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Thread: Friday with(out) Means - Oct. 30th, 2009: Ramble v2.0

  1. #101
    Quote Originally Posted by Kintaii View Post
    bla bla bla bla...
    I still notice theres no comment whatsoever of what people care for the most, the new engine...
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    ...I can't code in better leadership for the Clan faction.

  2. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by Comi View Post
    I still notice theres no comment whatsoever of what people care for the most, the new engine...
    no comments on exploits fixes either.
    AO n00b

  3. #103
    Quote Originally Posted by meatybtz View Post
    snip... In addition with how it stands the "cost of entry" to pvp is too high for newer players, even with the changes they are showing the entry costs for PVP will still be as high.

    I suggested MERGING and Unifying the PVP/PVM Game Mechanics. FC is now dividing them even further apart into what will probably be a fully distinct system. Again this makes the PVP entry even HARDER for newer players. I just dont get this development focus. Primary should be: Newbie Experience Changes, Daily Quest Series, Game Engine, Game Art Upgrades, THEN Ballancing PVP by making it easier for Cost of Entry so that more people will. Nothing wrong with PVP, in fact its great, but we need to make it attractive to new players. As it stands the extremes of PVP setups at low level ensure that a new player wont be competitive. The fact that STILL 90% of the Profs are usless in most PVM endgame encounters. Same goes for PVP where a significant portion of Profs are underpowered.. yet FC is adjusting Advies? Again? and NTs? They seem pretty well set.. nerf them maybe but they really dont need MORE while you give nothing to: Agents, Keepers, Crats, MPs -snip...
    Imho very valid points. im struggling to understand why some things like the maps for example havent been fixed. players shouldnt need to be directed to useful maps by other players ingame, they should be accessible to any new players. makes me wonder how many ppl quit after they pull their first mission, look at the maps they have available and realise how difficult traveling anywhere ingame can be as a new player.

    Fixing parry\riposte is i think a very couragous step in the right direction, yet i cant help but wonder if perks will need to be rebalanced again quickly after these fixes.

    Personally id like to see a short\medium\long term plan laid out that states what the devs identify as priority issues. opinions from both the playerbase and devs on what they feel needs the most attention would imo be the best way to decide what aspects of the game deserve the most attention and honestly i dont think rebalancing pvp have such a major focus when new players are quitting before they even taste endgame pvp.

    Consider this if you continue to focus on a minority of the playerbase it shouldnt come as a surprise when the rest of the playerbase begin to lose interest and start closing accounts.
    "I detest sleep. I've got better things to do." -JTHM-

    So bitter and filled with ash. I would enjoy your tears, if they didn't turn to dust at my touch.

  4. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by Comi View Post
    I still notice theres no comment whatsoever of what I care for the most, the new engine...
    Fixed.

    How about you speak for yourself and let us speak for ourselves.

    Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick two, you don't get all three. I myself would like Cheap and Good. If you want fast, what will you give up? Quality? Price? Do you want to play a game that has **** engine? Do you want to pay more a month to get it?

    Be patient, stop acting all gloom and doom as if Funcom isn't working as hard as they can on the new engine and just wait for it. It will come when it will come.
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  5. #105
    Quote Originally Posted by Rewo View Post
    No it isn't the same. One of goals here is to provide difficult choices on setup, you're just too programmed to think in the way of the cookie cutter. You'll get over it.
    You have no idea what the engineer profession stands for...
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  6. #106
    Quote Originally Posted by Comi View Post
    I still notice theres no comment whatsoever of what people care for the most, the new engine...
    fixed.

    1 person, 2 people...

    im interested in information about how the new engine is coming along too...
    "I detest sleep. I've got better things to do." -JTHM-

    So bitter and filled with ash. I would enjoy your tears, if they didn't turn to dust at my touch.

  7. #107
    Quote Originally Posted by Coffay View Post
    Teh sky is a lie.

    The man in the sky

    Skycake

    Sky baklava


    Yes I think you a right
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    Quote Originally Posted by nums214 View Post
    If my wife never got preggo omni wouldn't have lost their fields. 2009 is pretty much when I quit.

  8. #108
    Chemical blind, that you gain by perking a TS perkline giving chemistry, relying on your attack rating to land.

    Even though it will free IP for me, it makes no sense whatsoever.
    Fixer - Solja Lite
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  9. #109
    Quote Originally Posted by Racatti View Post
    Chemical blind, that you gain by perking a TS perkline giving chemistry, relying on your attack rating to land.

