Maybe I will feel differently in the morning

Hey Folks, as I said, I have had alot going on lately. Though I have to say this is making me consider whether I want to even return to DDO or not.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/04/13/2...wards?art_pos=3

Maybe I will feel different in the morning. Now i have been away from the game long enoguh that the shakes have subsided. I am unhappy with Turbine... And life changes may limit my play time... is it time to give up DDO... Online gaming in general?

YAh I've been reading a little about that - you have to follow a link then click an offer to "redeem" your free DDO points.

Anything that requires me to follow an outside link and then "click" for anything "free" is not and never will be free...... user beware.

Beside the phishing happens if you are using a local email client (Outlook, Thunderbird....) I use web based and have a separate account I use for nothing but singing up for forums and game accounts.

AND

This machine is my game/work rig no personal banking, information or anything that is not already public information is stored on this box.... so there is not much to gather here.


It DOES suck for people (kids in Moms machine) or less than internet savvy users that don't understand the "ins and outs" of spam if they've been duped in to this.... that blows.

But for right now - I'm having a ball playing DDO and am FINALLY getting in to new content that I've never seen before.

If it really bothers you - create a new Gmail account, go Free to Play create a new username and password and take GOL's stance (and signature below) toward the game (He's the DDO founder I sold the +3 heart of wood to)

Proud Freeloader (F2P). Once upon a time, Turbine cared about players and the D&D Franchise. That time is no more; the business model has fundamentally shifted. DDO is about steady influx (and outflux) of players with disposable income and a willingness to spend it. Loyalty has no monetary value and will be regarded as such. VIP is an oxymoron.

There are plenty of threads in the DDO forums on how to level a F2P account to 20 and not miss any real content. Try it....

I don't know what I'm going to do just yet - $15 isn't too much for me to shell out, but spring/summer/early fall are my out side work on Jeep's season and cold inside time is game time..... but I'm not ready to throw in the DDO towel just yet (and never the online gaming.... what would I do at work if I actually had NOTHING to do??? HUH?)

So what are we doing this Friday - well?

The offer wall was new yesterday 04-13-10
Today 04-14-10 they have offered an apology and recognize some offers got through that should not have been there.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=243097

Offer Wall Update – 4/13/2010
Yesterday marked the launch of a new way to get Turbine Points – the Offer Wall. The goal of the system is to provide a way for players to get Turbine Points in exchange for completing offers that they are interested in.

Part of our rollout for this program includes reviewing our filtering and publishing process. Clearly we allowed some questionable offers to get through in the first 24 hours of operation, which was not our intent.

In fact, we have clearly defined criteria for approving offers prior to their publication. This set of rules is designed to make sure that we deliver the best experience possible to players who participate in the Offer Wall program. Unfortunately, during the initial launch of the Offer Wall we did not do a thorough enough job of applying these rules to the launch offers. That has been corrected, and the Offer Wall now contains only a specific subset of offers that should provide the best quality experience to players.

Going forward we will work to apply our offer standard more thoroughly. In an effort to be as transparent as possible, we’re sharing our Offer Wall Rules with you. If you come across an offer that violates any of the rules please immediately report the offer to [email protected]. We will remove the offer from our system as quickly as possible.

Offer Wall Rules

Any offer to be published on the Offer Wall must meet the following criteria:

1. No unapproved required downloads – ever. This includes toolbars, helper applications, plug-ins, and ActiveX Controls. Player security is our top priority.
2. All offers must be certified spyware-clean and confirmed in internal testing against a cleanroom environment.
3. Surveys must be legit. No lengthy prequalification surveys followed by a disqualification and no points. If the pre-qualification is more than 20 questions for our test cases, we won’t host the survey.
4. Surveys must not ask for game account information or information which could be used to discover a player’s credentials.
5. No deceptive offers – i.e. take this IQ test and get the results via SMS (free IQ test, SMS costs $).
6. Partners must display a privacy policy in a public location that can be checked.
7. Offers must pay out as expected. All offers must deliver the points promised in a clear and straightforward fashion.


By enforcing this policy consistently we hope to provide the best possible opportunity for players while continuing to support emerging payment methods. Thanks for your feedback during this initial (and rocky!) launch!

I am going to stay far away from "the offer wall". I made a big error and did one of those offers when I was playing MLBDugout heroes and immediately started getting 25-30 spam messages a day.

Turbine redeemed themselves as far as I'm concerned. They realized this was a mistake and backed off immediately. Not many in the gaming community would do so.

yes and no. Not sure there is any excuse for even the most simple claims coming from their users, the malware infections and passing of account information is inexcuseable in my book. I understand maybe their model didn't work and they need money to continue, but I like the model. I will not continue to pay/play if they are going to hand out account information without my express consent.

I have step off the bridge from this a little since last night, but the gaming community as a whole is pissing me off right now, and well I am not sure I am willing to allow my privacy to be violated much more in an effort to play games.

I will say when Sarge and I got into the MLB Dugout heros last year I actually respected the fact that I could play the game for free. and I could play the P2P portions by buying gift cards (available at Target and any 7-11) for their company... i.e. they never had ANY information about me whatsoever unless I went out of my way to give it to them.

I like the free/P2P model, I would have never tried DDO had it not been such a large free taste and I was glad to pay my share, and believe me, Turbine has gotten more money out of me than any single game before, that include the expansion packs from EA. If the model doesn't work, than its time to rethink. I understand why VIPs were so pissed when they removed the leveling tomes for the free players, maybe they need to curtail what the freebie players can get with a minimal amount of pay.