What the error in Jingles bonuscode(s) yesterday painfully showed

[MrFingers]

... is that maybe a tad too much care, love, attention and resources are being given/directed/reserved for new players or players who left (and exclusively for them), especially compared to what is being set aside for those who stuck around, even when stuff got really bumpy and rocky... otherwise one wouldn’t get such salty, angry and/or disappointed reactions from those who couldn’t redeem the code(s) anymore that everyone jumped on like a bunch of rabid hyena's after WG hastily rectified the error on their side.

 

While great care, attention and some juicy carrots are being used to lure people (back) into the game, once you're in and you want something extra, it requires you to fully participate in directives or missions, comply to the timegating and just be plain lucky. As with the USS Batfish stream yesterday. 2 codes were being given out, one for 25 standard economic flags, 1 for 10 camo's. The window to redeem them was 150 minutes, and ran from 2300h to 0130h... Or the upcoming December 5th stream, where a whopping 1 Warspite is being raffled to the entire EU-audience.

 

It seems that Wargaming really takes much care and attention to hand out as little as humanly possible to existing accounts, by limiting the number of redeems on codes, or by severely reducing the timeframe in which you can redeem a code, often to a few hours at best. If codes are being handed out that is. Sole exception is with the anniversary-event, and even those codes were time-limited.

 

If you then dissect the starter-pack that was handed out to existing players in error yesterday, what do you see:

• a T3 battleship, and admittedly, not really a good one. Historically very significant, but in terms of performance (both IRL and in-game) not that impressive. And since it's T3, it has zero use for progress in missions, campaigns, tasks,... nor does it create substantial XP or credits when used. Basically: a historical collectible and functional port-decoration.
• 200 Doubloons, which is not even enough to buy a portslot, but it can be used to convert a whopping 5000 ship-XP to free XP (or 7000 during a special), or 250k credits.
• 7 days of Premium-time: admittedly, that's a nice addition, maybe the nicest of the lot.

 

Admittedly, it's not really a lot that has been given out, while the Dreadnought as a decent doubloon-value, its practical usage is rather limited. The doubloons are also not that useful in such quantity (it's 4 patch-daily missions worth), and the 7 days of premium time is "just" seven days. But even that pales in comparison to what those players who did not leave the game had to do. Dreadnought being the reward for playing at least 6 battles a day for 20 days back in December 2018, in full holiday-season (40 Daily missions). A week of premium time required the completion of the entire "science of victory"-campaign,...

 

And yet everybody tumbled over eachother in order to redeem that code, and to redeem it as fast as possible, as such blatant generosity towards the existing playerbase clearly had to be an error from WG's side (it was). People were getting salty and angry about a virtually useless T3 ship, some doubloons in a "useless" quantity when used standalone, and some premium time.

 

I've been playing since CBT, and the amount of truly free stuff I've gotten in that period I can count on one hand. With free I mean: "did not require anything more than clicking a button or link". Because if something is a reward for a mission chain, a directive,... it requires you to invest time and effort in the game. I've gotten:

• a free USS Albany T2 US-cruiser for the WG anniversary in 2015. Redeemable via a link
• some "for meritorious service" white camouflages and a cosmetic patch on my WG-anniversary each year. The camo's are nice, but not that numerous to begin with.
• (a USS Marblehead via an external promotion via lootboy.de, which required you to watch silly comics for a chance on a code, back in 2017).
• (5 Yamamoto containers and 1000 doubloons via Twitch Prime, which requires a paying subscription to Prime. But I still list it for sake of being correct).

 

Meanwhile a returning player gets a free Diana (T2 cruiser), a Warspite (T6 battleship, I (gladly) paid 25€ for that ship when it came out), doubloons, 14 days of premium time, 2 supercontainers,... for just returning to a game he/she left behind for whatever reason if he uses a recruitment code. And the recruiter: he gets some points for a container that has a 1% chance to drop a premium ship. Or back a year or so ago, when Ishizushi's, Giulio Cesare's, Prinz Eugens... were being handed out hand over fist to dormant accounts to lure them back in: "log in, and get this premium ship entirely for free". The dormant account of MrsFingers has gotten more rewards for being idle and abandoning the game than I had for playing since CBT. Isn't that a bit skewed?

 

 

So Wargaming, maybe it's time to throw your veteran players, those who stuck with the game through thick and thin, and keep populating your matchmaker, keep buying stuff in the premium shop and make it so that the game can progress, evolve and expand a bone from time to time. While it is true that stuff can be picked up for participating in events, it still pales to "getting stuff for doing nothing". And it doesn't need to be frequent or much, but a tidbit from time to time, a small token of appreciation would be more than welcome, in these days of being slapped around the ears with timegated content, lootboxes and grinds upon grinds. And it really doesn't need to be much, as you noticed we went absolutely berserk for a T3 portqueen.

