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Thread: Monthly Development Update - August 2014

  1. #41
    Congratulations Michi! I'm looking forward to a new direction to AO.

  2. #42
    I think the direction is set... it's just a matter of putting in some work to realize the direction set by his predecessors.

    It's pretty much exactly the same situation that put the previous 4 or 5 GD's in the weeds before they even started:

    Mean's built a bunch of stuff that clearly indicated a perk/nano rebalance
    Means leaves.
    Kintai rolls up, finishes the documentation of means' vision (props to kintai for attempting to finish someone else's vision)
    Kintai leaves.
    Lindelu arrives, does something in the engine.
    Lindelu leaves.
    Iliya arrives, does something in the engine.
    Ilya leaves.
    Genele arrives, looks at the heap of crap left by means, half finished by kintaii, coffee spills by lindelu, and neglected/dust covered from ilya and is like: I'm gunna do rebalance Genele style. So she goes on a rampage that basically invalidates 95% of the work that means/kintai did with regards to the rebalance, and lindelu is just like dunno who that is so w/e. But, Genele at least has moved everything from some nebulous cloud of abstract ideas into testlive (huge props, in retrospect, but... didn't get it to live so thumbs down too at same time).
    Genele leaves.
    Michi rolls up with the balance patch in test (which is the furthest it's ever got to date), some 8 years after conception, and now...


    Thinking that AO will go in a 'different' direction is kinda funny way to think about it. All of his predecessors tried to do the "different" direction thing and each of them failed in their own way which has ONLY delayed content, and has really, truly indicated the absolute dismal operational objectives of the Anarchy Online Project.

    Imo, with only one dude working on it, if he's going to make any kind of impact at all, he's got to do a hard-line, value-add assessment, trim out all the bullcrap that's clogging the process, take an objective look at the community responses/feedback, make some executive decisions that will result in the bulk of his time being geared towards getting the highest value-add for effort over the initial period: i.e. smash out solid, well requested changes that already have the majority of coding effort completed, to appease the greatest number of people quickly, then work towards gradually lower bang-for-buck changes which need greater levels of refinement.

    My hope levels are high.
    My expectations are low based on previous GD's... but that doesn't mean that Michi can't do it.

    The best asset michi has - if he has it, is adaptability. If he's able to put his own ego on the shelf (the "I finally get to rule this virtual world and shape it to my whimsical desires" thing) and actually adapt his vision to what those before him have envisioned.... then we might actually see something come out of his tenure well before he reaches "mental capacity eroded due to massive community trolling, time for retirement".

    which actually brings me to a point that I'm sure everyone has been thinking but nobody has voiced yet:
    Why do all these GD's keep bailing on the doorstep of releasing content? what the F?

    How is it possible that they do that? Why doesn't their contracts impose a hefty financial (dis)incentive to leave the company with content half finished? It makes zero sense.

    The obvious thing would be to put people on a base pay, with several monetary/other incentives that provided reasonable impetus for GD's and their teams to produce good quality patches, introduce good, relevant content/balancing, maintain the game in working order, and get bonuses for subscription increases.

    But when GD's bail with big balance patches on the doorstep to implementation... it just shows how colossally backwards their system is. In the world of gaming, it's content change and balancing patches that usually attract the greatest number of fluctuations in subs. But the hidden 'never mentioned' issue is sub bleed. In a game like AO, sub numbers are probably steady, but realistically in game there's so few people around, and most certainly there is bleed: that is, people gradually moving away from the game due to boredom, better offers elsewhere family commitments, university, a wide variety of things can pop up and drag people out of game - and few people will return UNLESS there is a reason to do so.

    What was the last real reason to return?

    Promises don't mean F-all if you can't log in and try it.

    If michi can provide one good reason to return, he'll be the most successful GD AO has seen in 8 years. If he can produce meaningful change, and implement fair-but controversial content, subs WILL fluctuate - but they will fluctuate for the better, because no news is bad news, and any news is good news.
    Last edited by McKnuckleSamwich; Sep 3rd, 2014 at 07:43:47. Reason: missed a couple people and took merit's objective analysis of departures into consideration.

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post

    With 18.7 pushed back, ...

    The new engine, which is now a part of 18.8, is still being examined by our Live team programmers...
    Think I will have worn out my "Coming Soon (TM)" shirt by the time the engine arrives.

    G'day to Michizure
    Refractal ~ Nano Tech
    Sunless ~ Shade

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    which actually brings me to a point that I'm sure everyone has been thinking but nobody has voiced yet: do all these GD's keep bailing on the doorstep of releasing content? what the F?

