Friday with Means - August 19th, 2011 - Progress

[Tazalanche]

Well, for a game that's expected to keep you playing for a lot longer than a couple of months, what is that then? You're saying they made a lot of retarded changes over the last 6 years, but then, do you remember prior to those 6 years, when all you could lvl on was hecklers, and there were only 5 teams possible at a time in Inferno. That lvling on RK took a bazillion years, go back and see if you can find out how long it took for the first person to reach lvl 200 without sploiting Or check out people originally lvling to 220's lvling curve on Auno.
Then include the gear grind that was introduced at some point, to keep up with what MMOs were expected to be about, and you'd notice that a while ago it was much worse, and today, going in, you can with a bit of tenacity and a group of friends, achieve in a couple of months what previously took years.

But then, what people these days seem to talk about in the field of MMOs and MOBAs, is "waste of time". People no longer have fun playing the actual game, they only see it as work and a lost round or a kill with no drop is considered wasted time. If the game you play for your amusement is so much a waste of time in your opinion, then why do you even play it? Why do people sit here and mope about things being a waste of time, when once upon a time we went in and played games like this and everywhere we went and did was considered an adventure, and fun. Run out in the wilderness, get killed by a huge monster. Great fun! Go through a long dungeon, battle mobs, win through for the first time, get various drops that may or may not be good? Great fun!

You played for 6 years, you sit around now, moping about how things are a waste of time. Maybe to you. Did you consider that you reached the end of the line for when you considered something to be fun? Maybe you need to just up and quit, if what you want to be amusement is something that causes you such great ire? You're at the end of your game with AO. Go find something new. Try to bitch less about it and enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it anymore, then it really is time to leave, because the chances are very, very high that whatever it was you found fun won't ever return, because it's not to do with the game, it's to do with you.

Get off your high horse & stop telling people to quit the game because you do not like their opinion.

If they follow through with your "advice", you make the community look like a bunch of jerks, PLUS you had a part in reducing the population.

If they do not follow through with your "advice", you still make the community look like a bunch of jerks.

They have as much of a right to voice their opinion as you have to voice your opinion. However, your attempts to push them out the door because they voiced a concern about a game with many multi-year delays is beyond ridiculous. This game's population can not afford to lose any more players... even you.

[omegahealer]

complaining about a few things isn't the issue... and even good

but there are those that whine and demand AO to become another game... and it are those people you can better show the door. AO is a grindfest and it's part of AO. At start up it might be made easier, but that's about it.
If you're gonna complain you gotta lvl up another toon and it takes time, sorry to burst your bubble but in every game it becomes boring and you can better avoid any mmorpg since it's what they are, time wasters(it's where the money is at). Even WoW becomes boring after reading the same quest dialogue for a 3th or 4th time -.-

masta has a point though that you can better step away from the game if it only bothers you...Too much AO (or any other game) can cause that and a break will help you like it again.

[Mastablasta]

Get off your high horse & stop telling people to quit the game because you do not like their opinion.

If they follow through with your "advice", you make the community look like a bunch of jerks, PLUS you had a part in reducing the population.

If they do not follow through with your "advice", you still make the community look like a bunch of jerks.

They have as much of a right to voice their opinion as you have to voice your opinion. However, your attempts to push them out the door because they voiced a concern about a game with many multi-year delays is beyond ridiculous. This game's population can not afford to lose any more players... even you.

I'm not on any high horse. Just telling you to take a chillpill, if you aren't having fun, why bother? I cut my playing time back because spending time on something I wasn't having fun with just to drive up online hours was not productive, and not amusing.

You can have all kinds of complaints, but if your complaint is how everything is a waste of time and how you are right and everyone else is wrong, and how you are labeling everything changed with the game the last 6 years as nothing but bad direction and turning it into a waste of time for you, then, really, I don't think I'm on any high horse in saying that maybe they got all the enjoyment from AO they could get, and should either find a new game to play or find some other way to play AO if they still want to play it. It's better for them, if they don't have that stresspoint in their life, and I'm sure they'd be a lot happier if they didn't spend hours every day being angry about things in a videogame.