    Even though it will free IP for me, it makes no sense whatsoever.
    Yeah it should use chemi as the AR and check on NR like all TS perk actions.
    I touched Death in a bad place.

    My corporate slavery came with a shiny decoder ring.

  10. #110
    May the Sploitz be with u Ciex's Avatar
    Sooo ... even Means went /emo and quit?!?
    Asasello, Sottcapo, Ciex, Rychu, Ciek, Zomowiec, Ciekafsky, Rysiek, Chinaski, Libertarian, Propertarian.

  11. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by Ciekafsky View Post
    Sooo ... even Means went /emo and quit?!?
    The poor guy is sick atm
    Veteran of Equilibrium

  12. #112
    Quote Originally Posted by Ayria View Post
    Fixed.

    How about you speak for yourself and let us speak for ourselves.

    Fast, Good, Cheap. Pick two, you don't get all three. I myself would like Cheap and Good. If you want fast, what will you give up? Quality? Price? Do you want to play a game that has **** engine? Do you want to pay more a month to get it?

    Be patient, stop acting all gloom and doom as if Funcom isn't working as hard as they can on the new engine and just wait for it. It will come when it will come.
    He didnt ask for it to be released faster or tomorrow, he wanted information. That is legitimate. And it is also legitimate to assume that the new engine is what many if not most people are interested in, not only for more eye candy, but also because it has directly been tied to more advertising for this game to bring more fresh blood to AO. I'm in for the latter.

    And that will ultimately decide over the fate of this game. Or are you really that naive to think the player base can keep dwindling down to 1 person (you?) before they pull the plug? Bean counters can be erratic and impatient, you know.
    ಠ_ಠ

  13. #113
    Quote Originally Posted by shadowgod View Post
    well, since you can clearly do this faster, maybe you should volunteer your time.
    Not my Job. Thats what I pay THEM for. If they dont have the manpower to get'r done then man up and say so. Excepting tiny other things they seem to indicate that the main focus is on PVP.. which appeals to only the smallest player population and usually only to older subs. How does this ensure the continued infusion of money to keep the ball rolling?

    I would be glad to be proven wrong in this case and in Dec they surprise us with a new Game Engine complete with all the bells and whistles but.. no I am not betting on it.

    If they intend to focus THIS hard on PVP only then they better be planning to make the game more PVP oriented by making it PVP anywhere combined with safezones made safe by the classic open PVP game solution: Warping Instasplat Guards. The only way this benefits new subs is when those new subs are grandfathered by older players entirely.

    At Ayria:
    Your comment is so laughable. Fast would be 1 Year. Cheap would be with our current dev pop. Good, well I will wait and see.

    Considering its been 3 years.. thats slow. Considering our dev pop.. and the use of an inhouse Engine its been cheap. So does that mean it wont be good? HAHAH! 3 Years is the timetable so far for the Game engine with the outlook judging by the released screenies at at lest another year. Thats 4 years to release just a game engine upgrade. You could have done AO2 by that point with a normal sized new-game dev team.
    Last edited by meatybtz; Nov 1st, 2009 at 21:52:59.
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  14. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by meatybtz View Post
    Not my Job. Thats what I pay THEM for. If they dont have the manpower to get'r done then man up and say so. Excepting tiny other things they seem to indicate that the main focus is on PVP.. which appeals to only the smallest player population and usually only to older subs. How does this ensure the continued infusion of money to keep the ball rolling?

    [....]

    Considering its been 3 years.. thats slow. Considering our dev pop.. and the use of an inhouse Engine its been cheap. So does that mean it wont be good? HAHAH! 3 Years is the timetable so far for the Game engine with the outlook judging by the released screenies at at lest another year. Thats 4 years to release just a game engine upgrade. You could have done AO2 by that point with a normal sized new-game dev team.
    you say its not your job, but you keep saying things that would imply otherwise.

    then again, people dont seem to understand, its easier to go from-scratch than it is to retrofit something that already exists with something else that already exists.

    Level 1 to 300 in 8 Years! Pwn!
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  15. #115
    Quote Originally Posted by shadowgod View Post
    its easier to go from-scratch than it is to retrofit something that already exists with something else that already exists.
    BINGO! We Have a WEENAR!

    Hmm maybe they should have just made AO2 instead of having to struggle with YEARS of HACK fixes and code that no one at FC seems to fully understand.

    I understand quite fully how HARD it can be to integrate new tech into older... but the job ISNT THAT HARD.. IF YOU HAVE FULLY DOCUMENTED CODE. That way you know WTF you are getting into, at least mostly, before you get started thus helping to prevent wasted YEARS in false starts. If a certain AO dev had not returned to lend a hand I am quite sure that the backend fixes and code work would not be as far along as it is today.

