Neverwinter Tradehouse Deception

The latest word from the folks at Arc/Cryptic/PWE

"We're still in discussions and finalizing plans based on the community's feedback on the Trade Bar Store changes. There are a lot of moving pieces that need to be addressed in decisions like these that affect the economy as a whole."

In other words, those virtual bits we promised you that you could buy with the virtual bits in your account, you cant have them because it would negatively affect our cashflow and we couldn't afford our vacation home in the Hamptons.

:)

 

Neverwinter Deception

Alright I have been playing this game since its release onto the xbox one as well as have friends who play/ have played on the PC version. The reason I am writing this review is to let people know how deceptive this company has been towards its players.
So before I get into detail on anything i want to take a moment to tell everyone that this is a first hand experience for myself and for my friends who are hardcore gamers.

The first point I want to touch on is the basics of the game things that should be right out in the open for how deceptive this company is. So they say that this game is a free to play but upon logging in everyday and even for brand new players the
first thing you see is a "news" pop up for the game now you might be thinking this isn't deceptive at all and your right its not deceptive but it is the first sign of this game being a cash grab because what is in their "news" pop-up is all stuff you can buy
to "make your experience better" with auto links to their zen market which is their premium currency. They literally shove this down your throat every time you change characters. Now you might be thinking this isn't but it does get annoying and can be overlooked.
Now if you have ever sat in Protectors Enclave you see very often in the chat there are people spamming links for third party websites to buy Astral Diamonds and Zen and other items cheaper then what you can get in game upon some research and some patience
i have noticed 2 things they DO NOT ban these people spamming the chats now your thinking well that is strange and your right now the research guess what its a third party website owned by the game!!! If you buy anything from these sites you get banned as
soon as they see it. Pretty crooked right? They tell you its against the rules and warn you but they Own the third party website so you are still buying from them yet they ban you For buying it.

The Second point is maybe a little more difficult to notice if you haven't been playing for a while. Each update they promise to make the game better and yet it always becomes worse. They take things away from us that make the game a little bit easier.
For instance there was a huge confrontation between players and Cryptic for taking items out of our tradebar store after making statements saying they were reducing the cost of them. Now you might say no big deal but this was a bait and switch tactic one of
the most undermining and dirty tactics that a company could have used against its own player base now in order to attain these tradebars you must buy with real money keys to open these boxes that give you a random reward and a number of tradebars. These keys
cost $1.25 USD per key now you could imagine that with them announce the reduced cost of preservation wards which are a 100% guarantee your upgrade to enchantments of all kinds and are needed for weapon and armor enchantments because they only offer a 1% chance
to upgrade. Now they announced with the release of Underdark (their most recent update/ expansion) that coalescent wards would be reduced from 200 TB to 75 TB. Now with this announcement people were buying zen and buying boxes for the tradebars so they can
get a lot. 30 minutes before they hit they button for us to get the update they decided to change their patch notes and removed coalescent wards completely and now you have to pay $10 per ward TEN FREAKING DOLLARS idk about you guys but that completely takes
away my experience because now if you want to max out a weapon or armor enchantment it will cost you in the market of $240 USD plus tax to get the 5 wards you will need. I don't know about you guys but i can think of a better way to spend $240 and tax THATS
4 NEW VIDEO GAMES. This game has become nothing more then a cash grab i know one thing is for sure i will not be playing this game as soon as DC Universe Online drops to Xbox One at least i know that game will be taken care of and they update their servers
unlike this game.

Final review of this game based on player treatment, playability, cost, content, this game gets a single star because it sucks i have had some many friends leave this game because of their dirty tactics and i will be shortly as well and before anyone
ways it free to play you gotta pay i have put money into this game but after seeing their treatment of players and how little they care about us i wont be putting any money in it anymore.

 

Neverwinter Deception

Listen to this guy, everything he has written is correct, dont believe the hype or spin or PR, MS seem to be hands off with this game so Caveat Emptor, get a different game, unless they fix the issues they have created, there are better places to spend your
time and your cash and you will have to spend cash to progress effectively believe the guys who tell you so.

 

Xbox Live,

It has been well over 24 hours since Neverwinter has launched this deception upon us and their response as of yet leaves much to be desired with continued stalling tactics. Can you please post a response in this thread regarding any investigation you are
pursuing. It would be helpful if we knew you were on the case. I know your busy with many games on your system but we would like to know your listening.

Thanks

 

An official response just a few minutes ago...the sheer ignorance and audacity of this company is unparalleled.

yetweallfalldown said:

Hi All,

Jumping in here again. I know there are a few threads that are discussing this, but I'm hoping that I'm hitting one that is active with discussion. In terms of an official response, we're in the process of finalizing the information that we are wanting
to post. When I say finalizing, I mean that it is written and waiting for the last approval before we share it. This will include a break down of what happened and what is going to happen. I know there are people that are frustrated and want information. We
want you to have it as well, but need to go through the normal process of getting this information approved before posting.

