Friday with Means - March 13th, 2009

[Berinda]

Hear that Funcom, you don't want player input, the all mighty Berinda "I speak for everyone" said so.

No sparky, that's not what I said. What I said was Funcom, as a business, for a variety of reasons, should not want models and textures and stuff delivered unto them by people who want them used ingame. Nowhere did I say it would be unhealthy or unwise of Funcom to have a direct, open dialog with players like they do now.

Your main problem is you manufacture what you want people to have said, instead of actually paying attention to them.

[TheCatlady]

Couple of notes on graphics cards:

WoW runs smooth on any old PCI video card, as well as anything made this century with motherboard graphics, expect the Dev's to be aiming for AO to run smooth on the same hardware.

Careful with WoW and current requirements - a friend of mine (actually 2) play that, and he was getting major trouble with an older CPU (AMD 2,2 something) and a Gforce 7xxx whatever gfx card, AGP.
Have to ask him yet if he notices any difference since he got himself a Dual Core and a PCIe card now, not sure which one though. Wonder what his framerate is now.

As for AO, I swapped from AMD Athlon 1700 to a 3500+ and of course I notice a diff; much better gfx card too, plus change from AGP to PCIe. I hope that's enough to run the new engine as good as possible, since I can't afford a new machine so soon.
AO was always known for their "requirement-friendly" game, I hope it keeps that way in the future.

/pray
Thay

[Tyfowler]

I really wish something could be done with the hair :/

[Ayria]

Your main problem is you manufacture what you want people to have said, instead of actually paying attention to them.

I ain't gona bother with a big post. You're a moron, clearly any big response won't get past your thick skull.

Suffice to say that you have no authority to claim what Funcom can and cannot do. If they want to accept models and textures for use in game then they can do so; regardless of what you want.

There is no legal reason why they can't, things like Open Source deal with all that. The issue of balance or exploits that you were crying about, not an issue. Funcom can change anything they want or toss anything they want. That idea has a twist to it that makes things imbalanced.... it can be changed you know.

It's not like things submitted would be unmodifiable. If I were to write out a quest in C(++ or Visual Basic or whatever) and submit it to Funcom with the monsters and rewards favouring Agents to get an easy time of it and a big reward.. do you really think Funcom is dumb enough to leave it as is and not balance it themselves?

[Berinda]

I ain't gona bother with a big post. You're a moron, clearly any big response won't get past your thick skull.

I'm the one of us that understands words used in context and I'm the moron?

People don't stop arguing with you because you're some master debater. They stop arguing with you because you use your admittedly powerful imagination to manufacture a point that was never made then you argue the counter-point. Then you continue to debate yourself, and the person who was originally talking to you is left in disbelief as they watch you talk to yourself.

[meatybtz]

Masta, dont get me started on those piles of crap that intel is selling off as functonal GPUs!

Hell they cant even support OGL in the most basic sense on some versions. Someone needs to find a way to eliminate intel from the integrated GFX market. Most of the Nvidia integrated solutions work out well enough for casual folks and the driver support is damn better than intels. Esp. with intels policy of no support / driver lockout of OEM mainboards with their GPU.


As for using PCI/AGP bus in reference to cards was just making it more commonly understandable level. You can .. or rather could, get an NVIDIA 6xxx series card with 768MB ram on a PCI bus configured card. However the actually useabillity of said device is questionable. Most of the time if you got a PCI card its an ancient relic.. if you have at least a system with an AGP slot if your card isnt up to snuff for the new engine you can aquire a replacement. If you have an Intel Integrated GPU.. may god have mercy on your soul... unless your lucky enough to have an AGP/PCIe Expansion slot available. Then your soul can be saved.

As for player generated content I think shadowgod said it most clearly and well as well as Berinda.
You need to understand that unless you have access to funcoms internal tools you wont be able to give them a "usable" model. They will have to run it through the ringer, correct the many ametureish mistakes that can be show stoppers for something that will be animated vs something that is static. Texture problems, version problems... all that means time and money that would be better spent doing the work internally. On top of that they would be bombarded with crap... not to say you guys dont make nice work. I really like some of what I have seen. Its good. Definte thumbs up. But then we transfer into legal land. The laws that deal with IP and how that translates internationally. It gets messy.. very messy very very fast. Why do you think that Europe and the rest of the world was left out of the competitions... because they hate you? Hell no.. any buisness in its right mind wants to grow its market. But they were restricted by the cost/benefit reasons of international law that can muddle up something really badly like a contest for a free give away.. Tax Laws.. and more can just end it in one nightmare for the companies involved so in the end its better to just go the easy way.

Same holds true here for the art. I could just picture the poor sap that would have to cull through the submissions.. 9.99x1^45 meshes of penises.. or meshes with penises cleverly hidden in some way so that the player could laugh about having a penis model in game and brag on the internet. Or people trying to give away modified comercial meshes whose license holders might be pissed seeing their work hiijacked and given to some other comercial interest. Or people using non-comercial licenses of aps to make meshes for funcom which is a legal quagmire. How many of the people on here actually own their software. I am 100% legit, and it cost me real money. I could go on and on and on about all the pitfalls that make community content not paletable for MMOs. They can be small or large and as players I see a blatent lack fo caring for them and the effect they can have on a company. Maybe you should try and run a company in todays world. Its a landmine. But as a player you dont have to care. But they do and care alot.

