Friday with Means - May 20th, 2011: No to Spawn Camping

[Kintaii]

Hey guys! Means is (as noted below) on his way over to Ottawa today to give a presentation, so he wrote this up earlier and asked me to post on his behalf. Enjoy!

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A very brief update this week as I'm running out of the office to give a lecture in Ottawa today.

This week (on top of all the initiatives we all know we are working on) we picked up one more to be included in the next update.

Refinement Of Battlestations:

1. "Teleport Maps" similar to those used the the new open PvP playfields are being added to all Battlestations. On arrival in the Decontamination rooms a the normal process will proceed where outside buffs are removed etc...but now at the end of the process players will be able to select (on a map) which location they would like to enter the action from. There will be many locations available as this should drastically reduce spawncamping and unneeded running (especially important at low levels). Those that do not choose a location in an allotted time will be sent to the "Normal" place.

2. Large empty areas of the Battlestations are going to be made inaccessible. The blank areas between teleporters at core and wings are going to be blocked off. Before these areas were necessary for Mech transport but with the removal of the steps around teleporters are no longer necessary.

3. Removal/Smoothing of bridge and ramp areas around core. The circular ramp in core and the "bridge" type structure outside core are going to be smoothed out to remove the unneeded confusion they provide to pet pathing.


Have a great weekend everyone!

Colin "Means" Cragg
Game Director, Anarchy Online

[Waldgeyst]

Tsherman Translashion

[Lheann]

first - player to post that is

[Redesine]

Why did I pause to read it before posting?!

[Gridpain]

Nice BS modification !

[MidgarClan]

4th Don't we get QQ Qontest results today?

Battle-station N33ds to be Scaled in Size with respect to corresponding battle-station Lv in pvp. Obviously Lv 30 Players do no need all that space in between to pvp effectively but Yes, 200+ even 150+ most certainly do need that space, we use it daily to fool our enemies into not being able to locate us. Many a time have i teleported through, ran behind the teleporter wall and "H" for hide and watch my enemy just run pst me! then i use that space in between to get the advantage for the next engagement. When i Say scale the battle station down... that dont mean removing crucial areas of the map, it means shrink the area of the fight zone corresponding to Lv ranges. Shrink the whole BS map, don't block anything off that will only serve to hurt that game more and you will be getting a lot of QQ leading to an undo in the near future. Thx

[Frubaliscious]

ok, this is what you meant to say.........

ADDENDUM:

1-In addition to the current pvp ranges, you will only be able to attack 1 title level up, and 1 title level down.

2-151-200 BS range is now 151-199 (we realized finally how OP the 200's are and we apologize for mistake)

3-all charactors beginning with the letter G are now the coolest, and we're putting them in charge.

4-we're reversing Metaings obvious attempt at making a dramatic exit with giving Shades tokens boards, shades will now only be able to equip tutu's in the neck slot.

5-Fixers can now meep the entire playfeild to their apartment when in 25% gas.

stay tuned for more incredible fixes!

[snakeeyes]

6th! The evil number!

[Crat360]

mmm

[Darkmanxreb]

nice modifications

[Kintaii]

4th Don't we get QQ Qontest results today?

Probably next week - We've been kinda busy here, and with Means headed outta town today we haven't had a chance to sit down and properly pour over the entries for the best of the best. We'll announce winners soon. =)

[lainbr]

Omg! Finally!

[Hardcore]

Kintaii, sorry to disturb, but when are you implementing the new BS changes?

[Warhammer]

Now all we need is players...

BTW, I dont see point 2 as a necessity. I always found it convenient to be able to run to and from core in case of teleporter campers.

[Kintaii]

Kintaii, sorry to disturb, but when are you implementing the new BS changes?

Should be in our next update out - MstrBstrd and I are going to be working to finalize the majority of said changes today. With any luck it'll be on Testlive very, very soon. =)

[Tysken]

Any plans on merging RK1 BS with RK2´s? ;P Cause atleast i feel RK2´s BS stations is rather dead(ish) most of the time.. kinda boring for us

[Wrangeline]

Interesting changes to Battlestation. Should make things more interesting and fun I hope

Bit curious where the various spawns will be placed though. Omni for example has "A" as their spawn-side atm, will all new spawn points for omni be inside the "A"-area or will some be in middle somewhere and/or at "C"?

[Niles]

No? Really?

[Arriviste]

/me camps, waiting for the next comment to spawn.

[Gatester]

Its a nice change I think. I still prefer the A to core to B approach but as long as this eliminates the bulk of excess space in the battlestations I believe most of the issues will be gone.

Any chances of having map variety as well?