Are there complaints I have with AO? Yeah, hundreds, no doubt. Do I let them dominate my life? No. I stopped bothering so much about something supposed to be entertaining. I used to be on the high horse you others are on, but I just can't be arsed to care in that way anymore. Chill out. Have fun. Make decent posts instead of hateful things, and if you can't, then well, your very abstract hatepost that only says things like "in the past 10 years you did nothing but screw the game up and driving players away", which is evidently true, as less players are active in AO now than on launchday. Except, they made the game way more accessible and far less timeconsuming than it used to be.
Thus, you have more to do ingame in less time, and everything is designed after the new paradigm of "you must never punish the player", meaning you're always rewarded, no matter what you do. Leading you in to the belief that you should always be rewarded, no matter what you do, and any lack of a reward is a punishment and thus a waste of time.

So, get down and stop caring. Don't bother posting. I'm not, as you can see, because there's no reason to. Just relax. Give your feedback where it's required, and make it useful. That's just a suggestion of course. You're free to keep on riding the horse of hate and make everything sound like the world is ending and that nothing good has ever been added to AO, ever.
But then if that were true, the game must've been exceptionally good to begin with, like, extremely good. The best game ever. And I think we all know that not to be true. Or anywhere near the truth.

[Alternity]

This thread turned carebear someone please infract Masta with at least OVER 9000! points of Pink Power Puff DMG

[Tazalanche]

I'm not on any high horse. Just telling you to take a chillpill, if you aren't having fun, why bother? I cut my playing time back because spending time on something I wasn't having fun with just to drive up online hours was not productive, and not amusing.

You can have all kinds of complaints, but if your complaint is how everything is a waste of time and how you are right and everyone else is wrong, and how you are labeling everything changed with the game the last 6 years as nothing but bad direction and turning it into a waste of time for you, then, really, I don't think I'm on any high horse in saying that maybe they got all the enjoyment from AO they could get, and should either find a new game to play or find some other way to play AO if they still want to play it. It's better for them, if they don't have that stresspoint in their life, and I'm sure they'd be a lot happier if they didn't spend hours every day being angry about things in a videogame.

Are there complaints I have with AO? Yeah, hundreds, no doubt. Do I let them dominate my life? No. I stopped bothering so much about something supposed to be entertaining. I used to be on the high horse you others are on, but I just can't be arsed to care in that way anymore. Chill out. Have fun. Make decent posts instead of hateful things, and if you can't, then well, your very abstract hatepost that only says things like "in the past 10 years you did nothing but screw the game up and driving players away", which is evidently true, as less players are active in AO now than on launchday. Except, they made the game way more accessible and far less timeconsuming than it used to be.
Thus, you have more to do ingame in less time, and everything is designed after the new paradigm of "you must never punish the player", meaning you're always rewarded, no matter what you do. Leading you in to the belief that you should always be rewarded, no matter what you do, and any lack of a reward is a punishment and thus a waste of time.

So, get down and stop caring. Don't bother posting. I'm not, as you can see, because there's no reason to. Just relax. Give your feedback where it's required, and make it useful. That's just a suggestion of course. You're free to keep on riding the horse of hate and make everything sound like the world is ending and that nothing good has ever been added to AO, ever.
But then if that were true, the game must've been exceptionally good to begin with, like, extremely good. The best game ever. And I think we all know that not to be true. Or anywhere near the truth.

Thank you for proving my point about your recent actions in these forums.

I am an active subscriber that logs on regularly & my current subscription on one account expires in October 2012, the other expires on July 2012. I have been playing for six years, 8 months & paying to play for 5 years, 9 months... without any lapse in subscription. 95% of the complaints that I make on these forums are constructive criticism about issues that affect the community, including suggestions for fixes. I never said I was not having fun or anything about AO being a waste of time.

In the future, you might want to pay attention to which person you are referring to before quoting someone & making your "agree with my opinion or get out rants" against the WRONG PERSON.

[Aeliniyah]

In the future, you might want to pay attention to which person you are referring to before quoting someone & making your "agree with my opinion or get out rants" against the WRONG PERSON.

