Friday with Means - November 19th, 2010: The Sky is Not Falling

[Odov]

tldr

Hey MEANS! Awesome job you've done with the game. I'm a returning player, getting sucked in again..

Daily missions are AWESOME. Exceeded my expectations, really cool format, unique concepts.. you guys rocked that one.

Consolidated BS terminals = genius. A little late, but well done.

In-game store = GASM my friend.. pure gasm.. From a lazy (read: overworked) casual player, my only gripes are.. 1. you could charge a little bit more for tokens, and 2. you could charge a lot less for XP boost. Also, I'd seriously suggest making the token boosters nodrop.. That's pushing it a bit, not even making them unique. I already spent $20 this month, predict I'll be buying a 2.5k board next and some IPRs for failed twinks.

I've yet to sample TL7 content, plenty to catch up on @ TL4/5. Overall though, A+++.

Next up is buying directly from AI shop terminals right? Whatever is actually next, I'm sure I'll love it. You are on track for retaining some of the masses that will surely come when you release the graphics update.

LONG LIVE AO!!!!!!!

[Odov]

Point is, i never have been asked if i am ok with it. And security isnt really the strongest part of anarchy. Go check your processlist, next time you are logged in.

Just delete your browser then. Recording your phone number, email, address, and selling it - yeah that, obviously. But your OS type? You think that you have to give your permission for someone to anonymously log your OS version? That's delusional. If I could attach an image to this post I could likely gather a lot more than your OS version from just your UA string your browser sends to everything that requests it and your IP.

[Lupusceleri]

I dont know where those 1.4% comes from. I do not hope Anarchy is "calling home reporting OS statistics" secretly, as this would be a real slap into every players face.

I don't see the problem. It enables Funcom to decide how much changes they can make to the game. For example if noone is using Windows 98 anymore, they can include "revolutionary new technology XYZ" that is only available since Windows XP.

Besides nearly everything does it. Any webpage you visit knows your OS and browser. Sure, you can mask it but that'll screw up some websites as certain browsers (read: Internet Explorer) have their own "special" interpretation of how to render a webpage and therefore need to be fed a different code to get the same results.

http://whatsmyuseragent.com/

In my case:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/9.0.570.0 Safari/534.11

Still, I think everyone would be interested in a few anonymous statistics from AO. Amount of players, amount of actively played accounts, OS distribution, graphic card brand, etc would be nice.

You really believe some of us are willing to wait 7 months? And then again, how should the Linux build help Mac users (as me)? And who will incorporate the build into WINE? I doubt that this path will be an option...

Do you think I'm happy and/or willing to wait 7 months? Hell no.

As for Mac users. Awesomium is already natively available for you guys, so be glad. It *might* help.

Jesus man, not all analytical information is "OMGZ MALWARE" .. how is that different from every website on the net (including these forums) collecting your browser information and if available your OS, screen resolution, geolocation by IP .. etc etc. It helps the developers. I'd be much more shocked if FC didn't have this analytical data.

+1.

[Iamkama]

I would love at some point when the devs find time...to have a fully supported mac version of AO.

Pretty please with a weird looking cherry on top?

[Tazalanche]

Would it be possible to make a pref item so we could turn the "auto level off" function off while flying a Yalm? It is more than annoying.

/this

[Suicidal]

Actually client was and probably still is collecting your PC info (In form of dxdiag output). One time report (unless prefs are wiped/AO reinstalled) and AO team told us that client will do it.. guess you have to uninstall AO now

[Tazalanche]

Point is, i never have been asked if i am ok with it.

You are asked every time you haphazardly click the "I accept" button for the EULA without bothering to read it.



I have absolutely nothing to do with the legal profession, but here are some examples from the EULA that might apply:
You understand that we may update or otherwise enhance the Software at any time and in doing so incur no obligation to furnish such updates to you pursuant to this Agreement.

