Friday with Means - November 26th, 2010 - Spreadsheet Assault

[Marshalart]

I disagree with absolutely every single thing you just said. Right from the need to apologize for the balance work not coming when expected all the way to the end. Does your post represent the kind of feeback you feel that I am supposed to take seriously? "Kill ALL twinks" "Sell 220/30/70". I don't even want to start on any of these as you are way beyond reason at this point. Do you seriously think anything that is currently available in the store gives any advantage to a new player over your current characters? You more than likely detected NW action FROM OUTSIDE THE GAME...please give us all a break here. Killing "4 players" wasn't a full team? Where to even begin?

I'm AM sorry that you received an in-game tell from a stupid person. We'll begin work on some kind of "stupid" filter immediately.

This!
No idea whats been posted after this post, I just had to say 'Hi-5 Means!'. Wondered how long it would take before you snapped and put someone in their place. :P People don't realize that the majority of valid feedback comes from professionals and people who are actually clued. Not the 'omg, things r change! /ragequit' noobs.

Means gained massive respect points in my book from this post.

[Scabadus]

I'm certain it could be changed if we desired and saw good reason to do so. But that was not entirely what I was getting at.
The delay is there to prevent you from logging off in a brief moment of being out of combat.
Same reason why doing a 'quick exit' with alt-f4 twice will leave your character ingame for a while.
My earlier comment wasn't as much about the exact value 30, but rather this value not being 0; which would be open to abuse.

You know you could just run a 30 second timer in the background whenever people stop combat right? If people are in combat, it takes 30 seconds to log out, if they just left it also takes the full 30 seconds (or more realistically 29), if they're standing around their org's city it's instant.

I'm AM sorry that you received an in-game tell from a stupid person. We'll begin work on some kind of "stupid" filter immediately.

Speaking of which, I think your sarcasm filter's broken. The irony filter doesn't work either but that was just a joke in the first place.

[Maofex]

mainly i mean instant grid access items, wtb those dropping INGAME as promised anything giving any advantage would

These already drop in Inner Sanctum

C'mon Means... make the flying rocks solid objects!

I wanna see raidforces running through Pande with the tank out in front, only to see a large object come swinging in and blindside the tank, as we all wave goodbye to him as he's carried off and dropped into Omni HQ.

This... Make the environment REALLY count!!!

[Kamarar]

Do you seriously think anything that is currently available in the store gives any advantage to a new player over your current characters?

Here's a better question:
How do you rationalize extending exclusive offers to people with money if they are already paying for your services?

How are these items worth any amount of real-life cash when a subscription fee is necessary to even utilize a portion of the items?

[Trgeorge]

Grats Vhab

@Means:
Can we abuse slave labor for low priority changes&bugfixes? You know that internship means nothing if person isn't overwhelmed with tasks. After all, you can still recruit Iriche if the list gets really too extensive.

[Darkirbiska1]

This!
Means gained massive respect points in my book from this post.

Your diary should contain that thanks to Means, I mean his ignoring exploits and bad game mechanisms in game caused leaving of 10 top players, 20 frozen accounts in one week and more will leave soon or do you remember year ago? Full org left and when they came back and they saw that nothing changed they left again.
For example, what I really hate is banning people on forum when they speak about exploits:
People who speaks about exploits on this forum will get infraction points or ban, such people want to show that something isn't alright and it has to be fixed in before engine or balance or /rp event patch.
But much easier is banning such decent and fair players, because "we do engine, balance and we don't have time". I remember so many threads and all were deleted, fair people got bans, etc. and of course many exploits haven't been fixed yet. I personally sent PM and email to Funcom about everything and I am sure that I wasn't alone who did it.
Guess what happened. Nothing. None can deny these facts.
This is why Means and his team lost respect in my eyes and in eyes of players who left AO too.

[Liamboru]

Just sifted through the nano docs. Yes all of them. It seems I missed all the monstrous nerfs that are going to give my poor soldiers a chance to kill anyone else inside 40 seconds with 65-80% reflects.

