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Thread: Monthly Development Update - 30th April 2014

  1. #1

    Funcom employee Monthly Development Update - 30th April 2014

    Hi 2 u!

    I'm back with another monthly update and the past month we have a very interesting highlight. First I want to talk about the You decide, first edition poll and the results.

    As you might know, the "New Shadowlands Mission" initiative won the poll by only 7 votes. If this initiative goes well and we continue to get a lot of positive feedback, we will make sure to continue this plan in the future and set up a new poll once the winning project of the "You decide, first edition" is delivered. So that the losing projects could become winners the next time we set up a poll.

    We have already started working on the winning project and the first area in Inferno has been created. The quest starts in Inferno garden and Clanners need to talk to the "Essence Hunter" and Omnis need to talk to the "Soul Devourer". Players will be sent to a portal within the garden which will take them to a secret outdoor area of Inferno. I have attached a screenshot to this letter so you can see the area. (The screen shot is a raw "work in progress" screen shot.) There will be a lot more action when we have set up the spawns and paths.

    Both missions will be the same; to defend an ancient relic while the opposite side attacks in waves. The redeemed will protect the relic for its religious values, while the unredeemed wants to extract it and bring it back with them to obtain power. After x waves, the opposite side will be defeated and the defenders will get their mission reward. I am still unsure if I want to make this mission type hard core mode and that dying while participating in this defense, will make you fail the mission. Maybe we will make one hard and easy mode. We have also considered adding a random boss that might or might not spawn during the defense, defeating this boss while defending will grant a handsome reward for the team that manages to do it.

    If this mission type is a success, we will create similar missions for Penumbra and Adonis too, so we give players of different level ranges the opportunity to test their abilities as well. You will see the Inferno version on Testlive when we have gotten the 18.6.12 patch shipped to the live dimension. I hope to see many of you on Testlive when the time comes so we can get proper feedback in regards to the quest’s layout and design.

    As for the other initiatives we have worked on this past month, we have made one patch for the Live dimension and one for the Beta. The Live patch is currently on Testlive, but we will have to patch Testlive once more before we push this to the Live servers. Both the 18.6.12 Live patch and the 18.7.0.11 beta patch contains mainly small bug fixes and exploit fixes.

    I also want to talk about one of the new exciting features we have added in the 18.7 branch this month: A new set of spawn points that we can enable/disable without patching the servers. Once they have been placed and the playfield has them, the spawns will be disabled until we activate them. When we decide that the spawns should stop spawning, we disable them and all the spawns will disappear instantly. This will be especially handy for us in regards to seasonal content as we can decorate cities and place spawn points without ending up having sneaking holiday content linger in the game world for months after the actual event. Not to mention that the spawning will be a lot less cluttered and we will avoid stacks of Uncle Pumpkinheads standing on top of each other. With this we could also make various events that we can randomly enable/disable. We will be testing these spawn points on the beta servers the next beta patch (which is 18.7.0.12). The Phasefront/Funcom Shop display dungeon will be opened this patch and will display seasonal special items when we enable them. (Well, unless something goes wrong that is...)

    As mentioned previously, the 18.7 branch is getting really close to a Testlive state and when patched to Testlive, everyone will get to see the new ICC HQ, the new player experience, the shop changes and various systems changes that have been made in this branch. As a reminder, the new engine client will remain accessible exclusively to the participants in the closed beta, even though we patch out 18.7 to the Live dimension.

    Well, that’s it from me this month. Until next time!

    - Genele

  2. #2
    1st!

    Yay

    I like the boss idea for the new SL mishes. Could make for some interesting 'Oh yes' or 'Oh ****' moments.
    Last edited by wyldebeast; Apr 30th, 2014 at 15:56:21.
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  3. #3
    2nd the best.

    Sound a lot like HI raid in SL instead of RK. will there be a "champion" per wave and will one get a "Champion" buff too ....how about added loot per "Champion" as oppose to just recieve loot at end of full raid? or this is to aviod team mates dropping out after they required "Need" loot for the wave champion? hopefully fullfiling the full wave doesn't only net you a "I survive the Inferno wave roller coaster" t-shirt ql 300 No Drop ^_=
    Last edited by Hokutonoken; Apr 30th, 2014 at 15:55:47. Reason: cause i want too ^_=
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  4. #4
    First!
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  5. #5
    4th
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  6. #6
    Still not psyched.
    ***My attention may be easy to get, but can you hold it?***

  7. #7
    Hopefully the grand rewards makes up for the loss of 3 BS rewards a day...

    PS: Did you copy Area-X and skin it to look like Inf ?

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  8. #8
    First!
    Sephiroth56 - 220 NT Atlantean - equipment
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  9. #9
    How exciting, another instance where you stand still in a room.

    Zero word on the only thing of real importance, the "rebalance".

    -1/10

  10. #10
    Why would you remove the 3 BS dailies? This is truly beyond me

  11. #11
    I hope this just isn't some reskin of the Entvined Versus Mission, because this all sounds pretty familiar.
    Towerblock, 220/30/70 Engineer
    President of Steadfast

    And way too many alts...

