Streamer priority confirmed. PoE is free to play, so play it for free, but Boycott GGG.

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Mordimers wrote:

People make it bigger deal than it really, but it could be avoided if those payed streamers would say that they are doing sponsored content, then backlaskh would be smaller or none.

Whatever the case get over it and play the game.

Every streamer has to declare that they are doing sponsored content already.
They have to write it in their title and most say it at the start of the stream aswell, otherwise it's against Twitch ToS as far as I'm aware.

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Mordimers wrote:

Whatever the case get over it and play the game.

I think you missed the point. The OP was very clear that if you like PoE, go ahead and continue playing the game for free.

You dont have to support this company and give them money. Its totally fair to value them exactly how they value you, the average player.

Im in the camp of whatever GGG made a mistake they admitted it get over it or go play another game.

To my knowledge they never denied they allowed streamers to jump ahead and even told them on LIVE streams - my take is they did this hastily not considering this is a race for a significant portion of the player base - particularly those logging in at league start and therefore it would be seen as an advantage.

Bottom line play for free, buy packs, quit...your prerogative but dont act like you are not spending money to "support GGG". I doubt very seriously the vast majority that have spent money, myself included, spent it solely to support GGG - they wanted to "look cool", design a HO, have a neat looking portal, or some other personal reason...MAYBE simply to be one of the only the people to ever have the forum title "Ruler of Wraeclast" knowing not many were gonna fork over that kind of money on, an as of yet, unproven game.

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Ain_Soph_Aur wrote:

Im in the camp of whatever GGG made a mistake they admitted it get over it or go play another game.

To my knowledge they never denied they allowed streamers to jump ahead and even told them on LIVE streams - my take is they did this hastily not considering this is a race for a significant portion of the player base - particularly those logging in at league start and therefore it would be seen as an advantage.

Bottom line play for free, buy packs, quit...your prerogative but dont act like you are not spending money to "support GGG". I doubt very seriously the vast majority that have spent money, myself included, spent it solely to support GGG - they wanted to "look cool", design a HO, have a neat looking portal, or some other personal reason...MAYBE simply to be one of the only the people to ever have the forum title "Ruler of Wraeclast" knowing not many were gonna fork over that kind of money on, an as of yet, unproven game.

You are talking about multiple sets of players which is fine, if you don't generalize too much.

For those that have been around for alpha over 10 years ago, or even the closed beta period in 2012-2013, your support and contributions really did matter. GGG was as small and indie as you could get. It really felt like you were a part of a crowd-funded, player driven, engaged development process.

That isnt even remotely the case anymore after the cash out and the reign of TencentGGG began. It's a totally different era. Now we're different piles of money, and how we view GGG as a dev has shifted.

Mostly its disappointing to see how far GGG has strayed from its original values and goals. But hey, money talks and bullshit walks.

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Ain_Soph_Aur wrote:

...I doubt very seriously the vast majority that have spent money, myself included, spent it solely to support GGG - they wanted to "look cool", design a HO, have a neat looking portal, or some other personal reason...

Nope. I spent waaay more than what I needed to get the stash tabs once they were introduced. And yes, it was explicitly to support the team on their (back then) completely unsecure journey. I don't regret a cent of it, but I feel the "support" aspect is kinda gone these days, so I haven't bought a pack in quite a while...

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SisterBlister wrote:

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Ain_Soph_Aur wrote:

...I doubt very seriously the vast majority that have spent money, myself included, spent it solely to support GGG - they wanted to "look cool", design a HO, have a neat looking portal, or some other personal reason...

Nope. I spent waaay more than what I needed to get the stash tabs once they were introduced. And yes, it was explicitly to support the team on their (back then) completely unsecure journey. I don't regret a cent of it, but I feel the "support" aspect is kinda gone these days, so I haven't bought a pack in quite a while...

Same here.
The first 500$ pack I bought was to get much needed Stash tabs and MTX I wanted, but did I need to get the most expensive pack for that? Nope, it was to support the company.
The second 500$ pack, I didn't need anything anymore... so that was purely for their support. It took me like 2 years to spend the MTX points.

