Thread: Monthly Development Update - 2nd April 2014

  1. #381
    Quote Originally Posted by Alves View Post
    I love these Post - 100% agree
    I would fire Genele because of incompetence and the support team too...
    This is so inappropriate and wrong I am speechless. You obviously are not involved in any service related job or you would realize that you are attacking people who care and are doing their best. Because you don't like the results that you are getting you go off on them and that is just wrong. I've seen people like you go off on a cashier in a store about their debit machine not reading their beat up card and having to hand enter the numbers. The customer was taken care of just not fast enough and they went off big time about how it was the cashiers fault because they didn't know what they were doing, much like you are doing here with the developers. You need to take a chill pill and stop being ridiculous.

  2. #382
    If they cared the least bit they'd provide us with useful information instead of monthly troll updates.

  3. #383
    Quote Originally Posted by Pafpuf View Post
    If they cared the least bit they'd provide us with useful information instead of monthly troll updates.
    If they didn't care the least bit i bet they could be a whole lot worse. Why should they give us any info when it seems to just feed the trolls regardless of what is put. The people that are here for the love of the game will play regardless of what's put... The only people who suffer with the lack of info are the trolls sitting around waiting for something to be said so they can jump all over it like a whore on heat.

  4. #384
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazareth View Post
    But most-importantly, and perhaps most overlooked, it is *NOT* up to me, as a consumer, to take into account Funcom's budget, or Genele's feelings, or anything of the like, and then accept what has happened because of that. Do you get that? This is one of the most expensive games on the market. I have poured in literally thousands over the years to it. There's no money? NOT MY PROBLEM. And it sure as hell isn't my problem to stop, and think about taking that into consideration when I wonder why the hell Funcom has jerked us - okay, anybody taking grievance with that, ME - around for so damn long. They've had more than enough money from Funcom players over the years. Chose to invest in stupid crap that wasn't for us. This is the result.
    The issue with your posts, as I said before, is that you are taking this out on the wrong person.

    Right now, you are doing the equivalent of yelling at a bookstore employee for your favorite author having written a crappy book and his publisher charging $43.99 for it.

    Put it in a letter to the Funcom board, or shareholders, or whatever. The AO team has really done a bang-up job for what a couple people with few resources can be considered capable of - and really, what has been said about you never have worked in a service related job, although an assumption about your personal life, rings very true.

    Anyone who has been the target of such juvenile bile for something that is not their fault would never visit that on others.
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  5. #385
    Re: people leaving shortly after arriving - this is such a complicated issue that could have been avoided if the right decisions had been made but now we're kinda stuck in this hole where people come, see an empty game, and quickly leave again. There are so many things to say about this that have already been said, it's been frustrating to watch things slowly slip despite all the attempts to stop it. As players we can only do so much. I could write a thesis but I won't, I'll just touch on what's been brought up by the two of you who replied to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gunforhire View Post
    People looking for eye candy graphics as necessary to play this game will not stay. People who want to play a game that is complex and challenging may stay if they have a good experience in NPE and with the present player base.
    This is really important and something I've seen people trying to point out for ages. The graphics engine gets talked about a lot, and yes a facelift would be nice, but it's worth remembering a game doesn't have to look photorealistic to keep people interested provided it has enough depth. Then Minecraft came along and now I just point at that when people go "BUT GRAPHICS!?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Gunforhire View Post
    Ahndra says they are appealing to the wrong audience. Well right now they are not trying to attract any audience.
    Heh, true. But then we've also been begging for advertising towards the sorts of people who will enjoy the game for what it is and stay because of the depth. As you say, the only new players we see these days are ones who we coax into playing, or who stumble blindly across it like I and a friend did 7 years ago.

    My point is there needs to be a focus on sending these sorts of messages: "Look at this game! Look at how different it is! Are you one of those people looking for an oldschool experience with depth but didn't know where to find it? Are you a SWG refugee? Do you like games with steep learning curves that challenge you and keep you interested for not months but YEARS?"

    These are the sorts of people who are looking for a game like AO but simply doesn't know it exists because the main method of advertising that we ourselves see is word of mouth.

