Monthly Development Update – Nov 5th 2012

[Ilaliya]

it's actually quite easy. duplicate a live db, transfer it over, and check to see iff both are the same. if they are, ez pz, you're done. the problem comes when something doesn't go as planned and picking through the blobs to see what went wrong :P

ha ha

[Traderjill]

we're currently in this weird loop of bleeding players -> less money to play devs -> less devs working full time -> less content being made -> more people leaving etc.

i dont see where the manpower amd money for another proper sl-like expansion is oging to come from tbh...

I don't know, maybe it is just me but as long as Funcom has found the money to come out with new content for its other games I am not buying the whole "AO doesn't have the resources" excuse. If AO doesn't have the resources it is because someone within Funcom decided that should be the case, not because the resources can not be diverted to AO. And when you're paying $15/month for an account I think you have the same right to get regular content updates and such as every other game out there. And no, I also don't buy the "you pay sub fees for what is existing, not what is to come" line either. That's not how any other game out there works. Yes, you buy the game and pay the sub but it isn't because you expect the game development company to let the game grow stagnant. It is a common expectation that there will be patches, updates, boosters and expansions over time. AO hasn't had a true expansion since Shadowlands. AI, LE, Xan.. all of that is really booster material at best.

[Phixalicious]

I don't know, maybe it is just me but as long as Funcom has found the money to come out with new content for its other games I am not buying the whole "AO doesn't have the resources" excuse. If AO doesn't have the resources it is because someone within Funcom decided that should be the case, not because the resources can not be diverted to AO. And when you're paying $15/month for an account I think you have the same right to get regular content updates and such as every other game out there. And no, I also don't buy the "you pay sub fees for what is existing, not what is to come" line either. That's not how any other game out there works. Yes, you buy the game and pay the sub but it isn't because you expect the game development company to let the game grow stagnant. It is a common expectation that there will be patches, updates, boosters and expansions over time. AO hasn't had a true expansion since Shadowlands. AI, LE, Xan.. all of that is really booster material at best.

When TSW failed and they had to dump both Kintaii and Lindelu to improve finances, that tells you where AO's resources are. The days of "Oh, one game doesn't affect the others" are gone,if they ever existed to begin with. If the games were really independent of each other, the failure of one would not hurt the others. Any revenue from AO and AoC is being used to keep TSW, and Funcom itself, afloat; regardless of what they may be willing to say publicly.

Want a good example? AO is supposedly having all of this time and attention being paid to it to "revamp" it for a "comeback". Yet AO loses a Game Director and a dev with no replacements. Why wasn't Craig pulled off of AoC to spearhead this larger project? Why not pull a dev or two from AoC to get things moving, as AoC is now full of enough content to last a while for it's remaining playerbase after the latest expansion and just needs someone there to bugfix. I see absolutely no prioritization being given to the largest project they have next to TSW in terms of scope. That tells me a whole lot about AO's current position of importance in the Funcom chain.

[Ilaliya]

we're currently in this weird loop of bleeding players -> less money to play devs -> less devs working full time -> less content being made -> more people leaving etc.

AO isn't bleeding players. The numbers indicate it's extremely stable. People might not be interacting in game as much as we'd like, but that's a completely different issue.

i dont see where the manpower amd money for another proper sl-like expansion is oging to come from tbh...

Man-power will come from people not working on the engine, server merge, NPE, and profession rebalance... after these things are done. If we were not doing all those things, an expansion would be pretty straightforward. As it stands, it would be insane (and counter-productive) to start an expansion until we've delivered what's already been promised.

[Windguaerd]

AO isn't bleeding players. The numbers indicate it's extremely stable. People might not be interacting in game as much as we'd like, but that's a completely different issue.

Man-power will come from people not working on the engine, server merge, NPE, and profession rebalance... after these things are done. If we were not doing all those things, an expansion would be pretty straightforward. As it stands, it would be insane (and counter-productive) to start an expansion until we've delivered what's already been promised.

Ok, first statement, I can't argue with that. Second statement, I'm all for that logic. It would be irresponsible for FC to even think about a real AO expansion at this time (not talking "booster pack" like NW or LE).

[Lheann]

AO isn't bleeding players. The numbers indicate it's extremely stable. People might not be interacting in game as much as we'd like, but that's a completely different issue.

