Monthly Development Update - Oct 1st 2012

[Mastablasta]

Sounds pretty good.

This update will come this week ? Breed and side changes will come live this week ? Oo

Seems to be the plan :O

[Dumonde]

Seems to be the plan :O

Weeee... Lets trade breeds Masta. I´ll take your Trox and you´ll get my Opifex NT

[Mastablasta]

No, I am going to stay trox changing breed after almost 9 years seems odd.

[Fhinn]

Aha, I forgot about post 200 ...

It still might be nice to be able to change back to Neutral also

Kinnik

I believe this is already in the works...

I also have an update about the side change items:
I will look in to making a neutral application form.

[Mastablasta]

Aha, I forgot about post 200 ...

It still might be nice to be able to change back to Neutral also

Kinnik

The ones you buy also mess with your faction so you don't have to spend time "un-factioning" yourself.

[Kahava]

I'm going to start doing letters the first Monday of each month, which will be a wrap-up of the previous month with an eye towards the future. So the next one will be November 5th.

Nice info, thanks.

But just a thought..
Not to be a Debbie Downer but given Mr Murphy and his Law(s) you've just set yourself up for a huge can of trouble the first time something takes up your time and delays the update by even a day.
History shows and all that..
Ah well, as long as you're prepared you'll do fine.

[lyledesol]

@Ilaliya

first


EDIT:
i noticed you have neither confirmed nor denied the coming of the more... controversial items you were planning on releasing into the itemshop later this week. comments?

Could we get an answer regarding the Combat Can items please.. It's a highly controversial item to be bringing in.. The discussion about it is here (So far there's been no feedback from FC about them other than the original notification and the patch is this week.)

[Ophiuchus]

Just a thought - last I checked, Breed Perks are being changed in the Perk rebalance part of the systems change. Does that or does that not count under 'rebalancing of breeds'?

[Literary]

AO on Steam will be great for AO. The AO launcher needs to have a "use steam" tick box
to give you the option of using it or not.

I have Steam, like it a lot but if any game I have doesn't require it, I don't use it.
It's one less thing to cause lag or crashes.

AO on Steam will be great but the first Week it gets featured on the Steam Front Page
your servers will crash repeatedly from the overload.

This past Feb. the mmo Fallen Earth had its Steam Launch. FE was 2.4 yrs old at that point and
had been available on Steam the previous 4 weeks. The devs thought they were prepared for the
front page debut-- they weren't. Can't imagine how many new players gave up in disgust.

AO OOC will also have an overwhelming (200+ comments every minute)
amount of newbie questions like "HEY HOW DO I OPEN MY INVENTORY?" (<-my fav) ,
"Why aren't achievements working?", "How do I switch weapons" etc.
and ofc trolls but we have bigger trolls.

I'm really looking forward to all the new players.

[Snakebite]

AO on Steam will be great for AO. The AO launcher needs to have a "use steam" tick box
to give you the option of using it or not.

I have Steam, like it a lot but if any game I have doesn't require it, I don't use it.
It's one less thing to cause lag or crashes.

AO on Steam will be great but the first Week it gets featured on the Steam Front Page
your servers will crash repeatedly from the overload.

This past Feb. the mmo Fallen Earth had its Steam Launch. FE was 2.4 yrs old at that point and
had been available on Steam the previous 4 weeks. The devs thought they were prepared for the
front page debut-- they weren't. Can't imagine how many new players gave up in disgust.

AO OOC will also have an overwhelming (200+ comments every minute)
amount of newbie questions like "HEY HOW DO I OPEN MY INVENTORY?" (<-my fav) ,
"Why aren't achievements working?", "How do I switch weapons" etc.
and ofc trolls but we have bigger trolls.

I'm really looking forward to all the new players.

I agree with these sentiments, I don't use steam and I have no interest in using steam... I hope we're not going to be forced to install anything new!!!

[Mastablasta]

Steam will just launch the launcher, and then that'll download the game.. or maybe they'll let you download the game through steam and then it'll start the launcher. So steam will only work with AO if you launch it through it..else the steam overlay will ignore it.

[Ilaliya]

I agree with these sentiments, I don't use steam and I have no interest in using steam... I hope we're not going to be forced to install anything new!!!

Steam is just another venue for digital distribution. You will still be able to download and play the game as normal, though the funcom hosted sites.

[Demoder]

Steam is just another venue for digital distribution. You will still be able to download and play the game as normal, though the funcom hosted sites.

Makes sense. +2 internets for more exposure, though. I tend to go "it's not on steam? Can't be bothered.." when people ask me to try new games; Hopefully this will make more lazy people check it out.

[Mastablasta]

Steam is just another venue for digital distribution. You will still be able to download and play the game as normal, though the funcom hosted sites.

What Literary said is a valid concern though if 1000 new people start the game at the same time, what will happen? The new starting area is not instanced, from what I understand, so... we'll see the dreaded quest queue, where people line up to kill a specific NPC on spawn, or whatnot.
Have you taken any steps to avoid this?

[Vhab]

The new starting area is not instanced, from what I understand,

It's instanced.

[Mastablasta]

It's instanced.

So you're making a new zone inside ICC?

[Ilaliya]

So you're making a new zone inside ICC?

Well, there's a shuttle which is a quick solo tutorial (takes place inside the shuttle), and then a whole playfield which is more of an advanced tutorial but this is the "meat" of the startup experience where you learn about your profession, the factions, and so forth. And then a re-done ICC hub.

[Vhab]

So you're making a new zone inside ICC?

Yes, there's a new zone within Andromeda which will be right next to ICC.
It'll exit into the non-instanced ICC hub area.

That new zone is the 'advanced tutorial' area Ilaliya described in the post above.

[Mastablasta]

So it will be sort of like Tir arena, with a zoned area that you can look into from the outside? Or will it be hidden away?

[Vhab]

You can see it, but obviously can't see the players inside.