Monthly Development Update - 2nd April 2014

[Mastablasta]

Protest quitting isn't stupid - It's the only reasonable recourse a fed up customer has.

Whether or not the game remains online is largely irrelevant since the person who is quitting, well, quit.

No, it is stupid. Quitting because you are fed up is not a protest, it's just quitting.

[Encyros]

No, it is stupid. Quitting because you are fed up is not a protest, it's just quitting.

Why is no longer paying for a service one isn't satisfied with stupid?

[DigitalBath]

Why is no longer paying for a service one isn't satisfied with stupid?

It's not stupid, but it isn't an effective form of protest. So it's a stupid form of protest.

e.g. Using wood as fuel isn't necessarily stupid by itself.. but if you use it to power a rocket to the moon.. it's pretty stupid!

Note that I understand the plight of those quitting to protest and I am by no means advocating paying for something you no longer enjoy. I simply have the reading comprehension required to know that for FC, quitters do NOT matter.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

No, it is stupid. Quitting because you are fed up is not a protest, it's just quitting.

So if someone hunger strikes, is just going hungry?

http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-l...GAP00080.topic

"About 30,000 California prisoners this week began what could potentially be the biggest prison hunger strike in state history."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike

"The strike was called off after ten prisoners had starved themselves to death..."

http://www.miamiherald.com/static/me...s/gitmo_chart/

"The U.S. military tally of hunger strikers at Guantánamo since the prison acknowledged the protest..."

Surely, people quiting with a message aren't just "people quiting", just as people on hunger strike aren't just "going hungry".

[DigitalBath]

So if someone hunger strikes, is just going hungry?

http://www.latimes.com/topic/crime-l...GAP00080.topic

"About 30,000 California prisoners this week began what could potentially be the biggest prison hunger strike in state history."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike

"The strike was called off after ten prisoners had starved themselves to death..."

http://www.miamiherald.com/static/me...s/gitmo_chart/

"The U.S. military tally of hunger strikers at Guantánamo since the prison acknowledged the protest..."

Surely, people quiting with a message aren't just "people quiting", just as people on hunger strike aren't just "going hungry".

Read my post again, please.

FC has stated they don't plan their actions based on people who quit as protest.
This invalidates it as an effective form of protest aimed towards making the game better.
It can serve as a warning to other consumers.. but that's not really what it's meant to be.

It's basic and simple to understand and if you're genuinely comparing a hunger strike in Guantanamo (or anywhere!), which is a valid and confirmed effective form of protest that appeals to basic human decency to a confirmed ineffective form of protest.. you're just not understanding this.

[Antimony]

I simply have the reading comprehension required to know that for FC, quitters do NOT matter.

Man, you really believed that FC dude???
Lol, mere fact that he came to the forum and said "FC doesn't care" means that they actually noticed!

But seriously a company that doesn't care if it loses customers???
What's next, Mickey D doesn't wanna sell burgers anymore?

But hey, its FC so anything's possible. Could be why they are going downhill fast.
Maybe that whole capitalism thing just isn't working for them.

[DigitalBath]

Man, you really believed that FC dude???
Lol, mere fact that he came to the forum and said "FC doesn't care" means that they actually noticed!

But seriously a company that doesn't care if it loses customers???
What's next, Mickey D doesn't wanna sell burgers anymore?

But hey, its FC so anything's possible. Could be why they are going downhill fast.
Maybe that whole capitalism thing just isn't working for them.

FC isn't exactly great at managing their business.. that's a given.

[Awikun]

I just noticed new patch for testlive server
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=610674

WTF is FC doing ?!
There are few minor changes that do not even come close to making any progress...
Patches are done every 3-6 months and they show how much (or rather how little) work has been done.

It is pathetic.

[Brampfine]

someone able to remove the "X-Mas" tree at Omni Trade^^a weeks after eastern

- zone: 250, area: "Trade District"
- 411.5, 496.2, 17.8 (411.5 496.2 y 17.8 710)

[Encyros]

someone able to remove the "X-Mas" tree at Omni Trade^^a weeks after eastern

- zone: 250, area: "Trade District"
- 411.5, 496.2, 17.8 (411.5 496.2 y 17.8 710)

FC will probably do this and then declare that they have responded to player feedback in a timely and effective manner, and declare that with their hands full with deleting Christmas trees there wasn't time for much else.

[trousers]

No, it is stupid.

Nope.

[Sephiroth56]

Ok, all very cryptic. It seems to me you have inside information or perhaps know FC people personally?
That's nice, but irrelevant to the discussion, unless you want to divulge the details?

