Please pass this on... DOA Players Counsel Members: Andrea Richards, USA, New Hampshire Cyril Charlier, France, Marne Cynthia Luttrell, USA, Indiana Sheridan Wells, USA, NY Lonnie Middleton, USA, TX Reference: Dragons of Atlantis - Kabam caps resource Issues: Resource changes made in DOA caused purchased, won and acquired item losses to players and affected the quality of the general gaming experience for all. DOA Blackout Mission Statement: Restoration of BE and EE as resources capable of transport to facilitate frequent combat in what is meant to be a “war game” for players with “skill and ingenuity” and to facilitate and encourage exploration and use of Spectral. DOA community forums have elected our core group of counsel members to represent DOA players. We are here to remind Kabam management their obligations as to what they are representing in advertising and promotion of their free-to-play DOA game. We respectfully request to be heard and taken seriously in our efforts for some key changes within DOA game environment and functions which in turn promotes fare play for gamers at all levels. Introduction: Free to play now isn’t free. The caps on regularly needed basic resources forces players to buy rubies in order to participate in DOA war game. The caps inhibit growth to meaningless levels at which it is practically impossible to compete either regularly or meaningfully in the war game without purchasing rubies. Recent caps of key resources also came with a program code which wiped out any resource levels above the cap levels. This caused players overnight losses in resources that they had purchased, won or acquired through the same “skill and ingenuity” Kabam’s CEO claims the “war game” was designed to target. This represents a slap in the face to all players who invested their money, activity time in Kabam games. It is shocking to read on-line that Kabam’s staff are saying the prevailing attitude inside Kabam is to treat players like “garbage”. Employee feedback alone explains much of Kabam’s true nature in what they call to be a “free-to-play” social network online gaming experience. It is by choice that each player chooses to be bashed and attacked by other players in a war game... hence the term “war game”. But in no means should Kabam mistaken players involvement and participation in their online war game entitles Kabams to ignore proper business practices and the need for quality support. We (DOA gamers and end-users) request reasonable changes to be made which clearly classifies resources and game control features. This report is to provide a clear breakdown of issues and reasons for gamers’ requests. Expectations are focused and dependent upon Kabam management ability to reasonably understand, agree, and accept requests presented in this and accompanied documents as being in line with their business goals and in no way hindering their plans to remain a monetary prosperous “free-to-play” social online game service provider as their business site advertises. DOA Gamers ComplaintsAs this game is still showing version status of Beta even with over 4 years of release experience there are many issues. The following list of player complaints have been identified as the most important. Keeping in mind that there are always changes which will need to be readdressed by the gamers counsel in the future. We, the players’ counsel request the rights and consent to mediate between the “gaming community” and Kabam here and now, as well as in the future on issues/input that effect/improve or change the concept of playability within DOA environment. Over time we feel that Kabam has strayed from the ability of recognizing their constitutes. We have suggestions listed for each main complaint, and would like the opportunity to represent the community in the assurance that Kabam will legitimately acknowledge and consider. We recommend that Kabam make use of this committee as a tool for future game outreach. Quests do not reflect awards that promote battle. Only power gain. awards are resources and items that can not provide reasonable gain from completing said quests. This needs to change. quests should include the ability to move on from novice to skilled and open up ability to move to a new realm once this status is attained. And not before. Tournaments that promote power gains and not battle takes away from the overall experience. This creates a game where players do not want to battle but hoard troops. Taking from the idea that this game was designed to battle. New realms are opening too quickly and dying. Players are not willing to purchase and invest in a realm where there is no one to play/battle with. Premium items (such as heightened dragons and exalted dragons) are only available to the player that purchases and not the Player who plays for free. Storing of resources in spectral ruins. Waisted space in outpost fields which is only usable for field buildings that consumes population. Outposts released that are not “farm-able” in wilds or anthropus. Fortuna- she holds resource items that we can farm as well as the vault holding items that we can get by other means. IE. troop training items. Resource items. Curses (which no player uses) Glitching issues caused by new levels of buildings in main city. All troops should be trainable/revive-able once specific research is attained. Research should be maxed at 20 and no higher.Who is Kabam? “Kabam is the leader in the western world for free-to-play core games” as stated from corporate.kabam/company site. Why is there a cap on resources? Kabam wants to push more ruby sales. *If basic resources that are needed for multiple in-game functions are capped it forces players to purchase rubies in order to buy what is needed to actually play the game turning it into a pay-to-play game in disguise. This will lead to the determination that Kabam promotes in false advertising of their media services. What impact does resource limits have on players? Limiting resources limits player’s ability to accomplish some of the basic actions like training, revival, and enchanting and summoning a dragon for battle. Why are the players in support of the “Blackout”? 