[GulvkluderGuld]

Both rewards and grind requirements have gone up since 1-2 last years.

 

Cant believe i'm actually sort of defending WG here...During the first two years of vanilla WoWs, the amount of free premium time given out were effectively nil (first time operation wins were the first way it was introduced outside once in a year event like birthdays). There were absolutely no way to collect doubloons before Ranked started. And ship rewards were more rare and required almost as much grinding (Fujin lottery).

 

These days you can earn a Tier X just by playing really says it all. Of course I massively disagree with the increasing grindfeat this game has turned into and have actually quit a couple weeks back....so I'm not really condoning the direction the game has taken.

[loppantorkel]

Is the game perhaps more enjoyable by just playing for the entertainment value..? I know there are many issues with the game, but if it's become a pure grind and an effort to get things/reach specific goals while not enjoying it, it's sort of a lost cause anyway and maybe time for a break. I wouldn't mind a bone thrown at me, but in my case, it wouldn't change much for the positive either. Otoh, I'm not WG's target audience either I suspect, so carry on I guess 

[Fat_Maniac]

14 minutes ago, MrFingers said:

... is that maybe a tad too much care, love, attention and resources are being given/directed/reserved for new players or players who left (and exclusively for them), especially compared to what is being set aside for those who stuck around, even when stuff got really bumpy and rocky... otherwise one wouldn’t get such salty, angry and/or disappointed reactions from those who couldn’t redeem the code(s) anymore that everyone jumped on like a bunch of rabid hyena's after WG hastily rectified the error on their side.

 

While great care, attention and some juicy carrots are being used to lure people (back) into the game, once you're in and you want something extra, it requires you to fully participate in directives or missions, comply to the timegating and just be plain lucky. As with the USS Batfish stream yesterday. 2 codes were being given out, one for 25 standard economic flags, 1 for 10 camo's. The window to redeem them was 150 minutes, and ran from 2300h to 0130h... Or the upcoming December 5th stream, where a whopping 1 Warspite is being raffled to the entire EU-audience.

 

It seems that Wargaming really takes much care and attention to hand out as little as humanly possible to existing accounts, by limiting the number of redeems on codes, or by severely reducing the timeframe in which you can redeem a code, often to a few hours at best. If codes are being handed out that is. Sole exception is with the anniversary-event, and even those codes were time-limited.

 

If you then dissect the starter-pack that was handed out to existing players in error yesterday, what do you see:

• a T3 battleship, and admittedly, not really a good one. Historically very significant, but in terms of performance (both IRL and in-game) not that impressive. And since it's T3, it has zero use for progress in missions, campaigns, tasks,... nor does it create substantial XP or credits when used. Basically: a historical collectible and functional port-decoration.
• 200 Doubloons, which is not even enough to buy a portslot, but it can be used to convert a whopping 5000 ship-XP to free XP (or 7000 during a special), or 250k credits.
• 7 days of Premium-time: admittedly, that's a nice addition, maybe the nicest of the lot.

 

Admittedly, it's not really a lot that has been given out, while the Dreadnought as a decent doubloon-value, its practical usage is rather limited. The doubloons are also not that useful in such quantity (it's 4 patch-daily missions worth), and the 7 days of premium time is "just" seven days. But even that pales in comparison to what those players who did not leave the game had to do. Dreadnought being the reward for playing at least 6 battles a day for 20 days back in December 2018, in full holiday-season (40 Daily missions). A week of premium time required the completion of the entire "science of victory"-campaign,...

 

And yet everybody tumbled over eachother in order to redeem that code, and to redeem it as fast as possible, as such blatant generosity towards the existing playerbase clearly had to be an error from WG's side (it was). People were getting salty and angry about a virtually useless T3 ship, some doubloons in a "useless" quantity when used standalone, and some premium time.

 

I've been playing since CBT, and the amount of truly free stuff I've gotten in that period I can count on one hand. With free I mean: "did not require anything more than clicking a button or link". Because if something is a reward for a mission chain, a directive,... it requires you to invest time and effort in the game. I've gotten:

• a free USS Albany T2 US-cruiser for the WG anniversary in 2015. Redeemable via a link
• some "for meritorious service" white camouflages and a cosmetic patch on my WG-anniversary each year. The camo's are nice, but not that numerous to begin with.
• (a USS Marblehead via an external promotion via lootboy.de, which required you to watch silly comics for a chance on a code, back in 2017).
• (5 Yamamoto containers and 1000 doubloons via Twitch Prime, which requires a paying subscription to Prime. But I still list it for sake of being correct).

