Friday with Means - November 20th, 2009 - Nanomage says "Wut?"

[Means]

Yeah, because mail system is what we've all been asking for years, isn't it? You mentioned Macrosun being involved in the GFX changes quite a few times, so does it mean he spent time on mailing system rather than the new engine? If so, why?

Yes, actually the playerbase has been asking for a mail system for longer than we have been working on the engine...thanks for pointing that out. Being focused on one feature to the degree where we ignore all other "old" requests or issues is not how the current team will be prioritizing the future.

Macrosun is a game coder...not a render coder. It is likely that he could help if he wanted...but it isn't his area of expertise and certainly not an area he is interested in. Sort of like me taking the time to type up yet another "different people do different things" thread (at this point I have done this so many times I suspect this is a running joke on the forums..."lol...we got Means to explain it again!1101010!"). If Macrosun had been tasked to only the engine there would be NO: Social Tab, Raid Instances, Raid Interface, Instanced Cities, Mail System, Knockback, Fear, Mindcontrol, and countless exploits and crashes and bugs would still be in-game.

Is the engine taking longer than planned? Hell yes. Do I regret any of the choices that brought us to this point? No. I'm VERY happy we have been able to continue working on this at the right pace so that we can deliver what is best for the future of AO. If we had thrown 30 render coders at this a couple years ago it would have been done...but it woudn't be close to as good as the result and support we are going to get when this is finished.

[Towerblock]

Because we've obviously entered an alternate universe, and the evil Means will offer one free breed/sex change for each character as soon as the feature is available, and then charge $50 a pop when the perk balancing is finalized.

Will this new Evil Means come from the transporter dimension in Star Trek, complete with evil goatee?

[Castaras]

Always a mistake to assume that people understand this, even if you had spelt it out in 100ft burning letters they would still be frothing and ranting.

Good, it's actually quite amusing to see how hyped up people get.

[Means]

He's gonna knock out the breed change code in a week.

Why? Because we've obviously entered an alternate universe, and the evil Means will offer one free breed/sex change for each character as soon as the feature is available, and then charge $50 a pop when the perk balancing is finalized.

That is pretty accurate actually (even possibly the week bit). Everyone will get one for free as that is the only way to be fair (even a 1% difference in performance apres balancing requires this). After that it is likely that this will be available for paid points or in-game currency. I want the choices players make concerning breed to mean something...those who are satisfied with their choice will not have any use for this system...those who are not will no longer have to re-roll their entire character.

$50 is a bit over the top though....even for alternate universe evil Means. How many paid points or in-game credits should this cost? What would be fair and reasonable? (I will be taking into account that as a population that will be getting it for free I'll assume the numbers you all suggest will be a little high :P )

[Reetzor]

...will no longer have to re-roll their entire character.

ZOMG! I think I just wet myself a little (and it's a while since I've done that! Think pre-baby and probably including beer...I've said too much).

[SSK]

So...you DIDN'T get a new in-game mail system just a couple days ago? You should petition about that.

I did, I hope, didn't check if i have that feature yet.

Now that Macrosun isn't working on the mail system..guess what he is going to do?

Pet pathing? Since he has to code parry, breed change and lots of things, I was just wondering if he can handle so much work w/o pushing rebalancing release date too far.

Different people have different tasks

Everyone knows it already (or should at least), but with very limited human resources one type of people shouldn't have too much work compared to rest of the team.

[Wrangeline]

$50 is a bit over the top though....even for alternate universe evil Means. How many paid points or in-game credits should this cost? What would be fair and reasonable? (I will be taking into account that as a population that will be getting it for free I'll assume the numbers you all suggest will be a little high :P )

From my point of view, it shouldn't be several times the cost of monthly subscription but it shouldn't be a novelty fee either. Changing breeds back and forth because it only cost 4 dollars makes the whole breed choice thing and immersion with the community a bit bleh. Having it cost 40-50 dollars is also a bit much in my book as you could buy a whole new game for that mount of money.

I think it should cost something like 14.99 dollars or something like that. Similar to monthly subscription fee. Its cheap enough to pay for if you need/want to change breed. At least for me it is. This fee should give every character on that account 1 breed change though. I don't think its fair to ask for 14.99 dollars PER character if people wish to change breed on 5 alts for example. (This is 14.99 in paid points)

When it comes to credit-price, I think it should scale upwards depending on level of char. It might be reasonable to ask 250m credits to change breed on one tl7 char (individual character, not the whole account) but asking a new player with a level 50 char to pay the same amount would be unfair. So Maybe a different credit-price based on title level.