It's not about inside information. As I said, I pay attention to Funcom as a whole. It could hardly be described as a secret that the viability of AO is constantly considered. It is my personal opinion that if there was something that increases the risk in Funcom's eyes, then it will very quickly be shut down. If people quit en masse to protest something, they'll lead to the demise of the game rather than its saving.

If you fail to do something correctly that you were trained to do and damage or harm is done, that's negligence and incompetence, not just an oversight.

Even I learned 25 years ago in basic C programming to check for negative numbers, and I'm not a programmer at all.

These Devs are trained.
They failed to code correctly or failed to QA the code.
Damage was done to the game that still remains uncorrected to this very day!
Hence, I call that incompetence and rightfully so.

As I said, if you were a programmer, you'd understand that basic errors will forever happen. The nature of AO means this happened the way it did. There's nothing really to do about that.

But your post really points at a general problem today.
Nobody takes responsibility for their mistakes anymore, we make excuses for everything and everyone.
It's always the system's fault, the schools, the genes, the fact that Mommy didn't love him.

Cowardly and pathetic.

No. In this case, it's an unfortunate but understandable error. If you've been around electrical circuits, you might know what hysteresis is. To put it simply, it is when you say to your electric heater "I want this room to be 22º", that then implies that it is allowed to fluctuate between 21 and 23, as an example. Because if it was always to keep exactly 22, if you demand utter control, the thing will dither and not do anything. If you demand such control on this - when you move the parameters so close that nothing above or below comes out, that no mistakes can happen - then no development happens either. That is a double bind with the way people demand the new engine be out yesterday.

When you demand to say how wrong this is, the risk is highlighted. If that is all a game is good for, why should Funcom keep themselves in such a situation? From that, the only logical thing to infer from your post is that AO should be shut down. That's a rather nihilistic approach. If that is how you feel, I'd urge you to take that inwards and rather quit. If this is a game you want around, there's a need for leniency to a certain extent. This isn't a normal game with the types of "let's demand this from that and vote with your wallets", because while that is of course still your prerogative, the thing is that if you want AO to be around, it'll need a tiny bit amount of love. If we then focus on being pedantic, then the game will very soon not exist anymore.

To everyone replying to me saying "but why is protest quitting stupid" or something about that:

Protest quitting isn't stupid - It's the only reasonable recourse a fed up customer has.

Whether or not the game remains online is largely irrelevant since the person who is quitting, well, quit.

Quitting isn't stupid. If you're done with the game, then you're done with the game. No one would hold that against you. However, recently, there have been organized mass quittings. People have canceled their accounts and put the same thing in their reason. They do this because they think this'll get Funcom's attention. That's what I'm saying is counter productive. The only thing that'll do is kill the game.

[Freor]

Quitting isn't stupid. If you're done with the game, then you're done with the game. No one would hold that against you. However, recently, there have been organized mass quittings. People have canceled their accounts and put the same thing in their reason. They do this because they think this'll get Funcom's attention. That's what I'm saying is counter productive. The only thing that'll do is kill the game.

6+ months of complaints, suggestions and posts in general trying to get FC/Dev attention to the problem. We didn't get a single reply, only ones even remotely close to FC were forum mods closing threads when the trolls poured in. Few days after the mass cancelling, both a dev and current GD woke up and started posting/discussing about the subject. You can take a wild guess whether those quittings got their attention or not

(Of course, things didn't turn out well in the end and many of the cancellings stay, but that's besides the point.)

[Gunforhire]

When you demand to say how wrong this is, the risk is highlighted. If that is all a game is good for, why should Funcom keep themselves in such a situation? From that, the only logical thing to infer from your post is that AO should be shut down. That's a rather nihilistic approach. If that is how you feel, I'd urge you to take that inwards and rather quit. If this is a game you want around, there's a need for leniency to a certain extent. This isn't a normal game with the types of "let's demand this from that and vote with your wallets", because while that is of course still your prerogative, the thing is that if you want AO to be around, it'll need a tiny bit amount of love. If we then focus on being pedantic, then the game will very soon not exist anymore.

To everyone replying to me saying "but why is protest quitting stupid" or something about that:


Quitting isn't stupid. If you're done with the game, then you're done with the game. No one would hold that against you. However, recently, there have been organized mass quittings. People have canceled their accounts and put the same thing in their reason. They do this because they think this'll get Funcom's attention. That's what I'm saying is counter productive. The only thing that'll do is kill the game.