 

Meanwhile a returning player gets a free Diana (T2 cruiser), a Warspite (T6 battleship, I (gladly) paid 25€ for that ship when it came out), doubloons, 14 days of premium time, 2 supercontainers,... for just returning to a game he/she left behind for whatever reason if he uses a recruitment code. And the recruiter: he gets some points for a container that has a 1% chance to drop a premium ship. Or back a year or so ago, when Ishizushi's, Giulio Cesare's, Prinz Eugens... were being handed out hand over fist to dormant accounts to lure them back in: "log in, and get this premium ship entirely for free". The dormant account of MrsFingers has gotten more rewards for being idle and abandoning the game than I had for playing since CBT. Isn't that a bit skewed?

 

 

So Wargaming, maybe it's time to throw your veteran players, those who stuck with the game through thick and thin, and keep populating your matchmaker, keep buying stuff in the premium shop and make it so that the game can progress, evolve and expand a bone from time to time. While it is true that stuff can be picked up for participating in events, it still pales to "getting stuff for doing nothing". And it doesn't need to be frequent or much, but a tidbit from time to time, a small token of appreciation would be more than welcome, in these days of being slapped around the ears with timegated content, lootboxes and grinds upon grinds. And it really doesn't need to be much, as you noticed we went absolutely berserk for a T3 portqueen.

They have to save up for the Flamu 100k subscibers WG sponsered givaway they want to do. 

[CptBarney]

I agree wholeheartedly im not expecting super stalingrad painted red to just ninja itself in my port (lol), but having the occasional cool reward maybe every year or so and some other stuff thrown in would be nice.

 

i appreciate some of the stuff they do, i cant compare to gaijin but i think wargaming maybe more generous, however compared to companies like pgi they are no where near (ive recieved 4 premiums alone for nothing, as well as mc for nothing and even doing events which are easy to complete and easily do-able plus ive gotten 6 premium mechs from those rewards alone lol ranging from my battlemaster and zeus premiums to my javelin and sunspider mechs.)

 

like i said i dont expect super georgia or belfast or something to appear in my port for doing nothing or playing for a long period of time but something would be nice.

[Nov_A]

The whole thing is not only bad with the why, also with the how. There is rarely any information about codes that WG hands out directly or via CCs and in the latest example, the only official statement was a forum post on page 3 of an ongoing discussion that the code did not work as intended. Nothing pinned, nothing on the homepage.

 

Sometimes they hide free stuff like a junior recruitment container, some recruitment points or regular event container in the respective news and this actually makes some sense because at least someone has to read the article. But yes, also to me the rest of WGs behaviour makes the impression of giving out as little as possible, limited by numbers, time and function. Not that I complain about free stuff, it is just annoying how WG handles it across all their games.

[G01ngToxicCommand0]

That is due to the enormous churn rate the game has.

Almost no new players are joining if judging by the low tier matchmaking.

I have reset the soviet CA and DD lines and is now playing tier 2, this is how matchmaking on tier 2 looks nowadays:

 

 

The game is dying.

[ColonelPete]

... that the WG community is the whiniest and most jealous community I have ever encountered.

 

• If playing the game is too much hassle to get stuff, maybe one should not play the game
• when getting upset when other people get stuff easier than you, maybe you should take a look at real life

[MrFingers]

5 minutes ago, GulvkluderGuld said:

During the first two years of vanilla WoWs, the amount of free premium time given out were effectively nil

On the EU, and just there. Other servers were absolutely being showered in free or otherwise worthwhile content back then, especially the NA-server. I made a significant rant about that back then, with numbers to back it up. 

 

[CptBarney]

Just now, MrFingers said:

On the EU, and just there. Other servers were absolutely being showered in free or otherwise worthwhile content back then, especially the NA-server. I made a significant rant about that back then, with numbers to back it up. 

 

Been like this since world of tanks essentially, as the EU server has been meme'd as a cashcow server and nothing more half the time (seems to be correct most of the time).

It's funny cus i appreciate the free stuff, when its actually beyond a few flags or 1 days of prem more than other games that give more half the time.

 

Oh well.

[ColonelPete]

4 minutes ago, Nov_A said:

The whole thing is not only bad with the why, also with the how. There is rarely any information about codes that WG hands out directly or via CCs and in the latest example, the only official statement was a forum post on page 3 of an ongoing discussion that the code did not work as intended. Nothing pinned, nothing on the homepage.