    I'm all for increasing AO's moneymaking potential with things like the item store if it helps the game stay afloat, but I just want to see upper management understand that there is also monetary value in being unique. You don't necessarily have to do what other games are doing as long as you understand your own product and its USPs. Rather than competing with what everyone else is doing, you are filling a gap in the market that few if any competitors are providing for.

    You can have a community of players who will be loyal to the game because of what it is; because it is what they have been looking for. You wouldn't need to worry about them going to another game because there don't seem to be many (if any) games out there offering what they're looking for. That's the whole reason why they'd stay here in the first place. You'd have no competition. You'd have a constant, stable income.

    I'd like to see upper management acknowledge that sort of potential a little more. Maybe after things are polished and new engine/NPE is out they will start doing this. I dearly hope so. There are others on this forum who have already talked about their concerns over what they see as a trend towards homogenizing AO into becoming more like post-WoW MMOs; it's just worth reiterating that you don't have to copy what they do to succeed.

    Everyone here wants the game to continue. It's possible for that to happen whilst keeping the character of the game intact.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tryptophy View Post
    If this is true, the thing to keep in mind is all the vitriol against AO's staff, as if it were their decision to keep the game in life support mode.
    I've long wondered if Means' choice to leave was at least partially due to burnout. We're all an understandably bitter and jaded bunch, but it doesn't necessarily help. My comments were more directed at whoever it is at Funcom that makes the big decisions about the long-term plan for the game; the people the dev team answer to. The playerbase doesn't feel like those people understand them, despite the feedback they've given over the years (there is constructive stuff on these boards sometimes). Perhaps the devs are just stuck in the same boat.

    Re: their plan to advertise once the engine/NPE is out, I really want to see this happen (again bearing the aforementioned messages to the right audience in mind).

    But if that's the plan we are of course stuck while the engine/NPE isn't finished, and that's another thing that bugs people: the point about low population meaning AO is therefore, logically, thrown less bones, except that the population could get bigger with advertising, but the advertising can't happen before engine/NPE, and engine/NPE will happen slower with less resources/devs, which means the population remains low, which means AO continues to be thrown less bones/resources...

    It's a vicious circle, isn't it? And it's frustrating as hell to watch it happen.
    :E

  6. #386
    Quote Originally Posted by jorricane View Post
    The AO team has really done a bang-up job for what a couple people with few resources can be considered capable of - and really, what has been said about you never have worked in a service related job, although an assumption about your personal life, rings very true.
    Have we really gotten to this point ? Has the bashing become so hard that we're actually saying they have done a bang up job ?

    They've done a job, they have probably misjudged the time it would take to do said job, both to their bosses and to their customers. I can't say they've done a bang up job as long as no engine is out, no NPE is out, no marketing is being done, no communication to keep their current customers are being done, patches seem to be far from live. But by all means, the bashing might have gone overboard and borders on personal which ain't okay by a long stretch. They haven't even convinced their billing people to stop discriminating UK in particular and to some degree EU customers.

  7. #387
    Quote Originally Posted by gresh View Post
    If they didn't care the least bit i bet they could be a whole lot worse. Why should they give us any info when it seems to just feed the trolls regardless of what is put. The people that are here for the love of the game will play regardless of what's put... The only people who suffer with the lack of info are the trolls sitting around waiting for something to be said so they can jump all over it like a whore on heat.
    See that's the wrong mentality you whiteknights have. You think giving us info is just feeding the trolls, well guess what not everyone you disagree with is a troll. You might have low standards and I don't mind that but I'd like this game to be as much of a bug and imbalance free environment as possible. After all I pay them for it. Does that really make me a troll ?

  8. #388
    Quote Originally Posted by gresh View Post
    If they didn't care the least bit i bet they could be a whole lot worse. Why should they give us any info when it seems to just feed the trolls regardless of what is put. The people that are here for the love of the game will play regardless of what's put...
    the number of people that love the game and play regardless of what's put is dropping rapidly.. I think you can even call it an alarming rate.