Yup. I never said anything about not having fun either. My post that Masta quoted with his weird rant was about my fear of the current dev team making "the great rebalancing" because they don't seem to know much about anything thats ACTUALLY going on in their game. They couldn't even start an AI raid. And now they are revamping everything? Thats why i suggested them to try it out without GM powers. That way they would learn a bit how things actually work instead of thinking how they might work on paper.

I enjoy most of the game as it is. I enjoy soloing with my crat, shade and occasionally even with my doc. After the rebalance i fear soloing is going to be a thing of the past. And at that point i won't enjoy the game enough to continue paying.

There's a lot more that i enjoy in the game. In fact, pvp is the only thing i don't like much. But i still participate in it occasionally. I also didn't like the addition of the items shop. That actually made me take my first ever break from AO.

But the fact that i'm back again proves that i still actually like the game. Hell... i love it. And thats why i occasionally want to voice my concerns whenever i get the feeling that the dev's are pushing something i love into something else. I'm sure my posts don't always make the perfect sense because english is not my first language. But i still don't want to stay silent when i fear some incoming change.

If anything, the past in AO has shown that AFTER something gets implemented in game, it won't change. So voicing our concerns is something we need to do NOW.

[Demoder]

...because they don't seem to know much about anything thats ACTUALLY going on in their game. They couldn't even start an AI raid. ...

They knew how to (normally) start an AI raid; IIRC, the problem was that the system ignores ARK/GM characters.
No matter how much you play the game, you wouldn't figure that out until you actually tried to start an AI raid with a ark/gm character.

If anything, the past in AO has shown that AFTER something gets implemented in game, it won't change. So voicing our concerns is something we need to do NOW.

I agree that everyone should voice their constructive concerns. A concern based on facts and/or observations is probably a constructive one. A rant based on wild speculation is probably not.

The main problem with giving feedback to rebalancing right now, is there's so many changes it's hard to remember all of them; And it's easy to substitute the forgotten/misunderstood pieces of information with how things work now. That makes the feedback less useful. The moment they get to show us some state of rebalancing on test, we'll all be able to give much better feedback than now, because we get to play with the changes instead of just theorizing.

That being said, I'm sure most people understand why FC has to theorize such huge changes before making the actual implementation.

[Anarrina]

Tazalanche and Masta - that much text between the two of you would be most appropriate for your private messages. Please move the rest of your conversation there. Thank you.

[Frubaliscious]

Tazalanche and Masta - that much text between the two of you would be most appropriate for your private messages. Please move the rest of your conversation there. Thank you.

hah! bump.

however valid both points are, the only people that would read all that are the 2 of you ^^

OT: the thing certain people are missing, is that much, yes much, of the population only plays the game for BS now. they roll a toon, do the pvm grind, buy or make the stuff they need, then do BS. so in effect, the entire game for some people is being carelessly messed with, a pov that sitting on test will not provide, and certainly one that someone that never does any pvp at all will ever see.

[Gunfytr]

10 people are a "put up or shutup" limit?

I had a long scathing post lined up about counting threads with ur head in the sand, until Anna cracked her whip. (<3)

Anyway. I truly enjoy this game. I'm currently lvl'ing 2 toons. BUT......I'm tired of being teased. Six month build up, sure, I can deal with that. Anticipation is good. Years? Nah.

[Aeliniyah]

They knew how to (normally) start an AI raid; IIRC, the problem was that the system ignores ARK/GM characters.
No matter how much you play the game, you wouldn't figure that out until you actually tried to start an AI raid with a ark/gm character.

If i remember it right they failed to get ship invite because they didn't have four guys in the team. And it took them a lot of time to figure out why they didn't get the ship invites.

[Demoder]

If i remember it right they failed to get ship invite because they didn't have four guys in the team. And it took them a lot of time to figure out why they didn't get the ship invites.

Original thread: clicky. Apparently, some of the devs didn't know/remember how this particular mechanic worked.

Now I'm just amused how certain individuals in the community manages to twist a "we love the community" message into "the devs are clueless".

