What’s happened to all the old school forum regulars?

[rags-6094]

Just a shout out to friends I’ve made through the game.
What happened to all the familiar names I used to see here in the forums?

I check my troopers list and all but one of them still seem to play regularly.
Does anybody out there remember the name Lufata?
I have Lufata as a trooper, he (I assume) has been a good trooper for the past 18 months to 2 years.
He has not played in 17 days...

I’m the first to admit I don’t make my way to the forums as much as I used to but I still keep an eye on it.
So where is Blade, Blade and Blade? Or Cef, Edsel, Educated Fool, Gotn, kkkreg5, Sables, Tokenentry, Stormseye, Wickerman, WIPP, even Yup doesn’t seem to comment as much these days..

Is it the time of year or has the game taken a turn and opened a new league of Lotb players?

To all my friends through the forums and the game Happy Holidays! I hope you all have a great season and I hope we catch up again through the forums!

After all where else can we swap secrets, whinge about drop outs and help fellow troopers.

Cheers from rags!

[The Educated fool]

Hey Rags! I can't speak for anyone else you mentioned, but I'm still here, from time to time... I just stay ghosted, for the most part. Happy Holidays to you and yours too, amigo! Up the Irons!

[iPoop]

Still here Brochacho

[MetalKing]

I saw a few of them in other recent posts

[Saigrim]

Wipp and GotN are still around. They’ve been trading easy PvP matches with me the past week. You still see KKKreg5 on here from time to time, and a couple of the others. Probably getting a little burned out, like the rest. I always said to myself once Strange Land Eddie came out I could call it quits, as he was one of my most anticipated characters, but I still plug along. Only difference now is I don’t worry about half the shit they try to add to the game anymore. I do the stuff that is relatively easy to get done, and I try not to get caught up in the whole “gotta have it now” game. Character additions in frontiers I work on a little here and there, but no big rush to have them. If one ever turns into a must have, I’ll go get it then. Awakening? Yeah, not getting caught up I thinking I have to awaken them all today. I just tend to hoard stuff, and eventually the mats will come.

Also, there’ll be stupidly over powered characters to come which will make all the farming before it that much easier.

My spending went WAY down, due to NF’s constant cheapening of pack items. Really low Ironite counts in packs, which has always been the only thing of real value in this game, and the fluff they think is worth the value of a monthly car payment has been to blame. And yes, I have disposable income, but if they want more of it for this game, they better get back to some of those deals of old.

[Blade]

Hi Rags! Nice thread

Indeed I am still playing and also commenting once in a while, but you are right - not that often anymore. Reasons are the stressful pre-christmas time (recently), the fact that most of my comments seem to be of minor interest and last but not least I am really not enjoying the game as I did in the past. Why?

- Reduction in events? No way! 4 or 5 at the same time aren't seldom plus packing "event stuff" into dungeons and setting the goals to a bazillion of runs is not much better than regular dungeon events (that still come in addition)
- still very high frequency of character and tali releases (and all that without the associated increase in slots). Things are getting crazy because of that and in my perspective almost all "good" ideas are already taken and now a lot goes in circles back and forth (damage reduction -> damage increase; stat increase -> stat reduction etc.)
- still no inventory management workover. BoS sorting is good, but why wasn't it like that from the start?
- Bugs bugs bugs. When 1 bug is fixed, 2 new ones are introduced, still no testing for most of the new stuff
- selling broken stuff, doing "workarounds" instead of fixes but then fix it, when it is not really needed anymore (Singularity talis example)
- the very strong pay-to-win, -collect and even -play orientation that "game" has now. Honestly I sometimes feel ashamed to be part of the legacy (did you guys see the offer to get red NboL plus counter talis and some minor other crap for some 30 bucks? sic! Or 2 legendary souls for ~20 bucks? Think there was the same of 5 rare souls or a few skill shards. That's embarassing!). Some of the deals are pure rip-offs (yes, I know, I don't have to buy them. But I am sure new guys that cannot really evaluate the "quality" of such deals do)
- awakening was not really implemented to boost old iconic characters, but mostly to smash out the next couple of new characters, to drain a lot of resources and to force us to do even more stupid grinding of the same level (as if grinding would not be too much without that lol dungeon already)
- buy only characters. This was not needed for 3 years, but now as we have the highest number of players ever? What a shame
- Dungeon keys! Not only because time limited plays with unstable potato servers (much better now - fine) without proper compensation makes no sense. I just don't like the concept in general, especially with crazyness like 8 hour grinding marathons
- increased demand in frags, resources etc. for event characters, awakening, SoT per battle... in summary sic demand for time and/or money

There would be more to list, but I did not plan to create a huge rant post here - sorry for that.