  12. #12

    Funcom employee

    Quote Originally Posted by Notevenmad View Post
    Why would you remove the 3 BS dailies? This is truly beyond me
    For reference, I'll post a link to my previous rely to this question:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...&postcount=523

    Short story: There is no sensible way I can make sure that you don't complete them at the same time. The way these missions are played, was not how it was designed or intended to be played. Completing the Battlestation 1 time per day should not hand you 3 rewards at the same time. The only way for me to fix this problem without spending a lot of resources on it was to remove the possibility of completing this mission more than once per day (Which was the way it was initially designed anyway.)

    Edit: I also don't intend to "make up for the lost" xp. There are plenty of alternative ways to level up and with these new missions we are working on, there will be even more.
    Last edited by Genele; Apr 30th, 2014 at 17:19:06.

  13. #13
    ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ swirling-dog's Avatar
    First (page)

  14. #14

    Funcom employee

    Quote Originally Posted by Wakizaka View Post
    PS: Did you copy Area-X and skin it to look like Inf ?
    Quote Originally Posted by Towerblock View Post
    I hope this just isn't some reskin of the Entvined Versus Mission, because this all sounds pretty familiar.


    No, this area and mechanics is made from scratch.

    The mission objective to that of the Entvined mission "protect something" is the same though. However, completely new mission types are often rare to come by in such an old game. "Protect something" is not nearly as common as kill missions.
    I'll make sure the monsters feel different to fight for sure.
    And the goal in this area is to complete the mission, not to survive for as long as possible. As this is a means of leveling, it will not be designed purely for elite players. Well, unless we end up making the hard core mode.
    Last edited by Genele; Apr 30th, 2014 at 17:18:38.

  15. #15
    last
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  16. #16
    It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

    I humbly request that you stay AWAY from the 'hardcore' idea though. We want levelling alternatives and by making something like this have no room for mistakes will guarantee it to be dead on arrival.

    Remember, people sit in heck teams because it is low risk high reward. High risk, meh reward gameplay in AO results in dead areas.
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  17. #17
    yeihhhh finally some content that allows endgame toons to farm some credits by selling loot-rights to the less worthy.


    This is no doubt a big step in the direction of creating some random content to entice a few veterans to resub their accounts for a couple of months again. And by that I mean fixing the whole game and creating the conditions to increase player retention.

    ofc...

  18. #18
    7/10 Even tho my mac does not approve of emulators so I cant get in, I am glad to see something else other then 160's in inferno. <3 Ya'll.
    220 crat ~Frocratarox~
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Genele View Post
    For reference, I'll post a link to my previous rely to this question:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...&postcount=523

    Short story: There is no sensible way I can make sure that you don't complete them at the same time. The way these missions are played, was not how it was designed or intended to be played. Completing the Battlestation 1 time per day should not hand you 3 rewards at the same time. The only way for me to fix this problem without spending a lot of resources on it was to remove the possibility of completing this mission more than once per day (Which was the way it was initially designed anyway.)

    Edit: I also don't intend to "make up for the lost" xp. There are plenty of alternative ways to level up and with these new missions we are working on, there will be even more.
    From what you said earlier, the "tower tag" and "notum miners" missions will only yield VP, but no XP or tokens.
    Is that correct?

    Currently, froobs can do these missions for xp and tokens, but not VP.
    Once the patch goes live, froobs will get no reward whatsoever?
    Or will you allow them to buy OFAB gear?

    Let's be honest here - without any kind of marketing, froobs are the only new players we are getting in AO.

    Upsetting them should be very, very low on your priority list.
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  20. #20
    Honestly, this instance wont make much difference in the game at all due to several reasons.
    1. Reward
    You cannot provide players with new and useful items since they can only disbalance things out.
    You cannot provide specific buff similar to 12man/pen buffs just because it'll disbalance things out.
    2. Process
    Problem is specific motivation to keep instance crowded. If you're going to provide large amount of sk/xp as a reward - it'll decrease interest to other types of content. Otherwise - I can't see a reason for people to have permanent interest to new instance.
    3. PvM content in general
    Honestly, most of playerbase use Inferno as levelling place and a place to do quests. It's not as crowded as it was in, like, 2007 or 2008. I really doubt new instance will bring back interest of playerbase large enough to effect current population and to cause growth.

    I'd better focus on changes aimed on overall Shadowlands improvements such as Scheol changes, that might raise interest of mid-level players, Elysium changes that will either boost progress up (since lvl145-170 levelling is completely boring and mostly based on kite-hill afk party), or slow it down for further Scheol improvements.

    Or, to bring back the most active and experienced part of population - it's best to focus on PvP changes such as NW changes, overall rebalancing that was "promised" ages ago.

    There are 2 ways to entertain current population and make it grow:
    1. New engine (it "might" bring tons of new players if engine is nice and AD campaign is large)
    2. Mass-PvP content that might bring tons of old players, that stopped playing due to several reasons (exploits, disbalanced PvP mechanics, PvP boredom due to no new content n so on), back.

    Just my 5 cents....
    G.F.B.D.
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