    How is it possible that they do that? Why doesn't their contracts impose a hefty financial (dis)incentive to leave the company with content half finished? It makes zero sense.
    We do not know they 'bailed', in fact quite suspect booted (Corporate parlance; asked to resign) fits better.

    So very odd how all this always happens right after vacations, folks using up their contracted paid time off perhaps.

    ~~~//~~~

    Pure conjecture just for S n' G's;
    • Means bailed, saw writing on wall, left while still had rep/prospects.
      He had grand visions, though no FC support. (he had no means! Sorry, had to...) He's at Bioware atm, prolly telling amusing anecdotes about how FC did things: "So this one time, I said we had a new engine, and they like believed me!"^^

    • Kintaii, did many of the stuffs, pages of rebalance docs years ago: Downsized/booted, around too long, cost too much.

    • Lind'y was a kid/froob/low girl in office gets job post-Means, designated scapegoat/transition, her booting was preordained.

    • That one guy, around for a few; 'producer-we need no GD' Ilaliya, starts item shop all hot and heavy, vanishes few in weeks, posts on forums month later links to some indy game (read shovel-ware/steam green light junk)

    • Macrosun: Around too long, cost too much, replaced by some 20 year old kids fresh out of school happy to code for beer money.

    • Gene'y... honestly don't desire this to sound as harsh as it may, as sure she tried, but alas, dare say flat out booted for fail, lost sub's, forum rages, etc.
      If one person for every 100 rage posts actually emailed to feedback, that'd still be an epic pile of rage hitting corporate about AO's state.
    I make it look easy, 'cause it is to me.

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Merit View Post
    snip
    Point taken, will edit.

  6. #46
    Iliya arrives.
    Ilya leaves.

    R.O.F.L!!

  7. #47
    What I find amusing is how long it has taken FC the creators of the dreamworld engine to get it integrated into on of their own games. Why is it amusing? They have tried to sell it as a platform for game development to others (no actual sales I know of) and pimp every quarter in the financial reports as state of the art and unequaled. If it was what they pimp every quarter in the reports and actually have a team of over 100 developers working on it (from a previous quarterly report talking about dreamworld tech) it should have been a no brainer to integrate.

    At this point it might be better to tackle the issues with the current engine and drop the engine project.

    On that note FC reported that Dreamworld is now fully cross platform with the version used in the Lego game. Can we please get that version if you keep on with engine so we can have MAC and Linux clients. That would be so nice.
    Lheann
    President of When I Grow Up

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  8. #48
    Hmm isn't ilaliya the one who put Macrosun to work full time on the engine? It sounds like he walked into an uncoordinated mess when he took the reigns.

    None of the game directors have delivered to this point.

    Ilaliya comments on which developers he would steal from AO. Oddly enough the two that are now free: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment..._exaaa/cdtgqwu
    Last edited by haxi; Sep 3rd, 2014 at 07:38:37.

  9. #49
    I still think it would be faster, better, cheaper and more sensible to create an AO2 rather than try to update the engines on the current game.
    FC could allow character imports (but no credit imports) and it would be like moving to a new world...

    They could even stagger the character imports:
    example/
    Game launches: 2 character imports:
    Then 1 character import / month / account

    It's gotta be easier than trying to alter things in AOs notoriously complex and convoluted code...


    FC take NOTE!!!
    We don't want a simpler game, if we wanted to play some crap, easy game like WoW, we'd go play WoW!
    AOs complexity is why a lot of us are still here!!!

    Quite frankly, AO as it is is great... Sure it could do with a little reballancing (although, how you're supposed to ballance something like a Doc with a Soldier or Enf or Engi I don't know, they're not MEANT to be equal!) and shiny has its appeals and all those trash items in the DB should be made to actually make something USEFUL (read: update the standard stuff rather than having such a huge gap between the crap and the uber stuff with nothing in between) and maybe even alter the implants so they're a little more competetive against the Symbiants. But over all, if it wasn't a good game to begin with, we wouldn't still be here!
    A new light shines upon Rubi-Ka,A new channel is opened in the grid feed,
    A new Team dedicated to the distribution of knowledge is formed.
    >>> AO-Universe <<<
    For the People, By the People.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Merit View Post
    We do not know they 'bailed', in fact quite suspect booted (Corporate parlance; asked to resign) fits better.
    Let's quit this nonsense and rumor mongering right here.