Did anyone else catch those nerfs?

Maybe we are getting new emote that causes your toon to stick its virtual head between its virtual legs and kiss its own virtual arse goodbye! I might actually use paid points or whatever this is called for that.

Means gained massive respect points in my book from this post.

Really? Asking someone if they expect to be taken seriously and then following on with a rant floats your boat? Just delete the things already...is being "that guy" really all of that?

[Chrys]

This!
No idea whats been posted after this post, I just had to say 'Hi-5 Means!'. Wondered how long it would take before you snapped and put someone in their place. :P People don't realize that the majority of valid feedback comes from professionals and people who are actually clued. Not the 'omg, things r change! /ragequit' noobs.

Means gained massive respect points in my book from this post.

It looks as childish and petulant as the original post in my book. Leave the childish and petulant stuff to us anon intarwebtr0llz Means

[Tazalanche]

After today's Shade nano document and updated versions of ALL prevously released Nano documents there will be no documents for the next three weeks as vacation for some of the team here has been delayed and delayed...but really needs to be taken before the end of the year.

I'm all for people taking time off as needed, but am curious as to how this might, or might not, affect the quality of the Christmas phatz & when those phatz are released.

PLEASE do not have the same issues with delays as what happened with the Halloween phatz and if there is an issue/problem, PLEASE patch it before the festivities end. To ensure a decent amount of time for everyone to get their Christmas phatz, the release date to the live servers should be no later than December 15th & last through at least January 5th.

Thank you.

[tasker]

I'm all for people taking time off as needed, but am curious as to how this might, or might not, affect the quality of the Christmas phatz & when those phatz are released.

PLEASE do not have the same issues with delays as what happened with the Halloween phatz and if there is an issue/problem, PLEASE patch it before the festivities end. To ensure a decent amount of time for everyone to get their Christmas phatz, the release date to the live servers should be no later than December 15th & last through at least January 5th.

Thank you.

and how was there a lack of time for peeps to get there halloween phatz, it was only there for like 3 weeks? just because you were in a huge hurry and needed them on october 1 does not mean anyone else had a prob getting them

[haavarst]

New nano documents looks promising! Good work!

Since I started to play AO I also gained a few lvls inn RK4 too. Travel a lot more and work a lot more overtime. Hours I a few years ago spent on AO. Needless to say I absolutely love the new shop tool and look forward to use it

Would also like to thank you for all the little options added to the game lately. I just love options! Have to be, by far the most advanced game I ever heard about and played.

All inn all great job guys!

[Tazalanche]

and how was there a lack of time for peeps to get there halloween phatz, it was only there for like 3 weeks? just because you were in a huge hurry and needed them on october 1 does not mean anyone else had a prob getting them

Thank you very much for taking the most obscure route possible in reading my post & then ranting about it. My previous post had nothing to do with "me, me, me". It was about "us, us, us", as in something to benefit the AO community.

I assume you have overlooked the fact that the release of the patch for the Halloween phatz was delayed & some items did not work as intended™ or were not even released during the extended time allocated to make up for the delay. However, if you really are looking for an answer, I will make an attempt to translate your request into something understandable and answer it to the best of my ability.

People are usually near their homes for Halloween or Valentine's Day, but normally are out visiting family during Christmas (the three "real world" holidays where time limited items are available in this game). Because of that, it would be more considerate to the community for Funcom to ensure that there is some time allocated for acquiring the holiday items that is not just within the last 2 weeks of the month, when most children are out of school &/or families are on vacation to visit family outside of their normal locality, which causes the adults that play this game to not have as much free time for farming time limited items. From a roleplaying standpoint, it would also make more sense to release the items earlier during the month of December, versus extending the time further into January. Whether the player is a roleplayer or not, most people do not want to hunt for Halloween phatz in November or Christmas phatz in January or Valentine's phatz in March.