Furthermore, if you request any technical support, you consent to our remote access and review of the computer you load the Software onto for purposes of support and debugging.

Solely for the purpose of patching and updating the Game, you hereby grant us permission to (i) upload Game file information from the Funcom directory and (ii) download Game files to you.

[Dagget]

I dont know where those 1.4% comes from. I do not hope Anarchy is "calling home reporting OS statistics" secretly, as this would be a real slap into every players face./Z

They said two summers ago that the client would start reporting home technical details about the systems it was running on.

[Busata]

Who knows how many different variants of Linux makes up that 1.4%...and how many issues might need to be addressed to fix them all?

Well technically, I think it only needs to run in wine, which would make it a bit "linux-flavour-of-the-month" independent. But I'm not really sure it's that *easy*. Still, would be a nice gesture towards the community to at least try & see what's needed, it might not be much

But I assume FC can't help much in that at the moment, seeing awesomebrowserness isn't your product.

[Kari]

Um, what does AO running in WINE report as? coz if it's emulating it sufficiently, it'll report some version of windows surely...

Not that I care, games machine = windows machine, work machine = unix machine. Use 'em for what they're good at.

[Ocene]

If you are running Linux and you can't fix this, maybe you shouldn't be running Linux..


getting the hint?

[Chrys]

Oce lay off the linux users, even if they are playing an unsupported game, it's bad enough for them to get a kick in the teeth and unable to play the game with zero warning. They know they aren't supported, but they just need to vent a bit because of how sudden and unexpected the change from "working" to "working as intended" (lol) was.

Linuxdweebz, consider this FC's repayment to your years of support by helping you break the habit! Go take a walk outside, enjoy the fresh air, and buy yourself an Xbox!

[Tazalanche]

The complaints about problems running Anarchy Online on a Linux or a Mac system is like someone complaining to Nintendo for a fix because an emulator on a PS3 or XBox360 is unable to run Super Mario Bros. efficiently.

[Technogen]

And as Macro said on IRC, its WINE's problem not AO's. Someone had to make a wrapper for EVE to run properly and it's using the same browser.

[Colawrenn]

Just a heads up boss - we were promised rebalancing this year, of which there is 6 weeks left. Probably wouldnt hurt to mention your prediction was wrong, to somewhat lessen the **** storm when it doesnt happen.

cba to moan more about the possible impending doom of my favourite game so that is all for now.

[Technogen]

If they release 2 profs a week they would be right on track for having the Prof balance work done by the end of the year. Currently Advy, Agent, Doc, MP, NT, Shade, and Trader are left.

[If6was9]

That has got to be my best post ever!

You echoed. I've never seen anyone echo in written form before. Were you tripping?

[If6was9]

Just a heads up boss - we were promised rebalancing this year, of which there is 6 weeks left. Probably wouldnt hurt to mention your prediction was wrong, to somewhat lessen the **** storm when it doesnt happen.

cba to moan more about the possible impending doom of my favourite game so that is all for now.

You have a point but I'd rather they got the new engine and graphics out first.

[Lupusceleri]

If you are running Linux and you can't fix this, maybe you shouldn't be running Linux..


getting the hint?

Why the hating Ocene?

It's not like the majority of Windows users can code patches for Windows applications.

The same goes for Linux and Mac OS X. The majority are end users which know how to keep their systems running and how to use them, but are incapable of writing their own applications or patches.

PS: oh, wait.. the average Windows user doesn't even know how to keep their system running. ;(

And as Macro said on IRC, its WINE's problem not AO's. Someone had to make a wrapper for EVE to run properly and it's using the same browser.

Since Macrosun seems to know what's causing the problem, maybe he could give a heads-up for the WINE team to help them on their way?

[Ebondevil]

You have a point but I'd rather they got the new engine and graphics out first.

Balancing has to come first though.

The new engine will (Hopefully) bring more players, and you can't dump a load of new players right into the midst of a rebalancing and expect them to stay around.