Monthly Development Update – 2nd July, 2014

[Traderjill]

Simple enough answer: Legal liability. I know that seems like a cheap answer, but the truth it is a very deep and complex answer.

I dunno if that's it.. for content that's to be inserted into their game, I agree with Masta (and you I suppose) but what's the reason for not supporting player run events?

I went over to AoC's forums the other day and there was a player run PvP event where funcom offered up prizes and seemed to get involved. If there's legal liability behind them supporting player run activities in their games I'd think that would be the case for all of their games. I also don't see how there's liability for such a thing but I'm not a lawyer.

[Rahela]

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. In the case of AO, it probably means there is either no one to oversee these events, or no one wants to be bothered.

[Pafpuf]

Don't think I've encountered you in game but you're very entertaining to read on the forums.

Right back at you. Didn't play much since merge and when I did it was mostly pvp and you don't seem like an avid pvper nor do I partake in various events; we're opposites of sorts ^^.

[Xootch]

Do you think enfs are more overpowered than fixers and advies as it stands now?

yes.

[Anarrina]

So... putting me or anyone else in a 'player advocate or liaison type role would be pointless if they have no one to get answers from on the dev team.

Just as a point of order, the Professionals and Faction Representatives are already player advocates and liaison type roles. As are, within certain limits, the various ARKs and ARK Departments.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

yes.

This has got to be from a duel perspective.

In mass PVP, Enf's aren't OP at all.

In a duel perspective Enfs are pretty tough, no question. But in team play, I find them lacking.

As soon as enfs have a way to break and reset opponents targets via mongo/dedicated taunts... then they will be ok.

Or SWTOR has some nice tanking mechanics, I remember playing a guardian or something and choosing protect on the healer, then taunting whoever was attacking him to reduce damage taken on the healer by a significant amount.

I thought that was pretty cool. AO has nothing like that... the mechanics are dated.

Imo, it would be nice to see some refreshed mechanics that don't focus entirely on:
HP up = alive
HP down = dead

[Traderjill]

Just as a point of order, the Professionals and Faction Representatives are already player advocates and liaison type roles. As are, within certain limits, the various ARKs and ARK Departments.

Yep, totally recognize what you've said though this conversation was moreso referring to non-profession and non-roleplay type concerns that seem to come up on a regular basis (sometimes as a result of happenings in game, sometimes as a result of monthly updates).

That being said...

The Professionals program is the biggest example of a player liaison program and it doesn't appear to work properly. Even when the votes were done ages ago, there were professions that didn't have 2 reps. At this point, some years later, many of the players that were voted in are no longer active. While I can see that some of the professionals do their best, it is difficult for me to take a program seriously that seems to lack any level of accountability, even in the form of something as simple as a quarterly role call or a yearly vote for new professionals. I've brought this up on several different fronts and threads and no one seems to take ownership of the program. The closest thing I got to an answer was in the new Community Manager's thread where he said they recognized it was broken and are working on it (another 'Soon' style answer that we've all been hearing on that topic for several years).

You're already aware of my concerns regarding the trader professionals falling into some black hole and therefore the class not having proper representation during a time of critical changes. Browsing over a few other profession areas and I found the same thing (though the trader profession happens to be the only one I'm willing to spend time bringing to anyone's attention, at this point).

That brings me back to the point you were responding to originally. Seems like there is a time consideration with the devs being able to respond to liaisons. I won't speak for anyone but I read a post by Mastablasta, that indicated that he was not in the know regarding the change to DM. I would think that the NT professional, of all people, should have been up to speed before something like that hit Test and definitely able to provide answers before it hit Live. So again, appointing people as liaisons when the devs aren't willing or don't have the time available to work with them is essentially pointless. [Note: I did see updates in the DM thread where Masta seemed to be involved with Genele.. but that was for the 2nd version of Garuk's, not the first.]

Mastablasta stated earlier in this thread that there are only 2 people working on AO development. That's a bit confusing to me but if that's true, then yeah.. I get why there's a time issue. That doesn't really change the fact that the communication between the devs and us is lacking and there isn't anyone within Funcom that seems to have maintaining proper community relations as part of their responsibility list.

As a player it is frustrating. I ask the new Community Manager about handling player concerns and he says it isn't his job. I ask the Game Director and it's not part of her job and kinda refers me back to the Community Manager. I ask questions of sezmra in the new community manager's thread and PM her with a link to this thread.. no response. Not that I expect some sort of special treatment but shouldn't someone be able to tell me whose job it is to review and, most importantly, respond to player concerns? Just a lot of finger pointing to the next guy.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

speaking of Professionals... who's the MA professional these days?

[Psikie]

I won't speak for anyone but I read a post by Mastablasta, that indicated that he was not in the know regarding the change to DM. I would think that the NT professional, of all people, should have been up to speed before something like that hit Test and definitely able to provide answers before it hit Live. So again, appointing people as liaisons when the devs aren't willing or don't have the time available to work with them is essentially pointless.