  9. #389
    Quote Originally Posted by Pafpuf View Post
    See that's the wrong mentality you whiteknights have. You think giving us info is just feeding the trolls, well guess what not everyone you disagree with is a troll. You might have low standards and I don't mind that but I'd like this game to be as much of a bug and imbalance free environment as possible. After all I pay them for it. Does that really make me a troll ?
    I don't consider everyone who disagrees with me as a troll... I wasn't classing you as a troll, it was a general statement and not a personal insult. That doesn't change the fact that there are trolls and they do seem to just jump up on anything that gets posted officially. I am not the white knight people accuse me of on here. I just put it down to being an easy remark for a pointless person. You know nothing of me apart from what ive put on here so yeah tbh that was a bit of a trollish statement considering I have as much grievance with funcom as anyone as i'm sure the devs can testify going on discussions and dealings through petition. i just don't see the point in airing it out on the forums and i understand that devs are people and people deserve respect (unless they have proven that they don't respect in return) I like to think logically and know what id do if i was in the devs shoes. I wouldn't keep trying to pander to the whims of people who slate me regardless.
    Last edited by gresh; Apr 16th, 2014 at 17:04:23.

  10. #390
    Quote Originally Posted by Pennypacker View Post
    the number of people that love the game and play regardless of what's put is dropping rapidly.. I think you can even call it an alarming rate.
    Yeah yeah, people have come and gone for years and what one person finds as alarming is nothing of concern to someone else so what rate is an alarming rate, especially considering beta is live which has people on it (i assume) which obviously makes the main server have less people on it (because there are due to being logged into the beta) and staged walk outs to try bully the devs into bending to their will. People are fickle. Quit playing quite often means not logging your toons for abit as you start an unknown account.

    I personally have quite a few people who i would love to quit as i think the game would be better as a whole without their greedy, selfish, elitism attitudes. So yeah... Good riddance!
    Last edited by gresh; Apr 16th, 2014 at 17:06:59.

  11. #391
    Quote Originally Posted by jorricane View Post
    Right now, you are doing the equivalent of yelling at a bookstore employee for your favorite author having written a crappy book and his publisher charging $43.99 for it.
    This is where I disagree, Genele is the GAME DIRECTOR... In your analogy, that's the equivalent of the MANAGER of the store. No, the manager might not be the top of the top, but he takes it upon himself to manage that store, to be the person to handle discrepancies with customers of that store, and to be perfectly honest, he's responsible for the MANAGING of that store. And to make your analogy a little more contextually correct, it's more like employees of the book store constantly feeding me wrong information, and just generally providing a poor service to me despite my years of loyal service to said store.

    I can tell you right now, having worked in hospitality for 8 years and currently being a bar manager, if a large, large majority of my patrons were displeased with the service they were being provided, my bosses would not let that stand, they would not accept me palming off the responsibility of handling that issue to them, and they sure as hell wouldn't go, "Oh well, he's doing the best with what we give him", and neither would those patrons.
    Heh.

  12. #392
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazareth View Post
    This is where I disagree, Genele is the GAME DIRECTOR... In your analogy, that's the equivalent of the MANAGER of the store. No, the manager might not be the top of the top, but he takes it upon himself to manage that store, to be the person to handle discrepancies with customers of that store, and to be perfectly honest, he's responsible for the MANAGING of that store. And to make your analogy a little more contextually correct, it's more like employees of the book store constantly feeding me wrong information, and just generally providing a poor service to me despite my years of loyal service to said store.

    I can tell you right now, having worked in hospitality for 8 years and currently being a bar manager, if a large, large majority of my patrons were displeased with the service they were being provided, my bosses would not let that stand, they would not accept me palming off the responsibility of handling that issue to them, and they sure as hell wouldn't go, "Oh well, he's doing the best with what we give him", and neither would those patrons.
    The thing is that the lack of staff and development is INTENTIONAL on the part of Funcom's corporate management. The AO team is dealing with the flack without the power to fix it.

    For instance, if the owner of the bar you manage decided to simply stop ordering, say, vodka, and you had to deal with it, wouldn't you get sick of people yelling at you for it? In AO's case, the owner stopped ordering vodka, whiskey, beer, and everything else except cherry cordial.

