For the past month or so I was giving path of exile another chance. And it may have been fun longer term if I wasn’t essentially playing by myself. But I am, because real community is discouraged with two exceptions. Broken trade patching, and paying guilds.
The reason I don’t post this directly in a community controlled area is because the very fact that I’m saying something unflattering would no doubt call forth the “git gud” devknights. I know I’m not alone but all the people that agree with me already left or are wisely silent.
The only reason I stayed this long and write like this is because I’m a reformer and I hate running away from a fight.
Exploitation in any context makes me sick. And sooner or later I write about it.
Maybe in the distant future being honest about this stuff now will have a hand in some changes down the road. But I highly doubt it because the entire gaming industry is dogmatic and exploitative.
Two things have driven me off this time around.
1. There is only hardcore mode.
Hardcore across the gaming universe is a name for a mode where you are punished for dying. Since “merciless” (named thus because being mean means being cool) is the default difficulty by any rational measure, and since you are punished for dying in merciless, the entire game is hardcore by default.
This has all sorts of rigid control freak consequences. It renders all choice an illusion.
You play in an approved way or your character doesn’t progress, end of discussion.
I’d like a normal mode of play. Why have two hardcore modes? For the same reason we have two rethuglican parties. To serve the 1%. Because money, that’s why. They only want hardcore players because only hardcore players care enough about a game to constantly spend money on a game.
Every other kind of player is to be driven off because they are filthy poor people. They exist in devminds to be exploited. “Free” just means bait.
2. Pawnshop of Exile
In an effort to sell stash tabs and further please the overpaying, tryhard, gambling addicted, OCD, twitch streamer, base, they’ve intentionally broken the trade system, and kept it broken to keep the established (legacy?), cash paying, game rich… game rich, and cash paying.
If it was easy for normal players to efficiently engage in item/currency (and therefore account) progression, then there wouldn’t be the army of broken character serfs and plebs everywhere to make the game rich and paying feel special enough to keep paying.
This is obviously the intent given the trivial fees paid by vendors for even unique items.
The very absence of a money changer vendor is conclusive proof that they want the economy in exactly its current state, which is to serve the cash paying grifter class and fleece everyone else.
Had I posted this in the community one of two things would happen: The mods would delete it, or they’d simply encourage the devknights to dog pile hate me as an example to silence future dessent.
Here’s what would never happen:
Majority agreement or anything approaching even a hint of reform in favor of players generally. Because at the end of the day this isn’t a democracy. This is an autocracy. Players have no say, and anyone who tells you different is either deluded or selling something.
Game universes are all rethuglican pipe dreams. This is because devs are autocratic fops by nature that want to patent the vowels when they grow up and be IPL aristocracy. That’s what happens when you genuinely believe you deserve to be paid to infinity for a single act of work.
The trade system is intentionally broken to increase profitability for GGG, and “git gud scrub” is the encouraged response type to any systemic complaint, legitimate or not.
As a non cash paying player you have one purpose. To lick paying player boot. You exist to provide contrast and somehow improve their experience either as a gatherer or as a victim.
You are the serf that is perpetually stuck some distance from endgame viability until made a charity case by a cash or promotion (twitch streamer) paying player.
The point of the entire industry is to pay the publishers/devs and fleece the players. This is true of every closed source game. And POE is no different in that regard.
Everything that happens in the POE universe is about that one goal. If you think there are ANY other considerations, you are a fool.
The most successful games are the one that lie about that most effectively.
“I’m your friend! I’m here for YOU! I’m doing YOU a favor!” Said every merchant in history prior to behaviorally proving the exact opposite.
Update: 2016-08-12 0607 PM Atlas of Worlds
Oh boy more stuff I’ll never see because I don’t play one of the OCD created dev’s pet builds.
More items I’ll never own because I hate running a pawn shop and refuse to exploit players less informed than myself.
More trade chat price checks and 4chan in EVERY window because no moderators and no trade system.
More hilariously impossible to acquire items unless I’m already obscenely wealthy or a huge exploitative dick to scores of players I’ll never even speak to.
More items to walk past because unless I’ve bought 90 stash tabs I can’t make anything like efficient use of anything.
More solo grind in a handful of maps because experience scaling forces me into a hyper narrow zone for myself while making it punishment to help others or be helped.
More reasons for in game and real life rich to have an infinitely better time at the expense of everyone else because right wing fantasy and totally needless social darwinist economy.
Wake me when there’s an auction system so normal players don’t get ripped off by not knowing how to price rares.
Wake me when there aren’t a thousand arbitrary nerf exceptions to gem combinations making it impossible to free form a build into the endgame.
Wake me when /b/tards don’t utterly rule global chat 24/7.
Wake me when a player can actually fully play the game without a dozen third party tools and pages.
Wake me when the community will do anything other than literally pay in either time or cash to defend the people exploiting them.
And now?
More comments from boot licking game rich, dev knights, and even paid streamers and their minions ever so quick to leap to their lord’s defense and blame ANYTHING wrong on the player.
Tell me about how the poor street urchin devs have to feed their doe eyed pack of children.
Tell me how patent monopolies on the gaming equivalent of literary tropes through feats of doublethink and mental gymnastics somehow equals more culture despite literally illegal modification and participation.
Tell me how technically I could get rich enough to have an actual END game character saving up 40 billion scroll fragments and how that makes everything about the game economy just peachy.
If it weren’t for my guild this game would be utterly unplayable. But gee thanks for making that pay to win as well.
Tryhard dev knight dog pile and proof that the community is a mass of dev worshipping bootlickers, eager to rubber stamp anything that squashes casual players and preserves the obscene wealth of the OCD/pawnshop/cash burning class, in 3… 2… 1…
I won’t be seeing your replies. Yay for mute thread.
Pants of exile.
Pawnshop of exile.
And yet this hateful exploitative piece of shit is the best there is on earth.
See also: