Monthly Development Update - 28th February 2014

[Emma]

And how many more Exploit team members will be hired to deal with the deluge of Exploit reports? team members who specalise in the twinking part of the game and can readily decide if a setup is su****ious or not without banning people who are just very, very good at twinking?

Its not like Regular ARKs can handle this, they are not allowed. I'm not trying to be nasty, this is a geniune concern.

Since we can not discuss exploits in any open forum, OOC, etc. and many of us are not expert at twinking ...

I would say Neista has a very valid question/concern. For example, if I was to inspect someone and see something that I don't know how to equip ... my only course of action is to put the inspection into an exploit report.

There are going to be a lot of reports for FC to go thru. Probably most of them will not be an exploit and many others will/could be false reports made to just harass someone.

Or, we will all ignore equipment and you won't get any reports ...

Emma

[Anna]

Tut tut everyone. First rule of fight club...


It really sounds to me that a few vets have moaned to devs about the teams being crap and underpowered so funcom has implemented this to suit them and wrapped it up in the shiny wrapping paper and fluffy bow that is their reason (exploit hunting) considering the stance here of not even being aloud to explain/mention/enquire about any exploit. They are a problem (exploits) how are we as a community supposed to police our own community members without being told what the exploits are/learn how they are done/know what to look out for.

It seems funcom has always catered to the select few who i can only really consider as people they like/prefer/call friends etc.

Totally agree, but in all honesty this seems a continuation of the horrendous 18-5 patch (lack) of thought and logic. Lets take few non-problems (for 99.9% of the game's players) and fix them by breaking the game for that same 99.9%. Oh and lets also insure the problem is not really fixed. This will not do anything to fix the problem. Absolutely nothing. It might have some benefit if fc actually had the people to police the situation, but the don't and won't. And having people report thousands of non-exploits as possible exploits because someone has something on you don't know how to equip at a particular level will do nothing but make it even harder to manage the situation. This does nothing except make it easier for the .1% pvp whiners/title farmers to kill other toons as they can easily see who is underequipped AND they still know how to flag random people with contagious flags (courtesy of that aforementioned 18.5 patch). Easy kills, faster titles, the .1% are salivating at yet another fc pandering to their wants. I find it interesting that there seems to be a pattern where the .1% rarely attack each other (as they could lose and thereby lose their title). The open inspect is terrible idea and will do noting to identify exploits, the stated problem.

For pvp titles, I personally would like to see that you can only get to the next title if you defeat players at within one title lower than yours or higher. Titles lower then that would not count towards your points. But that will not happen as funcom seems to be increasingly catering to that small percentage, unfortunately.

[Leetlover]

exploiters in mmo's (or virtual worlds, for those of us who see it like that) suck cause they are make infringements against peoples economical intrests, and hopefully it will be possible for customers to take legal actions against them in the future. I think Nusquam does this right tho, countering the effect of cheating, or damagamitigration. Like keybinds for example, with multiple keybinds the players will get to be on the same level as the people with programable gaming-keyboards. In AO it is possible to make items more valuable with ts'ing, but if programs can exploit it and that becomes a detriment to the game then sometimes the best decision is to not have it be like that and give players credits diferently. FC has a tough job cause in many countries, mmo-credits/resources is both a legit part and important part of the economy.

As for the other stuff, I hope the team change the system so it becomes more friendly towards newcomers and encourage teamplay, preferably within your own level. The kite/ost >>> kill a thousand hacker uri's fails so hard. The problem is the lootsystem which encourage small teams with only the needed professions. And before, we used to get xp, credits and a TON of items (rk-missions for example, and a AI-raid used to be about 90% of the expansion-content) in the same game-event. Now it is, go to x to get item x, go to y to get item y, go to z to get xp-type z etc

There are going to be a lot of reports for FC to go thru. Probably most of them will not be an exploit and many others will/could be false reports made to just harass someone.

it's not a problem as long as FC can provide competent staff

[Sorlain]

How about having the option of MC or B and E instead of a complete change.


Why mess with grid armor REQs now?

[Pafpuf]

it's not a problem as long as FC can provide competent staff

Competent staff heh, with policies like "we completely ignore the community because only a part of them express their opinions on the forum" ?

[Grandpa]

it's not a problem as long as FC can provide competent staff

Nevermind competency, WHAT staff?

