Monthly Development Update - 2nd April 2014

[Encyros]

a) Ok, you paid attention, thank you for that!

b) Must be your personal opinion, because without data or input from your superiors, you really don't know if quitting has an effect or not.
Is that correct?

Look, I have no beef with you or Genele.
But I suggest you get your bosses to pay attention to the customers before FunCom goes under.

Everything at FC appears to be terribly mismanaged!

In fairness I am sure they have a very clear idea of the protest having no effect on their development plans.

Obviously if enough people quit the game will shut down, but the devs have said as much already. I wouldn't say it's disingenuous.

FC taking a financial hit and acquiescing to customer feedback are not the same kind of 'effect'. They've a right to be stubborn. It's their game until it dies.

[Pennypacker]

BS should be about pvp not gaining xp pvm. This is an attempt to "encourage" pvm players to go to BS for pvp. If pvm players wanted pvp they would already be going there for 3x rewards INSTEAD of doing miner/'tower tag missions.

The pvm players are giving up on a triple reward because they do not want to deal with the pvp crowd that would abuse and harass them or heaven forbid tease for not being equiped properly once open inspect is live.

This is not going to end well for the casual player.

Why should PVP players have to PVM to gain XP then ? The same thing can be said about that. Swtor got it right with xp in wz's.

[Encyros]

Why should PVP players have to PVM to gain XP then ? The same thing can be said about that. Swtor got it right with xp in wz's.

Cause if they don't now, the game dies. AO relies on PVPers to keep the game alive by doing content.

[Grandpa]

In fairness I am sure they have a very clear idea of the protest having no effect on their development plans.

Obviously if enough people quit the game will shut down, but the devs have said as much already. I wouldn't say it's disingenuous.

FC taking a financial hit and acquiescing to customer feedback are not the same kind of 'effect'. They've a right to be stubborn. It's their game until it dies.

I didn't mean to imply that the Devs were disingenuous.
Technically, it's the stockholders game and I wonder if they would approve how FC is managed.

But in the end you are probably right.

[Sephiroth56]

a) Ok, you paid attention, thank you for that!

b) Must be your personal opinion, because without data or input from your superiors, you really don't know if quitting has an effect or not.
Is that correct?

Look, I have no beef with you or Genele.
But I suggest you get your bosses to pay attention to the customers before FunCom goes under.

Everything at FC appears to be terribly mismanaged!

Do you have any idea what size AO is compared to the rest of the products Funcom does? Because you seem to have no idea, plus you seem to have no idea what Funcom does, or have any foundation for such statements.

Technically, it's the stockholders game and I wonder if they would approve how FC is managed.

Well, let me tell you. The Funcom stock is up 20% today. It's up 200% in the last half a year. You'd have merit in your "mismanaged" two years ago. Since then, Funcom's done a great job restructuring and reassessing their assets and values in the changing MMO market. Also, since Funcom is the major owner of Funcom, it's Funcom's game. Also, a stockholder is last in line when it comes to asset liquidation, so it's not really the stockholders game at all.

[Grandpa]

Do you have any idea what size AO is compared to the rest of the products Funcom does? Because you seem to have no idea, plus you seem to have no idea what Funcom does, or have any foundation for such statements.

Sephiroth, first you respond to me with cryptic stuff that you are unwilling to divulge.
Now you say I have no idea what I'm talking about, but again fail to provide any kind of facts.

It's fine that you support FC regardless of what they do, that doesn't mean that I have to.

So, I have no intentions or desire to get into a trolling contest with you.
Unless you say something of substance, please refrain from replying to my posts.

{removed exploit discussion}

[Sephiroth56]

Sephiroth, first you respond to me with cryptic stuff that you are unwilling to divulge.
Now you say I have no idea what I'm talking about, but again fail to provide any kind of facts.

It's fine that you support FC regardless of what they do, that doesn't mean that I have to.

So, I have no intentions or desire to get into a trolling contest with you.
Unless you say something of substance, please refrain from replying to my posts.

What I'm talking about is common knowledge stuff. The AO team is small. The Conan team is a lot bigger. The Secret World team is a lot bigger again. Then there's Lego Mini Figures in development with probably the largest team. Then there's "Unannounced Project A" and Fashion Week Live and the list goes on. I don't mean to appear cryptic, but I'm a bit nonplussed that someone speaks with such a doomsday voice when it's a bit off what it's all about. AO is small, so the things you've tried to say about Funcom mismanaging it doesn't really apply, because Funcom isn't mismanaged. See the other part of my post to my response to your conception of stockholders and such.

For you see, it is you that appear to be the troll, when you say the things you do, but seemingly lack an understanding to say the things you do.

[Genele]

Look, I have no beef with you or Genele.
But I suggest you get your bosses to pay attention to the customers before FunCom goes under.

I am the Creative Lead/Lead Designer for Anarchy Online, I am not the Producer and I am in no position to influence the what Funcom decides to invest in. All I can do is take the resources provided by the company and make the best out of it.

I do my best, but despite all the work I put in to it, I will not be able to make all of you happy at the same time. Everyone has a different opinion of what they want (the result of the poll proves that very well.) No matter what I do, someone will disagree.
Since I became the Game Director or Lead Designer or whatever you might want to call the position I'm currently holding, I have tried to focus all resources in to finalizing projects and promises made by past Game Directors and Producers instead of making new promises and adding additional work to a team which is already overloaded with backlog tasks.

At this point we are extremely close to being able to push the 18.7 branch to Testlive and that contains more than a year's worth of work. (You might not have seen any changes on the Live dimension after Christmas, but that is because we have released more than five 18.7 patches during that time.)

