Dear Mr J Needham,

I am afraid you may have blown it.

As much as many of us wished for this latest Cryptic project to succeed, not least for the IP alone, we've committed time and time again and it seems, without any reciprocation on your part.

We have played and reported problems during beta, some paid for open beta, we have paid for head-start, we have bought lifetime memberships in our hundreds, perhaps thousands. On both sides of the Atlantic we have put up with 'emergency' server downtimes, unavailable zones, strange queues, bad response times and in the EU, even planned downtimes within peak playtime hours, persistently eating into the unmitigated patience that seems to fuel the gamer of today.

Unfortunately, as I hope you are well aware; betas, head-starts and the like are a double edged sword. Typically, the people that play betas and head-starts are your mainstay of fans. They are your key customer demographic and with that comes the inevitable truth that they will talk to their friends and contacts of their experiences. What seems like your best advocate group can quickly turn to your most vocal detractor.

If your early adopters don't stay with the game and repeatedly speak of being let down consistently, fobbed off and generally treated as though you care less for their experience than ever before, you will funadmentally damage the bond that ties the gamers to the game author. Trust.

I hope the launch goes well (as I will be there), I hope you can find a way to redeem this charade you have called head-start and I do hope your ability to turn this around is as large as your faith in the gamers trust you have dented.

With respect,

A gamer.

EDIT: It seems no-one knows who you are John Needham....

*yawn.....

huh? who's that?

Well if so on the bright side there wont be as many people clogging up the obviously limited capacity of the game.

On the other hand I am bored witless again even at LC3 and desperately need to craft or socialize in a way that matters and not just run around and shoot/scan the same missions over and over.
So my opinion won't matter soon...not that it does now anyway and there will be even MORE game space open.

Mr John Needham is the CEO of Cryptic. The guy that ultimately took your money, threw the software on an iPhone and set it up for wireless connection.

OP knows not of what he attempts to speak.