[Ayria]

I'm the one of us that understands words used in context and I'm the moron? Go crawl back into your hole.

Aww no more arguments about how Funcom can't accept third party submissions? Pity. And here you were sounding so regal on your soapbox speaking for Funcom and everything.

Edit: @ meatybtz

"I could go on and on and on about all the pitfalls that make community content not paletable for MMOs"

Try looking at SecondLife, the game with on average 50 to 60 thousand(!) people on at any given time and say that again. Player/community content is very much palatable for MMOs.

[Berinda]

Aww no more arguments about how Funcom can't accept third party submissions? Pity. And here you were sounding so regal on your soapbox speaking for Funcom and everything.

Meatybtz summed up the points pretty well. Accepting third party work is a legal nightmare.

I wasn't speaking for Funcom - it's just yet another thing that never happened and yet you're arguing it.

But keep it up. You sound regal repeating "thick skull" and "moron" because you have to resort to putting words in people's mouths because you can't comprehend what you read.

[Ayria]

I wasn't speaking for Funcom - it's just yet another thing that never happened and yet you're arguing it.

You can twist the analogy anyway you want - Funcom doesn't want third party submissions for a myriad of legal, technical and resource reasons. End of story.

Right

[Berinda]

Right

Yes, right. You need to learn how to not take every word in a sentence at it's most literal meaning if you ever hope to effectively have a conversation.

[Ayria]

Yes, right. You need to learn how to not take every word in a sentence at it's most literal meaning if you ever hope to effectively have a conversation.

And you need to stop trying to act as if you had some subtle meaning to what you were saying cause you got caught in a bull**** lie.

To me here, having passed more then the second grade, using the words "doesn't want" is a statement of action.

I don't want to go to the store.
He doesn't want to drive all the way to his parents.
They don't want to hear it again.

When used to discuss others (as the last two examples are) it is speaking of them and for them.

At least, in what we call proper English. It seems wherever you live the statement of "doesn't want" means "might not want" or something similar.

[Quilluck]

Try looking at SecondLife, the game with on average 50 to 60 thousand(!) people on at any given time and say that again. Player/community content is very much palatable for MMOs.

Ew, let's not turn our models into SecondLife furries plx

[Ayria]

Ew, let's not turn our models into SecondLife furries plx

Stereotypes are hardly a good judge of what's possible. I myself am totally human in SL, most of the population is from what I've seen. But then I don't go looking for furries or pr0n. I never got greeted by a flying dick, I've seen the odd vulgar texture but hardly all of them are such.

I have however seen a lot of things that people put great work and detail into; most recently an Asian themed air-ship that is simply stunning at how detailed and amazing it is.

I'm not trying to promote SecondLife as perfect, but a game with 50/60 thousand customers online daily, not in total like AO; has to be doing something right. And seeing as the entire game is player created content...

[Berinda]

And you need to stop trying to act as if you had some subtle meaning to what you were saying cause you got caught in a bull**** lie.

I'm not caught in a bull**** lie. And I'm certainly not arguing my use of "does not" - you're the one who made up that argument.

In understanding proper English, reading comprehension is necessary, and you lack it.

If it makes you feel better, I might consider changing my sentence to read, "Any company in Funcom's position does not want." But since you're the only one who fails to understand how the language works, I can't be bothered.

[Ayria]

Riight.

As if the obvious retreating tactic isn't... obvious. All trolls back off and try to claim something else when they get caught in a lie. Why would you, or anyone else, ever admit that they were trying to speak for Funcom when they get called on it. Much easier to attack the person making the accusation.

Of course you don't seem to get it yet. You keep wording it that way. "Any company in Funcom's position does not want." You say I don't have reading comprehension and yet you still are using sentences that talk in absolutes. Funcom or any other company it doesn't matter, if you don't work for them you can't claim one way or the other what they do or do not want.

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Berinda]

Riight.

As if the obvious retreating tactic isn't... obvious. All trolls back off and try to claim something else when they get caught in a lie. Why would you, or anyone else, ever admit that they were trying to speak for Funcom when they get called on it. Much easier to attack the person making the accusation.

I never claimed to be speaking for Funcom. You claimed that I was. You also made up the argument that I retreated from the use of "does not." Not only are you beating a dead horse, but the horse is also imaginary.

I also like how everyone who disagrees with you is a troll, when you're the one who purposely misrepresents what is said to you in order to deflect conversations from points you can't defend by creating points that weren't being discussed in the first place.

Of course you don't seem to get it yet. You keep wording it that way. "Any company in Funcom's position does not want." You say I don't have reading comprehension and yet you still are using sentences that talk in absolutes.

Any international company in Funcom's situation absolutely does not want the legal hassle of user-made submissions. It's a sentence that uses absolutes because there is no other way to word it. You keep comparing the situation to Second Life, which from it's inception was designed to be a user-content driven free-for-all.

