Monthly Development Update - 2nd April 2014

[Gunforhire]

Yes and no.
It's a business - unless they have already filed for bankruptcy, they must care!
So if you want to protest, your best option is still to walk away and take your money with you.

At one point in my life I worked for a fairly large company that for years had given us all we needed to do our job. Then at one point we started to see less and less support from above. our customers first started questioning why were always out of items they needed and then they just stopped coming. Within a year the company filed for bankruptcy. We never found out why.

My point is that if the decision has been made to go bankrupt it won't matter if players rage-quit or not the end result will still be the end of AO. But if they are hoping to survive rage-quitting will be a contributing factor in not surviving. I don't know if either of these scenarios caused the company I worked for to fail but am offering this as food for thought when one considers quitting on AO.

Quitting the game would rob me of the fun I am having and I for one will continue to support it to keep it going.

[Grandpa]

Quitting the game would rob me of the fun I am having and I for one will continue to support it to keep it going.

Yes, I understand your point.
It's a personal decision everyone has to make for themselves.

Thanks, if you can't beat them, cheat...
After all, FC did say it was ok...

Yes, FC doesn't have the resources/will/desire/competence to enforce anything at all, so knock yourself out!

[dexiecane]

Oh christ... the mayhem...

First: Vhab, people think you are part of Funcom/AO's community relations because your posts still look like a Funcom employee... given the different colored post body and username, not to mention the glaring AO logo in your avatar, what do you expect? Have the forum mods change your account back to a normal subscriber if you don't want people misconstruing your posts for something coming from FC/AO. Also, instead of invalidating people's ideas for a 'fix' that will never happen, could you please be so kind as to enlighten us about AO's development practices... or lack thereof? Since you don't work for the company anymore and all...

Regarding McKnuckle's post about 500 players and the $7500/mo in revenue... you're naive if you think 600~ votes on a forum poll that was closed after two weeks equates to the amount of actual paid accounts. This branch of the company is barely profitable because there's so few employees working on the product, which in turn worsens the condition of the product. A normal company would care about this. One that assumes their eventual demise is near, does not. There's also advertising, the item shop or whatever, and other people who just have their accounts on autopay and forget to login to cancel if/when they notice the charge on their CC. Surprised no one's mentioned this http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...tock-exchange/

Also, the devs SHOULD feel bad if the game isn't working and the community is complaining. This is called taking ownership and pride in your work. If you built a chair for someone, and that someone complained to you that one of the legs seemed wobbly, would you A) Have integrity in your work and accept the challenge to do better and refine your skills as you go along, fixing the chair and now it reclines too.... or B) Do as Funcom has: Put a few ribbons on the top of the chair, cut a hole in the seat, and sh*t all over the floor, exclaiming "YOUR INPUT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE FILE YOUR COMPLAINT THROUGH THE "NEW CHAIR EXPERIENCE" CUSTOMER SERVICE HOLE."

Now imagine if you paid on a regular basis for that sh*t-covered chair.

If your answer isn't A, then you probably are/would be a terrible developer.

Let me regale you with my own experience working with a half-baked product launch (note: for people that already hate me, this is probably a good place to stop reading).

The company I develop for has a SaaS product that spans across 10 application servers and 9 databases serving over 15k clients. For the last year, we've had a dev team of around 5 or 6. We run a 3 week development cycle now, crushing around 60 bug/feature addition tickets per cycle. However, when we launched the new version of our product back in July of last year alongside a new marketing site, I didn't look at the dozens of bug tickets coming in as discouraging, it was an engaging challenge and the knowledge I've gained from the experience has been invaluable.

The day we launched the marketing site, I came in at 4am to prepare a few things since I'd been on the project for a month at that point, and the person who had been developing on it for the last year took a month off (not a month of vacation, mind you, he went to the Army Reserve training for a month). Things didn't go smoothly, as you might have expected. I left work 21 hours later at 1am (before you think I did it for overtime--I'm salaried), feeling on top of the world because of the things I was able to accomplish in that time span considering the large amount of issues pouring in. I think I've maybe taken a maximum of consecutive 4 days for 'vacation' in the last year.

Those remaining issues were still there when I got into work not 8 hours after I left to go home and sleep. Know what I did? I crushed those too because that's how a boss developer operates. Fix whatever catastrophic bugs are preventing the new engine from going live, then push the engine live, then work on feature enhancements. Not difficult.