    Also why should I give my time and skills away for free to FUNCOM? I ALREADY PAY THEM. They want my help or others.. they can pay US. No way a Corp gets free labor.

    I can be as vitriolic as I want to be about this. Esp. when I see over and over again AoC getting nearly all the advanced suggestions made here in the AO Suggestions Forums: Character Xfer, Server Merges, Xaun's Socketed Armor, etc.
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  16. #116
    Thanks for the informative Ramble v2.0 update! Best wall of text to date.

    I echo Troxxor’s sentiments and wish Means and family a swift recovery.
    You have not wasted your day if you have laughed at least once and learned at least one new thing. ~Jokzer

    The way I see it, the loot, the levels, all the binary is temporary and can be lost at any time. The only permanent thing in the game are the people and the memories you make with them. ~Silq

    ~ Homeostasis ~ Proud member of ARETE ~RX~. 2001-2014 - It's been a wonderful journey! *hugs* from Homeo and her army of alts!

  17. #117
    Quote Originally Posted by meatybtz View Post
    Fast would be 1 Year..
    Are you a programmer? Do you know what language they use? How much work it entails to write an engine? What kind of snags they've hit? (Means with swine flu isn't just effecting him, that hurts everyone who works for him too, etc) What kind of budget they have?

    I doubt any of that comes back as a yes. So why then do you feel you have the knowledge to judge how long it should take? Sure, state your opinion on how long you think it should or hope it should take but please don't act as if you know for a fact.

    This is not to say that I know for sure either, perhaps it really only should take a year. I'm not nearly at the level of skill in programming as they are. However: I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (seeing as they do know better then I do and) knowing just how long some tasks can take even when everyone around you says they're easy or quick jobs or should be done in xx days/weeks. I had a person try to make me cram a three month job into a one month deadline because he had no clue what it entailed (having no experience with programming himself) and wanted it done fast. I told him to go screw himself because he refused to listen and accept that it just wasn't possible to do it in a month.

    The point is, neither you or I or even people like Vhab (who is arguably one of the best programmers in the community) can judge just how long it will or should take Funcom to make a new engine. Only Funcom can say that. (Maybe Means would be willing to comment when he comes back)

    I know it's hard for people, but can you not at least trust in Funcom enough to accept that they are working on it as best and as fast as they can?

    Or you can continue to whine. Your choice.
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  18. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by Ayria View Post
    Are you a programmer?
    YES, I am.

    The point is, neither you or I or even people like Vhab (who is arguably one of the best programmers in the community) can judge just how long it will or should take Funcom to make a new engine. Only Funcom can say that. (Maybe Means would be willing to comment when he comes back)
    ORLY? Actually we can, based on development speeds in general in the industry over the years. Individual snags will vary, but thats the teams job to solve not mine. I care about the end result really, I accept that they have snags. They admitted as much over the years. What baffles me is why the game documentation was not maintained properly over the years enough t that people would actually know how pets and pathing worked as well as a myrad of other things the team has "rediscovered". Having to "rediscover" how you code base works is bad. I should know I have done some work in the past that involved the kinds of dirty hacks and workarrounds that FC seems to have used alot in AO, invariably I ended up not even being able to figgure out WHAT THE HELL I DID. Did they work? Yes. Could I maintain the code? Nope. I've tried to recreate some of the work in these instances and just could not make it work. So oddly enough, I am actually familiar with what they are going through. In my cases I actually said, well if its this bad I obviously didnt do it right and rewrote entire blocks to make sense and be maintainable. That was the price I paied for getting it done under the wire and on time at all other expenses.

    I know it's hard for people, but can you not at least trust in Funcom enough to accept that they are working on it as best and as fast as they can?
    Are they working on it as hard as they can? I honestly don't know. They are certainly spending alot of time on stuff that wont raise the bottom-line value of the game. Instead the spend alot of time on stuff to please the older players when they should be looking to new players as the primary life to the game. This game has aged. What that means isnt in YEARS, but in PLAYER.... hmm.. "Elderlyness". The more "top heavy" a game is, in reference to the ballance of levels of active players not counting their alts, the "older" a game is. This affects all kinds of things like: cost of entry and leveling perceptions. One of the things I noticed about AO when I came back to it in 04 was that the drain of boredom quitting of the high-levels and the surge in lower level players made the game,at least for a while, young again. A lot of knowledge was lost with the old timers leaving nearing that period. It was a good thing and I think is entirely responsible for the current longevity of the game. Though now we are reaching critical mass as far as game "oldness". Our playerbase by and large is VERY VERY OLD.