Interesting...although not surprising.

I ask the new Community Manager about handling player concerns and he says it isn't his job. I ask the Game Director and it's not part of her job and kinda refers me back to the Community Manager. I ask questions of sezmra in the new community manager's thread and PM her with a link to this thread.. no response.

So no accountability is offered or admitted to.

[Traderjill]

Interesting...although not surprising.
.

And my bad, I usually like to provide some form of reference when I start involving someone else in my post.

I guessed it was going to be longer before this travesty went live :|

Was wrong, I guess.

Also I'd like to add that the preliminary patchnotes from the other day was the first that was ever communicated about it.

That's the post I meant when I said it didn't sound like he was in the know.

[Xootch]

This has got to be from a duel perspective.

duel, ganking, city pvp...yeah. zergs, not so much, i agree.

[srompu]

The Professionals program is the biggest example of a player liaison program and it doesn't appear to work properly.

Yup. There's no communication to facilitate at the moment.

[Mastablasta]

The Professionals program is the biggest example of a player liaison program and it doesn't appear to work properly. Even when the votes were done ages ago, there were professions that didn't have 2 reps. At this point, some years later, many of the players that were voted in are no longer active. While I can see that some of the professionals do their best, it is difficult for me to take a program seriously that seems to lack any level of accountability, even in the form of something as simple as a quarterly role call or a yearly vote for new professionals. I've brought this up on several different fronts and threads and no one seems to take ownership of the program. The closest thing I got to an answer was in the new Community Manager's thread where he said they recognized it was broken and are working on it (another 'Soon' style answer that we've all been hearing on that topic for several years).

Yeah, the answer has always been that the community managers didn't have enough time or what not to handle it. And then there were no community managers and Kintaii did everything on his own. Must be said he spent a lot of time on that stuff and it was not paid time either.

Has been like it for years, really. There has been a few situations where it feels like something was changed as a result of professional feedback and feedback gathering, but in other cases, such as NT being completely gimp and receiving nothing but gimp updates that seemed to completely misunderstand the way NTs could be played, for many, many years, well.. please don't think that thousands upon thousands of words on this subject hasn't been written to the devs by Rhamorak, Phinger, Satenia and I. Newer professionals were not quite there for that time of the game... but nothing ever seemed to come of it. So dunno, I figure it falls back on poor management of the AO team from the top of FC again.

[Note: I did see updates in the DM thread where Masta seemed to be involved with Genele.. but that was for the 2nd version of Garuk's, not the first.]

The changes made to this thing after the fact were done in discussion with the professionals.

Mastablasta stated earlier in this thread that there are only 2 people working on AO development. That's a bit confusing to me but if that's true, then yeah.. I get why there's a time issue.

They did post this themselves back around the whole restructuring thing. Genele and Macrosun would remain fulltime on the AO project and Michizure would split his time between working on TSW and AO. All other people related to AO directly either left around this time or were laid off in the restructuring.
They only have 1 current job opening for a specific application, seeking a rendering engine programmer to develop a new engine... and then they just generally encourage programmers to apply.

As a player it is frustrating. I ask the new Community Manager about handling player concerns and he says it isn't his job. I ask the Game Director and it's not part of her job and kinda refers me back to the Community Manager. I ask questions of sezmra in the new community manager's thread and PM her with a link to this thread.. no response. Not that I expect some sort of special treatment but shouldn't someone be able to tell me whose job it is to review and, most importantly, respond to player concerns? Just a lot of finger pointing to the next guy.

Technically they can completely ignore player concerns, or reply that they see the concerns and may or may not respond to them depending on what they think of them. It's not really a right or privilige to have any concerns heard by anyone... whether that's good business practice, who's to say. When you reach a certain number of people playing your game, the whole concerns thing becomes white noise as contradicting concerns overflow whatever communicationschannel is available, if any.
The best you can do in this case is to just take an overview of it and try to the ledgers with whatever ability you have. If you're 2 guys working on a project of this size, though, chances are you're not really in any position to sit around and read a novel a day of forum hate...

Not that I'm trying to fanboy anything or whatever. Just giving an objective viewpoint on what I think is going on, based on far too many years worth of experience as a player of MMOs and other very popular multiplayer games.

[solcv2]

If you're 2 guys working on a project of this size, though, chances are you're not really in any position to sit around and read a novel a day of forum hate...

Hit the nail on the head there. What would people prefere - that the devs spend 2 hours of their working day reading hate and trolls on the forum amongst the usual whingers - or that they spend that 2 hours productively in coding/testing.

I know this is hard for a lot of people to accept - but the forum users only make up a minority of the games population.

One of the best tools when on a project of this sort of scale is to look at the numbers - and see what they represent - along with some testing.