Or hey, shut down the AO branch, outsource the stupid game so the community can fix it and restore it back to what it was. (AKA revert to revision 14.x or whatever was before SL, I'm sure some asshat CR poster will correct me if I put in the wrong version, rather than responding to any of the legitimate complaints)

Since this is really too long to care about, here's the highlights:

Vhab, tell us the dirty dev secrets.

McKnuckle, stop being naive, Funcom is making money and they give no sh*ts about AO, or the future of the company really.

Lazareth, you're a boss.

AO Devs, stop being terribly inefficient. It's not your fault the company has conditioned you to underperform while still making the same amount of money. It's your responsibility to keep this boat afloat, the C-levels aren't going to write code. If you don't want to do it, quit. If you have a disdain for the customer base (very likely at this point), quit. If you don't want to stay late giving the people who a largely responsible for your paycheck a better version of the product they're paying for, quit. Because you know what? If you quit, then someone who actually cares about the work they output might be able to get your job, and they might be able to produce something more worthy than a pithy monthly report before they head off for yet another week long vacation.

ugh this game. I'm gonna try to make this my last post. Pretty sure this one post is bigger than the entirety of my posts on this forum in the last decade. You were great AO.

Also gonna quote this because it's what made me want to post in the first place, exactly echoing my thoughts. Except instead of 8 years it's been spread over 13.

Well, after what is over 8 years now of on and off (mostly on) of playing Anarchy Online, I feel compelled to write my first post on the forums ever. I quit this game for good a couple months ago, and will never come back to play it, not even when the new engine is released. Yeah yeah, same old story as 35892358t839852 players before me, but at what point, Funcom, do you stop, and think to yourselves, wow, how much money could we possibly have in our pocket if we'd made any attempt to keep even a fraction of that playerbase with us. And yes, I am claiming outright that you have taken absolutely zero initiative in I don't even know how long now, to actually KEEP your playerbase. This has been displayed as fact soooo many times it's pathetic.

This developmental update, and the many many many many many many many MANY like it over the years, are nothing shy of insulting. "Hey, we haven't REALLY done anything.... But here's a consolation, oh and sorry guys, our hardware is broken and I'm on holidays XDXD"... Your game (the only game with any sort of heartbeat), and therefore your company is quite literally in jeopardy, and us as paying customers (8 years I played this game, to the point of addiction - having 6 accounts by myself to multibox just so I COULD do anything I desired, when I desired) and you deem it acceptable to joke with us about you being on the booze on your holidays? Look at the last 20 pages of this thread, Genele. Go back, and look at the 20+ pages in the developmental updates in the last, oh I don't know, let's sway on your side, and leave it at 3 years... You got maybe, 0.5% of the population that feels as though it's their responsibility to defend you, and your company, but the majority... The VAST majority of players, we're talking WELL over 95% of the playerbase, the PAYING PLAYERBASE, THE ONLY REASON YOU HAVE A JOB, are not happy. These updates are pathetic, the "progress" is pathetic, and, to be quite frank, I don't understand why you, or just about any other person in management at Funcom has a job right now.

It's outright insulting.
Age of Conan, when the game was in the state it was, was outright insulting.
The Secret World, when we were promised a new engine for years at that point, had been promised a profession rebalance for years at that point, was outright insulting.
You, trying to have a joke with us about your pina coladas and holidays like the majority of people you're addressing are going to find any amusement in that whatsoever, is just outright insulting.
I paid one of my accounts for a year to get beta access to the new engine, and the amount of "progress" that had been made there, is outright insulting. A new starting area (and MANY people have already commented on that far more than I ever could), a new ICC, and some god rays. "Oh oh but but but the textures aren-", so what? Why aren't they there? You've had HOW MANY YEARS to do this? How much of the dollars made from ANARCHY ONLINE PLAYERS went into making Age of Conan? Or The Secret World? All the while we saw little to no improvement.

Lost Eden? Legacy of Xan? Well, so much for Kyr'Ozch weapons - Oh, but no, don't worry, at least we all still needed those intelligent symbiants, to simply combine with more rubbish that had to be grinded out, all so that we could have an extra 30 points in all stats. Big whoop.