    Macrosun and Genele were not fired nor were they asked to resign.

    There's no grand conspiracy, just 2 people who now have different goals in life in a different part of the world.
    Last edited by Vhab; Sep 3rd, 2014 at 08:30:24.
    My posts are my own and do not reflect the views of my current nor former employers/clients

    Remco "Vhab" van Oosterhout
    Former Anarchy Online Game Programmer


    Live Chat Support | E-mail Support | Forum Rules | AODevs | Vha.Chat

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    FC take NOTE!!!
    We don't want a simpler game, if we wanted to play some crap, easy game like WoW, we'd go play WoW!
    AOs complexity is why a lot of us are still here!!!
    This!

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    FC take NOTE!!!
    We don't want a simpler game, if we wanted to play some crap, easy game like WoW, we'd go play WoW!
    AOs complexity is why a lot of us are still here!!!
    Just as a note:


    Seriously - comparing the depth and difficulty of AO and WoW in the absolute endgame, WoW is "easy" ? You apparently have absolute no idea of how difficult it is to defeat Garrosh in a heroic mode, compared to this, DB3 is a ****ty piece of cake. Farming Beast is easy. Farming LOTV is easy. Farming everything else is easy - in AO.

    It is true that the way of euqiping and twinking your char, putting in extreme efford in turn for gaining 2-3 points, is a much more complicated thing that "Oh I am lvl 90, now I can right-click everything instant". And yes, it is much more... colored. With Elves and Dwarfes.

    But calling WoW (tbh, in the endgame) "easy" is an absolute untrue statement. Dont get me wrong, I love AO and dont want to advertise or defend WoW. But this always repeated lie of WoWs easiness is wrong, disturbing and annoying.

    But well, lets get back to our topic:

    Welcome Michi,
    hey Vhab.

    *wave*
    Last edited by Dumonde; Sep 3rd, 2014 at 09:23:41.
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    ..:: 220|30|70|e|::.. Rank1
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    ..:: 220|30|70|e|::.. Zidane
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    .. :: Punk :: ..

  13. #53
    Quote Originally Posted by Dumonde View Post
    Just as a note:


    Seriously - comparing the depth and difficulty of AO and WoW in the absolute endgame, WoW is "easy" ? You apparently have absolute no idea of how difficult it is to defeat Garrosh in a heroic mode, compared to this, DB3 is a ****ty piece of cake. Farming Beast is easy. Farming LOTV is easy. Farming everything else is easy - in AO.

    It is true that the way of euqiping and twinking your char, putting in extreme efford in turn for gaining 2-3 points, is a much more complicated thing that "Oh I am lvl 90, now I can right-click everything instant". And yes, it is much more... colored. With Elves and Dwarfes.

    But calling WoW (tbh, in the endgame) "easy" is an absolute untrue statement. Dont get me wrong, I love AO and dont want to advertise or defend WoW. But this always repeated lie of WoWs easiness is wrong, disturbing and annoying.

    But well, lets get back to our topic:

    Welcome Michi,
    hey Vhab.

    *wave*
    I'd agree that WoW SWTOR etc have more complex mechanics in endgame encounters, and require a great deal of team work and situational awareness I would like to see that aspect gradually phased into AO (tank and spank can be fun too though) What I would not like to see if auto skill systems, fixed armor/class types level locked items skills fixed to level increments, etc

    If we could have both the character build and skill depth and more mechanically challenging end game raids, then I would only love AO more.
    Caloss2 LVL 220 melee VANGUARD (semi retired).....Llewlyn 220/30/70 meepmeep.....Boooocal 220../30/70 Soldier.......Knack 220/30/70 Keeper.....Hiesenberg 215/xx/xx NT NERFED Neytiri1 220/30/70 Shade Knacker220/30/70Meat shield
    https://www.youtube.com/user/caloss2 for guides/walkthroughs/letsplays and all your other AO needs
    Quote Originally Posted by Mastablasta
    In my special design documents that I feed to the FC devs, who are my willing slaves.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Vhab View Post
    Macrosun and Genele were not fired nor were they asked to resign.
    confirmed: genele/macro bailed cuz they didn't know what to do next and the rest of GDs were fired
    Genele: ofc I come back to u difs. U used to look as hot as me

  15. #55
    A few suggestions if I may

    As a PvMer I think it would be cool to have titles like the pvp crowd. Possibly with things like aliens. After you get passed Vindicator, you get cool names.

    Also, NSD is the most useful tool for my MP when killing aliens. Those nukers hurt quite a bit, and it's nice to feel useful in a group being able to prevent them all from nuking.

