So, essentially you just made the same realization I and many others have made weeks ago, again, and even months… prior that.
It made me feel rather delusional, promoting and supporting the game amongst the close group of people I shared keys with, trying to make up excuses for every seemingly nitpick they had, but in reality - this game does not offer anything we don’t already have in the ever growing world of free2play games, it has a massive list of problems that lack addressing. It does not have a big or welcoming learning curve to competitive minded people. It does not have a fun, ever changing, non-linear design to it, which I suppose the maps are to be blamed for, and more importantly, it just… doesn’t play well.
I’ve gone out of my way of getting keys over the past weeks and months to get players to enjoy and like the game, I’ve grinded hours trying to come up with detailed and somewhat sophisticated input/feedback for the game, but in the end it genuinely was all for naught. The game is simply not appealing to me or my group of friends and I don’t think SD is to blame for that, we’re just not the right target group, but even so… For a beta, or alpha, there’s too many things that are tough to deal with, from a player’s perspective.
People have been voicing their concern over simple gameplay mechanics for months without ever being heard, I have all the respect for SD for having been so interactive these past months, but ignoring the bigger concern, while addressing minor things, to keep up the illusion of developer presence and activity within the community, really does not help. You want the game to go a specific direction, we get that, but even so… state it. Don’t let people sit in the dark hope for this or that or some other patch to maybe sneakily change they’ve all been hoping and wishing for, for well over a year now. There’s really no need to be this secretive in regards to what you plan for the game, at the very least it’ll put things into perspective for your testers.
For starters, here’s an idea, discuss upcoming patches, or gather input on your proposed changes prior to throwing them up live. I’ve heard and read a few stories that are rather heartbreaking, certain people having begged and plead at you for weeks to not go ahead with a few “adjustments” on the recent patch, only to be ignored and the entire community over on the nexon board, as well as here, having raised these exact same concerns. It feels like you’re just setting yourself up for a slap in the face at some point.
I went in here, expecting another great SD title to hop into the footsteps of ET, which, was obviously not the case - and albeit a bit saddening, not the end of the world, I don’t mind new titles, I enjoy games, but whatever it is you’ve got going now with your Brink/TF2/CoD/LoL hybrid, it simply doesn’t work for me, and in quite honesty, I - personally, don’t ever see it being played competitively, not without a lot of money being pumped into it, for certain type of individuals to have a reason to play it, as opposed to it actually being a good, balanced and enjoyable game.
Rant over, take it or not, it’s merely my ignorant view of the game. As it happens, I’ll still look up for Extraction when it’s nearing it’s release, who knows, maybe by then things will have changed and I come to like it. Gave away the 13 beta keys I had stored up to a few people on IRC as well as a handful on WarWitch’s stream last night, might just bring you the activity it needs, but… I rather doubt it.