    Additionally, Genele is second in command to Nusquam. He is not full time dedicated to AO, and yes, HE could be doing a much better and more open job of communicating his vision for AO.

    Edit: The manager does not take on responsibility for things like this. The situation at FC has taken turns no simple employee could have foreseen. You ever take a job that completely changed overnight and then continue to do your best because you love the product and you can't afford to be out of work? You ever been yelled at by petulant customers for things, like, for instance, the owner firing half the employees, causing poor speed of service, when it has absolutely nothing to do with you?

    I don't know if as a manager you've ever had those experiences. I was a manager in retail for over a decade, and have seen downsizing and profit maximization destroy my ability to serve customers. I had my staff cut down from 25 employees to 2 plus myself - with only 10ish percent drop in sales over 5 years, due to financial issues company-wide. It sucks. When I could afford to, I left the job, and with satisfaction saw the company go down in flames. I had that option. Not everyone does.
    Last edited by jorricane; Apr 16th, 2014 at 18:41:59.
    -= Make the new engine look even better. Don't forget to post a screenshot! =-

  13. #393
    Quote Originally Posted by Lazareth View Post
    This is where I disagree, Genele is the GAME DIRECTOR... In your analogy, that's the equivalent of the MANAGER of the store. No, the manager might not be the top of the top, but he takes it upon himself to manage that store, to be the person to handle discrepancies with customers of that store, and to be perfectly honest, he's responsible for the MANAGING of that store. And to make your analogy a little more contextually correct, it's more like employees of the book store constantly feeding me wrong information, and just generally providing a poor service to me despite my years of loyal service to said store.

    I can tell you right now, having worked in hospitality for 8 years and currently being a bar manager, if a large, large majority of my patrons were displeased with the service they were being provided, my bosses would not let that stand, they would not accept me palming off the responsibility of handling that issue to them, and they sure as hell wouldn't go, "Oh well, he's doing the best with what we give him", and neither would those patrons.
    So what exactly is Genele doing that causes you to say she is pawning off responsisbility on anyone and not doing her job? All I see in the posts is the things they are working on and the changes that are upcoming. Nothing about blaming anyone and nothing about giving people wrong information.

    The better analogy here would be that you just took over a bar that had a dwindling customer base because no necessary changes had been made by your predecessor and that is why you were brought in. You act like Genele has been on the job 8 years like you and she inherited a perfectly functioning game and is doing nothing to keep it afloat when in effect they may have given it to her to plug the leaks and get the ship afloat and running smoothly and if that's the case it won't happen overnight and it won't happen because of callous customers with no patience.

    By the way I also speak from experience having been a store manager myself and can assure you she realized when she took the job that there would be people like you blaming her for things which she either had no control over or had nothing to do with. That's what comes with the job especially if it was a challenging one like GM of AO.

    I am sure that you took flack from customers in your job too when you first took it and did everything you could to fix the problems created by your predecessor to do the job you signed up for. Some of the things that needed fixing were not your fault but you plugged along. But I bet that you didn't like being blamed for those things. In addition if there were serious issues you needed to fix it may have taken some time to correct things.

    Then again maybe you took over a finely tuned machine and never had that happen hence your inability to empathize with Genele here.
    Last edited by Gunforhire; Apr 16th, 2014 at 19:33:47.

  14. #394
    Wow 20 pages, I totally understand the passion that players have for AO. It's a great game. Highly customizable and addictive.

    That passion fueled 20 pages of text. But I would propose that some of the passionate energy be re-directed toward enjoying the game today...as is.

    Tomorow is not gauranteed, and if we spend our time on negativity we are depriving ourselves of the positive enjoyment that has kept us playing AO for so long. There are much bigger things to be so upset about in the world, like paying bills or hating your job. AO shouldn't be a source of stress but a stress relief from the real world.

    Why so serious?
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  15. #395
    Quote Originally Posted by Psikie View Post
    Wow 20 pages, I totally understand the passion that players have for AO. It's a great game. Highly customizable and addictive.

    That passion fueled 20 pages of text. But I would propose that some of the passionate energy be re-directed toward enjoying the game today...as is.

