The 2 weeks decay timers was a great idea. It brought many players to the game and a lot stayed far longer than what they usually do. PVE servers were more lively than usual and it was nice to not feel the stress of having to log in every 167.9 hours. Most people can’t play everyday and it is nice to keep your stuff until you get more time to play Conan. I know many people do not see the point of refreshing timers when you are not playing more than 5-10 hours per week, but I do believe it helps players feel like they are playing a game instead of a job.
What wasn’t nice was being forced to run between my buildings on a timeline because the decay timers were a week short. It was purely random that I decided to log in. I had last played a week ago, and my timers showed 2 weeks, so I thought I still had a week when I logged in today. From what I gather from the forum the 7 days decay timer must have started a few hours after I logged out. So, when I logged out, I refreshed all my timers and verified that they were indeed refreshed, but a few hours later they were resetted back to 168. It would’ve been really nice to have known at least 2 weeks prior by the ingame message of the day that the timers were going to be 7 days again. 2 weeks since the timers were of 14 days. I saw a lot of decaying bases this morning. They all had their timers set to the same time as mine. I’m glad I got all the free stuff but I hate that people lost their shit because of a miscommunication. I really hope next time timers changes would be communicated more clearly.
Like I said in a conversation with some others about this. I jokingly said they should wait till today (this was about a week ago when the first warning popped up), that they should wait till the 7th day for maximum effect of the change. I didn’t think they’d actually do it.
It gets even stranger.
Yesterday they posted a message about putting a message out. But waited until today, after the full effect of the change could happen to change the MOTD. Why the wait until that specific time? I don’t like conspiracy theories. But can anyone explain to me how this was something that just slipped their radar rather than being intentional? The timing is too freaking perfect.
Not changing the MOTD on the day of the change would be a mistake.
Fixing that on day 2, day 3, day 4… would be a bit of incompetence.
Making a passing mention but no MOTD change on Day 6 and then another on Day 7 in a vague thread then locking it, and then finally changing the MOTD is something else entirely.
Nothing on Facebook, nothing on twitter, nothing in Steam Discussions. Not even a new thread in the forums. Did they even want the people who were going to be offline for the last 169 hours even know? That’s a good question I think everyone is wondering right now.
Guess I’ll add severe server setting changes and not being notified till the 13th hour (aka after the repercussions are set in stone) as yet another reason why I won’t touch those servers. The ones who dwell on those servers have a helluva more patience than I do. That’s for damn sure.