 

Sometimes they hide free stuff like a junior recruitment container, some recruitment points or regular event container in the respective news and this actually makes some sense because at least someone has to read the article. But yes, also to me the rest of WGs behaviour makes the impression of giving out as little as possible, limited by numbers, time and function. Not that I complain about free stuff, it is just annoying how WG handles it across all their games.

Hint:

 

When you want to get informed about free stuff quickly, there are a number of threads on this forum where such information is collected.

Despite their flaws, this community is very good at gathering information.

[Rionnen_marksman]

29 minutes ago, MrFingers said:

On the EU, and just there. Other servers were absolutely being showered in free or otherwise worthwhile content back then, especially the NA-server. I made a significant rant about that back then, with numbers to back it up. 

 

Must admit, I’ve not looked into other servers and their stats, but OMG that is absolutely ridiculous, why are EU players shafted so much? 

[Rionnen_marksman]

23 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Hint:

 

When you want to get informed about free stuff quickly, there are a number of threads on this forum where such information is collected.

Despite their flaws, this community is very good at gathering information.

To be fair, that’s the community, not WG.

 

the community that is made of players, most of which are delighted to help each other. - Which is increased by WG’s mistreatment of EU player base.

[ColonelPete]

Just now, Rionnen_marksman said:

To be fair, that’s the community, not WG.

That is a post by MrConway.

[MrFingers]

3 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

That is a post by MrConway.

What is a post by Conway?

[ColonelPete]

6 minutes ago, MrFingers said:

What is a post by Conway?

The yellow square I highlighted.

[MrFingers]

9 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

The yellow square I highlighted.

Yes, a post by Conway, in a thread started by a random player. It’s not that Conway started that topic, or said that the code worked for existing accounts. That post says “we messed up, it wasn’t meant for you, we’ve closed the gate”.

[ColonelPete]

10 minutes ago, MrFingers said:

Yes, a post by Conway, in a thread started by a random player. It’s not that Conway started that topic, or said that the code worked for existing accounts. That post says “we messed up, it wasn’t meant for you, we’ve closed the gate”.

That was the information he was looking for and as you see the information is very easy to find.

[Egoleter]

I think I need to defend WG a bit. I used to think that WG doesn't care about their players in regards to free stuff given away some time ago. But that is no longer the case. There are some posts in my forum history that show my disappointment in that regard.

 

I do agree that the rewards for new or returning players appear to look better then the stuff we got "for free" over the years. But a lot of those new player rewards also need those accounts to play. They don't get it without effort anymore. The same as the rest of us. The time when Wargaming send out masses of reinvite e-mails to abondoned accounts seems to be over too. My secondary account has been inactive for quite a while now and hasn't recieved such a mail even once.

 

Bonuscodes for new players that give away nice stuff isn't exactly unheard of in the industrie either. Wargaming is doing nothing different from what their competitors are doing and the effort to get new players into the game is worth those extra rewards. If one such bonus code gets a player to stay, I am happy about it, not jealous.

 

Wargaming is giving away free stuff if you ask them nicely.

• Wargaming supported me in several forum giveaway events I created. They did that for others too. It is up to us to come up with more such events.
• They add some nice offerings to the yearly christmas community giveaway we run on this forum too.
• Just recently I asked them if they could support a child cancer healthcare donation event I was organizing and they did send me a very generous gift box that by itself created several hundred euros worth of donations. It came with a large plush torpedo, several puzzles, some very nice posters, bonus codes, and lots more. It also included a bonus code for my own use for a T-VI premium ship container (though I didn't use it and put it into the donation rewards box with all the rest).
• There have been plenty of bonuscodes over the past year for camos, signals, premium time, and whatnot. It's not like those don't exist and they do amount to quite a lot of free stuff, even if the single code looks underwhelming.

I do have my issues with Wargaming but them not caring about their existing players in regards to free or extra stuff they give away is not one of them.

[Ubertron_X]

6 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

That was the information he was looking for and as you see the information is where easy to find.

No it is not. Easy to find is in the news section when I open the game.

 

Apart from that I agree to most what @MrFingers has said but I have to point out that WG is in no way handling things different from, lets say, any other phone company. New customers get all the discounts and specials but existing customers get nothing, even if a better contract would be available (more or faster data for less money). You have to cancel your existing contract, leave and come back if you want a better contract. Same f....d up business practise.

[ColonelPete]

1 minute ago, Ubertron_X said:

No it is not. Easy to find is in the news section when I open the game.

 

Apart from that I agree to most what @MrFingers has said but I have to point out that WG is in no way handling things different from, lets say, any other phone company. New customers get all the discounts and specials but existing customers get nothing, even if a better contract would be available (more or faster data for less money). You have to cancel your existing contract, leave and come back if you want a better contract.