Sorry for the delay, but we're hoping we can share more information either later this evening or tomorrow.

 

I would have to agree with all of this it's not right, not only did they not reduce the price(would of been okay with it if they left it in, upset but okay) they took them out completely. I've been playing neverwinter since March and spent a lot of money
on it(got bank statements to back it up) and feel that I just got *** over. Either make them fix it or get rid of the game completely.

Thanks,

Christopher Person.

 

i spent $60 on keys so that i could get lock box's. one of the main things in doing this was so i could get the bars and get coal wards so that i could level up the new artifact equipment, low and behold once i get all the bars and go and try and buy the
wards, cryptic decides to take away the wards after advertising that they would not only be there but be there at a discounted price

they even call the area wards and gems, but when you open it it is just gems, i guess they did not have time to cover that up when the decided to switch it and cash grab all their customers

 

I agree completely. Neverwinter is a cash scam, they've lied to the community and falsely advertised. They deserve to be shut down, that being said, is there any way I can get back the money I was scammed out of? Thank you in advance.

 

MS needs to get all over this with Neverwinter before we end up with masses of us seeking refunds for significant sums of cash spent in game, we also need clarity on the rumoured trashing of our live account if we ask for a legitimate refund due to this
sharp practice?

Come on MS we need a statement from you now, this is dragging on and on and there is nothing on the table from the devs but palliative statements trying to placate us without any concrete indication of what they intend to do. If they don't redress this alleged
Bait and switch then what is MS intention with regards to refunding the community via the Store?

 

just adding my support to this thread,as I too bought a lot of keys with real money in preparation for this trade bar update, Ms really do need to look into this.

 

So here we are well into day two and still no hint of a resolution to this issue from anyone.

I guess tomorrow I will be seeking a refund from the MS store (reluctantly let me add).

 

36 hours seemed like a reasonable "deadline" for some type of formal response.

Formal complaint filed with Microsoft.

Formal complaint filed with Perfect World.

Formal complaint filed with The Better Business Bureau (see below)

PWE's title "Neverwinter" on the Microsoft platform "XBox One" is not being delivered as described in developer's patch notes/blogs/online discussions.

This game is a "free to play" title. To generate revenue, it utilizes in-game "microtransactions" through the use of an in-game currency called" "zen". 100 zen costs roughly $1USD.

The February 9th update for XBox One was to include an updated "Trade Bar" store - trade bars are another in game currency that are acquired through purchasing (with zen) keys to open chests.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search

Is a cached version (cached from 2/4/16) of upcoming changes to the Trade Bar store dated 1/18/16, note bottom of post, no disclaimer, note "Coalesent Ward, 5x Pack of Preservation Wards, Bloody Ruby" before/after/new pricing.

www.arcgames.com/.../9763033-neverwinter-xbox-one:-enchanted-key-sale!

Is a Dev blog advertising a "Key sale" dated 1/28/16, 15% off keys - encouraging the player base to purchase keys (with zen, which costs money) which was to run 1/28/16 - 2/1/16

At some point after 2/4, after the Key Sale had ended, and before the proposed Trade Bar store and update had gone into effect, the following was added to the 1/18/16 Dev blog "Note: As this is originally a PC blog, things may change for Xbox One."

www.arcgames.com/.../9746173-developer-blog:-improved-trade-bar-store

Now, after announcing a content release, hold a sale, and generating (what I am assuming) tens of thousands of dollars on zen purchases, PWE/Cryptic changed what was being offered by adding a caveat to the end of a 3 week old announcement.

When the 2/9 update was released on the XBox One platform, Coalesent Wards, 5x Pack of Preservation Wards, and Blood Ruby" were all inauspiciously absent from the Trade Bar update. Instead all were available in the in game "zen market" for real life dollars,
rather than the in game currency "trade bars" as the entire player base was led to believe.

If this is not false advertising, bait & switch sales tactics, and a blatant money grab - I do not know what is.

I have logged formal complaints about this issue with Microsoft & Prefect World as well.

As a business owner, I find these business practices reprehensible.

 

@awrex1977 also dont forget to ping Xbox management on social media. If its loud enough on social media someone like @CNNTECH is likely to pick up on it.

 

Everything said in this forum is totally true. This is clearly bait and switch and something must be done about it.

 

The balls on them....

www.arcgames.com/.../9785053-neverwinter-xbox-one%3A-15%25-zen-and-enchanted-key-sale%21

Keys & zen on sale, I truly hope they sell nothing