1. Loss of purchased res due to cap being implemented without way for players to return items into inventory storage instead of empire storage. 2. Cap limits all players’ growth by inhibiting their ability to train, revive and enchant and summon dragon when battles are going on all at the same time as Kabam challenges/ events focus on encouraging player growth. 3. More specific to revival and training options: The 5 mil cap isn’t enough to do a full troop load utilizing maximum mausoleum capacity in Spectral Ruins or maximum idle population capacity in City and OP builds designed with the “skill and ingenuity” that Kabam’s CEO stated Kabam wished to attract to the game and, in many cases, paid for as builds by the players that designed and built them. 4. Review attached supporting documents: “Troop Blue Energy Eaters”, “Spectral Use and Requirements”, and “Revival Requirements” Why should Kabam and Kabam’s investors be concerned? 1. All players are prospective ruby buyers 2. Over time players do become addicted to the game and to the competitive events, which has them buying rubies and they will spend regularly on novel items but they will not spend on basic resources essential to playing the game for free 3. If players feel as though they are being limited on basic essential resources and a cap caused them losses of what they purchased or won they will stop playing the game. 4. If Kabam loses even a non-ruby player that reduces future sales from those players, server activity and website hits (already down due to the introduction of permanent charging for basic level upgrades for buildings in new outposts in what is supposed to be a free game ultimately accessible to all). 5. Final big impact could come from the revelation that Kabam’s so-called free games are not actually free because of the extent to which Kabam has permanently introduced pay-to-play to the games and the adverse publicity of Kabam causing players to loose purchased resource items, won and acquired resources by simply removing them from play to force all players into a pay-to-play model. 6. Drop in ruby sales 7. Bad publicity thru various media sources8. Possible loss in existing and future investors with fear of loss revenues (bad investment risk) 9. Increase doubt by IPO markets and other lines of financial sourcing groups. 10. Drop in active accounts and players creates uncertain levels of tangible revenue for advertising partnerships/contracts. 11. Reduction of revenue from contract relations with Facebook and Google that are supporting portal connections to Kabam games. If those connection counts drop too much Facebook and Google may pull out to cut overhead costs on maintaining for too low of numbers. 12. Review attached impact study reports: Impact View “A”, “B”, “C” and “D” Investors are not limited to stock or share owners. Investors are also the players themselves that participate in Kabam games. Without players Kabam has no tangible asset to show value or a revenue stream as a business. The biggest investors are the players that buy rubies and prospective future ruby buyers and those players who invest their time generating activity on Kabam’s servers because they represent a viable market to advertisers. Why aren’t the players turning in support tickets? 1. Kabam support responds with standardized replies that are copied and paste to email. 2. Way too high percentage of their replies contain suggested solutions that do not resolve issue or relate to player’s issue. 3. Overall support fail to gain agreement from players on what the issue is in order to proceed the proper resolution process. 4. Kabam support also takes longer then acceptable time to resolve and sometimes to reply to tickets. 5. Kabam support have no basic understanding of game mechanics and routinely reveal this when responding to players claiming BRs have been checked and there is no issue when in fact it is obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of game mechanics that there is an issue. 6. Support has also been closing tickets prior to resolving issues. Closed tickets prevents players to continue in the process in resolving an issue. Instead players are faced with the frustrating act of initiating a new ticket and starting the process over again with hopes that a real professional support person will be assigned. *#1 Ranking support group according to JD Edward is Apple. Within our gaming community we have been advised that the basic proper support procedures are not being followed. Basic Proper Professional Support Process: 1. Gain agreement to end-user issue 2. Determine if issue is caused by end-user side or Kabam server game side 3. Request further info if not sure of cause 4. Isolate proper solution for issue 5. Have customer verify if solution resolved issue 6. If resolved then close ticket, otherwise return to step #3 In no way should any support group close any issue ticket without verification of a working solution from end-user. Support needs to stop using standardized copy and paste replies that do not relate nor resolve reported issues. That will only turn into bad feedback and bad online reviews. DOA Gamers Solution Requests Players’ request at this time is only for the current prioritized pressing issues. We would like for Kabam management to understand that DOA has formed a players counsel in which issues will start being organized according to priority. We do not feel that Kabam’s online forum has been a productive tool in which players are being heard and taken seriously. It is however a good starting point for players to list their concerns and comments for other gamers to review. Players’ requests a fare solution for resolving current issues of priority: 1. Removal of resource caps for Blue Energy and Enchantment Energy 2. Blue energy to be like any other readily useable resource, capable of being raided, transported and stored in Spectral Ruins, with packs of (100, 500, and 1000) being an item drop in the Anthropus Camps. 