The game is turning into the same old thing we had before with Acclaim, and quite frankly that's a shame. Everyone was pretty excited to be getting rid of Acclaim, even though we didn't have any clear answers about our characters. A New and Improved publisher couldn't be a bad thing, could it? Well yeah, it could be and it could just be the same old, same old.

We still don't have any clear answers about our characters, but one thing that is clear, G1 will make decisions without the input of the players. Hyperion started a thread about the possibilities we have concerning our characters and later he even turned it into a poll. Fairly new, low level players voted for the option that would make them rich with good items, and veteran players with high level characters voted to wait for the character database. The low level players out-number the veterans.

The great scam in all of this is that Hyperion had decided before the thread was ever posted that we're getting template characters based on the levels claimed on the character claim page from a couple of weeks ago. So we're all getting the same things. These people haven't played the game and simply don't know what items a low level player needs, never mind what material a high level player needs. I can see this turning into a fiasco.

The situation with the servers is another good example of same old, same old. Mass disconnections occur almost every 30 minutes during peak periods and no one seems able to fix it. That's as bad as Acclaim ever was. The other problem is that the peak periods occur on the weekends, and G1 employees don't like to work on weekends.

G1 is apparently making some rather major changes to their networks and apparently all their games are affected. With all their problems, it's clear to me that they weren't in the position to be taking on a new game, but they did anyway.

Have you ever seen someone dive head first into the shallow end of the pool?

That's what this reminds me of.

G1 appears to be on the edge of opening their item mall. With all the problems so far it seems a little optimistic to expect that people will start spending money on the game. I won't be paying 10 cents for the game until I get my old accounts and characters back. Even then, I'll be using the items I still had in my inventory before buying anything.

The one bit of good news that I can post today, the prices in the item mall will be 11% lower than the Acclaim coin mall. We European players will actually see much better discounts than that. If you recall, we brought you the news a long time ago that Europeans were paying much more than the Americans for our Acclaim coins. Depending on exchange rates we will be getting much better prices than we used to.

Of course there are problems. Paypal doesn't appear to be an option for European players and I doubt they will support the SMS pin code system that some players had to rely on for Acclaim coins. I'm sure there will be other problems too, because thinking things through doesn't seem to be a strong point for game publishing companies.

And lastly, the situation in the G1 forums is the same old thing we ever had on the Acclaim forums. One particular forum Nazi just handed me a 7 day posting ban, at the request of another player, for hijacking a thread. I looked through the RoC and didn't find that one anywhere. The thing is, it's not worth to fight it. So I have yet another reason to not spend 10 cents on this game.

G1 has a long way to go, on several issues, and forum mods in Nazi Mode is no way to turn pissed off players into paying customers.

- SpearDriver2