Well I am happy to here it is not bleeding players. But stable is not good either. Stable at the current levels means lots of empty zone to run through. It means low numbers on LFT. So I see stable as the norm which we all complain about. Positive would be growth in the numbers of people playing.

Of course we have FC to thank for lack of interaction scenarios. I mean instanced 6 to 18 man play fields and vastly separated areas for players to play in at the 180+ levels really just divides us. With all the shop buyable items to access banks such from pretty much anywhere FC has made the static cities almost irrelevant. Gone are the days of 200 players at NW Outpost in Tir County all looking for teams into GTC and VW. Gone is the days of getting into Game Space (GS) 50 when entering Tir Fair Trade.

Sadly until all the promised stuff is delivered there is no one to work on changing AO in direction where people are brought together in large areas like the static cities so that there is interaction at a level that makes us see and feel just how many people are actually playing.

Man-power will come from people not working on the engine, server merge, NPE, and profession rebalance... after these things are done. If we were not doing all those things, an expansion would be pretty straightforward. As it stands, it would be insane (and counter-productive) to start an expansion until we've delivered what's already been promised.

Hmmm, I was here during SL addition and was in the closed beta for most of it. The team that worked on it and the normal dev team that was fixing stuff where pretty much different teams. If we found a bug on test and where in the beta we tested it both places and reported it to different groups to make sure it got fixed and did not crop back up after SL released. So while an LE or Xan booster may be possible using the current team I seriously doubt the team could handle an SL size expansion without lots more help and the odds are FC would do it like they did SL and have a separate team work on it. I mean no one wants it take 5 years for an expansion or sooner at the expense of bug fixing and all the other normal little stuff the dev team does.

And as always I remain curious what the actual subscription (active) numbers really are.

[Utopian]

AO isn't bleeding players. The numbers indicate it's extremely stable. People might not be interacting in game as much as we'd like, but that's a completely different issue..

Plesae don't take this the wrong way, but...what is your definition of "bleeding players"?

What and when are you using as your point of reference - such as # of accounts from when to # of account to now. Are you using paid accounts, active accounts, active players,etc. I think an explanation of how your metrics are created/calculated and interpreted would be beneficial to the playerbase.

[Wakizaka]

When TSW failed and they had to dump both Kintaii and Lindelu to improve finances, that tells you where AO's resources are. The days of "Oh, one game doesn't affect the others" are gone,if they ever existed to begin with. If the games were really independent of each other, the failure of one would not hurt the others. Any revenue from AO and AoC is being used to keep TSW, and Funcom itself, afloat; regardless of what they may be willing to say publicly.

They just dumped TSW people, not AO people because of the less than stellar sales.

[Traderjill]

When TSW failed and they had to dump both Kintaii and Lindelu to improve finances, that tells you where AO's resources are. The days of "Oh, one game doesn't affect the others" are gone,if they ever existed to begin with. If the games were really independent of each other, the failure of one would not hurt the others. Any revenue from AO and AoC is being used to keep TSW, and Funcom itself, afloat; regardless of what they may be willing to say publicly.

Want a good example? AO is supposedly having all of this time and attention being paid to it to "revamp" it for a "comeback". Yet AO loses a Game Director and a dev with no replacements. Why wasn't Craig pulled off of AoC to spearhead this larger project? Why not pull a dev or two from AoC to get things moving, as AoC is now full of enough content to last a while for it's remaining playerbase after the latest expansion and just needs someone there to bugfix. I see absolutely no prioritization being given to the largest project they have next to TSW in terms of scope. That tells me a whole lot about AO's current position of importance in the Funcom chain.

You kinda lost me on how this relates to the statements I made in my post. Care to clarify as I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me.. disagreeing with me or my statement just prompted some thoughts that you wanted to jot down and you quoted me. I personally look at Funcom as one company that determines where they allocate their resources. So I guess my point is that people on these forums (players) tend to be quick to play the "AO has limited resources.. give them a break" card when someone says that things aren't progressing fast enough and I'm saying that's not a good enough explanation.

Plesae don't take this the wrong way, but...what is your definition of "bleeding players"?

What and when are you using as your point of reference - such as # of accounts from when to # of account to now. Are you using paid accounts, active accounts, active players,etc. I think an explanation of how your metrics are created/calculated and interpreted would be beneficial to the playerbase.