Yes, opening the browser to get information is too much a hassle nowadays...

 

If you think you got nothing, then I suggest to take a look at your port or your inventory.

[Fat_Maniac]

Well player numbers are growing a bit. Just look at the steam player numbers ...

 

https://steamcharts.com/app/552990#1y

 

What we are seeing I think is a bit of a carrot and stick policy from WG. Watch this stream to get a code, read this portal msg (also a web page), to find a freebie. It all adds up to WG increasing the coverage of the game, on the streaming platforms and generally on the internet via more page hits.

 

The counter to vet players not getting the odd thank you has some counter arguments, your annual giveaway voucher, on the anniversary of you starting the game. The snowflakes event , and the shear amount of stuff we get given for free, just for playing.

 

The big problem I have with the game at the moment as a casual player, is the time gated / limited nature of much of the content, you are compelled to play more (and spend more WG hope) in order to get the reward which will disappear. WG often counter it with the prize will be made available at a later date again, but they rarely tell us how or when, and you end up having to pay for it.

 

There is such a thing as too much content, and I think we are pretty much reaching saturation point. This is a F2P game and WG have to pay  staff and feed/water the hardware, but there is only so much monetisation people can stomach, particularly if you don't have deep pockets, before you start to feel you are being milked. 

 

WG need to be very careful. In the past they have been alone in the niche world of naval combat online games. That is no longer the case, other companies have jumped on the bandwagon seeing the success of WoWS. And there are new titles coming out next year - Dreadnaughts - I'm looking at you, which will attract the naval history fans.

 

I want this game to be a success and go on for many years, I'm just not sure anyone knows where it's going at the moment, as development plans for next year have been very sketchy, other than RN CA's and then probably Subs, what else can we expect? 

[MrFingers]

@Egoleter you say it yourself: WG sponsors user-generated stuff. If users didn’t spend time or effort in it, trying to organise something, it’s not that WG-EU would organise something in their place. Then it just doesn’t happen at all. NA is more compliant in that, where WG-staff organises those things.

 

and indeed, the zero-effort freebies for dormant accounts have stopped (because that wasn’t really defendable). But a returning player has to play 1 (one) battle in a T6+ ship to get the Warspite added to its account. Existing players had to grind 220 tokens in 4 weeks back in October 2018 (and only then) to get that ship, which is way more effort and time required. You see the skewed balance?

[ForlornSailor]

@ColonelPete you do know, that WG will survive the day without you defending them on each and every step, right?

 

33 minutes ago, Ubertron_X said:

New customers get all the discounts and specials but existing customers get nothing, even if a better contract would be available (more or faster data for less money). You have to cancel your existing contract, leave and come back if you want a better contract. Same f....d up business practise.

 

/off topic: Funny enough, thats only common in some countries. I think it should be regulated atleast across the EU.

 

3 minutes ago, Fat_Maniac said:

Well player numbers are growing a bit. Just look at the steam player numbers ...

 

Overall they are dropping tho. Which explains the horrible level of recent gameplay. Veterans with WG accounts leaving, making space for super-casual steam players.

 

 

[Jethro_Grey]

40 minutes ago, ColonelPete said:

Yes, opening the browser to get information is too much a hassle nowadays...

 

If you think you got nothing, then I suggest to take a look at your port or your inventory.

 

Nope. It's just that WG doesn't use the official forums or their own bloody game launcher to distribute official information in a lot of cases.

Fact: WG uses Reddit for a lot of stuff which is only posted by users on the official forums.

That's not how it should work, infact, tthis is stupid on so many levels!

 

Very often, S_O enages in discussions with players where valueable info about the game is released, yet the only way to read this info as a forumite is, when a user can actually be bothered to copy paste it here.

It's obvious that WG for some reason can't be arsed to use their own bloody forums, and it seems to be too much of a hassle for WG employees to copy paste stuff. 

WG wanna use reddit or other platforms as additional source of info? Fine, but FFS make a post on your own forums!

 

If i open my browser, i expect to get all information in the part of the forums i'm visiting, in my case the english section (cause why would i want to visit the non-english part if i don't even speak any of the languages??). As a player of this game, i am NOT supposed to visit reddit or other platforms to get information that should be on the frakin official board!

 

In regards to my port or armory: just checked, no free stuff , except for a few of these meritious camos. Everything else is either bought, or grinded for, but in any case payed for with either time or money.

The only way to get free stuff is to not play the game.

 

Wargamings way of saying: F@ck you if you play regularly and spend money on our games! Cause all we have for you is our stinky middle finger we pulled out of our a$$es.

 

 

Since i quoted you directly, i'm expecting a pointless one liner as reply.