Im not saying that the AO team get it right all the time, or even most of the time. WHat I am saying is that people moan the loudest when they dislike something. When they like something - it goes incredibly quiet.

I play on a private server for another 15+ year old game. That is run by just 2 people who do everything - and they do this in their spare time as they both have full time jobs. Now im not comparing the workloads, or even the fruit of the labours. But if you go onto the server - you will find that there si about 10-15% of the user base who just post to complain. When one of the other 85-90% posts something nice about the dev team - the thread get hijacked by the naysayers and turned into just another troll thread.

Hell - just look at this post. Genele replied for the first 1-2 pages to some of the concerns and questions. After that the usual trolls/naysayers go tinvolved - and after that whats the point of Genele replying - it only has 1 conclusion .

Sorry for the wall of text - but I feel quite strongly about this (being 1 of the 2 aforementioned coders of the private server)

[Dumonde]

I play on a private server for another 15+ year old game.

*cough*

Nightelves

*cough*

[Pafpuf]

Considering AO is the most expensive monthly fee mmo on the market "having only 2 devs" is a pretty horrible excuse.

[Traderjill]

Technically they can completely ignore player concerns, or reply that they see the concerns and may or may not respond to them depending on what they think of them. It's not really a right or privilige to have any concerns heard by anyone... whether that's good business practice, who's to say.

I'm having a difficult time wording the thoughts in my head but I'll try anyway and hope my point comes across properly.

As a child, my mother had an expression that she'd have to say to me quite often: "If you don't want to do it right the first time, you must want to do it over." Like many things my mother taught me, this piece of advice has saved me more times than I can recall.

As an adult, especially when it comes to business matters, I take the proactive approach. I try to look ahead at a situation, eliminate obvious potential flaws and implement fail-safes to counter Murphy's Law. In other words, I like to make sure it's done right the first time. I guess it is from that vantage point that I tend to post on the forums.

When I read the monthly updates, I can predict with about 95% accuracy what questions are going to arise from the original post. I'm not trying to say I have some special gift, most of the people on the forums can probably do the same. The question I tend to ask myself is "If I can see the confusing aspects of this post, why didn't the poster.. or why didn't the person who reviewed it before posting point out the obvious flaws and get them corrected?" The only answer I can come up with is that there isn't a second set of knowledgeable (of the player base) eyes looking at these updates before they post. The result is that the monthly update posts, people are confused, questions get posted .. some answered.. some not. The dev team is once again put on the defensive and their only action is to either react to what the playerbase has stated/asked or ignore once it starts to get too hostile.

What I've been proposing is a way for them to take a proactive approach that, in the end, will save them time/frustration and help bring the community together again in a positive manner. I don't think Genele is a bad person (don't edit me Anarrina!). I actually feel bad for her and anyone working on the AO team that has to come to work everyday and see the amount of negativity written about their work. I honestly do not believe that I could survive a job under such conditions.. not for long, anyway. To me, the solution is so simple, that I guess I have trouble with understanding why they aren't putting in a fix. Even if it took 1 or 2 people an hour or two of their time, every other week, to work with someone and produce some meaningful communications to the community.. it would be time well spent. Anyway..

I disagree with the concept that forum posters represent a small portion of AO's community. Yes, I'm betting that a small portion of the player base posts on AO's forums but I do believe that those that do post inevitably end up representing the various opinions and interests of the majority of the paid players. How many of us get messages from people in game saying "Hey, I read your posts.. totally agree." from people you've never heard of and never seen post at all themselves? I get that pretty much every day that I log in to game. I'm not saying I represent a majority (far from it I'm sure) but multiply that out across all of the different orgs, factions, professions, etc that are represented by those of us that do post. I think the overwhelming majority of opinions are represented.

Anyway, I'll end this by saying I only bring these types of things up because I care.. not because I'm trying to add a bad tone to someone's work day. I did the only thing I could do when I saw a problem and that's volunteer to help. Right now, those that probably know the community best are Genele and Macroson who apparently don't have the time as they're working on the content/coding and the people charged with handling the community (the community managers) are not well versed in the game or its community. If the devs aren't going to do it and the community managers aren't capable that only leaves a player. It doesn't have to be me, but I hope they reach out to someone for some assistance. It's really frustrating watching things play out as they are with a game I actually care about. So on that note, I guess I'm done posting on this topic about communication because it has truly turned into another case of beating a dead horse.

[Dumonde]

I'm having a difficult time wording the thoughts in my head but I'll try anyway and hope my point comes across properly.

As a child, my mother had an expression that she'd have to say to me quite often: "If you don't want to do it right the first time, you must want to do it over." Like many things my mother taught me, this piece of advice has saved me more times than I can recall.