Level 1-14 = 3m.
Level 15-49 = 30m.
Level 50-99 = 60m.
Level 100-149 = 100m.
Level 150-189 = 150m.
Level 190-205 = 200m.
Level 206-220 = 250m.

These credit numbers might be a bit random but my overall point is that the credit-price should be scaling.

I do think it should be a bit of an investment seeing as the first one is free to follow the perk changes but the rest cost credits to cater to the whim of the players. It should be a bit of an investment then because changing breed is one of, if not THE most major thing you can do in this game (until buying full IPR's for paid points and credits becomes an option)

[Solstiare]

Nanomage perks

[-Plexor-]

Means,

I think 2000 paid points at the prices below would be fair, and seems to be in line with another rather large online game. That price is per character.

EUR ‡ € 17.39 +VAT GBP 14.70 PLN 34.78 RUB 400.00 USD $ 20.00

By the way the Xan Left Wrist Symbiant, Infantry Unit Beta is missing the shield damage types of the standard symbs...is that something that can be fixed easily to make it more viable for those that haven't managed to get the intelligent symbs to make alphas?

[erozc]

I think the breed change cost should be only around 1€ per toon in paid points. The kicker could be that you can't choose which breed/gender combination you get, so you may have to keep trying unless you get lucky with the draw

[Krattonomic]

I guess my question towards this is will this be One per character or one just for the account meaning only one character can do it?

[Dagget]

FYI, the engine screenies from last week got posted up as news in MMORPG and, surprisingly, the associated discussion thread had a healthy dose of positive comments (about AO in general, not the screenies per se). Usually, any news or discussions about AO in other forums draws negative trolls like flies to roadkill, so this is a bit refreshing.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/260080

[Ashes2Ashes]

Considering everyone is going to get 1 free change on all thier toons. I think further changes beyond the bonus, should cost around $10.00 USD / or 500m 'per character'.

[trousers]

Name changes should be given out as a quest reward.

Quest Name: His Name Is My Name Too!

Quest Giver: John Jacob "Jingleheimer" Schmidt

[Edta]

Hmm, if we're getting breed change, shouldn't we also get the more simple and logic change of faction? (Talking about leaving one of the sides and going neutral.)

I don't especially see this with regard to balance, but it can be. (Balancing affects all parts of the game, so faction also is a factor - even if you wouldn't change something directly it's all connected anyway).
The same reasoning - not wanting to reroll a high level toon - holds though.

[Righteous]

Means, so wait, what's this about people doing different things again?

*snicker*

[Cdogg421]

Nanomage does not say wut?! Nanomage says make changes yesterday and patch them today!

[windcaster]

i have a question, how will the breed change actually be handled?

i mean you say the first will be free, but after that you have to pay.


so will it be something you can SAVE like a full IPR?

or will it be a limited time offer? like anyone who wants to breed change must do it from X date to Y date?


dont let them get to you means, the changes i've seen made have majority been good ones even if not always popular.

which is a shame because i have'nt had much time to play in the last 2 years
and so many things are happening since you took over as director.. it's good to see the game evolving under the current leadership/team rather then maintain "status quo"

i just hope when major changes are done and the new engine is out FC spends some money promoting it.. i started playing AO because of a ad on yahoo.. so advertisement DOES work, although back then not as many "Free" games was out there that was the selling point that got me hook.

and it seems like the population has fallen quite a bit, but maybe thats because im on rk2 and it defaults to rk1 now i hear.

[Klod9002]

$50 is a bit over the top though....even for alternate universe evil Means. How many paid points or in-game credits should this cost? What would be fair and reasonable? (I will be taking into account that as a population that will be getting it for free I'll assume the numbers you all suggest will be a little high :P )

Gee.

I sure hope you are joking. Are there really gonna be more "one time opportunity" breed changes available?

[Hacre]

Level 1-14 = 3m.
Level 15-49 = 30m.
Level 50-99 = 60m.
Level 100-149 = 100m.
Level 150-189 = 150m.
Level 190-205 = 200m.
Level 206-220 = 250m.

These credit numbers might be a bit random but my overall point is that the credit-price should be scaling.

I was going to suggest at least 100m per TL7 breed change but this looks plenty reasonable, should it go live.

As for that MMORPG.com thread there's some comments in there that the dev team could use taking a look at.