    Tomorow is not gauranteed, and if we spend our time on negativity we are depriving ourselves of the positive enjoyment that has kept us playing AO for so long. There are much bigger things to be so upset about in the world, like paying bills or hating your job. AO shouldn't be a source of stress but a stress relief from the real world.

    Why so serious?
    Hear here.
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  16. #396
    Quote Originally Posted by jorricane View Post
    Hear here.
    *tick-twitch-tick*

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  17. #397
    The only problem i have with AO as is, is that there just isnt enough information coming out from FC. Wheter thats due to the devs is not permitted to share more, by the higher-ups or not i dont know.

    But it is very frustrating to only get small bits and hints every few months or so.
    I've been on and off for years, and like many others i _always_ come back to AO, because there just isnt any game out there like it.

    If only the devs (If indeed it's on their end the silence comes from) could stop with all the bullcrap and lay the cards on the table as is, and keep the monthly letter as an actual MONTHLY letter, instead of a month here and just silence for months on end. This game would have my unending funnel of monthly payments atleast.

    I would take a monthly update letter with e.x info on how they have added a tree here and a npc there, over silence any day. I do think many others would aswell.

    I think we have earned some open cards and honesty.

  18. #398
    Quote Originally Posted by Raelil View Post
    The only problem i have with AO as is, is that there just isnt enough information coming out from FC. Wheter thats due to the devs is not permitted to share more, by the higher-ups or not i dont know.

    But it is very frustrating to only get small bits and hints every few months or so.
    I've been on and off for years, and like many others i _always_ come back to AO, because there just isnt any game out there like it.

    If only the devs (If indeed it's on their end the silence comes from) could stop with all the bullcrap and lay the cards on the table as is, and keep the monthly letter as an actual MONTHLY letter, instead of a month here and just silence for months on end. This game would have my unending funnel of monthly payments atleast.

    I would take a monthly update letter with e.x info on how they have added a tree here and a npc there, over silence any day. I do think many others would aswell.

    I think we have earned some open cards and honesty.
    There has been a monthly update posted every month (give or take a few days) since it was changed from weekly to monthly.
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  19. #399
    Quote Originally Posted by Anarrina View Post
    There has been a monthly update posted every month (give or take a few days) since it was changed from weekly to monthly.
    yes. but:

    1.no clear statement on the criticism of the update
    2.no clear statement on the policy on multiboxing
    3.no clear statement on the meeping story. instead, we are to realize by the announcement of an incoming fixer nerf that FC apparently goes with the ban-meep-at-towers side now.

    quite the opposite, we are told there is a secret plan that explains it all and we should just endure what appears to be an early april fools. so the current PR strategy is: trust us, we know where we're going, but we ain't gonna tell you.

    well, i don't know about the rest, but i lost all trust in FC working out things right. therefore i am not happy with that strategy. quite the opposite actually. i am fed up and dissatisfied with the ease FC breaks with long standing game policies and content designs, which to me, no offense intended, seems almost thoughtless, but is at least careless.
    Last edited by Xootch; Apr 20th, 2014 at 02:26:52.

  20. #400
    Quote Originally Posted by Xootch View Post
    yes. but:

    1.no clear statement on the criticism of the update
    2.no clear statement on the policy on multiboxing
    3.no clear statement on the meeping story. instead, we are to realize by the announcement of an incoming fixer nerf that FC apparently goes with the ban-meep-at-towers side now.

    quite the opposite, we are told there is a secret plan that explains it all and we should just endure what appears to be an early april fools. so the current PR strategy is: trust us, we know where we're going, but we ain't gonna tell you.

    well, i don't know about the rest, but i lost all trust in FC working out things right. therefore i am not happy with that strategy. quite the opposite actually. i am fed up and dissatisfied with the ease FC breaks with long standing game policies and content designs, which to me, no offense intended, seems almost thoughtless, but is at least careless.
    I'm one of the "rest of us" you talked about here.

    1.Some criticism does not deserve an answer.
    2.I don't care.
    3.I don't care.

    I totally enjoy playing this game as it is. If we get things improved so much the better. Have a nice day

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