Thing is, it is not "my" game. The devs decide which path the game takes. We can like it or not. Ranting and complaning does usually not help (with some exceptions like duration of the cyborg dungeon). So instead of writing negative posts, I often just do a facepalm, shake my head and think my part and move on instead of writing it here.
Honestly, and we "oldtimers" know it, it feels like they created a huge addiction with this game and the loyal player base in the first 2 years to sell the thing to another company (or just rename it somehow, I don't care) and slowly but steadily use the addiction to milk the players more and more. Just remember: it used to be normal to be able to collect all characters (quicker with cash, slower without). Having (almost) no balancing is inteded as this gap "forces" newer players to spend a lot to catch up.

I don't want to be too negative. I still play daily and there are parts I do enjoy. I am still very happy that there is a game that makes the music, the lore, the art style of our beloved band so vivid in this interactive manner. Also we all have found ways to integrate the "game" (aka known as the endless hamster wheel chasing the dragon simulator) into our lifes but it is getting a lot harder recently. I feel somewhat "commited" to play the game as being a huge fan of Iron Maiden, but honestly also this commitment has limits. I already accepted to fall behind (a lot...only played the first 2 of dungeons to get Malakhov and Beast Ed), as I cannot play as much as others and especially as I don't pay for the game anymore (I never was a big spender). I already made an exception from that to finish van Helsing. Probably I will have to quit if this happens regularly, as the trend cannot be unseen that the goals are set higher and higher recently.

We all need to find our ways to be happy with the game. Invest a lot of time and money to be on top. Accept to fall behind (like I do) if you don't invest that much if you can live with it, or quit. They changed the rules and we need to find a way to deal with it.

Good luck everybody to enjoy the game or to break the habit. Up the irons!

[Zugzwang]

Just a shout out to friends I’ve made through the game.
What happened to all the familiar names I used to see here in the forums?

I check my troopers list and all but one of them still seem to play regularly.
Does anybody out there remember the name Lufata?
I have Lufata as a trooper, he (I assume) has been a good trooper for the past 18 months to 2 years.
He has not played in 17 days...

I’m the first to admit I don’t make my way to the forums as much as I used to but I still keep an eye on it.
So where is Blade, Blade and Blade? Or Cef, Edsel, Educated Fool, Gotn, kkkreg5, Sables, Tokenentry, Stormseye, Wickerman, WIPP, even Yup doesn’t seem to comment as much these days..

Is it the time of year or has the game taken a turn and opened a new league of Lotb players?

To all my friends through the forums and the game Happy Holidays! I hope you all have a great season and I hope we catch up again through the forums!

After all where else can we swap secrets, whinge about drop outs and help fellow troopers.

Cheers from rags!

Lufata was in our clan but he left the game entirely shortly after. Got tired of playing it.
There is a Blade in our clan (one of the good ones). Half of those players are still active. Look at their last acrtivity.

But one day this game will sunset, and all of these shiny digital objects will be gone as if they never existed anyway.
When it stops being what people consider fun, they stop playing. I've taken a few long breaks myself.

[Stormseye]

Still here but most of what I post now is sent to the Clan channels. No need to keep updating my PVP thread because Devs do that now with Durandal. I mainly post a build or two on the new dungeon when it comes out but really there are better strategists out there that have better builds than I could ever conceive, so I stand back and let them share their knowledge to help the community. Being a Day 1 player, I have seen lot's of changes. You either adapt or get left behind. The amount of time required to play has increased exponentially. Some people can't make time commitment anymore so they fade off. Some leave for other reasons. It's the nature of the Beast, as they say. See you in the channel Rags!

[Amarthir]

Not gone from the forum. I just prefer my clan's discord. Less bitching.

I agree though, devs are losing their grip on reality.

[Muzzleloader]

Amarthir, can you please send me a link to the clans discord