to get it fixed.
Now, if it actually affected Elin's stats, runspeed, combat ability or what have you... I'd be up in arms right along with you. Maybe I just don't understand why this is such a hot-button issue to some people.
Your point has merit. But the example you provided is a texture problem of the armor you wore which was not intentionally done by the developer. The redesigns of the Elin armors were however intentional. In EME's POV the Elin appear like "cute little girls" when they all know too well that aren't children at all. But they chose to impose their same prudish view on their entire target audience.
I believe the main reason why the Elin censorship issue is such a hot and sensitive topic is due to EME's mishandling the whole mess. Players on both fronts would be a lot less vocal and hostile if EME had involved the community with their decision from the start. After they publicly announced it any info related to the changes of the Elin armors were kept under the hood. They didn't create any polls, pass surveys, or even gather feedback from the community on what they thought about it. There were some who weren't quite outraged at first by EME's decision and felt that they will do a good job with redesigning the Elin armors. But when images of a few of the "new" armors designs began to surface the Elin playerbase began to worry if EME can deliver designs with as much quality as the originals. When CBT began sh*t pretty much hit the fan and confirmed the poorly redesigned armors and there was an uproar. And now EME just keeps silent and dodges any query about the Elin armor changes. How's that for their first major blunder as a starting game company? And the game hasn't been launched yet.
You bring up a good point; target audience.
The question is not who they are targeting though - it's who the game is actually going to bring in. If we discount "gamers" as a whole and move to the largest subtype, "MMO gamers", we can start there.
You've got;
MMO gamers
Fantasy MMO gamers
Sci-fi MMO gamers
Eastern MMO gamers
Western MMO gamers
There's a lot of crossover between those categories. And I feel that due to Tera's interesting dynamics and mechanics, it is going to pull a lot of people from the "general" MMO gamer pool. Purely anecdotal; I have generated enough interest in six of my friends who have preordered the game. These are all career MMO gamers who have a history of western fantasy MMOs, with two of them having a fair amount of time spent in eastern MMOs. Myself and four of those six are either playing it because it looks new and interesting, it's a fantasy mmo, or it's the next MMO coming out that might be good.
Origins aside, I think this game will pull in a lot of people outside of their target audience, just as DC Universe Online (a member of a very niche market inside the genre) pulled a lot from other MMO genres because it was seen as innovative and original.
My guess (and please, do note that this is nothing more than a guess), is that EME expects this, hence the change for the broader audience. I can tell you from first hand experience, as a person who loves their moe anime characters, or just anime in general, that the perception of even that, let alone lolicons, is extremely negative inside and out of gaming here in the west. I've shown that comparison screenshot of old/new/should be Elin armor to a handful of my fellow MMO'ers, and they all think that the originals were "gross" or "pedobear". These are the people that are going to be playing the game along side those of us who don't mind the original Elin armor or those of you who want it changed back. And as I expressed above, I think we will be greatly outnumbered in the end due to the nature of Tera's design. Again, it's anecdotal, but the amount of interest I have seen in Tera spring up over the past 2 months in my vicinity is incredible.
Theorycrafting aside...
I definitely can agree that this was handled poorly at a bad time. I can however lend a sliver of sympathy to EME; The weeks and months before a launch can be utter chaos and hell, though I don't know exactly what goes on at a studio who is localizing and publishing a game that has already been released elsewhere. Put the issue through this line of thinking; Is this intended? Does it prevent people from playing the game? Does it adversely effect gameplay? Does it affect gameplay? Is the model/texture broken by the issue? How severe is the issue? When I was in college, that's basically how we prioritized issues on our (crappy) indie student projects, lol. If you do that, you see how the issue can end up at the bottom of a large pile - though this obviously says nothing about the lack of communication.
@ others;
When I said people were being over dramatic, I was speaking in general about the gaming world as a whole. As someone who is neither for or against the original Elin armor, I feel that I can objectively say that *both* sides are being over dramatic, lol (ya'll are vicious!). But that's just the nature of someone who is on the outside of an issue, and an opinion, so it only means as much as you let it. I understand that this is important to some people, though I may not understand the reason WHY it's important. But I respect everyone's right to pursue their interests, which includes this particular issue.
All forum'd out for tonight. I fear I may not be making much sense any more =)
Edited by: Rokuzachi
over 1 year ago
- Reason: Fix'd
Can't say enough the mythology, fantasy and lore references in Tera. Ragnarok Online, for example
There's the character at the bottom in yellow with the fox ears? That's Moonlight Flower(Also known as Cat O Ninetails). She's part of the Kitsune mythology.
She is also a Boss Character in Ragnarok Online(International Korean Game). Wears the same clothes, her sprite un-altered.
When characters are censored like this, their roles and mythology are censored with them.
Here's another character called Etna from Disgaea Series:
Both characters un-edited in US.
Elin is a descent from the Goddess 'Elinu'. Goddesses are usually beautiful, pure-like beings and wear an assortment of fantasy clothing. Sadly, Elin here is taken out of her fictional role and is being treated on the level of a real, breathing person.
@Rok
You bring up an interesting point. There's still that wondering if any of the in-game features (like cutscenes) are going to be snipped because of an elin. So instead of seeing the whole scene, we see half of it because of prudish censorship.