[Ebondevil]

For example, what I really hate is banning people on forum when they speak about exploits:
People who speaks about exploits on this forum will get infraction points or ban, such people want to show that something isn't alright and it has to be fixed in before engine or balance or /rp event patch.

There's a standard policy in place for handling exploits, email them in and DO NOT Talk about them, it's quite clear, anyone who breaks that policy deserves to get infractions because they are spreading information about the exploit and thus allowing more people to use it.

I suggest you go read **FAQ** Exploits/Exploitable Bugs in Anarchy Online If you'd like more reasons and explanations of why the policy is the way it is.

[Darkirbiska1]

There's a standard policy in place for handling exploits, email them in and DO NOT Talk about them, it's quite clear, anyone who breaks that policy deserves to get infractions because they are spreading information about the exploit and thus allowing more people to use it.

I suggest you go read **FAQ** Exploits/Exploitable Bugs in Anarchy Online If you'd like more reasons and explanations of why the policy is the way it is.

Lol, you are kidding me, do you really think that people don't use this email as first?
When they sent 20+ emails and exploits are still in game after 2+ years, then there is something wrong and only way how to alert Funcom and everyone else is official forum.

If they don't fix such problems and they deny that there is problem, then it isn't exploit. Right? Then tell me why they are giving infraction points, bans and they delete whole thread if "some game mechanism" doesn't need to be fixed as exploit.
After all I think that answer is easy: they try to cover it with such actions so they don't have to take care about it, even when they know it isn't right.

[Roswell]

We'll begin work on some kind of "stupid" filter immediately.

Arguably the single most important game feature that could be added, aside from maybe an exploit filter. Finding a way to combine such filters would pretty much put the game in the "All Fixed" category in my opinion. These two issues make all other problems with the game seem like childs play so i'll be following the progression of this very closely. Thanks Means.

[Mastablasta]

Here's a better question:
How do you rationalize extending exclusive offers to people with money if they are already paying for your services?

How are these items worth any amount of real-life cash when a subscription fee is necessary to even utilize a portion of the items?

Rationalizing that is easy: here's some extra services inside this other service. Pay to access them or don't. Very simple.

Lol, you are kidding me, do you really think that people don't use this email as first?
When they sent 20+ emails and exploits are still in game after 2+ years, then there is something wrong and only way how to alert Funcom and everyone else is official forum.

If they don't fix such problems and they deny that there is problem, then it isn't exploit. Right? Then tell me why they are giving infraction points, bans and they delete whole thread if "some game mechanism" doesn't need to be fixed as exploit.
After all I think that answer is easy: they try to cover it with such actions so they don't have to take care about it, even when they know it isn't right.

Don't talk about it, very simple to understand, no?

[Darkirbiska1]

Don't talk about it, very simple to understand, no?

Quoting something, what you evidently didn't read, looks dumb or if you did then your answer looks dumb, but it wouldn't be your first such case.

[Obtena]

^^ Stop QQing already. Doesn't your bum hurt enough from Means PWNing you?

[Darkirbiska1]

^^ Stop QQing already. Doesn't your bum hurt enough from Means PWNing you?

With word "pwning" you mean denying facts, which can't be infirm by anyone and much better is ignoring them and rather even don't answering on them? Yes, it hurts me and my friends for more than 1 year.
Reason they left AO.

[-Klod-]

BTW, serious question for Means (for a change).

I'm concerned about the game performance with the upcoming graphics engine change.

Few days ago, I got "come back" invitation for AoC. I took the offer and I was unpleasantly surprised how awful game performs in combination with "only" 4 GB of RAM and Windows 7 (64 bit, if it makes any difference), compared to what it used to be on Windows XP, with the same RAM amount (a year ago?).

Is AO expected to experience the same problems on my hardware/software setup (hey, I expect it to actually run faster and less sluggish, pretty please), or is this engine going to be more "lightweight" in comparison to current AoC one?