    Lastly, scaling my character is a lot of fun! More scaling and morphing social options would be awesome! Possibly making bracers that work in social just for that purpose

  16. #56
    Hi Michi!

    Congrats!

    You was the first Dev i fined and now you get to be the first GD i fine w00t!
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  17. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    I think the direction is set... it's just a matter of putting in some work to realize the direction set by his predecessors.

    It's pretty much exactly the same situation that put the previous 4 or 5 GD's in the weeds before they even started:

    Mean's built a bunch of stuff that clearly indicated a perk/nano rebalance
    Means leaves.
    Kintai rolls up, finishes the documentation of means' vision (props to kintai for attempting to finish someone else's vision)
    Kintai leaves.
    Lindelu arrives, does something in the engine.
    Lindelu leaves.
    Iliya arrives, does something in the engine.
    Ilya leaves.
    Genele arrives, looks at the heap of crap left by means, half finished by kintaii, coffee spills by lindelu, and neglected/dust covered from ilya and is like: I'm gunna do rebalance Genele style. So she goes on a rampage that basically invalidates 95% of the work that means/kintai did with regards to the rebalance, and lindelu is just like dunno who that is so w/e. But, Genele at least has moved everything from some nebulous cloud of abstract ideas into testlive (huge props, in retrospect, but... didn't get it to live so thumbs down too at same time).
    Genele leaves.
    Michi rolls up with the balance patch in test (which is the furthest it's ever got to date), some 8 years after conception, and now...


    Thinking that AO will go in a 'different' direction is kinda funny way to think about it. All of his predecessors tried to do the "different" direction thing and each of them failed in their own way which has ONLY delayed content, and has really, truly indicated the absolute dismal operational objectives of the Anarchy Online Project.

    Imo, with only one dude working on it, if he's going to make any kind of impact at all, he's got to do a hard-line, value-add assessment, trim out all the bullcrap that's clogging the process, take an objective look at the community responses/feedback, make some executive decisions that will result in the bulk of his time being geared towards getting the highest value-add for effort over the initial period: i.e. smash out solid, well requested changes that already have the majority of coding effort completed, to appease the greatest number of people quickly, then work towards gradually lower bang-for-buck changes which need greater levels of refinement.

    My hope levels are high.
    My expectations are low based on previous GD's... but that doesn't mean that Michi can't do it.

    The best asset michi has - if he has it, is adaptability. If he's able to put his own ego on the shelf (the "I finally get to rule this virtual world and shape it to my whimsical desires" thing) and actually adapt his vision to what those before him have envisioned.... then we might actually see something come out of his tenure well before he reaches "mental capacity eroded due to massive community trolling, time for retirement".

    which actually brings me to a point that I'm sure everyone has been thinking but nobody has voiced yet:
    Why do all these GD's keep bailing on the doorstep of releasing content? what the F?

    How is it possible that they do that? Why doesn't their contracts impose a hefty financial (dis)incentive to leave the company with content half finished? It makes zero sense.

    The obvious thing would be to put people on a base pay, with several monetary/other incentives that provided reasonable impetus for GD's and their teams to produce good quality patches, introduce good, relevant content/balancing, maintain the game in working order, and get bonuses for subscription increases.

    But when GD's bail with big balance patches on the doorstep to implementation... it just shows how colossally backwards their system is. In the world of gaming, it's content change and balancing patches that usually attract the greatest number of fluctuations in subs. But the hidden 'never mentioned' issue is sub bleed. In a game like AO, sub numbers are probably steady, but realistically in game there's so few people around, and most certainly there is bleed: that is, people gradually moving away from the game due to boredom, better offers elsewhere family commitments, university, a wide variety of things can pop up and drag people out of game - and few people will return UNLESS there is a reason to do so.

    What was the last real reason to return?

    Promises don't mean F-all if you can't log in and try it.

    If michi can provide one good reason to return, he'll be the most successful GD AO has seen in 8 years. If he can produce meaningful change, and implement fair-but controversial content, subs WILL fluctuate - but they will fluctuate for the better, because no news is bad news, and any news is good news.
    This is exactly how I feel, big update, devs leave, engine gets fixed more, devs leave, new devs join, new devs get told more on whats going on, they start the burden of all the load of the previous dev that left, overwhelmed, repeat. There are many people i've talked to today, whether it be in WoW/ESO/Tera/Rift/EQ2 they all say "AO was a wonderful game, none will ever come close, it's just a shame that such a good thing has vanished compared to what it was" everytime i mention AO in a chat somewhere you get the random few that spark up that remember it and go, omg! anarchy online! I LOVED THAT GAME!, I try to boast about how fun AO was and the twinking system and how awesome pvp was and how games need an area like "Tarasque"

    While I understand devs find new things in life to pursue, it's like a good solid guild, retraining officers and regearing recruits its something nobody wants to have to do on a fairly common basis.