It's just how this situation was handled which was pretty poor. Player questions ignored, threads locked, polls locked, and how elin was practically hidden on the website and left out of promotions(except for 1 race video). Now seeing the "end result" and elin has been stuck with sub-level edits that don't even match the detail or quality Tera has.
Fix and Add RP (since the reform of the new forums), Add PvP, but don't give quality-looking outfits to one race that's been truly singled out of the whole game.
It's a pretty good way to alienate fans, if any company where to do the same thing.
This whole thing been pretty much being waited out for retail. It's come to the point where westernization is being pushed so much by the publisher that anything non-western is being used as a reason for censorship. That's not cultural awareness. Not when the other websites have Elin on their forums/site without problems but over here the very fact that the character exist has been blown into an leprosy.
And players can't even communicate with the publisher without poll locks or just being ignored all-together.
This is what scares me the most, and what is at the moment most prompting me to ask for a refund. The actual issue of the Elin Armor is a client side fix, but what I find more concerning then anything is what appears to be a great disrespect for your fanbase when you won't answer their questions or give them any sort of answers what so ever. It's just not something good game devs or publishers do, a good game dev will respond, in some fashion, to their player base. But twiddling your thumbs and just wanting the problem to "go away" is not something a good game dev should do, ever.
They're kind of just coming off as children in denial to me at this point, and if they don't say SOMETHING about it before release, I'm just going to cancel my pre-order, because who knows how many various other issues they'll choose to ignore.
Yup! That's exactly what's making me doubt about buying the game in the first place, not because of some censored race but because of how they are adressing the issue, sure, they might be a new company and all but the way they handled the whole problem is what makes me doubt them.
Some people might think it's silly and in theory, it actually is but if I'm going to be paying $15 a month, I want te be sure that at least the company I will be paying is willing to listen to the concerns and "feedbacks" of the costumers, as I said before, I don't expect them to give to any demand the player base ask but at least show them that you do care and keep communication going.
It's true that if you want your voice to be heard, the best option will be not to buy the game but they know that people will actually buy the game no matter what if they are interested, although I know quite a few people that won't buy Tera thanks to the bad communication with this problem.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm still interested in Tera but if GW2 or D3 come out around Tera's launch, I'll be going for those games instead just for the simple reasons that those are "F2P"
This is what scares me the most, and what is at the moment most prompting me to ask for a refund. The actual issue of the Elin Armor is a client side fix, but what I find more concerning then anything is what appears to be a great disrespect for your fanbase when you won't answer their questions or give them any sort of answers what so ever. It's just not something good game devs or publishers do, a good game dev will respond, in some fashion, to their player base. But twiddling your thumbs and just wanting the problem to "go away" is not something a good game dev should do, ever.
They're kind of just coming off as children in denial to me at this point, and if they don't say SOMETHING about it before release, I'm just going to cancel my pre-order, because who knows how many various other issues they'll choose to ignore.
Yup! That's exactly what's making me doubt about buying the game in the first place, not because of some censored race but because of how they are adressing the issue, sure, they might be a new company and all but the way they handled the whole problem is what makes me doubt them.
Some people might think it's silly and in theory, it actually is but if I'm going to be paying $15 a month, I want te be sure that at least the company I will be paying is willing to listen to the concerns and "feedbacks" of the costumers, as I said before, I don't expect them to give to any demand the player base ask but at least show them that you do care and keep communication going.
It's true that if you want your voice to be heard, the best option will be not to buy the game but they know that people will actually buy the game no matter what if they are interested, although I know quite a few people that won't buy Tera thanks to the bad communication with this problem.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm still interested in Tera but if GW2 or D3 come out around Tera's launch, I'll be going for those games instead just for the simple reasons that those are "F2P"
This here is why i hate arguing with uneducated people.
EME/BHS have already stated that the the decision to change the things they changed was a business decision, and part of the westernization/localization of the game. The developers have answered the "Why?", as well as stated that the changes are none negotiable. Why people never bothered to get them self's caught up is out of my understanding.
Where did they say that? I have seen a video where they said it was because they were afraid of upsetting churches an feminist groups. I have also had people say that they said these models are final. But i have also heard people say they said that these models are not final and will be taking feedback on how to best change them once open beta starts.
I know alot was said on the old forums, but those are gone now, so unless they come and re say it on these new forums. I wont believe anything any player says with out a link to a post with the dev response, or podcast, or interview.
This here is why i hate arguing with uneducated people.
EME/BHS have already stated that the the decision to change the things they changed was a business decision, and part of the westernization/localization of the game. The developers have answered the "Why?", as well as stated that the changes are none negotiable. Why people never bothered to get them self's caught up is out of my understanding.
It doesn't matter why, it was stated before that other companies didn't have to edit a young looking character, and as BananaBread said, it's how it's 'not' being handled. Getting your money back from a pre-order is based on much more than how revealing the character is, but rather how the situation is handled. My decision has been Ping-Ponged since but it's coming to a close as i'm feeling enjoyment from a free game just as much as i am this, games are games it doesn't matter if it's online, offline, free or $100 - When it comes down to how you are treated, it is for the individual to gauge.
Right now i have more of a reason to dislike how one of my tickets was handled, every Elin supporter was called a Negligible person in said ticket, how would that make you feel if you had an issue, if you were "Negligible" to the company you put money into? That was either a poor choice of words or the entire company feels this way, you pick.
