An honest question back at the producer: once you get a good number of meaningful answers to this question, will you do anything about it?
Ghosts of Rimor
Gorastopr 220 MA Doctor :: No pew pew. Thwack thwack.
Goratinkr TL5 OT Hurler Factotum Engineer :: Bringin' the thunder since 2008.
Scrubup 100 Bow Doctor :: Will she ever get out of perk reset? Stay tuned!
Ghosts of Atlantean
Unda TL7 MA Engineer :: Crying for more crit.
Measles LVL1 Pistol Doctor :: It takes 2 stims to self the Expertises.
Idiots are just like slinkies. It makes you smile when you push them down a flight of stairs.
[Zacyx]: i will perma bann u from MR
And that would help how? I mean sure, it might please 3 out of the 10 players left in AO.
But in the bigger picture it might be a bad move. For a lot more people the engine is more important than dealing with poorly balanced classed as well as others being willing to close their eyes to class balance for the sake of the engine and a new player experience that could increase AO's player retention.
She asked for an answer that the community wouldn't consider to be a "lie", "false promise" or "vaporware".
Those are all things the community has complained about for years now that we would consider to be long-awaited fixes. Fix that and I might start to believe a word the dev team says again.
It's a good question. I'll have to see what the answers are. For example, considering Kopecz 's post, I'm not sure exactly how releasing internal deadlines is going to help. According to some of the feedback, nobody is going to believe any dates we release until we hit them (or don't), and it seems like until then it would just be troll bait. And there's nothing I can really do about that considering I joined the project 7 months ago. I have no particular desire to defend a past I wasn't here for, but it is what it is.
I think the engine video was a fairly good example of where we were at the time, which is why I wasn't fussed about the bugs (headless shadows, popping rocks, etc)... because the new engine in fact has bugs. I get that people in the community and specifically on these forums think the video was a trick, or it's all faked somehow. How much of that sentiment is genuine, and how much is trolling, I can't really say. But like... just understand that for the future it doesn't exactly justify spending time making community oriented "this is where we are" videos. Fortunately the most recent engine video was done for external PR anyway, and that was pretty successful.
But the fact is we have... 5 years worth of promised features we're trying to get out. It's fairly unfortunate it ended up this way, but that's the job we have ahead of us and it involves making tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. I'd like to communicate those decisions on the forums to the community & give some insights into our progress, but only if I feel in the specific cases it would actually be helpful to the situation.
Last edited by Ilaliya; Jul 9th, 2012 at 20:10:06.
I was right!
Idiots are just like slinkies. It makes you smile when you push them down a flight of stairs.
[Zacyx]: i will perma bann u from MR
Fix mongo
Fix pets
WTB /pet hunt back
hmmm Cookies
Also fix taunts plz.
Lainbr - 220/30/70 Meta-Physicist Nanomage - E / Spirals - 220/30/70 Enforcer Solitus - E / Kokusho - 201/22/55 Fixer Nanomage - Equip Soon ;o
Traderbr - 180/0/0 Trader Nanomage - / Kaoru - 60/0/0 Meta-Physicist Nanomage - totw semitwink
Proud veteran of Spartans
To devs: You failed redesigning MPs as NTs with pets. I want my debuffer back.
Dreamer: Basically - I wish THIS much effort was put in to ALL profs rebalance docs.
Kintaii: Genele is more hardcore than you, your guildmates, and anyone else you've ever played with
Anarrina: Trust me, I'm not that scary in real life.
I'd realy like to see some consistency in the reasoning behind major game changes.
The most recent being "we're taking away auto attack and pet hunt becauss we badly designed 2 small areas in the game, rather than fix them to prevent unatended gameplay, we hit everyone with a hammer"
I dont agree with the dev teams method of *fixing* this problem but i was not suprised to see the stupid rout taken first.
What realy annoyed me about that whole thing is that the REALY big, blatantly obvious form of unatended gameplay was left untouched.
1 NT and 5 afk team members is FINE but 2 guys using pet hunt to take advantage of a dev created problem isnt?
Idiots are just like slinkies. It makes you smile when you push them down a flight of stairs.
[Zacyx]: i will perma bann u from MR
unfortunately sploit discussions are not allowed on the forums, but there are plenty of ways to afk level with /pet hunt.
It's no longer in game and no longer an explooit...post away!
Idiots are just like slinkies. It makes you smile when you push them down a flight of stairs.
[Zacyx]: i will perma bann u from MR
The video had been once again promised years ago by Means, so once it's delivered you kinda have high expectations.
About the video itself, i felt it was overly produced, to the point you can't know if it's the engine or the guy goin mad on photoshop/aftereffect postprocesses. The editing was crap and half the vid was wasted with FC logo and useless FX editing & flashes. Turns out it was a little commercial vid with not much in it, but i guess if it was for PR it was fine. Because of the 1st half of the video overused post process FX (which clearly ain't part of the engine), how can we know if the 2nd half is honest ? Beside, if it has to take you 2 years+ to do 1 minute video, just stop. My roomate could do that in a day.