It is quite possible that the people "quitting in protest" are indeed only interested in killing the game not saving it because they are mad. There is nothing any one can do if they succeed and they have only really succeeded in ruining mine and others experience they have not hurt Fun -Com in any way. I have to say I kind of resent being collateral damage from that but there is nothing I can do about it. In any conflict it is usually the innocent who are affected the most. Its just too bad this turned into a conflict with not every one pulling for the game to succeed.

[Sephiroth56]

6+ months of complaints, suggestions and posts in general trying to get FC/Dev attention to the problem. We didn't get a single reply, only ones even remotely close to FC were forum mods closing threads when the trolls poured in. Few days after the mass cancelling, both a dev and current GD woke up and started posting/discussing about the subject. You can take a wild guess whether those quittings got their attention or not

(Of course, things didn't turn out well in the end and many of the cancellings stay, but that's besides the point.)

One things are the devs who fight to keep the project viable. Another thing is the moment accounting in FC sees a huge sudden decline in numbers. While GD might say "it's a protest, we're working to solve it", they won't gauge the risk and we'll be all over.

[Traderjill]

I just noticed new patch for testlive server
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=610674

WTF is FC doing ?!
There are few minor changes that do not even come close to making any progress...
Patches are done every 3-6 months and they show how much (or rather how little) work has been done.

It is pathetic.

Didn't notice the update til you pointed it out. I did get the impression that the next significant TL patch was the stuff on the beta server now.. or that's sorta how I read Genele's comments when she posted that poll.. that it was getting close to being pushed to test-live.

Quest Updates

Battlestation daily mission should now only be possible to complete once per day.

Pvp daily missions that normally don't involve much pvp, will not provide any xp/tokens as reward, just victory points. The battlestation and Tarasque missions are the only ones that will provide both XP/tokens and victory points.

Tarasque daily pvp mission is now open to all high level players.

I wonder what they're trying to accomplish with these changes. Thought for a moment discouraging PvM players from trying to farm BS for xp/tokens by removing the ability to complete it multiple times in a day but then they removed the xp/token reward from the not so pvp oriented john smith dailies so I'd think that would push people back to battlestations that normally don't go.

What am I missing here? Maybe it is the way I'm reading the line about only being able to complete the bs daily once per day.

[Macrosun]

take a wild guess whether those quittings got their attention or not.

Quitting had absolutely nothing at all to do with anyone getting any attention. We don't even have access to any data about quitting or any subscriber numbers at all, so there's no way we could know about anything happening unless someone higher up told us (and they didn't).

Also, again, the policy on the subject of this "protest" has been clearly stated from the beginning, and also again, is not decided by us.

[Genele]

I wonder what they're trying to accomplish with these changes. Thought for a moment discouraging PvM players from trying to farm BS for xp/tokens by removing the ability to complete it multiple times in a day but then they removed the xp/token reward from the not so pvp oriented john smith dailies so I'd think that would push people back to battlestations that normally don't go.

What am I missing here? Maybe it is the way I'm reading the line about only being able to complete the bs daily once per day.

You are missing that people exploit it. There is no viable way of solving the exploit issue, so now you can only do one pvp daily mission per day. To maintain the interest focused on battlestation and tarasque (which is the only "real pvp daily missions" in my opinion), I decided to nerf the rewards on the other missions that takes a few minutes to complete and rarely involves any pvp at all... I don't expect anyone to be extremely happy about this change, but it was the only way I could prevent the exploit and still encourage players to do the "real pvp missions" over the ones which are not without inflating the daily mission rewards further.

[Traderjill]

You are missing that people exploit it. There is no viable way of solving the exploit issue, so now you can only do one pvo daily mission per day. To maintain the interest focused on battlestation and tarasque (which is the only "real pvp daily missions" in my opinion), I decided to nerf the rewards on the other missions that takes a few minutes to complete and rarely involves any pvp at all... I don't expect anyone to be extremely happy about this change, but it was the only way I could prevent the exploit and still encourage players to do the "real pvp missions" over the ones which are not without inflating the daily mission rewards further.

Ah ok. Yeah, haven't done that battlestation daily since the other ones came out so had no idea. I'm actually not going to complain about this. That tower tagging daily and notum miner daily were really an ongoing joke. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did in their current state. As long as you can still grab some vp from them I don't see how anyone really could complain.

Thanks for the response.

[Gorathon]

As I said, if you were a programmer, you'd understand that basic errors will forever happen.

Remind me never to hire you to program anything for me.

No. In this case, it's an unfortunate but understandable error. If you've been around electrical circuits, you might know what hysteresis is.... If you demand such control on this - when you move the parameters so close that nothing above or below comes out, that no mistakes can happen - then no development happens either.

Deadband and fundamental quality control have nothing to do with one another. If you believe that programmers have no part in QC see my comment above.