Then you force "balance changes" down players throats, same players that almost unanimously tell you don't want those changes you've employed, that tell you those changes are in fact ADDING to the problem as opposed to actually solving the problem, and that, quite understandably, the time you've invested to the undesired changes, is time that could be BETTER SPENT releasing a damn engine that has been promised for years upon years.

Nah, sorry Genele. It's too insulting at this point.
You enjoy your pina coladas mate, keep working up those holiday hours that you have clearly earned so hard. Keep making light of the situation that is at hand. It clearly placates your bosses, so to hell with the playerbase eh? So long as you keep getting dem cheques for the coladas, who gives a damn what the lowly $20/month plebs think.

Over an 8 year investment of something I loved. Ruined by inadequacy and incompetence.
Make more jokes though mate.
I'm just another one of the "impossible to please" right?

[Pomidor]

Its almost 1 year, since I stoped playing Ao. After 10 years of gamingspree. Now, since I am not addicted, I get new look for FC actions in last years, and I find it very disturbing, that they - simply as that - lie players on any progress. If, in FACT, there would be ANY progress, made by any given company, for example, 2% of progress every MONTH (A MONTH!!!), we would have brand new engine by now (this engine is in developement over 5 years, means at least 60 months, means 120% so far).

So, big company, not indie game, not voulenteer project, but company with game which player pay monthly fee (most expensive currently in all paid games), does less then 1% of progress every month?!

Seriously, all people get a clue and open your eyes.

[Grandpa]

Oh christ... the mayhem...

<long angry rant>

But of course, you are totally correct!

Since I got back end of last year, I have not met a single person in game who is happy with state of AO.

Sure, people have different reasons - lack progress, idiotic patches, broken promises, rampant exploits, multi-boxing, FC never listens, decade-old unfixed bugs, etc.

And people draw different consequences - enjoy while it lasts or quit in protest or rant on the forums, etc.

But everyone I've talked to seems to agree on one thing - FunCom has mismanaged this game.

[Snakebite]

I've just had a slog through my account details and it appears I've spent £1548.54 (that's $2599.22 American by the way) on this game since I joined back in December of 04.

I'm in no way rich, infact, often it's been a decision of whether to pay the bills or eat...

But I have to say, in most cases I've enjoyed my time here. I started off in my Org, looking up at the high characters in the leadership and thinking "Man, I'm never going to be that awsome!" but now I find myself helping out these same people as they come back to the game to try it out again... Lol, I never saw that coming!

Assuming I can afford to, I can't see myself canceling my accounts to be honest, even with all its faults, I love the game, and the people that play it. And I've always been a supporter of the Devs, GMs and ARKs, my time with AOUniverse has lead me to chat with several AO employees on various occasions, and I like most of them. There are a couple of ARKs I wouldn't mind seeing fall down a hole though lol.
I joined AOU on its second day, and I've been there ever since (it's a long time now I look at it), so I've seen all the work that the playerbase has put into this game, guides, applications, knowlage, help. I find the whole thing rather impressive!

However, I'm still not a fan boy, FC has made many mistakes, but I still back the game. This multiboxing crap is just the most recent problem, and while they maybe can't police it, there has to be something to stop it trashing notum wars, some way to limit it's usefulness at tower sites...


I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here, on reading it back, it's all kind of a ramble... I guess I'm just showing what I think of the game.

[Gunforhire]

Well, after what is over 8 years now of on and off (mostly on) of playing Anarchy Online, I feel compelled to write my first post on the forums ever. I quit this game for good a couple months ago, and will never come back to play it, not even when the new engine is released.

It's outright insulting.
Age of Conan, when the game was in the state it was, was outright insulting.
The Secret World, when we were promised a new engine for years at that point, had been promised a profession rebalance for years at that point, was outright insulting.
You, trying to have a joke with us about your pina coladas and holidays like the majority of people you're addressing are going to find any amusement in that whatsoever, is just outright insulting.
I paid one of my accounts for a year to get beta access to the new engine, and the amount of "progress" that had been made there, is outright insulting. A new starting area (and MANY people have already commented on that far more than I ever could), a new ICC, and some god rays. "Oh oh but but but the textures aren-", so what? Why aren't they there? You've had HOW MANY YEARS to do this? How much of the dollars made from ANARCHY ONLINE PLAYERS went into making Age of Conan? Or The Secret World? All the while we saw little to no improvement.