What I'm trying to say with this wall of text is that I read feedback, I care about what you all think. But with the resources I have, there is only so much I can do. Some things that you demand or ask for would either take too long to make or is impossible to fix from a technical perspective. I am sad that so many of you feel that I am some sort of evil demon that wants to burn AO to the ground and don't care about what happens to the game. I have moved to the other side of the world and left all my friends and my family to continue working on this game. If you think I don't care about Anarchy Online, think again.

[semisentient]

Genele you and the AO team are doing a great job. This game is more than a decade old and it is still the most addictive and fun out there. We all understand that the better the game the more people care about it, and the more they care about it the more they whine and try to influence it (add sense of entitlement, outliers, and the trolls) and inevitably you get some of these elements in the forums. You can easily tell theres some severe attachment issues going on with some of these people here.

It is so rare to be able to play a fun and up to date game and yet be able to have nostalgic moments that span back 10 years. Heres to hoping AO is for forever.

[Lheann]

PVP was an afterthought for this game anyway due to a GM who wanted it. It was never part of the original AO.

That is total BS. PVP and how it would be a part of the game was present in the design long before original beta. The arenas are just one example that FC was thinking about it.
The Gas system and political zones where part of original beta testing as well.
The last night of Beta they had a server wide PVP FFA. All zones were 25% or less gas. Total riot of fun and mayhem.

[Psikie]

Why should PVP players have to PVM to gain XP then ? The same thing can be said about that. Swtor got it right with xp in wz's.

What? How about the same reason you don't get xp for killing other players in pvp. That is a difference between pvp and pvm. One gets you titles and epeen the other gets you xp.

[Leetlover]

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

maybe add loot to the daily and remove loot from corpse. maybe we get pvp.

[Leetlover]

Had an idea for a daily where you ruin the doors to the shops in OA and Rome. or kill bluebuff-npc experiencing the war/political conflict pvp'wise too is good I think. BTW:, making pvp-dailies mutually exclusive to pvm-dailies might be best. No nerfs needed.

I never much liked having the whole PvP thing being pulled over my head as to get some parts of a game, as PvP in my book usually involves nasty flaming kids with too much spare time and a too big of a mouth for their own good.

pvm also has flaming kids.

something I thought would be cool is more pvmstuff in vp-shop. I hate pvm.

Since I became the Game Director or Lead Designer or whatever you might want to call the position I'm currently holding, I have tried to focus all resources in to finalizing projects and promises made by past Game Directors and Producers instead of making new promises and adding additional work to a team which is already overloaded with backlog tasks.

ok, where's that new expansion lindelu mentioned?

[Emma]

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.

How is doing the John Smith daily mission for XP considered an exploit? We all do the mission as it was originally written ... I can not see how that is an exploit. If getting XP or tokens for the John Smith missions is the exploit, why were the missions coded that way in the first place?

I am trying to understand how a mission in-game for a rather long time is suddenly an exploit ...

Regarding your second post Genele ... I at least understand you are working with the resources provided to you and that you are using them the best you can.
edit: Or, to put it differently ... sometimes with limited resources we/you are stuck with picking the lesser of two evils because you don't have the time and/or resources for the otherwise preferred solution.

Emma

[Leetlover]

adding taratimer to lftinteface would help the raid to actually run. to gauntlet would be cool.

also fixing RI so we not dependant on bots (don't wanna contribute to harassement and crimes) just to play. Then let 2nd rank to press be elecatble for temp raidlead.

[Gunforhire]

How is doing the John Smith daily mission for XP considered an exploit? We all do the mission as it was originally written ... I can not see how that is an exploit. If getting XP or tokens for the John Smith missions is the exploit, why were the missions coded that way in the first place?

I am trying to understand how a mission in-game for a rather long time is suddenly an exploit ...

Regarding your second post Genele ... I at least understand you are working with the resources provided to you and that you are using them the best you can.
edit: Or, to put it differently ... sometimes with limited resources we/you are stuck with picking the lesser of two evils because you don't have the time and/or resources for the otherwise preferred solution.

Emma

I think if you read the quote you will find she is referring to the BS daily that is being exploited by playing it more than once a day

[Traderjill]

adding taratimer to lftinteface would help the raid to actually run. to gauntlet would be cool.

also fixing RI so we not dependant on bots (don't wanna contribute to harassement and crimes) just to play. Then let 2nd rank to press be elecatble for temp raidlead.

A better idea might be to just have a global announcement message when tara spawns with a 30 minute delay before she can be attacked.

As for your bot concerns... unless we've rolled back to 2004, the only thing really controlled by a bot is tara, right? Everything else is pretty much instanced. S42 isn't instanced but I'd imagine any group wanting to do it can find a free slot to do it undisturbed.

[Genele]

A better idea might be to just have a global announcement message when tara spawns with a 30 minute delay before she can be attacked.

I'll look in to adding a broadcast with a warning prior to tara's spawn it has been on my todo list for a while, actually.

[DigitalBath]

I'll look in to adding a broadcast with a warning prior to tara's spawn it has been on my todo list for a while, actually.

A better idea might be to just have a global announcement message when tara spawns with a 30 minute delay before she can be attacked.

As for your bot concerns... unless we've rolled back to 2004, the only thing really controlled by a bot is tara, right? Everything else is pretty much instanced. S42 isn't instanced but I'd imagine any group wanting to do it can find a free slot to do it undisturbed.

Something Jill wrote is being answered by a GD and put as something to implement. The end is upon us!

Seriously though, awesome call and awesome quick reply! Nice note to end this thread on, maybe?

[Emma]

I think if you read the quote you will find she is referring to the BS daily that is being exploited by playing it more than once a day

That mission was designed to be played Three times a day ... how is that an exploit?

Emma