Friday with Means - July 9th, 2010 - Summertime fun

**Means**

It was a relief when the rest of the team arrived safely on dry land again this week and returned to the office. It was waaay to quiet here while they were gone.

That being said it did give me a chance to get started on some things I had been forced to "down-prioritize" for quite some time. I am sorry that we missed being able to provide information from the team last week (for what I think was the first time in what hs probably been years..) but by the end of Friday last week I simply ran out of time before stepping onto the boat for the company party (I'm sure by now most people are aware I had some pretty important issues to make sure would never bother us again after this week's update). Having missed almost every single company event in the past..and with the rest of the AO team pretty much away someone needed to at least represent our group...and that kind of left "me" as a choice. Again...I'm sorry that this ended up causing "drama" on the forums...I'll try not to miss one again any time soon. The rumours of my death were highly exaggerated.

I had a great time on the boat and after last week I was definitely in need of a drink and copious amounts of fresh air. I ended up having more of both than I planned...but I survived.

Anyway, the things people ARE interested in:

The Engine

Work continued this week (and last) on what we can all agree is our most important area of focus. Ninja Russian code genius Sergey was hard at work optimizing both New AND old AO render code. This was fascinating stuff as I don't think anyone had really touched any of this stuff for a VERY long time. Among the many slowdowns Sergey eliminated last week it was surprising to find out that one of the main sources of graphical "stalls" was actually the chat window of all things. It turns out the text used in the chat is all rendered real-time as it appears in the window...and the more text sent in a message surprisingly enough the larger "stall" it would produce. Luckily this issue was discovered years ago in the work put into producing Conan and the solution could be ported rather quickly into AO. The engine is getting smoother and smoother and the performance with all the bells and whistles turned on is quickly stabilizing into a version we can use for a closed beta client within the next few months. The work on the heads is also progressing at a good pace...so the closed beta might even contain the full set. I've added some to the bottom of this post...even including one that can not possibly be "too asian".

Balance Update

We fought with each other for a protracted period of time this week to FINALLY agree on the Nano changes for the Martial Artist profession this week. We hope to release these numbers/new mechanic to the community next Friday. I'm hoping we have another fought out and agreed on next week too.

New Starter Experience

Lindelu and I spent a fair amount of time working out the "High level" details of the new start-up experience this week. This was basically trying to take as much of the feedback as we have received into account and trying to make sure that players coming out of this experience would have all the basic knowledge and tools they would need to transition themselves into a productive start on Rubi-Ka. It is really only when you try to see AO from the perspective of a new player that you fully realize the true depth and complexity that our game has to offer. I imagine it is overwhelming for someone starting the game..it was certainly overwhelming trying to structure a starting point that wouldn't leave players in the dark while not giving them a possible brain damage at the same time. It is definitely not going to be easy to keep this "fun" and "light" for people starting out...but I think we have a good structure for what we want them to learn...and a plan for leaving this information available for those who want to learn more.

Alien Missions

They are progressing faster than I would have thought...but unfortunately they are not complete yet.

The New Birthday Building

Ooops.

Seems we have a small problem here. In my desire to give something new this year I over-stepped a bit of the technology I wasn't aware of when it comes to creating new buildings that actually have an "inside". Apparently the location the door leads to is stored on your city controllers when the building is actually built. If the building doesn't HAVE an inside when it is built then regardless of what we do with it later the inside will never work...until the building is placed AGAIN.

This means unfortunately if you have "placed" your wrapped building in your city you will need to petition to get a new one before you will be able to access the inside. If you haven't placed it yet...DON'T. Wait until we update the building THEN place it.

If you HAVE placed it. Petition from your city. The GM will watch you delete your current building then supply you with a new one to be placed when the new building has been "revealed". Do NOT delete it before speaking with the Customer Service representative.

Again...my bad about the building. Sometimes the systems still manage to surprise me.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Niles

digitthemost

Ekarona

Third?

TheCookie

Posting in one for once!

Ps im the Third, which means Netherlands wins 3 - 0

Lusos101

3245th. Yeah baby

\O/

Aedit: Giving heads is good, they look good too. But blonde/blue eyed asian heads? What is this game turning into?

Strata

Page 1! w00t!!

... I need to get a life.

cbus97

Is is just me, or does this new batch of heads match their current counterparts better than any we've seen so far?

Also, Means what are you doing wasting time posting when you should be coding the new engine! I don't want to see anything out of you except raw binary.

gherig1

7th

lol the first 10 slots fill up pretty fast

nubbs

last

and again....

Friday with beer....

Means , you can come too...

...that code looks too russian.

Autohead

Quote:

Originally Posted by Means

The engine is getting smoother and smoother and the performance with all the bells and whistles turned on is quickly stabilizing into a version we can use for a closed beta client within the next few months.

"This year" will be over in a few months...not that I really believed you when you said the new engine would be done "this year"...but hopefully by "a few" you mean 3 or 4, because you only have 5 more months to get it done

{edited by Anarrina: removed inappropriate and adversarial portion of this statement}

Twangleman

1st page zomg!

Please keep this supposed ninja of yours hard at work, Means

**MstrBstrd**

Vhax

Aaah FWM!
I was already going into withdrawal!

Quote:

Originally Posted by MstrBstrd

post

*pokes up*
You're on my post!

NoGoal

Nice bit of information here. Can't wait for next friday.

Igri00

Let me be the first to say the new heads look too German.

Just to be clear, we can delete the new building with the GM now or do we wait? Can we replace the building now, or does it have to be deleted now and then placed later once it is revealed?

Quote:

Again...my bad about the building. Sometimes the systems still manage to surprise me.

Don't worry, I'm no one, except the GMs mind.

**Fekal**

Who should I bribe to get into the closed beta testing of the new engine? ;-p

Insane666

wtb engine beta invite, kthxbai

on a serious note: i really hope all active ao players will get an invite to that

reids

Also, where's the new video of the engine you promised 5 months ago?

Hokutonoken

first page still?

crude4gone

Hehe, so away goes all the mr squeaky boxes from cities again, what a shame.

I assume when we are ready to place the building again, it will already be revealed so we dont have to worry about where the front of it is?.