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Sadaukar wrote:

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SisterBlister wrote:

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Ain_Soph_Aur wrote:

...I doubt very seriously the vast majority that have spent money, myself included, spent it solely to support GGG - they wanted to "look cool", design a HO, have a neat looking portal, or some other personal reason...

Nope. I spent waaay more than what I needed to get the stash tabs once they were introduced. And yes, it was explicitly to support the team on their (back then) completely unsecure journey. I don't regret a cent of it, but I feel the "support" aspect is kinda gone these days, so I haven't bought a pack in quite a while...

Same here.
The first 500$ pack I bought was to get much needed Stash tabs and MTX I wanted, but did I need to get the most expensive pack for that? Nope, it was to support the company.
The second 500$ pack, I didn't need anything anymore... so that was purely for their support. It took me like 2 years to spend the MTX points.

Fair points. I too have spent way more than I needed for stash tabs and such and yes SOME of what I spent was because I wanted to support them - especially early on. My point was most ppl spending money are not doing so purely to support GGG anymore

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

If you like the mtxes or support packs, that's fair enough. You are buying them for your own pleasure, and getting 'your money’s worth'. But if you're a supporter because you've always been a supporter or because you think GGG are morally upstanding or have your best interests at heart, I think you should definitely consider playing for free from now on.

I sort of buried this in one of my spoilered sections (the usage of which I see as an act of mercy) but I think it addresses the concern of the past page or so. While it is likely that moral-based support has dropped off since the earlier days, I am fairly sure it's not an insignificant factor when people consider supporting. Or, more succinctly, when they don't consider it at all and just do it.

When MTX are overpriced compared to the rest of the industry I'm not sure you can easily untangle where buying a pack for the mtx contents ends and voluntary support begins.

I want to preface this by stating that I haven't logged-in this league even once (I take breaks from time to time, and skip a few leagues because all of the clicking in POE worsens my tendonitis). So no, I wasn't waiting in that abysmal queue like everyone else, I was doing other things at the time.

However, I felt like Chris's explanation of this debacle was forthright and genuine. He took personal responsibility by highlighting the hasty mistakes they (as a company) made, underestimated the effect it would have on the anger levels of the playerbase (GGG wrongly assumed there would be a semi-positive reaction to people being able to see Streamers play) and said they wouldn't repeat these 'mistakes' in the future given how much it offended everyone.

Honestly, what more could you ask of GGG than that? To rewrite history? To be burned at the proverbial stake for daring to make a boneheaded business decision? Bad decisions are made in the real world all of the time, but what doesn't always happen is a 'course correction.' Yet Chris is vowing to give us that 'course correction.' Most AAA gaming companies would laugh in the face of their customers before ever admitting wrongdoing in any shape or form, literally LAUGH OUT LOUD before admitting any semblance of guilt... but POE once had humble beginnings, and Chris knows they wouldn't have made it this far without us. Maybe what transpired that day wasn't all his decision, but he may have decided to take the 'heat' and 'blame' for it anyway since he's the public face of the game.

Do you expect everyone to be perfect, are 'you' perfect? Have you never made a bad decision under pressure before? Are you flawless and without blame? Chances are, no one is. While this set of circumstances was unfortunate, and I feel like Streamers get way too much credit for what they do, I don't feel like going full 'scorched earth' by not supporting GGG anymore is the right course of action for a mistake they won't be repeating in the future. That is just my two cents.

Edit: I also thought Charan/Foreverhappychan made a well-construed 'farewell post' a while back about not ever posting in these forums again? Or am I mistaken about that? I do remember a 'Goodbye' post of sorts https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2650059/page/1 by another user (please don't take this as me being accusatory or personally attacking you, I am just slightly confused to still see you around here after a big sendoff). Usually when I say I won't be coming back somewhere, you can guarantee I won't be coming back. So I'm not sure what made you change your mind. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, as it was quite a while ago and I could be misremembering it (memory can be a funny thing).