I personnally was expecting somefin a lot longer, w/o so much editing crap. Something more honest. Show us dem bugs. Show us dem awesome godray and lightnings. Just turn on FRAPS, record, and post the material.
Last edited by Djiax; Jul 9th, 2012 at 20:51:25.
Previous GDs have all said this paragraph, worded differently and each one has left their 'legacy' mark on the game, sometimes good, mostly bad.
What consistently baffles me about your 5 years of promised features is that we heard about fantastic new and exciting features that the game desperately needed, we all got hyped and began theorycrafting around these changes, because that is the type of community we are and then...
Nothing. Not a damn peep for years.
"HEY GUYS WERE GOING TO FIX PARRY AND RIPOSTE! YES! WOO YOU CAN PLUCK BULLETS OUT OF THE AIR LIKE IN THE MATRIX WOW!"
What was the last thing we heard about this change? Hell, I can't actually even remember.
"WERE GOING TO MAKE THE GAME RUN IN DX9 ITLL LOOK GREAT YEAH!"
Nearly 6 years later. We have some screenshots and a 1 min vid, 30s of which is taken up by Sony Vegas transitions.
"OK, NOW WE ARE GOING TO REDESIGN EACH PROF FROM THE GROUND UP! BALANCE WILL FINALLY COME TO THE GAME WOO!"
Great. You released spreadsheets for each profession detailing the 'new' nanos but you want to do it all at once instead of giving the profs that NEED the help it as soon as possible. E.G: MP Teaming viability, NT PvP Nukes etc
You mention in your post about being unable to tell if people are trolling when they address certain aspects of the way FC runs this game. Nobody is trolling. The remaining playerbase of Anarchy Online is a bitter and cynical group, it's what happens when you mess people around for over 5 years straight, promising and promising and never actually delivering.
I say 'You', but I address FunCom as a whole. Fair enough, you have come to the team and are already being blamed for the mistakes of your predecessors but we have to point fingers at someone because most of the community has stuck by this game through so much and has devoted so much time to it and all we see is it going full pelt down the road with a sign marked "BRIDGE OUT".
Sure, not every community knows whats best for the game they play, but I IMPLORE you to call a meeting at the office, sit down and go through most of the suggestions listed in the GS forum. Why? Because in that forum you will find some very well thought out and very well formatted ideas that might just save this sinking ship. Main point in case, the damned 'Bugs everyone knows about but have never been fixed' thread.
That shouldn't be too hard considering it's obvious there is far too many 'idea people' within the AO team and not enough 'doing' people. If this wasn't the case, we would have had the engine 2 years ago when all the issues with it were discovered and we would likely be well into the beta testing of the rebalance.
This part is now a personal plea to you Ilaliya. Goto you higher ups and tell them, this game needs more funding, it needs more developers and needs taking in a straight direction and it needs doing NOW. Your predecessors have left you with a very small spoon and a very large heap of sh*t to move, make your mark on the game by saving it, not by drilling more holes into the hull. If they tell you 'Our main focus is TSW', tell them that AO is and always has been their flagship game. You can ask almost anyone who was around in the early EQ/AO/DAoC days who is now usually in their mid to late 20s "Remember Anarchy Online?" and they'll chuckle and say "Yeah, wasn't that FunComs Sci-fi game? It looked pretty good but I never tried it".
Those are the people you are going to be marketing to, not the WoW crowd and most certainly not an ex-playerbase who left because of a lack of direction from the dev team.
Save the game before it is too late. Please.
Pricecuts - 220 Trader
Feel free to contact me via PM or in-game.
Raggy - 220 Bureaucrat || Raggeh - 220 Fixer | Back as 'Raggys' - Shade for the time being. | Nuclei - 217 Nanotechnician || Nanobiology - 214 Doctor
Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.
You hit Tarasque with nanobots for 18280 points of melee damage.
First shade with Blades of Boltar
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How much is enough?
Member of Halinallet!
Fair question. As work gets completed in sections, it would be nice to see real screen shots of the areas, people, places, items, effects, etc. Someone has to look at and approve the work, share a few with us. Start a web page and as things are finished and checked off your list, add a screen shot. No words needed, just drop a screenie in a public folder so it shows up.
Ilaliya, you get to see all the daily, weekly, and monthly progress, we don't. We have only seen a 1 minute video. Our views of the project are much different. The track record of your predecessors does not help. We are frustrated, we hear progress is being made but we don't "see" the progress. Like PvP and fishing stories, if you don't have a pic, it didn't happen. Right now, there is a definite lack of pictures.
Thor Mastablasta Hammersmith - Level 220, AI 30, LE 70 Clan Atrox Nano Technician - Setup
The Red Brotherhood
I'm a Nano-Technician, don't ever expect me to fight unbuffed, alone or fair.
Means: about f'ing time :P
Satenia: heresy <3
Znore: Mastablasta <3
Kinkstaah: I have agro from many mobs ;(
Madarab: we are aoe class, we are supose to use pistols
Marxgorm: the NT toolset does not fit into my raiding tactics