Let's take Meatybtz example of someone yanking a model from some game/website. If this person then used it to generate content they charged for in Second Life, anyone with a claim to the original can go after the thief. The content is not released by Second Life, so therefore any liability they have is extremely limited. In this way Second Life works much like the internet at large - it's merely a place for entities (individuals and companies) to place their content.

Now, let's take this same thief, and they instead submit the model to FC. FC would then need to check as many bargain bin videogames as they can get their hands on and the myriad of 3D model websites out there to ensure this model wasn't lifted from someone else's commercial or private endeavors - no mean feat, and it would probably take just as much time as making a model themselves.

And because this process of checking to make sure what you received is legitimate is insanely difficult, FC doesn't check some really obscure location the source material came from, and the resource then makes it into AO - released by Funcom with Funcom's name on it. FC is now using somone else's model without permission. More importantly, they are charging us to use the model they are using without permission, and that's when a lot of nasty legal stuff happens. It's not Joe Blow using Generic Sci-Fi Assault Rifle #3 as part of his minigame in Second Life, it's major MMO company Funcom illegally selling resources that are not theirs to sell as part of their flagship product. And then, the lawsuits start, and the courts aren't going to let them off the hook because it's all Joe Blow's fault, because he is not the entity that released the product.

This is just one example of why no company in their right mind wants user-made resources in their game that is not designed for user-made resources.

[Wrangeline]

@FC

If you guys are toying around with character models these days, could you please fix something that has been bugging me for years, while you're at it?

Wrangeline is a female solitus and when she stands still, her feet aren't actually rooted to the ground in any way. Her whole body, including the feet, are swaying from side to side, like she's suspended by wires 1 inch off the ground.

The more I look at it, the more annoying it becomes. This does probably not annoy most people, I'm sure, but I noticed it years ago and since then I have been unable to "un-notice" it

Just log on a character and look at it while standing still. Once you notice it, it should get more and more annoying until your head explodes and you end up in an asylum, I'm sure. Or maybe that's just me

[Hacre]

@FC

If you guys are toying around with character models these days, could you please fix something that has been bugging me for years, while you're at it?

Wrangeline is a female solitus and when she stands still, her feet aren't actually rooted to the ground in any way. Her whole body, including the feet, are swaying from side to side, like she's suspended by wires 1 inch off the ground.

The more I look at it, the more annoying it becomes. This does probably not annoy most people, I'm sure, but I noticed it years ago and since then I have been unable to "un-notice" it

Just log on a character and look at it while standing still. Once you notice it, it should get more and more annoying until your head explodes and you end up in an asylum, I'm sure. Or maybe that's just me

I know exactly what you mean. There's a reason my last rolled toon is male

[Ayria]

Stuff

You clearly know nothing of how SecondLife and Linden Labs works. Nor do you seem to understand that nothing Funcom does is original anymore. Did they ask permissions from the original person who conceptualized Social Tab? And not the guy who suggested it on the forum, other games have had it previously. Did they ask them all for permission?

I myself recently got accused of stealing someone's work, a accusation I quickly quelled with undeniable proof to the contrary. But the items are similar, no doubt, they do similar things; some functions are the same. But I have proof beyond any doubt that I wrote the scripts from scratch and stole nothing from them. And even if I didn't, LL would just say tough like to the 'victim' and carry on. If someone comes up to Funcom and says "you stole this" how do they prove it? They can't see Funcom's code, there's no "original creator" stamp on textures or models or lines of code.

There is no proof that anyone can get to say that something was stolen. And, as in my case, it can simply be an accusation made because they're jealous of something similar to their idea that works better or is more popular.

[Tryqz]

I ain't gona bother with a big post. You're a moron, clearly any big response won't get past your thick skull.

Is there any way a mod can give this troll some time out to think about why personal attacks on other users are wrong?

Suffice to say that you have no authority to claim what Funcom can and cannot do. If they want to accept models and textures for use in game then they can do so; regardless of what you want.

Yes, and as they have stated before, this is something they cannot do, due to various considerations. They keep an open mind to player suggestions, and... that is as far as it goes. Why are you not happy with this? It's more than many companies do.

There is no legal reason why they can't, things like Open Source deal with all that. The issue of balance or exploits that you were crying about, not an issue. Funcom can change anything they want or toss anything they want. That idea has a twist to it that makes things imbalanced.... it can be changed you know.

For starters, open source clearly DOES NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT DOES.

Putting open source stuff into the AO engine would raise EVEN MORE complications. Everything in AO currently is owned by FC. Now what happens when some of that is free for ANYONE to use in their own products? The ensuing legal confusion could be very complicated.

It's not like things submitted would be unmodifiable. If I were to write out a quest in C(++ or Visual Basic or whatever) and submit it to Funcom with the monsters and rewards favouring Agents to get an easy time of it and a big reward.. do you really think Funcom is dumb enough to leave it as is and not balance it themselves?

And do you REALLY think FC's devs have time to go over a few dozen of these each day and STILL produce content? It's enough of a job them balancing the quests they make from scratch, can you umagine if they had to weed out the 99% of unusable player generated ones AS WELL?