zOMG changes.

[Nissa chan]

Has anyone noticed the new changes for zOMG? There was a post by Qixter saying they were going to do something like a charge for time/shortcut for the game. He wasn't specific, but basically from what I understood is if you paid cash you could shortcut part of the game. In other words, you'd be paying cash in order to get ahead in the game. Seemed a little hypocritical to me, what with the rings being soulbound in order to prevent people buying their way through the game. ~~; Though that was gold and this is actually cash. Makes it seem worse, now that I think of it...
The post is gone now, however, and I don't even see the post I made in their under "My posts" page. Weird.

Also, they've soulbound all the power ups. In order to get one, you'll need to either buy one with cash, or find one on the MP. It irked me a bit because there was no warning about it, just automatic soulbinding.


Sorry if this isn't really relevant... ._.; I'm not sure how many people in this guild play zOMG, but the soulbinding powerups kind of screamed "We want money, even if it'll piss off the users."
Go ahead and delete it if it's not relevant. ^^;;  

[Chaos Blue]

I don't play zOMG anymore (And this gives me less of a reason to, if what you made of that announcement was really what it's going to be), but that's pretty low-down. They seem to ALWAYS find a way to try and cash in on the users, after the game's been up for well over five months and people have beaten it the old fashioned hard way. How casual can you get with an MMO, paying to get through half of it? There are other ways they could have gone about that.

As a matter of fact, my interest for the game went down because of the whole 'orb drop rate going up' or basically buying your orbs or buying your power ups coupled with the fact that I have horrendous lag trying to play it in the first place.

Work out those bugs and make it a damn good game first that runs damn smooth for over the majority of the players- THEN you can talk about money. As far as I know, or can remember (feel free to correct me on this one)...zOMG is still in one of those fancy name stages...Beta? Zeta? I forget, but it sure as hell isn't the final product if they're still tacking those names on at the end.

EDIT: And while I can appreciate all of Qixter's hard work that goes into coding and making the game work in the first place, I find it difficult to believe that this was his decision. I could be wrong. But it just doesn't seem like him. He wanted it to be a casual game. How casual is paying for it? That's borderline WoW, right there.  

[jaggedbubbles]

I think zOMG's still in beta. I didn't mind the orb drop rate so much, but to know that they soulbound power-ups is a little upsetting. I knew they did if you used one (like using one charge of a generator) that it automatically became soulbound, but is Gaia now soulbinding all power-ups?  

[ZNK]

To me, zOMG is a waste of money.

/The end  

[Andromeda Phoenix]

I stay away from zOMG usually 'cause Qixter is full of hypocritical s**t. I just play it randomly hoping to get to the end of that ridiculous game one day before I die just to say that I did.

When rings were soulbound, Qixter himself said this game wasn't meant to buy your way through or make money off of. Now miraculously zOMG is the best/easiest way to make gold next to booty grab and he wants to put in ways to make it possible to buy your way through the game.

Nice going Qix. I see how it is. You can't make money or buy your way through the game if you don't have Gaia Cash. The b*****d. No better than any other dev on this site.

[/rant]
Actually I like the game, but I don't support it anymore because Qixter is full of hypocritical s**t. sweatdrop Damn man can't make up his mind or keep his word.

Orbs were originally unsoulbound so it was fairer to the people who didn't have Gaia Cash. So Qixter could finally say, "While we did make the game so difficult by putting in boss instances that it's only possible to solo with powerups or a crew using a strategy, we're going to unsoulbind powerups brought from the cash shop to make it fair for other users." That's the gist of what he said. Wish I kept my quotes. *grumbles about Qixter's inability to tell the truth*  

[Nanenna]

My only irk is: if zOMG is meant to be a casual game why does it seem to hate soloers? Maybe it's just the rings I'm using but I've gotten pretty far with them I don't want to have to hunt for some other rings I don't like and spend all that time leveling them just to get through the last two areas.

Honestly: yeah. Buying your way through with GCash doesn't seem any better than buying your way through with gold. But by soulbinding rings Quixter has guaranteed that you have to pay your way through the way he wants to. But I don't want to get too ranty about it until we find out what he means by "buying a shortcut." Honestly, the double orbs powerup seems like it's already a way to buy a shortcut.  

[Andromeda Phoenix]

You gotta remember Qixter's slick. When he said "zOMG is a casual game" he meant "casual" like Pacman. Ever seen someone actually defeat that game? It's still "fun" though. Problem is he keeps taking the "fun" out of his version of "casual". Making the game harder and harder until the reward for beating the damn thing isn't worth the effort needed to even attempt to do so.

Edit: Did I also mention this man is slick in the fact that he deletes/erases what he said in previous announcement stickies concerning zOMG? You can't just quote what he says, you have to take an image of it. Or you will never see it again.

I'm done with zOMG. Seriously. I don't wanna play some game made by someone who can't even keep his own words straight and truthful. If I wanted to do that I'd go find someone cruel and rude and let them manipulate me to their own wants while convincing my gullible a** what I was doing was right even though it wasn't.  