PS: not all devs have to know every aspect of the game; They all have their fields. As you can see in the original post, *somebody* on the devteam knew this stuff. And were having fun at Means' expense.

[Tanisthonus]

Means should just come out and say "we cancelled the engine update and rebalancing" and then in some point in the future release it out of the blue and be done with all the whines.

That seems like it would be a deathblow to PR and morale.

[Frubaliscious]

ahem...

shade tags and token boards (rly? that was a priority?)
AS pistol
nanite drains
unremovable debuffs
170 CS agents
LE nukes
Twink killers and pvp ranges
Engy bot AR
lottery tickets..rly?!
blockers
run speed caps
UBT/UBT procs
Malp
lowbie MP pet problems (deroots?)
BS ranges
the whole BS sign up area
failed pvp pf
BS changes (lol)
BS queue issues ( we rly still need deserter?)
failure to recognize credit exploits before they destroy an entire economy
kite hill
Sacrifice perk at lowbie wars
6 slot belt on level 1 trader? (awesome effort gates, you know it's broke tho)
giving Omni items to clan, but giving nothing clan to omni (gunship for arbalest maybe?)
killing tl5 pvp, failure to recognize how important this range is
new players STILL have no idea what to do, or where to level past the isle. just make an arrow to kite hill already.
unflagged pocketing
daily phishing for passwords and info
froob program is ignored now
people still getting stuck, and /stuck wont work
no advertising
test server needs more char slots, and much easier transfer from live
still no cross server action
no server transfer
SL mission system needs serious rework
EU still paying more than US?
instanced bandaids
s10 bots
OFAB pads
you've deluded the significance of picking a faction. all that matters now is where your friends are and if you liek trees more than buildings. gimme a reason for anyone to choose Omni, i dare you.
Anarchy what....


this is just a start. if you need a list of things to improve, just ask, we have a lot of them.yeah...I'm not worried about the engine, I see it as a distraction more than anything else.

[sultryvoltron]

ahem...

Bump.

[Sromp]

Don't bother posting. I'm not, as you can see, because there's no reason to.

Lawl.

Original thread: clicky. Apparently, some of the devs didn't know/remember how this particular mechanic worked.
Now I'm just amused how certain individuals in the community manages to twist a "we love the community" message into "the devs are clueless".

*stuff*

I think most exploits and game-breaking imbalances could be fixed if the devs played an hour or two each week.

[Frubaliscious]

i still want to play this game. i love it, even with it's problems. there's nothing like it, but I'm losing confidence in the people that are taking care of it.

we don't expect the devs to have a continuous flow of ancient knowledge and be masters at every nuance of this game, but we do expect them to at least know what the "big red button" is going to do before they push it.

in the end, ofc it all comes down to money. which sucks, because the community can only do so much to fix that, and what's left is up to marketing management, which apparently does not exist.

[Mastablasta]

ahem...


this is just a start. if you need a list of things to improve, just ask, we have a lot of them.yeah...I'm not worried about the engine, I see it as a distraction more than anything else.

Depends on your viewpoint if those changes are negative. Some people are apparently liking a lot of it just fine.

Besides, that's what a modern MMO is about. Like I said, the game is now designed according to the paradigm of never punishing the player, ever. You'll see more of it in the future, from every publisher in every single game.
Instant gratification and accessability to all content from the start. Funcom's upcoming game The Secret World does away with character leveling altogether, has no penalties from death, faction choice, etc.. No fear, no tension, just doing stuff and putting all your money in the hope that the mere participation in an activity is fun, without the need for any threats hanging over the players' heads. As you might have noticed, the only threat left now is the time spent should you die. A small timesink, the worst possible thing that can happen.

The day of the hardcore game is gone.

Be happy that BS now is smaller, so you can fight guys instantly, because running around for 5 minutes trying to find someone isn't fun. It's that waste of time that people are so loathe of. It was eliminated. Like every other "waste" of time will be, given enough time to overhaul the whole game. But there's only a small group of people doing this, and it's a vast task to undertake, while at the same time having to make new stuff, trying to rebalance, build new resources, fix old problems, and come up with new ones, all for the forever raging mouths of indignant players.