As an adult, especially when it comes to business matters, I take the proactive approach. I try to look ahead at a situation, eliminate obvious potential flaws and implement fail-safes to counter Murphy's Law. In other words, I like to make sure it's done right the first time. I guess it is from that vantage point that I tend to post on the forums.

When I read the monthly updates, I can predict with about 95% accuracy what questions are going to arise from the original post. I'm not trying to say I have some special gift, most of the people on the forums can probably do the same. The question I tend to ask myself is "If I can see the confusing aspects of this post, why didn't the poster.. or why didn't the person who reviewed it before posting point out the obvious flaws and get them corrected?" The only answer I can come up with is that there isn't a second set of knowledgeable (of the player base) eyes looking at these updates before they post. The result is that the monthly update posts, people are confused, questions get posted .. some answered.. some not. The dev team is once again put on the defensive and their only action is to either react to what the playerbase has stated/asked or ignore once it starts to get too hostile.

What I've been proposing is a way for them to take a proactive approach that, in the end, will save them time/frustration and help bring the community together again in a positive manner. I don't think Genele is a bad person (don't edit me Anarinna!). I actually feel bad for her and anyone working on the AO team that has to come to work everyday and see the amount of negativity written about their work. I honestly do not believe that I could survive a job under such conditions.. not for long, anyway. To me, the solution is so simple, that I guess I have trouble with understanding why they aren't putting in a fix. Even if it took 1 or 2 people an hour or two of their time, every other week, to work with someone and produce some meaningful communications to the community.. it would be time well spent. Anyway..

I disagree with the concept that forum posters represent a small portion of AO's community. Yes, I'm betting that a small portion of the player base posts on AO's forums but I do believe that those that do post inevitably end up representing the various opinions and interests of the majority of the paid players. How many of us get messages from people in game saying "Hey, I read your posts.. totally agree." from people you've never heard of and never seen post at all themselves? I get that pretty much every day that I log in to game. I'm not saying I represent a majority (far from it I'm sure) but multiply that out across all of the different orgs, factions, professions, etc that are represented by those of us that do post. I think the overwhelming majority of opinions are represented.

Anyway, I'll end this by saying I only bring these types of things up because I care.. not because I'm trying to add a bad tone to someone's work day. I did the only thing I could do when I saw a problem and that's volunteer to help. Right now, those that probably know the community best are Genele and Macroson who apparently don't have the time as they're working on the content/coding and the people charged with handling the community (the community managers) are not well versed in the game or its community. If the devs aren't going to do it and the community managers aren't capable that only leaves a player. It doesn't have to be me, but I hope they reach out to someone for some assistance. It's really frustrating watching things play out as they are with a game I actually care about. So on that note, I guess I'm done posting on this topic about communication because it has truly turned into another case of beating a dead horse.

I can only repeat myself, but it is truly sad to read this. Seriously sad.

But, after reading all of your posts carefully, i can truly say that I am a fan. Even in this ocean of desperation, sadness and frustration, you stay honest and kind, structured and without blaming anyone for anything.

Compared to all other regular flaming/whining posts, containing so much sorrow and hatred -
it is kinda refreshing and calming to read these posts. And I personally thank you for this.

[Psikie]

I'm having a difficult time wording the thoughts in my head but I'll try anyway and hope my point comes across properly.

As a child, my mother had an expression that she'd have to say to me quite often: "If you don't want to do it right the first time, you must want to do it over."

When I read the monthly updates, I can predict with about 95% accuracy what questions are going to arise from the original post. I'm not trying to say I have some special gift, most of the people on the forums can probably do the same. The question I tend to ask myself is "If I can see the confusing aspects of this post, why didn't the poster.. or why didn't the person who reviewed it before posting point out the obvious flaws and get them corrected?"

So on that note, I guess I'm done posting on this topic about communication because it has truly turned into another case of beating a dead horse.

I smiled a bit on this, my daddy told me something very similar. "if you don't have time to do it right the first time, how much time do you have to do it again?"

Taking a step back it's not hard to see "The powers that be" in AO may understand the code of AO but they have not been playing the game 10+ years. Some of them have never played the game (more on this later).

For a better understanding they would have to play a froob up to at least 100, then start a new toon and go expansion up to 150. On a couple of toons each. They would have to give it a go solo or join a small org incognito to see the difference in playing through low credit, shop food equipment, vs spawning gear with auto.

See how certain profs is not easy to play solo and even harder getting teams. New players are put on a treadmill of daily missions as the norm UNLESS they get swooped up by some experienced players and then they get dragged along the easy fast track to 160 for the inf mission grind. Huge difference in someone taking 2 years to get to 200 solo vs 2 weeks with the right group of players.

[Bluecheeze2]

Just as a point of order, the Professionals and Faction Representatives are already player advocates and liaison type roles. As are, within certain limits, the various ARKs and ARK Departments.

For the improvement of the professions themselves...

Are they permitted to give feedback on the status of other game elements?