3. Purple energy (enchantment energy) to be like any other resource capable of being raided, transported and stored in Sanctuary, with packs of (1, 5, and 10) being an item drop in the Anthropus Camps. Limiting of resources prevents players from participating regularly in a “war game” and from advancing beyond a limiting level. When a player reaches a capped level of play that is usually when they will no longer play the game. If Kabam doesn’t agree on players’ requests then they are admitting to false advertising that Dragons of Atlantis is a free-to-play core game. To avoid players from reaching a capped level of play in a “war game”, essential resources should not be capped nor limited to basic levels of use. When Kabam returns these readily required resources back to the game as requested “DOA Blackout” players are willing to return to game as a monetary provision and tangible source for Kabam and Kabm’s investors. There isn’t any reason why these changes can not be done and release any later then September 15, 2013 Upon which our accounted for supporters are willing to return to DOA in further support of Kabam creative Dragons of Atlantis adventure. News: We do have reporters from CNN and local news groups willing to produce articles about “DOA Blackout” depending on what Kabam decides. This could be an opportunity for very favorable press or a one of very unfavorable. Troops - Blue Energy Eaters Troops are the most common users of blue energy as shown below is a list showing blue training requirements. However there are a few that the requirement isn’t showing due to limited opportunities to train, which isn’t at present time for development of this report.Spectral Use and Requirements "Within these ruins is an all new power. The Spectral Ruins will grant you the ability to bring troops back from the dead! The ruins will grant you the new resource of Blue Energy, granting you all new magical researches and buildings to commune with the dead. Those who make enough sacrifices within these ruins will also be able to summon the feared Wraith Dragon for their own attacks." Spectral is the only location that allows revival of troops. Wraith dragon requires 1,700,00 in blue energy and 100,000 Anthropus Talismans to summon each time. Anthropus Talismans are obtainable from camps as long as GD and Elemental dragons accompany in the marches. Spectral is used for more then summoning an awesome Wraith dragon, it’s also the only location in which players can recover troops. Revival is one feature of the game that allows an additional option for players to gain more points when participating in Kabam challenge and tournament events. Revival requires also a large amount of Blue Energy, which at present been capped by Kabam in order to push more ruby sales. Revival Requirements Second most common use of blue energy is troop revivals. The following table give a rough breakdown for three general level of playing methods.Impact Study Over time it has become apparent to many players that although surveys are sent by Kabam business analytical results are not in retrospect of what gamers are conveying for needed changes. Gamers are broken up into multiple of demographic methods in order to provide a more concise view for Kabam management and analyst team. DOA Blackout participants are gamers that have chosen at free-will to temporarily/ permanently quit Kabam games in the hopes of making a difference. Goal of the gamers is to return to their addictive game playing habits only upon Kabam’s management and design management agreeing to terms of gamers requests, which will also be contingent upon a due date of implementation and release. Impact View “A” Without direct access of Kabam servers as a network administrator for checking bandwidth/ user access rankings, a 3rd party gaming tools service provided secondary data. Below are charts showing a steep decline in users to Kabam DOA game. However these charts do not reflect the non-scripting using “DOA Blackout” supporters.Impact View “B” Breakdown of script and non-script users along with what percentage are ruby buyers. Impact data is very limited to only the players that are supporting blackout efforts and are members of the “DOA Blackout” Facebook community. Note: This is only a small group compared to all the supporters that have not signed surveys or connected thru Facebook forum. In retrospect for a more accurate count I request that Kabam’s IT Network Administrator(s) review their bandwidth history if not already done. (As of September 4, 2013) Based on business data from online tools and surveys there are: 21,157 Google Chrome gamers accessing DOA have gone on Blackout. 3,238 Facebook gamers accessing DOA have gone on Blackout. Impact View “C”Impact View “D” Kabam’s servers identified as being effected by “DOA Blackout” due to drop in activities. Note: Due to limits of online free survey tools not all data was allowed to be entered or download. Taking in consideration that this Impact View “C” only was able to gather a small portion of participants we can only safely estimate an average per server. Total number of Kabam DOA servers: 379 Average DOA Blackout participant per realm: 15 Estimated total Blackout participants for DOA: 5,685 While players wait for the determination from counsels negotiations with Kabam more players are continually joining the DOA Blackout movement. These numbers are rising daily. Keep in mind that you may see low numbers investors will not when they will look at bigger picture of not just the FB group that has been recorded in this report, but also what their network rankings, click count rankings, and other more advanced tracking tools report in revenue and tangible losses. FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ANY OF OUR COUNSEL MEMBERS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. THANK YOU
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 01:28:34 +0000
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