Lost Eden? Legacy of Xan? Well, so much for Kyr'Ozch weapons - Oh, but no, don't worry, at least we all still needed those intelligent symbiants, to simply combine with more rubbish that had to be grinded out, all so that we could have an extra 30 points in all stats. Big whoop.

Then you force "balance changes" down players throats, same players that almost unanimously tell you don't want those changes you've employed, that tell you those changes are in fact ADDING to the problem as opposed to actually solving the problem, and that, quite understandably, the time you've invested to the undesired changes, is time that could be BETTER SPENT releasing a damn engine that has been promised for years upon years.

Nah, sorry Genele. It's too insulting at this point.
You enjoy your pina coladas mate, keep working up those holiday hours that you have clearly earned so hard. Keep making light of the situation that is at hand. It clearly placates your bosses, so to hell with the playerbase eh? So long as you keep getting dem cheques for the coladas, who gives a damn what the lowly $20/month plebs think.

Over an 8 year investment of something I loved. Ruined by inadequacy and incompetence.
Make more jokes though mate.
I'm just another one of the "impossible to please" right?

I guess my question here is why are you posting here or even coming to the forum? You obviously hate the game and what it has become. I think its time for you to move on with your life and stop trolling a forum for a game that you said you will never ever play again.

[Sephiroth56]

Oh christ... the mayhem...

Surprised no one's mentioned this http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...tock-exchange/

I don't get the relevance of this.

Also, the devs SHOULD feel bad if the game isn't working and the community is complaining. This is called taking ownership and pride in your work. If you built a chair for someone, and that someone complained to you that one of the legs seemed wobbly, would you A) Have integrity in your work and accept the challenge to do better and refine your skills as you go along, fixing the chair and now it reclines too.... or B) Do as Funcom has: Put a few ribbons on the top of the chair, cut a hole in the seat, and sh*t all over the floor, exclaiming "YOUR INPUT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE FILE YOUR COMPLAINT THROUGH THE "NEW CHAIR EXPERIENCE" CUSTOMER SERVICE HOLE."

I must admit I laughed at the imagery, but this is a completely strawman analogy.

The company I develop for has a SaaS product that spans across 10 application servers and 9 databases serving over 15k clients. For the last year, we've had a dev team of around 5 or 6. We run a 3 week development cycle now, crushing around 60 bug/feature addition tickets per cycle. However, when we launched the new version of our product back in July of last year alongside a new marketing site, I didn't look at the dozens of bug tickets coming in as discouraging, it was an engaging challenge and the knowledge I've gained from the experience has been invaluable.

The day we launched the marketing site, I came in at 4am to prepare a few things since I'd been on the project for a month at that point, and the person who had been developing on it for the last year took a month off (not a month of vacation, mind you, he went to the Army Reserve training for a month). Things didn't go smoothly, as you might have expected. I left work 21 hours later at 1am (before you think I did it for overtime--I'm salaried), feeling on top of the world because of the things I was able to accomplish in that time span considering the large amount of issues pouring in. I think I've maybe taken a maximum of consecutive 4 days for 'vacation' in the last year.

Those remaining issues were still there when I got into work not 8 hours after I left to go home and sleep. Know what I did? I crushed those too because that's how a boss developer operates. Fix whatever catastrophic bugs are preventing the new engine from going live, then push the engine live, then work on feature enhancements. Not difficult.

Listen, it's good that you're passionate about your work, but you are completely over all lines, saying this is "how a boss developer works". In properly work regulated countries of the world, you'd break many laws working like you did. In my country, you need 11 hours of non-working time between work session. In my country it's illegal to work for that long. In my country it's illegal not to take five weeks of vacation.

It's great that you take such pride in your work that you do these things for your workplace. Most of us have. Your stories of taking no vacation, and of working really long one time really isn't analogous to this situation, nor to any of the concerns your voicing. Further, believing there's something wrong with people's motivation so long as they don't do stuff like this in a regular basis or whatever the hell you are implying, is beyond worth of a reply, really. It is merely because I see how completely lunatic your post is that I decided to crawl out of whatever nook I hide in, normally, and point out how belligerent you are and the amount of audacity you show.

