Monthly Development Update -- January 25th 2013

:p what no engine? Seriusly, to my eyes AO always was a good looking game. So no problem here.

Server merge is the most important change and gladly its comming.

NPE probably the second greatest issue, incoming, yaaay! New blood is fun, but being new isnt for most people.

Brings me to system changes aka rebalance. The only AOs strongpoint is gameplay. Why is rebalance away from main priorities. For sure it must be easier than engine, yet in many ways it improves the playability more.

And as for engine? Not a priority for me, someday it will come and after a few days we'll complain about aimed shot again.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

I think it's time to remind some poor-intentioned players that the reason you PAY is to play the game ... to be more clear, the game that exists on the live servers right NOW.

If you pay for any other reason, especially one where you THINK something will happen in the future, that's your own fault.

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Yeah like totally. A company has no responsibility whatsoever to give their customers reasonable expectations. They can totally tell you anything to string you along and it's your fault if you're stupid enough to beleive it!

Personally I wasn't disappointed by this. I ran out of disappointed long time ago.

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Originally Posted by Noobius76

Yeah like totally. A company has no responsibility whatsoever to give their customers reasonable expectations.

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The only expectation is that when you pay for an account, you can play AO on that account. Read the EULA if you want the long version of that. Giving AO money guarantees nothing beyond that.

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Originally Posted by Psikie

Not too bad. Timeline seems to be updated. From what I gather...

Merge within 60 days after a few more soft patches on test.

NPE probably late summer testserver, along with partial rebalance. Which will probably get about 4-6 patches to get it right. Those 2 seem to be linked logistically.

Engine will be delayed until after rebalance sometime from what i'm understanding. Most likely from reverse engineering the graphics to work on lower video settings?

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You're talking out of the wrong orifice.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

The only expectation is that when you pay for an account, you can play AO on that account. Read the EULA if you want the long version of that. Giving AO money guarantees nothing beyond that.

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And guaranteeing nothing beyond that gets them no money, which makes your point completely semantic.

That's just nonsense. People pay for access to the game to play it. That gives AO money. As long as people like the game enough to pay for it to play it, AO will give FC money. If people are just giving AO money by paying for accounts they don't play, for whatever reason, that's not the fault of FC. It's a fallacy that some promise of future service entices people that aren't interested in the current service to pay a company. Think about what you are saying. Unless you are an eccentric investor or a huge fan with gobs of cash, you simply don't 'fund' a development through paying for accounts you don't use.

Stop arguing. If your going to waste words target the real problem. Funcom.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

The only expectation is that when you pay for an account, you can play AO on that account. Read the EULA if you want the long version of that. Giving AO money guarantees nothing beyond that.

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That is some really poor reasoning. Let's say you re-sub for a year. A FunCom employee sees your Facebook (or whatever) profile the next day and he doesn't like the way you look on your profile photo. So, he decides to ban you. That's also fine, EULA says that FunCom can ban any account for any reason. He doesn't like your face.

What you might have meant is: it is completely legal for FunCom not to release the new engine or any other thing that we anticipated. Well, there is a difference between "illegal" and "wrong"...

It's poor reasoning why? It's true. I continually hear that people are upset that they pay for the game and FC isn't delivering ....

What is it that you pay for that they aren't delivering? It's very clear in EULA what value you get for your money. This isn't some pact between you and FC that you solidify with a financial transaction that they will deliver on developments at a specific time. The whole idea that FC 'owes' players something more than game access because we pay is just an over reactive sense of entitlement. There isn't some sense of morality here. The whole premise that it's 'wrong' for FC to not deliver whatever whenever simply because we pay for game access is comical.

Delays piss you off? Me too. but I don't get all in their face with 'I quit' threats and moaning. Is it in their best interests to deliver these things? yes of course. I think they know that. They do what they can under their circumstances. Most people posting here are obviously unaware there is a real business underlying their hobby. These things should have little or no impact to your decision to play the game. If you like the game and want to play it, pay up. If the game bores you, don't sub. It's simple. The threats are just childish and sadly, most people here aren't children.

I somewhat agree with you (well, mostly, to be honest), but I got the feeling that you were saying that FunCom's promises shouldn't affect our subscription... Yes, I (mostly) like the game as it is, but you can't ignore hearing promises over and over again and then getting nothing... it's really... well, wrong. It's not something a company that is involved in such a high-competitive industry should do.

I love the game, and I'd love to see it get better. However, so far we only have the game. The "getting better" part is arriving at less than 10% of the announced speed. And that's the thing that bugs me (and, I believe, most other players).

