Great, all this and I can't play

Veteran · 2003-12-05, 10:44 AM

It won't let me play the character I want for another hour because of his empire. It's because I was playing around with different empires, and now I can't log him on.

And what if I log on the other guy? Will it then be 24 hours with no real choice?

I hate this one-empire-at-a-time crap bigtime.

Just my opinion.

edit: I was playing around with empires before the patch. It shouldn't affect the timer tho, should it?

kerosene31 · 2003-12-05, 10:47 AM

It is totally necessary to try to help reduce spying, sabatoge, vehicle swapping, etc.

Veteran · 2003-12-05, 10:48 AM

None of those things bother me and have been going on for months.

It's a bit more serious that I can't log into my character, and logging into another character isn't what I want to do.

SilverLord · 2003-12-05, 10:50 AM

Ugh, so you log on a TR guy...You can't switch to someone else for 24 hours? Or can you log on, play with the TR guy, then switch to a NC guy, then not be able to play the TR guy for 24 hours.

Veteran · 2003-12-05, 10:53 AM

I connected to the server and it displayed a timer counting down next to my guys that was at 56 mins. I hadn't logged any character onto that server yet since the patch.

dscytherulez · 2003-12-05, 11:03 AM

So wait, how long do you have 2 wait? It said 24 hours, but you said it counted down at 56 min(1 hour)? An hour wouldnt be so bad but 24 hours is completely unecessary i think, what battle goes on for 24 hours? Its not like an ams will be in the same position that long or anything...

TeraHertz · 2003-12-05, 11:37 AM

I dont agree with the empire switching at all. We've done perfectly well on werner without it. 3 empires 3 servers. The problem is....?
Ping? So? If we wanted another empire other than our Werner one, we'd have to use a US server. They should have allowed people to choose which servers they wanted which characters on, and made it so that you coudln't have more than one empire per server.

So quit your moaning and be happy that they panderd empire hoppers at all.

BadAsh · 2003-12-05, 11:53 AM

I don't think they pandered to anything. They made a change (the merger) that was good for population levels and action but posed a major problem with people who play on different empires on 2 of the servers to be merged.

What were the real options?

1. Let the player pick the empire and then delete all the characters from the other empire.

2. Let the player pick an empire and then convert all of that players characters to that empire (allow more than 4 and up to 8 as needed to ensure coverage).

None of the above are fair. If you went to another server you went to try another empire. I doubt there are many people who have characters of the same empire on multible servers.

This is not pandering, this is an acceptable compromise to facilitate a needed structure change (the merger).

BadAsh

BadAsh · 2003-12-05, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Veteran

edit: I was playing around with empires before the patch. It shouldn't affect the timer tho, should it?

I think it does. Last night before I crashed I switched between my Johari and Markov characters. This morning when I checked my account my Johari character is in "disabled" status for the next 12 hours.

I think they started tracking character usage for the purposes if disablement BEFORE the patch was put into place. Perhaps there was no way around this or it's a bug, who knows.

In any event, it will be irrelevant after 24 hours

BadAsh

P.S. The way I read this to work is: You can switch empires once per 24 hours. I assume that if you keep playing empire #1 your empire #2 characters will be enabled. If you switch to empire #2 then your empire #1 characters will be disabled for 24 hours. After that 24 hour period you should be able to switch or keep playing empire #2. Once you go back to empire #1 then empire #2 characters will be disabled for the 24 hour lock down.

The limitation here is on empire switching.

Kikinchikin · 2003-12-05, 12:34 PM

Why can't they reduce the timer to say 3 hours. 3 hours would be fine not this 24 hour shiot.

I am very nonsupportive of this merge happening at all but this just takes the cake.

I Hate Pants · 2003-12-05, 12:40 PM

ERRRRRRR...WRONG! Leave it at 24 hours thank you very much. Or SOE should delete your Konried and Johari characters.

Be greatful they are letting you use all three Empires on one server.

Im not a big fan of seeing mass weapon and vehicle trading. All empires will lose thier individuality from this if we shortened the timer on switching empires.

Hamma · 2003-12-05, 12:52 PM

I don't think you should be allowed to switch empires at all :\

infinite loop · 2003-12-05, 01:19 PM

Christ some people act like trading is super-detrimental to their gameplay experience. Explain to me how seeing a TR magrider 1 out of x (x being a much larger number than 1) times more than a prowler is going to hinder or help you? Trading has always happened, and the merger does not increase the potential by enough to make much of a difference. People are still going to play their main characters most of the time. That 24hr timer is a huge deterrent, don't think it's not. Don't forget that this is a game, and SOE wants everyone to enjoy it. Since they reduced the number of places to hold characters of different empires, this is the only fair and fun solution. If my only option was to have a VS character on Werner, for example, I'd be pissed. My ping there is awful, and basically unplayable. I'm sorry you Euros don't have another server over there, but that's not my fault. The U.S. players are used to having potentially chars from all 3 empires on local servers, and that's the way it should be. Empire loyalty is not real. I'll play where I feel is going to be fun.

FireZ · 2003-12-05, 01:38 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I don't think you should be allowed to switch empires at all :\

Veteran · 2003-12-05, 02:02 PM

Hopefully the devs will see the needless waste of time and fun that this will cause. It's not like there are any top-secret missions in this game. One guy changing empires is no biggy as long as he appears back at sanc when he does. If the devs didn't want problems with the empires colluding, why the hell did they let people send tells to other empires?