If you were a developer worth your weight in sugar, you'd understand various levels of complexity and you would've touched on your fair share of horrible code bases through your various projects. I'm extremely happy for you if you've never had to take over someone elses work and found they left you an absolute pile of crap to work with. I have, and it's sucks. But you work your way through it. To suggest that the ones working through the code of AO are just too lazy to fix the bugs present, you have no idea how stupid you sound. You're saying "just program for 23 hours straight! I did, I'm such a machine! I love my job", as if it's relevant when you know the amount of time the engine's been developed.

You're basically saying you could've done a better job, which just shows how much of a clue you lack. The drivel you drip around with your incoherent rant is detrimental and ignorant. You bring nothing to the table to understanding and you don't even bring constructive criticism.

AO Devs, stop being terribly inefficient.

You have no idea how disrespectful such a statement is. You apparently not only lack a general understanding of coding, but you also have no idea how ironic it is to talk about overtime with game developers. That they, after all they give for this game, get responses such as this is so disrespectful that I know I would've quit a long time ago, which is why I commend these developers so much. I work more than I should some times. I go in on weekends to fix things without being enforced to do it, and I do it out of a love of what I do. But I get paid for that and I also don't have to deal with such moronic statements as the ones you're making.

It's not your fault the company has conditioned you to underperform while still making the same amount of money.

What?

If you don't want to stay late giving the people who a largely responsible for your paycheck a better version of the product they're paying for, quit.

Oh god. You are a part of the problem. Holy ****. I can't even begin to express my disdain for such a statment.

Because you know what? If you quit, then someone who actually cares about the work they output might be able to get your job, and they might be able to produce something more worthy than a pithy monthly report before they head off for yet another week long vacation.

Holy crap. It's like you think the developers are your slaves and that they can't be lazy but still have a life on the side. You have no idea what a happy life is. You have no idea what work is. You have no idea. You don't know development, you don't know the business, you don't know the motivation, you don't know the **** these poor devs have to wade through. You are the epitome of ignorance and utter garbage. You contribute nothing and talk off of a high horse as if your situation is applicable to everyone. They shouldn't have a family, they shouldn't have a life, they should just live to code. And if they just did it properly, everything would've been fixed ages ago, right?

You are baneful, which goes so far beyond the crap that comes from the silly things people say around here. You think you know. You do not.

[Aimzor]

At the end of each month these threads should be closed with an Abstract of "it all". Can't keep up with all this text... :S

[Gunforhire]

Oh christ... the mayhem...

First: Vhab, people think you are part of Funcom/AO's community relations because your posts still look like a Funcom employee... given the different colored post body and username, not to mention the glaring AO logo in your avatar, what do you expect? Have the forum mods change your account back to a normal subscriber if you don't want people misconstruing your posts for something coming from FC/AO. Also, instead of invalidating people's ideas for a 'fix' that will never happen, could you please be so kind as to enlighten us about AO's development practices... or lack thereof? Since you don't work for the company anymore and all...

Regarding McKnuckle's post about 500 players and the $7500/mo in revenue... you're naive if you think 600~ votes on a forum poll that was closed after two weeks equates to the amount of actual paid accounts. This branch of the company is barely profitable because there's so few employees working on the product, which in turn worsens the condition of the product. A normal company would care about this. One that assumes their eventual demise is near, does not. There's also advertising, the item shop or whatever, and other people who just have their accounts on autopay and forget to login to cancel if/when they notice the charge on their CC. Surprised no one's mentioned this http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...tock-exchange/

Also, the devs SHOULD feel bad if the game isn't working and the community is complaining. This is called taking ownership and pride in your work. If you built a chair for someone, and that someone complained to you that one of the legs seemed wobbly, would you A) Have integrity in your work and accept the challenge to do better and refine your skills as you go along, fixing the chair and now it reclines too.... or B) Do as Funcom has: Put a few ribbons on the top of the chair, cut a hole in the seat, and sh*t all over the floor, exclaiming "YOUR INPUT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US. PLEASE FILE YOUR COMPLAINT THROUGH THE "NEW CHAIR EXPERIENCE" CUSTOMER SERVICE HOLE."

Now imagine if you paid on a regular basis for that sh*t-covered chair.

If your answer isn't A, then you probably are/would be a terrible developer.

Let me regale you with my own experience working with a half-baked product launch (note: for people that already hate me, this is probably a good place to stop reading).