My froob got his name changed in the merge (for no reason I might add, there is no other player with that name).
After six months and multiple petitions (that /rename option never worked at all), I'm still waiting to get a new name.
By now I have given up and going to keep the R123... name.

They try to "outsource" policing to us, so they can reduce staff, not to add more!

[Alves]

I hope really that some funcom boys read the posts here... So many people are disappointed.

FUNCOM DO SOME POSITIVE THINGS AND HEAR THE COMMUNITY (pay attention)!!!!
The upcoming changes are ridiculous @AO Development Team

Do it like Bethesda with elder scrolls online - they asked the community... they relate the player into the game (e.g with their idea's, informations, and thinking) and so much more...

Why the hell make funcom their own thing? You want to destroy ourself?

[Brampfine]

i got post from Funcom......
ur be invitet for a TSW-Szenario-weekend ! <--no need in this

the 4th Beta weekend invite i get from The Elder Scrolls Online Team.

still no Anarchy Online Beta <-- hobos

[enfsatangirl]

there are no use to report any exploits , becouse funcom let some players use it anyway

[Jihnna]

Ok.

So inspect is being opened so that we as players can do exploit-hunting.
FC wants us to do their job. They are craving our help. All fine and dandy with me...

But when we voice our opinions, and ask FC for help, as in AVOID most of these ridiculous changes that noone from the active playerbase requested, we get the ignore-button.

And noone but the forum-moderator seems to have ANY interest at all in this thread.

Maybe Anarrina should be game-developer instead, atleast he/she seems to take interest in what we're posting, and is pretty quick on the replies.

[Grandpa]

Ok.

So inspect is being opened so that we as players can do exploit-hunting.
FC wants us to do their job. They are craving our help. All fine and dandy with me...

But when we voice our opinions, and ask FC for help, as in AVOID most of these ridiculous changes that noone from the active playerbase requested, we get the ignore-button.

And noone but the forum-moderator seems to have ANY interest at all in this thread.

Maybe Anarrina should be game-developer instead, atleast he/she seems to take interest in what we're posting, and is pretty quick on the replies.

Very true!

FC must think they have thousands of active players in this game, so they can ignore the few that complain here?

First of all, froobs can't post here, so they are never be heard at all.
Secondly, everybody I know has more than one account.
In my orgs, almost everybody is multi-logged at all times (and if it's just a froob bank toon).

There used to be a server status tool for AO, I believe it was on AOU, but I could be mistaken.
They removed it and that's probably a good thing, because it was quite depressing.
The tool showed the percentage of players in every zone. It would look something like this:

Borealis: 35%
OA: 25%
OT: 10%
NLC: 10%
INF: 5%
APF: 5%
etc.

So, to understand how many unique players there really are:
1) count the people in the major cities and count the people on LFT
2) THEN correct for all the multi-logs

That leaves perhaps a few hundred active and UNIQUE players in prime time!
If 50 people complain about this patch, that is a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the player base!

Ignore us at your own peril, FC!

[Gunforhire]

Very true!

FC must think they have thousands of active players in this game, so they can ignore the few that complain here?

First of all, froobs can't post here, so they are never be heard at all.
Secondly, everybody I know has more than one account.
In my orgs, almost everybody is multi-logged at all times (and if it's just a froob bank toon).

There used to be a server status tool for AO, I believe it was on AOU, but I could be mistaken.
They removed it and that's probably a good thing, because it was quite depressing.
The tool showed the percentage of players in every zone. It would look something like this:

Borealis: 35%
OA: 25%
OT: 10%
NLC: 10%
INF: 5%
APF: 5%
etc.

So, to understand how many unique players there really are:
1) count the people in the major cities and count the people on LFT
2) THEN correct for all the multi-logs

That leaves perhaps a few hundred active and UNIQUE players in prime time!
If 50 people complain about this patch, that is a SIGNIFICANT percentage of the player base!

Ignore us at your own peril, FC!

Being generous with your few hundred lets say there are 400 payed players. I hate to break this to you but they would have shut this thing down before this and they would never have launched the new beta if they had that few players.

[Grandpa]

Being generous with your few hundred lets say there are 400 payed players. I hate to break this to you but they would have shut this thing down before this and they would never have launched the new beta if they had that few players.

