Friday with Means - July 8th, 2011 - IDs Please

[Gatester]

Do you have asthma Mephoriouz or do you just really enjoy making use of the "." symbol

[Mephoriouz]

Do you have asthma Mephoriouz or do you just really enjoy making use of the "." symbol

i think i just enjoy hitting the "." key

[Aiken]

You guys do realize that if Macro had NOT fixed this problem there would be no more AO, as in RIGHT this second the servers would be offline and you would not be able to connect?

If the effort to fix this had not taken place and a fix actually achieved the servers would be down for good right now and everything you've paid for and worked for would have been gone.

THAT right there seems like Earth shattering news to me. Or you know what ever...

Lets see which has more weight; Anarchy Online going offline for good, or Anarchy Online ... idk getting news about where they are in the engine?

Watch the videos of the engine from the party if it means that much to you.

Quoted for truth. Well said.

[Cogline]

This game was never built to last a decade but it has. 4.5 thousand million IDs would have seemed like plenty at launch BUT PEOPLE WOULD INSIST ON PLAYING so it got broke. And now there's enough for another decade due to a proper reworking. This is not news? This is not interesting? Well forgive me while I think some post of miracle was performed.

[Gatester]

i think i just enjoy hitting the "." key

More power to yah then

[Wrangeline]

I personally think that FwM is about more than "so what have you done for us lately". I understand the frustration about having to wait for this and that. I complain about it just as much as the next guy. But this frustration doesn't actually have much to do with "FwM" as a concept.

FwM wasn't created specifically so that Means could tell us what they are working on, how much they got left to do and when he expects things to be finished. He may add such info from time to time but if he does, it's just as much a "bonus" as anything else interesting he might choose to say.

Means uses FwM to tell us stuff, whatever it may be. This info about a fix to the ID system is just as interesting as anything else he may have chosen to say. In some ways, I suppose I could say that we simply have been a bit spoiled with the percentage of FwM's that contained info about what they are working on, how much they have finished, how much they got left and when Means expects them to be finished.

Now, before you get hot under your collar, I said "percentage of FwM's" that contained such info. As in, the number of times he brought up such subjects. We're all interested in such subjects because they directly affect us and naturally we're all waiting on it. So far he has told us everything he can tell us about these things and based on that alone, we've been a bit spoiled. Because when most FwM's have contained such subject-matters, then we have been trained to expect such info pretty much every single week. And so people complain when there is no such info.

My point is that while it's ok to be frustrated about things for all kinds of reasons, it doesn't actually have anything to do with FwM as a concept. As a concept, FwM is working very well and Means have hardly ever skipped a beat with regards to posting them and trying to have something interesting to say. People may be annoyed with the lack of a dependable release-date or lack of a constant streams of "omg!"-news, but that's a problem people have with reality, not the effort Means have put into FwM.

When I hear "Friday with Means", I'm thinking of a laidback-with-coffee-and-a-cookie chat segment. Not "Important emergency news at 11:00!". If there is some "omg!"-news then I'm sure he will mention it. But as far as I'm concerned, FwM isn't actually meant to be "omg!"-worthy all the time. If these threads were called "Engine and rebalance news" then I would agree that this ID-stuff was a bit off topic, but it's called Friday with Means after all

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, "don't shoot the messenger"
The messenger is doing fine.

[Keex]

i can imagine the friday with means in 10 years from now:
"Oh boy we ran into a pretty big problem with some IDs! We'll deploy a fix asap! So no need to worry. And by the way, the third draft of character rebalancing documents were deployed to the professionals this week. We still plan on releasing both the rebalancing and engine later this year. Thank you for your patience. I wish both our players fun ingame."

[Notcrattey]

They fixed something that should not have broken in the first place.

Where do I send the check too?

This truly feigns ignorance.

This game is over 10 years old, designed and coded with more hacks than you can probably count. That on top of the fact that previous GDs and coders never truly communicated with future teams, thus this was never fixed until an accidental "stumbleupon".

This game was supposed to have a 4 year life, and a finite amount of 4.4 billion probably didn't seem so bad when this game was being coded in the late 90's.

[Chrys]

I for one am glad Means is no longer trying to raise player expectations unreasonably by telling pplz stuff about "plans" inc Soon™

[Madgeneral]

Dont fool yourself by thinking that Fc is doing you a favor for keeping servers open, is that how low you think of your hard earned cash.
I dont really care if the game crashed and game deleted itself.
Like someone said we are not a family at least not with FC they suply a paid service.
I didnt plan to pay for more then 1 year but i did who cares about that?
In reply to the fact that you keep telling us that this game was designed for 4 years, well escuse me i am playng this game for more then 4 years please escuse me.
What i gotta pay cash and kiss ... too?
The ID thing was their folt to start with ,the customer dont give a cookie.

[Mastablasta]

As a customer I care about why the product I'm using doesn't work, I care about what was done to fix it and I care about how long this fix will work. This information was given to us. The end.