    I hope Michi decides to stay for many years and see this through to the end, because I really, really, want to come back to AO and enjoy its new found life and not the one that's been going on the last 4-5 years, all's people do anymore to keep themselves happy is farm beast with 2-3 people and pvp in bor to keep themselves entertained, BS's are pretty dead, towers are really alls anyone does anymore and the sector raids are far and few between, but either way, I love anarchy online, I always will. I just want it to thrive and see all it deserves and having its time to reshine where you will pick up 5x the subs and word will spread again about how awesome this game is, please for the community keep this game alive, any of you devs still there, stay there. Your work will pay off so greatly once the job is done and new life is given to the game, I promise you that! AO is a unique game that will never be replicated, and with a new generation for AO it will only get better when it appeals again to everyone and newcomers alike! I will continue to follow the dev process and once the major overhaul comes you can count me back in, just like the other thousands of ex subs waiting, Just when I heard the beta for the engine was coming out I resubbed for like 8 months again about a year ago just to help fund the dev team a little. But I can only stay bored so long, I do wish to return though! I do have respect for all of the ex devs and the devs that are staying there currently, keep up the hard work! stay to see it through! your hard work will more than pay off!

  18. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    Goddam Psikie. Please don't badger him with requests for more stupid, insignificant items like T-shirts.
    I like my t-shirt collection, it's the only real proof any of the Devs/GD's actually played the game...or at least had an in game toon named after them.

    A collection is only a collection until it is complete and becomes a full set. Besides it's not any time consuming affair to log into game and item spawn a t-shirt.
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  19. #59
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Tryptophy's Avatar
    Amagawd I never saw that. Can you imagine having updates with that kind of honesty? Probably not a good business decision but it would feel so good to really know what is in fact wrong (which something obviously was).
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  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    FC take NOTE!!!
    We don't want a simpler game, if we wanted to play some crap, easy game like WoW, we'd go play WoW!
    AOs complexity is why a lot of us are still here!!!
    The thing that makes AO complex isn't the gameplay, as it should. Actually it's rather dull. AO's complexity is mostly superficial, illusional. The game world is huge but mostly deserted, it is saturated with outdated quests, encounters and thousands of unnecessary items that serve absolutely no purpose, not even as shop food. PvM is very straight forward. Most mobs you encounter have no abilities whatsoever, they just whack at you and there's nothing forcing you to pay attention to make it interesting through the entire leveling process. It's either that or powerleveling. Endgame content is only "difficult" on first go, for some, most of us with rpg and mmorpg experience already know not to stand in the fire combined with the very basic "attack whatever does most taunt+damage" AI makes everything really easy.
    WoW on the other hand actually has complex pvm, there's no such thing as spamming assist while watching the tv like people do in AO.

    Another thing that makes AO seemingly complex is the limited engine and game mechanics that are still, 13 years after release, a complete mystery. Nobody knows how attacks vs evades work, nanos vs nano resist etc. People just slap on as much as possible to make the luck factor work in their favor. While on the subject, AO has the biggest luck factor of all MMOs I have played reducing the overall complexity. Overpowered LE procs make it worse. Deflect, if it goes live in it's current state, will make it even more worse. But these issues are bigger in pvp than pvm and pvp in this game is a sad story overall. NW's horrible concept (which is why there was always more forum drama over NW than actual ingame NW), city pvp with it's horrible concept of gank and run to a safe zone and battlestations, the only real pvp zone that offers no incentive to join whatsoever. By incentive I mean incentive for pvpers and not leveling dailies, stomping undergeared/lowbies might be fun for some but it's not what a real pvper wants or expects.

    Regarding WoW and blizzard well... funcom could learn a lot from them. I'm not saying they should copy the game, but it should give them an idea of what a proper fun and balanced mmo is like. Debuffs that completely disable mobs or players for very long periods don't exist there. For example roots last up to 9 seconds, not 10 fricken minutes.

    The only things keeping people in this game is nostalgia, friends and in some cases blind hope that things will somehow radically take a turn for the better.

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