{"id":1287,"date":"2009-08-25T20:41:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T02:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2009-08-25T21:02:24","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T03:02:24","slug":"co-the-peasants-are-revolting-part-dieux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2009\/08\/co-the-peasants-are-revolting-part-dieux.html","title":{"rendered":"CO: The Peasants Are Revolting! Part Dieux"},"content":{"rendered":"

Massively reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This last weekend was something of a letdown for Champions Online<\/a> players waiting to get paid this week and purchase the limited time $200 or $60 special subscription deals<\/a>, both of which came with goodies both in-game and out. What essentially transpired was that, well, Cryptic<\/a> unexpectedly reached their limit for lifetime and six-month specials.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t the best of situations, and many community members are understandably upset by the sudden retraction of the offer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’ll note that Massively’s linked announcement doesn’t say anything about a limited number of these seats, just that it was available only until 1 September. Which is, um, not yet.<\/p>\n

And the email I got on 22 August, just three days ago, says “Limited Champions Subscription Deals!” but mentions neither a date nor a quantity cap. Same for the one I got on 5 August.<\/p>\n

And Cryptic’s official response:<\/p>\n

\n

We’d like to take a moment and hopefully clear up any confusion regarding our discounted Champions Online lifetime and six-month subscription offers…<\/p>\n

First, we do sincerely apologize for the rather abrupt end to the promotional offers. It was never our intention to spring that news on our fans or anyone else. In short, we had an allotment of special subscription packages to sell over a fixed time (ending September 1). When we began approaching the offer cap before the date cap, we had to message. Frankly, we never suspected our special offers to be so popular.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which seems like pretty poor planning on Cryptic’s part.<\/p>\n

\n

While we did mention that supplies were limited in an announcement post<\/a>, <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which cannot be read right now because the forums are down. <\/p>\n

\n

we definitely should have emphasized our limits more explicitly in all our messaging. <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yup. Though it’s still remarkable that no limit was ever mentioned except for the initial announcement. Having a limited quantity is a known selling point. Not mentioning it is at best grossly negligent, at worst highly suspicious. <\/p>\n

\n

Again, we just never expected supply to be any kind of an issue. The community response to our offers has been… amazing.<\/span>

It’s hard for all of us here at Cryptic to see outcry in our communities. We work day and night to create the best gaming experiences we can and any missteps \u2013 big or small \u2013 on the long, winding, and sometimes treacherous path of development are always regrettable.<\/span>
<\/span>
We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and we do sincerely hope you understand and come play Champions Online with us this September.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So … “We made a goof, but wasn’t it for a wonderful reason?” <\/p>\n

Actually, the response should be, “Wow, we made a goof, and we realize that this has upset people, but we are so tickled by the interest in the game that this is how we’re going to make it up to you …” <\/p>\n

If the financial picture makes extending the offers unreasonable, there’s any number of other bonuses you can offer. Sign up for a 6 month plan and get X free alt slots, or some other no-money-out-of-our-pockets QoL tchotchke. Make the customer feel like you really do care.<\/p>\n

Mistakes get made. The worst mistakes are not fixing the first mistakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Massively reports: This last weekend was something of a letdown for Champions Online players waiting to get paid this week and purchase the limited time $200 or $60 special subscription deals, both of which came with goodies both in-game and out. What essentially transpired was that, well, Cryptic unexpectedly reached their limit for lifetime and … Continue reading “CO: The Peasants Are Revolting! Part Dieux”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-champions-online","category-true-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}