Ah yes, all those thousands of players are hiding in some secret spot?
Care to tell me where? Or is that just your completely uneducated guess?

Math is your friend - even if my numbers are only a rough calculation, they are in the right ballpark.

Also, accounts that are paid for =/= active players.
I forgot to cancel one of my accounts for 18 months when I was taking a break, no thanks to automatic renewal.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Players here are affluent, they have jobs and careers, not just allowances like most of the WoW crowd.
As long as AO subs and item shop pays for the server cost and the salary of its lone programmer, the game will stay up!

[Gunforhire]

Ah yes, all those thousands of players are hiding in some secret spot?
Care to tell me where? Or is that just your completely uneducated guess?

Math is your friend - even if my numbers are only a rough calculation, they are in the right ballpark.

Also, accounts that are paid for =/= active players.
I forgot to cancel one of my accounts for 18 months when I was taking a break, no thanks to automatic renewal.
I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Players here are affluent, they have jobs and careers, not just allowances like most of the WoW crowd.
As long as AO subs and item shop pays for the server cost and the salary of its lone programmer, the game will stay up!

Yes I believe there are more people than you do but it is not necessary insult me by saying my guess is an "uneducated guess" because I don't agree with your "educated guess". You have no basis for either premise, you just have an opinion like I have.

[Xootch]

imagined, hallucinated, made up. if you don't like uneducated guess. the argument: "do this and that and a considerable number/many/a lot/plenty/lots/a@!(#@$load of players will start playing ao!" is just random nonsense. sorry. no offense intended.

that players leave after changes like that is, however, not made up. because it's happened before. so, back to math we are.

[Gunforhire]

Why is everyone in such a bad mood I'm glad changes are coming to AO. But the vitriol in this forum is quite intense. Folks it's just a game, a very good game albeit but just a game chill out. No matter what happens here in AO, ( I do hope it continues on and gets better) I have a real life that is much more fulfilling and hopefully you do too. It just seems that there is an undertone here of animosity towards the game developers and FC and if someone dares to defend them or even appears to defend them they are attacked. I've been insulted for this at least 2 or 3 times in this thread alone and will probably get insulted for this post also but I still have to say what I have to say. I've been playing for 10 enjoyable years without getting angry at anything (although the server merge put me to the test). That is why I am puzzled at this intense animosity and bashing that is going on . Please try to have fun with the game and move on.

[ultion]

Yes I believe there are more people than you do but it is not necessary insult me by saying my guess is an "uneducated guess" because I don't agree with your "educated guess". You have no basis for either premise, you just have an opinion like I have.

There was a module for budabot that pulled supposedly very accurate numbers for logged in players directly from FC. This was pre-server merge so you had results for RK1 and RK2. The numbers were never very high, I would say the "500" number was rarely breached.

FC decided to disable those probes so now we can just guess at numbers. They are not high, that is for sure.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I like scotch.

Scotch

Scotch

Scotch.

[Grandpa]

Yes I believe there are more people than you do but it is not necessary insult me by saying my guess is an "uneducated guess" because I don't agree with your "educated guess". You have no basis for either premise, you just have an opinion like I have.

My apologies, no harm was intended. Believe what you like to believe.

This whole player number discussion was to show that the number of people who have posted here are indeed statistically relevant and not, as you said in one of your previous posts, "less than 1% of the player base".

So, we have controversial patch and it has drawn a lot of complaints.
Yet there is still no official response from FunCom - and that's why we are in a bad mood here!

Only the moderator shows up and enforces the forum rules, which ironically prevents us from talking about things addressed in the patch notes.
Catch-22.

that players leave after changes like that is, however, not made up. because it's happened before. so, back to math we are.

Indeed!

[Traderjill]

Also, accounts that are paid for =/= active players.
I forgot to cancel one of my accounts for 18 months when I was taking a break, no thanks to automatic renewal.
I'm sure I'm not the only one

*raises hand* I've forgotten to cancel my accounts numerous times over the years or prepaid for a year at a time on multiple accounts. There's plenty of time where my account was paid and AO wasn't even installed on my pc. I'd say that my closest circle of about 25 or so people do the same thing. Then one day they come back for a month and leave again.

So yeah.. paid and actively playing could be two radically different numbers.