You think acting arrogant and all knowing on the forums will make any work progress faster? Would you find it motivating to hear only derogatory comments about your work, every single day? There being nothing good ever said, only how horrible you are and how you should be fired, because apparently a million people able to do a better job are right behind you. Even if the position as content designer is still vacant so many months after the guy who held it quit? In all of Canada, not a single suitable person has applied in all those months. Must be millions.

[Xirayne]

Depends on your viewpoint if those changes are negative. Some people are apparently liking a lot of it just fine.

Besides, that's what a modern MMO is about. Like I said, the game is now designed according to the paradigm of never punishing the player, ever. You'll see more of it in the future, from every publisher in every single game.
Instant gratification and accessability to all content from the start. Funcom's upcoming game The Secret World does away with character leveling altogether, has no penalties from death, faction choice, etc.. No fear, no tension, just doing stuff and putting all your money in the hope that the mere participation in an activity is fun, without the need for any threats hanging over the players' heads. As you might have noticed, the only threat left now is the time spent should you die. A small timesink, the worst possible thing that can happen.

The day of the hardcore game is gone.

Be happy that BS now is smaller, so you can fight guys instantly, because running around for 5 minutes trying to find someone isn't fun. It's that waste of time that people are so loathe of. It was eliminated. Like every other "waste" of time will be, given enough time to overhaul the whole game. But there's only a small group of people doing this, and it's a vast task to undertake, while at the same time having to make new stuff, trying to rebalance, build new resources, fix old problems, and come up with new ones, all for the forever raging mouths of indignant players.

You think acting arrogant and all knowing on the forums will make any work progress faster? Would you find it motivating to hear only derogatory comments about your work, every single day? There being nothing good ever said, only how horrible you are and how you should be fired, because apparently a million people able to do a better job are right behind you. Even if the position as content designer is still vacant so many months after the guy who held it quit? In all of Canada, not a single suitable person has applied in all those months. Must be millions.

I don't mean to be rude Masta, but I disagree with just about your entire post.


AO is (or at least was at some point) a sandbox MMO, not in the same category as all the streamlined online rpgs we've been seeing lately, I think of a slightly structured game, that has a billion levels and another billion things to do, almost never ending game experience. It was perfect for hard core players, had generated missions that suited casual players, plenty for all. (I actually remember reading that in a review before I signed up for AO years back.) The goal is(was) not to "get to the end level and end equip" but to simply participate, observe, enjoy the beauty of a well crafted game, like a work of art. "Art is never finished, only abandoned."

I hope to never see AO get shaped and twisted into just another modern crappy streamlined online rpg. They feel like single player games with the "online" feature tacked on just for the subscription fee. AO is so much more than that.


Hardcore gaming is not even close to dead. Have you seen how many people are playing minecraft?? That game is super hardcore! Ridiculously so! One can spend YEARS playing that, exploring, creating art, building cities and castles, the sky is literally the limit in that game and it never stops unless you simply decide to do something else. Though, most game companies are either unable, or unwilling to create games and content that maintains its fun after many, many hours of gameplay, so they decide to do the easy way and create 10-20 minute game experiences that somewhat satisfy the casual player but leaves everyone else bored out of their skulls.

Perhaps you don't have the time to play for several hours at a time but that does not mean noone does, nor does it mean noone should be unable to get a decent game experience with their time invested. The fact that the devs cant/don't play as much as an actual AO player can, makes it difficult for them to design for players who enjoy long gaming sessions. But we as a community are here to help and offer our opinions, however positive or negative they may sound.


I think constructive critisism is a good thing, if something is done against our liking we should say something, it's not a "like it or leave" situation. We care about, and love AO, and can get fairly passionate about it. It's extremely rude, and upsetting to hear "like it or quit" when we feel so strongly about the game.
These discussions turn sour when we're forced to "defend" our opinions. In all honesty I wish I could help more than just offering my opinion, however negative it may sound on occasion...

[McKnuckleSamwich]

nice list there giit.