The company I develop for has a SaaS product that spans across 10 application servers and 9 databases serving over 15k clients. For the last year, we've had a dev team of around 5 or 6. We run a 3 week development cycle now, crushing around 60 bug/feature addition tickets per cycle. However, when we launched the new version of our product back in July of last year alongside a new marketing site, I didn't look at the dozens of bug tickets coming in as discouraging, it was an engaging challenge and the knowledge I've gained from the experience has been invaluable.

The day we launched the marketing site, I came in at 4am to prepare a few things since I'd been on the project for a month at that point, and the person who had been developing on it for the last year took a month off (not a month of vacation, mind you, he went to the Army Reserve training for a month). Things didn't go smoothly, as you might have expected. I left work 21 hours later at 1am (before you think I did it for overtime--I'm salaried), feeling on top of the world because of the things I was able to accomplish in that time span considering the large amount of issues pouring in. I think I've maybe taken a maximum of consecutive 4 days for 'vacation' in the last year.

Those remaining issues were still there when I got into work not 8 hours after I left to go home and sleep. Know what I did? I crushed those too because that's how a boss developer operates. Fix whatever catastrophic bugs are preventing the new engine from going live, then push the engine live, then work on feature enhancements. Not difficult.

Or hey, shut down the AO branch, outsource the stupid game so the community can fix it and restore it back to what it was. (AKA revert to revision 14.x or whatever was before SL, I'm sure some asshat CR poster will correct me if I put in the wrong version, rather than responding to any of the legitimate complaints)

Since this is really too long to care about, here's the highlights:

Vhab, tell us the dirty dev secrets.

McKnuckle, stop being naive, Funcom is making money and they give no sh*ts about AO, or the future of the company really.

Lazareth, you're a boss.

AO Devs, stop being terribly inefficient. It's not your fault the company has conditioned you to underperform while still making the same amount of money. It's your responsibility to keep this boat afloat, the C-levels aren't going to write code. If you don't want to do it, quit. If you have a disdain for the customer base (very likely at this point), quit. If you don't want to stay late giving the people who a largely responsible for your paycheck a better version of the product they're paying for, quit. Because you know what? If you quit, then someone who actually cares about the work they output might be able to get your job, and they might be able to produce something more worthy than a pithy monthly report before they head off for yet another week long vacation.

ugh this game. I'm gonna try to make this my last post. Pretty sure this one post is bigger than the entirety of my posts on this forum in the last decade. You were great AO.

Also gonna quote this because it's what made me want to post in the first place, exactly echoing my thoughts. Except instead of 8 years it's been spread over 13.

This is probably the worst piece of trolling I have ever seen in my life. I surely hope you make good with your statement "I'm gonna try to make this my last post". It's not the people who work on this games' fault that you are a workaholic and think every one who doesn't act like you is inferior. Grow up and try to learn to treat people with respect, especially people you don't even know for crying out loud. I totally agree with Sephiroth56.

[Iriche]

I don't get the relevance of this.

I can't do more then agree with everything Sephiroth writes... To work 21h a day for weeks IS NOT something any reasonable person would do. If you love your life AND the product you are working on. Then you work reasonable hours to NOT burn your self out.
If you get burned there is no product, there is 0 hours per day - not even 8.

[gresh]

Gotta agree with sephiroth, i once played a game (ff11) i was so looking forward to the game as i absolutely loved the single player versions before it and after following it during development i bought it on release and played it. Upon actually playing it i was really dissapointed. I hated it infact. So i quit playing it. End of story.

What i didn't do was show how little of a life i had by spending any amount of time continuing to play it in the hope it became good. I saw something i didn't like and i walked away. I didn't spend time on the forums cussing out the development team or arguing with players that actually liked the game.

I figure that's what people with a modicum of intelligence does.

[Sephiroth56]

What people don't understand is how important the community is for the developers, and that such utterances contribute nothing but probably sadness and stress to those that read it who are involved with the game. In the absolute best case, they're able to distance themselves from the drivel it is. So the absolute best is for it to be igorned. If that's the best one can say about a post, it's not a good post.

People also don't seem to understand the frail ground AO is standing on. If we love this game as much as we claim, now is the time to stand together as a playerbase. Let's contribute with constructive criticism, but not imply the developers are lazy, because everyone that's ever met a game developer, or anyone that's met the AO team at some of the anniversary parties know how awesome these people are. They don't deserve that. They really don't deserve that.