Edit: Just read the edited post... Well, I for one wasn't among those who ragequit, but I can understand that many players felt betrayed by FC promises and do not see any future for AO. I am still optimistic, but I can't really say who's right and who's wrong here... Let's just say that I'm... well, "agnostic" about AO and it's future... but I do have faith in it. :p

Edit 2: The point I'm trying to make is that no-one here threatened FC with legal action. No-one said they didn't fulfill their end of the contract. Invoking EULA on matters such as these is pointless. FC simply has many unsatisfied customers which do not want to continue using their services.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

That's just nonsense. People pay for access to the game to play it. That gives AO money. As long as people like the game enough to pay for it to play it, AO will give FC money. If people are just giving AO money by paying for accounts they don't play, for whatever reason, that's not the fault of FC. It's a fallacy that some promise of future service entices people that aren't interested in the current service to pay a company. Think about what you are saying. Unless you are an eccentric investor or a huge fan with gobs of cash, you simply don't 'fund' a development through paying for accounts you don't use.

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What. That isn't even remotely related to what I wrote. You need to clean the gunk out of your eyes and try reading my post again.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

What is it that you pay for that they aren't delivering? It's very clear in EULA what value you get for your money.

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See the issue here is very very few people actually read the eula.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

Delays piss you off? Me too. but I don't get all in their face with 'I quit' threats and moaning.

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Neither does anybody else though.

They just quit.

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Originally Posted by BytEfLUSh2

Edit 2: The point I'm trying to make is that no-one here threatened FC with legal action. No-one said they didn't fulfill their end of the contract. Invoking EULA on matters such as these is pointless. FC simply has many unsatisfied customers which do not want to continue using their services.

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I get what you say. Another problem is that FC has many unsatisfied customers that CONTINUE to use their service. These people complain about how they have been 'fooled by FC into paying for a game they don't deliver on'. It's more like those people are just ignorant about what paying for the game provides them as a service. I'm not really referring to threats of legal action. That goes beyond silly.

{removed}

I'll answer that one for myself, not a lot...
I don't play any other games anymore, AO has been my single game since Microsoft shut down the Mechwarrier Mercenaries servers.
No matter what, I'd be sorry to see Anarchy go... :(

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Originally Posted by Snakebite

I'll answer that one for myself, not a lot...
I don't play any other games anymore, AO has been my single game since Microsoft shut down the Mechwarrier Mercenaries servers.
No matter what, I'd be sorry to see Anarchy go... :(

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See you on MW Online when it goes live? Better than continuing to play Call of Banality: Modern Borefare until the next crappy title.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

I get what you say. Another problem is that FC has many unsatisfied customers that CONTINUE to use their service. These people complain about how they have been 'fooled by FC into paying for a game they don't deliver on'. It's more like those people are just ignorant about what paying for the game provides them as a service. I'm not really referring to threats of legal action. That goes beyond silly.

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Well, it's not all black and white. In a corporate world, you cannot divide customers by simply saying: "those people pay, they are happy" and "those people don't pay, they aren't happy". There are too many shades of gray in between.

However, let's simplify it.

People who do not pay to play the game are less likely to cause an uproar. They like the game and they play it as long as it's there. If it dies off, there is no (immediate, monetary) harm done. In no way I'm saying they don't like the game as much as those who pay to play; my guess is - they're just casual players trying something new. And in some cases (Picsel) - hanging onto the free-to-play program as hard as possible.

People who do pay to play have invested time and money into their characters. Fighting over Tara, Pande and all the other things some may take for granted. This is a virtual world, but it was paid for with very real "earthly" currencies.

One of the traits of MMORPGs is immersion. The better it gets, the harder it is to leave the world. The amount of uproar of even the slightest possibility of the death of AO means that players truly enjoy the game. They might not consider them to be role-players, but we are immersed so deep that the death of our characters (even a slow one, as "predicted") would hurt us a lot.

Players don't complain about FC and use their sevice because they have nothing else to do... Players are trying to keep this godforsaken thing alive.

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Originally Posted by Obtena

I get what you say. Another problem is that FC has many unsatisfied customers that CONTINUE to use their service. These people complain about how they have been 'fooled by FC into paying for a game they don't deliver on'. It's more like those people are just ignorant about what paying for the game provides them as a service. I'm not really referring to threats of legal action. That goes beyond silly.

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Sorry, my last reply quickly turned into a rant. However, there are some things known as "fraudulent marketing". Many expectations are way overdue, but I'm not going there... :)

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Originally Posted by Dagget

Seems odd to me to move from cheaper Canada to North Carolina - I would have expected the reverse migration....

With the AO codebase being what it is, I suspect Macrosun, at the least, has great job security.

Funcom is also closing it's Bejing studio. So both of the 'cheaper' locations seem to be going away.

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Not anymore, the US cost less now, the recession in the US caused the salaries to go down.

More and more manufacturers are closing in Canada to move to the south of the US.

Ugh...