[Nissa chan]

I beat the game a few months ago, before the massive orb drop rates. They eventually fixed those to a lesser degree, now. I really dislike it when they delete announcement threads, especially when they deal with important things like changes.
Every single power up is soulbound now. Without warning, they are all soul bound. No chance to put it in the MP, or anything.
Maybe what he means by paying for shortcuts is like the powerups and whatnot. The double orb things were quite a bit of a short cut for most people, I think. I'm not sure. Have to see what this will turn out to be. Beating the game isn't too hard...It's just time consuming getting a whole crew together. It forces you to play with others. That's not so good for people who like to play a game solo or with only a few friends.
I think at one point EB took like 8 hours to beat, I heard. Not very casual, in my opinion.  

[UPC Betsy]

In regards to soulbound powerups, the announcement about them is still up. It's here. Even so, I still took a screenshot of it, just in case.

Here is what bothers me though:

qixter

Basically, we screwed up around Christmas. We gave away PowerUps as part of a main site giveaway. What we didn't stop to consider was that 7+ million people would get those PowerUps...but only a fraction of them actually *play* zOMG!.

So the vast majority of Gaians dumped the PowerUps into the marketplace and consequently, the community is sitting on hordes of them, removing any desire to take advantage of their availability in Back Alley Bargains. And we're talking many hundreds of thousands of PowerUps sitting out there...not just a few.

Basically they are soulbinding the powerups because they want people to pay cash for them in Nicolae's shop, and not gold on the MP. stare

EDIT: And here is the link to his journal entry talking about pay for a shortcut through the game. Once again, I screencapped it just in case.  

[Nissa chan]

Yes. Makes them look money hungry, yet again. I don't see how power ups screwed up the economy. The power ups are still just sitting on the accounts, except now, all people can do is use them, or trash them.
Though I did read somewhere they might be doing a sellback value for them. Probably a very small amount...Like if you sold back your rings...

Pretty soon they're going to start soul binding our clothes. rolleyes Or quest items, though I wouldn't mind those so much...  

[jaggedbubbles]

I've never personally went to the MP with the intent of buying power-ups with gold, so I never knew that there was such a large problem with unused inventory.

It seems a little shady to me - abruptly soulbinding power-ups so people have to pay cash for them, not to mention taking away power-up drops in the first place.  

[Andromeda Phoenix]

@UPC Betsey: It's not even that that bothers me. I know zOMG takes money to run. Stop screwing users who can't or aren't willing to pay cash over and going back on your word because you need that money Qixter! He made the powerups unsoulbound (they were soulbound when the game first came out but they were also a drop from animated. Now they don't even drop in the game.) because users had a solid argument that the game was way too hard without them since he put bosses in instances.

Did I mention he's doing this because he and the zOMG staff ******** up? How did 7 million + users taking advantage of something handed out for free not cross their minds? Why are people being punished because the zOMG staff is full of idiots who don't think ahead?

Oh yeah, I've a few screencaps myself. He also has some informational things on his comments. He claims the soulbinding of powerups is the "worst" of things with these new updates.  

[O.T.L.]

Andromeda Phoenix

Did I mention he's doing this because he and the zOMG staff ******** up? How did 7 million + users taking advantage of something handed out for free not cross their minds? Why are people being punished because the zOMG staff is full of idiots who don't think ahead?

Because the entire Gaia staff is full of idiots who don't think ahead as well?

Seriously, these are the same people who supposedly didn't think soulbinding the Anniversary sashes (while only allowing one color per sash) would cause a ruckus. (Or that allowing Fremere's Guard's artist to then insult everyone who wasn't happy about that would cause even further uproar.)

And it's not like it's anything new, either. Remember the Grombie event? Gaia staff didn't think that would turn into an elitist flame-fest, even though that was the most likely result of the rules they set up.

Seeing the blatantly obvious results of their actions ahead of time doesn't seem to be something Gaia staff is capable of...  

[Andromeda Phoenix]

O.T.L.

Andromeda Phoenix

Did I mention he's doing this because he and the zOMG staff ******** up? How did 7 million + users taking advantage of something handed out for free not cross their minds? Why are people being punished because the zOMG staff is full of idiots who don't think ahead?

Because the entire Gaia staff is full of idiots who don't think ahead as well?

Seriously, these are the same people who supposedly didn't think soulbinding the Anniversary sashes (while only allowing one color per sash) would cause a ruckus. (Or that allowing Fremere's Guard's artist to then insult everyone who wasn't happy about that would cause even further uproar.)

And it's not like it's anything new, either. Remember the Grombie event? Gaia staff didn't think that would turn into an elitist flame-fest, even though that was the most likely result of the rules they set up.

Seeing the blatantly obvious results of their actions ahead of time doesn't seem to be something Gaia staff is capable of...

*headdesk*
I wasn't there for the Grombie event, but I've seen the elitist flame-fest here and there.

I just wish they'd think out their ideas a bit more thoroughly before going ahead with them. They really need to. They can't keep going back on their word like this because they made a mistake.