[Mastablasta]

Actually it'll inforce a REFUND policy.
Still puzzled how USD/Euro is ''100% valid'' when there was no Official answer about it and web Live chat is a joke. In my view is yet another Nigerian e-mail scam.
I guess touchy subjects never make it in fwm,only heads do.

I don't know, ask the guys at Steam why they're doing the same thing. Maybe they will answer when Funcom won't?

[Madgeneral]

Most customers dont care why the product doesnt work just how much time it will take to work.
Like when my internet provider goes dead and i call em, they tell me is a tehnical problem and it will come back in 1hour maximum, they dont tell me unecesary stuff like a bird eat my wire or someone stolen the switch couse i dont care.
Personaly dont care about the ''why'' just the ''when'' is that rong?
If your pc cashed and went to fix it would it help if you knew your condensator's fried or other stuff? come on be serious.

[Mastablasta]

Most customers dont care why the product doesnt work just how much time it will take to work.
Like when my internet provider goes dead and i call em, they tell me is a tehnical problem and it will come back in 1hour maximum, they dont tell me unecesary stuff like a bird eat my wire or someone stolen the switch couse i dont care.
Personaly dont care about the ''why'' just the ''when'' is that rong?
If your pc cashed and went to fix it would it help if you knew your condensator's fried or other stuff? come on be serious.

I personally find that kind of information useful. Take your examples; if my ISP goes down, is it because someone dug up a cable by mistake, or is it because they screwed up? That's useful information right there. If they keep screwing up, I would consider getting a different provider.
If my PC crashed and they told me the reason was ants had crawled in and caused a shortcircuit, I would take precautions against ants.

If I was more vapid, I'd not care about information on the world around me. But if I didn't, why would I be reading Friday With Means? After all, that's just meaningless information; as you said, we don't want to know anything about the engine that we don't already know; it's coming. Same with rebalance, what does it matter what stage we're at, we know it's coming. That's all the information you want, maybe even too much information? Isn't the only thing we really want to just read patchnotes in the patcher? Or even that might be too much useless information?

[Madgeneral]

You are absolutly right about your example of your PC, if you are assuming those info are usefull if you can take action to prevent it, but the point is that you cant do nothing when it comes to AO.
It is not meaningless information i do care about FWM i read it every friday and i usualy dont post much on forum i think you noticed that.
But the last few FWM are meaningless information that is my point and other people too.
I got enough stuff on my head to worry about AO bugs small or big couse in the end the worst think it could happen was a downtime thats all, if more things would happen then so be it, is not like i (customer) would have made a difference.
Alot of people think the same way is not like i am the only crazy customer.
Why wouldnt i act profesional like a normal customer, what did FC did for me that i didnt pay with cash , ask yourself that question.
Why do i have to pay more money then USA.
I see that you like this game alot and i like it too , but they didnt to anything to deserve me acting like they are my family.
Means should act more profesional after all he is a director , game director but still a director and he is not acting like one.

[Mastablasta]

I'd say he is, since he doesn't sit and go into bickering. This is a blog style post, and we've never been promised anything else. Companies blogging about things in an open and personal manner is a popular way to market things these days. Almost all the AO devs were once players, so if they feel like a part of the community, can you blame them?
The company FC didn't do anything for me personally that I didn't pay them for. The AO devs, though, that's a whole other matter. I'd consider some of them good friends and acquaintances. Rather than faceless corporate entities.
If you don't like it, fine. But then, it's not like you're missing out on something else because of it, so why not leave well alone?

[Madgeneral]

I was once like you ....but this days i dont have that much free time on my hand but wish i did.
I really want to renew my subscription to 1 year like i always used to pay but population is so low and waiting for this new engine sucks.
I still play AO froob daily couse in the curent state my money would be a waste for me.
I can give you alot of reason why i dont pay anymore , personaly for me is S42 and Tara.
So i play a single player game but at least i do it free.
I will leave it alone couse is the only thing i can do ....

[Mastablasta]

I don't have much free time anymore. I spend a few hours a week in AO, mostly raiding sector 42 with my org, or a few other raids that might go on in the spur of the moment. I'm just chilling out, laid back while waiting for the engine and balance changes to come round. Taking it easy, instead of getting all riled up about things is much more fun. I just renewed for a year, again.

[Phargus]

This game is over 10 years old, designed and coded with more hecks than you can probably count.

/fixed

[Hanavald]

4.4 billion probably didn't seem so bad when this game was being coded in the late 90's.

Well , 4 billion was actually more then enough.

Thing is, propably less then 1% of those were actually completed.

It takes ~20 tries to roll inferno mission in usual area. For 1 mission that was completed, 19 were deleted, and i'm guessing 19 IDs out of the window.

It takes 100-150 tries to roll one item with clicksaver, 5 missions per pull. Lets be generous and say its 100 - you'd still get 1:500 ratio.

Actual missions propably go into milions, not billions