    It is hard to express this.. but this is a new player |o|
    He is here:
    |o|




    Insert picture of mount everast here.








    We are here at the peak of Eveast:
    \o/


    This impacts new player perception. It says one of a few things: YOu need to be 220 ASAP to play with everyone else. Screw this, this is too much work.

    The players get and stay choose the first one and powergrind like mad, honestly missing all the fun in the game.

    The others are the ones who see the hill they need to climb to be with "everyone else" aka the Joneses and say screw it, leaving the game before they even reach TOTW.

    When I first started playing again in 04 the common saying was the game started at 100.. a few years later the sayings were it started was at TL5. Today most people will agree that the lions share of interesting content starts at TL7 or 215. Litteraly the in game playerbases views of the game... aged. This is very unhealthy. A game needs a regular loss of old players replaced by hords of young players. AO oddly enough has managed to do this again and again... but never have we been so top heavy as now in content and players. If we dont get a surge of new blood soon we really are at the "end of days".

    We should strive, we being the Devs, with all our thoughts BENT on growing the game player base with new blood. Everything else would be secondary to that goal. If we can grow the base enough then we can get enough money in to prove to the beancounters that AO can be a major profit giver again and worth investing in a more sizeable dev team which will only make the game and content that much better.

    In this case those of us looking at it from this perspective realize that the game engine represents the same kind of opportunity as the introduction of the Froob Program did to litterally REVITILIZE AO.

    How many years AO has left to it isnt decided by long time players. Us loyalists.. or in my case those of us who play with their significant others and thus hang about while they do, are not the thing to bank on. If anything, we hurt the games future. The longevity is decided by how young or at least how many times can we create a youthful surge into the games life.

    Time is of the essence here though. As the game ages it goes down a path that further drives itself into a rut. I have watched the game migrate more and more heavily into powerleveling of alts of the high levelers leaving little for the new players in the normal progression sense. They either hitch a ride with us or they wallow about without help. Often its without help because alot of us are so fixated on getting up there to get through all the new ubercontent so we can PVP or play at the uberest level dont want to slow our roll for the newbie. The PUG is dead, while there were times when PUGs were awesome and fun.

    Rk1 isnt so bad but since we dont have enough new life to fill both servers, and RK3 is a corpse that FC seems to cling to ferociously, we need it soon.
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  19. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by Ayria View Post
    Or you can continue to whine. Your choice.
    People have given FC the benefit of the doubt for almost a year and half now. We've been patient only to be given in turn glimpses which do not bode well nor meet commonly held expectations. Another small game company, CCP, took 2 years from start to finish updating the entire world of Eve Online with dx9 textures and lighting etc etc. It's been nearly 2 years since FC publicly announced their engine update and we still do not even have promising IG screenshots or video.

    Just think for moment what you're saying Ayria. You're telling people to stand by and continue giving the benefit of the doubt even though this company's poor long-term planning has resulted in AO not having a new engine currently, nor even having a healthy playerbase, nor even having a balanced PvP setting, nor even having profs each having a substantial role in PvM. Trust is earned, until FC earns it telling people to trust them regardless of past actions...stop prostrating to the FC shrine already..
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  20. #120
    Quote Originally Posted by -XeI20- View Post
    Just think for moment what you're saying Ayria. You're telling people to stand by and continue giving the benefit of the doubt even though this company's poor long-term planning has resulted in AO not having a new engine currently, nor even having a healthy playerbase, nor even having a balanced PvP setting, nor even having profs each having a substantial role in PvM. Trust is earned, until FC earns it telling people to trust them regardless of past actions...stop prostrating to the FC shrine already..
    Think for a moment yourselves. If you hate Funcom so much for their delays and poor management why the **** are you still here? To troll the forums like some school yard bully? Or because you have some hope and trust left in Funcom that they can pull through?

    I'm not prostrating to Funcom, I'm simply not acting like I abhor them for their short comings while sticking around and making a hypocrite of myself like you guys are. If you think the new engine is taking to long, if you think it's vaporware if you're "professional" opinion as a programmer says that it should be done by now and you're ticked off because it isn't why not just go? Why stick around and complain more and more and more and more and more? Do you think your voice alone is going to light a fire under Funcom or open some temporal rift where the AO code from the future will drift through and complete the engine in the next two days?

    You're either going to wait for the engine to be done, or quit. So pick one and do it without whining every two days about it.
    Enter the Information Age
    Proc Descriptions

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