[jorricane]

Sephiroth56, yet another reasonable voice in this thread. I actually think the world may be ending, there are far to many people pushing back against the pure hatred for these to be normal times.

[solcv2]

Seph, I agree with your statement wholeheartedly.

The post was a pointless waste of the 2 minutes it took to read it. What I love, is that fact that someone works somwhere technical, and then thinks they knwo it all - and that gives them the right not only to namecall, but to flat out degrade the work that other people are doing.

I know the Devs work hard, as do most, if not all of the AO team (Genele, im looking at you here!!!!). The problem is, as with any software solution, is that 90% of the workload (at best) isnt seen by the end user.

I do a lot of logic programming, in fact when not doing my dayjob, thats about all I do. Yet, in any of the games my engines are powering, NONE of my codebase can be 'recognised' or seen.

I could spent 20 hours of solid coding on making something a tad more streamlined, I could split a huge monster of a class into several children, or I could prepare the codebase for a massive change in the future - NONE of this would be seen by the end user.

I guess what I am saying - is showing evidence of your work to the end user is dammed near impossible 90% of the time.

Mark

[Mastablasta]

The post was a pointless waste of the 2 minutes it took to read it. What I love, is that fact that someone works somwhere technical, and then thinks they knwo it all - and that gives them the right not only to namecall, but to flat out degrade the work that other people are doing.

Especially amusing is that anyone who really works with anything technical like software development can tell what bull his post was ;p

[Pomidor]

I've just had a slog through my account details and it appears I've spent £1548.54 (that's $2599.22 American by the way) on this game since I joined back in December of 04....

Heh, I have spendt, last time I have counted, around 4000 USD in 10 years. And I do believe there are players that have/had more accs then I had and played more then i did. Actualy, 10 players, if pay regular, give 1 FC employe a job, at leats year. God damn it!

[Psikie]

I can't do more then agree with everything Sephiroth.

Gotta agree with sephiroth

Sephiroth56, yet another reasonable voice in this thread.

Seph, I agree with your statement wholeheartedly.

Especially amusing is that anyone who really works with anything technical like software development can tell what bull his post was ;p

Whistle... I agree with Seph also. I didn't bother reading the other post fully, but I don't think I need to.

[Grandpa]

<long angry counter-rant>

Interesting - I think I viewed dexiecane's post differently.

Yes, his rant was off-target.
Instead of attacking the Devs, he should have focused it more on the managerial layers of the company.
But it shows just how mismanaged FunCom really is.

If the Devs are entitled to vacations every other months, they should take them.
It's FunCom's responsibility to have enough people on staff to pick up the slack.

If the hardware breaks often and the Devs can't do their work, it is FunCom's responsibility to replace or repair the pieces, so they can do their work.

If the Devs, who are not trained to deal with the public, have issues interacting with the customers, it is FunCom's responsibility find people who are trained to do that.

All of this is FunCom's managerial responsibility, because it is literally their business!

You have no idea how disrespectful such a statement is. You apparently not only lack a general understanding of coding, but you also have no idea how ironic it is to talk about overtime with game developers. That they, after all they give for this game, get responses such as this is so disrespectful that I know I would've quit a long time ago, which is why I commend these developers so much. I work more than I should some times. I go in on weekends to fix things without being enforced to do it, and I do it out of a love of what I do. But I get paid for that and I also don't have to deal with such moronic statements as the ones you're making.

That part is plainly wrong.

What exactly do the Devs "give for this game" that they have not:
a) contractually agreed upon when they accepted the job,
b) and are getting paid for?

While most of the blame falls squarely on FunCom's management, the Devs are not without fault either:

If a coder forgets to check for negative numbers (gmi exploit), that's a fundamental mistake.
So we can rightfully call it incompetence, because truth is a defense to libel.

[jorricane]

If a coder forgets to check for negative numbers (gmi exploit), that's a fundamental mistake.
So we can rightfully call it incompetence, because truth is a defense to libel.

That's actually something that should have been picked up in QA testing - which is another division on FC and not part of the AO team. Granted, a coder can be held to blame for it's existence, but a coder relies on QA to attempt to break things in order to "proofread" his work so to speak.

That's kind of like blaming a typo solely on a writer, when it can technically be considered the editor's fault for not catching it before final publication. In such cases the editor is often held accountable for the mistake.