Harmonic - I agree with most of what you are posting. IMHO - what we
are pretty much are seeing is an "immature" Software Company. Unforuntately
Verant is making the same mistakes that we ahve seen over and over again in
the Computer Game industry.

Those of us who are in their late 30's+ and have been playing computer
games know this. Especially if you played early Massively-Multiplayer games
(I did a lot on GEnie in the early 90's).

Every mistake they are making; from lack of QA, to thinking they know
better in game design; to bad patches, etc etc etc is typical. It's sad
that with the exception of the PvP issue they learned little if anything
from the predescessors.

It sure is nice paying $10/month and not $6.00/hour (I'm not kidding -
that's what we paid back then - plus a per-minute charge to the phone
company - there were very few dialins) - but it is frustrating
none-the-less.

What's particularly frustrating - is there is a lot they can do to
improve it - at least on the testing side. It's obvious their internal
training staff is woefully inadequate. And full-time inhouse testers aren't
cheap - and we understand the economic reality for a company owned by a
large corporation. But what's ridiculous about it - they could easily get
consumer to do TONS of testing for them for very little money.

Sure they have a test-server. But how much info is provided on what
changes have gone in to test it? How many people really want to build a
character there. And it's ridiculous to CHARGE people to test it for you.

Why not give free accounts to people that ONLY let you log into the Test
Server. Require these people to file weekly bug reports. And provide them
with DETAILED information on what changes are going on. Let them import
chars from live servers - or have a character building tool to let them test
different classes and Levels (But DON'T give them a different client! Make
this tool a seperate executable).

Anyway - this is a ramble. Yes Verant has a great product. Yes they
deserve a lot of credit for what they've done. But it's really sad that
they have to make the same mistakes everyone else has. And the marketplace
is limited enough that they won't have to pay for this mistake until some
competitor comes along with a better product...

Slyde