One thing I've noticed over my years of playing is that AO players have a tendancy to mainatain payments on their account despite the fact that they don't log in. I know personally that I've probably paid for a good 2+ years worth of game time (out of 8 years) where I never touched the login screen.. on multiple accounts. I'm sure many of us have orgmates and friends that we see every blue moon who log on to say "Figured I'd pop in and say hello since I've been paying for the account all these months." etc.

That being the case, to us as players it appears that the game has lost players/has bled out dry whereas from an accounting standpoint the actual subscriber numbers may not have deviated as much as it 'feels' like they should have based on game population.

[Synnor]

AO isn't bleeding players. The numbers indicate it's extremely stable. People might not be interacting in game as much as we'd like, but that's a completely different issue.

That is simply not true and I challenge you to actually back that up with real figures.

In the past people have said AO is dead, I disagreed, I could ALWAYS find teams at any level range and do what I wanted to get done.

Over the last year the game really has gone dead. Currently leveling yet another alt, now at level 155 I have not been in one single team, not one. I've been playing 5-6 hours a day, checking LFT regulary. Literally I have been lucky to find just ONE other person on LFT the entire time leveling this alt. I check all the leveling spots. Heck spots.. empty, even kite hill FFS..... Borgs..... empty...... ToTW..... empty..... Foremans....... empty. Where are all these players?

No one is playing this game right now, mainly because everyone is waiting for something FC has promised. Be it the engine, the merge, rebalance, whatever, everyone is in stasis waiting. *hint hint* RELEASE SOMETHING!

Again I challenge you to release player numbers over the last year or two, otherwise I'm afraid I must call you a liar....

[Pepsiholist]

Yet? Noood. Im waiting

[Misat0]

I tend to disagree a parts of your list Synnor. I just happend to level a froob doc to 50 in november out of nostalgica and I were not alone in TotW (and not in the Sub to begin with). For sure TotW wasn't as crowded as in the days of glory, but I still ran into players worth 1-3 teams.

On the expansion my two conts are: It would be fatal to do this at this time as it would distract from the other working items and even partially increase work needed for them.

New engine beeing one of them. Parts of assests of the expansion would have to be done for both engines now and also the new content would not be able to fully benefit from the new engines capabilities (better effects and such).

Rebalance being another big issue. This rebalance will affect the balance of the existing content and with a new and shiny expansion at least I would expect it to be made with rebalance in mind.

So I fully agree with Ilaliya and Windguaerd that this has to wait until after those changes are as final as they ever could be and only then begin work on a larger expansion which then takes full advantage of the changes.

[aramsunat]

I agree too. On the medium/long run FC should focus on acquiring new players more than retaining/charming back old ones. Acquiring new players is not possible without the up-to-date looks.

Actually FC planned it quite smartly (I'm suprised):
Priority #1 - Server merge: Will help retaining the current population, and possibly increasing it by attracting back some veterans who are just waiting for the merge to press the reactivate button.

Priority #2 - New player experience. Considering current engine and playerbase it is not a priority, but it would be quite silly to release the new engine without a starting player experience. Engine is good for attracting new players, the starting experience is good for keeping them.

Priority #3 - New engine. See above.

Priority #4 - Minor adjustments to game mechanics to make some professions more viable in pvm, and the Holy Trinity (crat, sold, doc) less divine in comparison. PVP is fine as it is (some bits might be changed, such as removing the /assist function, but no big ones like AS mechanics changes).

Priority #867634534536 - Rebalance. Revamping of mechanics such as AS etc. Definitely not a priority. PVP is kinda fine as it is, there is a kind of balance, a real rebalance would take way too much effort and time, while FC has to focus resources on much more important aspects of the game. Screw those small number of fail-pvpers who want rebalance to have a chance that their fav prof becomes FOTM.

[Cratertina]

@Aramsunat. That is exactly how I feel about it.

Those are sound priorities for getting more people in.

And that is what we veterans want really don't we?

And then comes rebalance wich would please us oldies. Game is good as it is in many ways, it could be better then it would rival the greatest of all times.

[Misat0]

I agree to your position about new players.

Last year I got two friends to create accounts for the game and test it. They are from the generation of players that started gaming at all with WoW, later playing AoC and such - so it is no wonder they're used to a certain level of game visuals.
It finally came down to that they really liked AO game mechanics, but they just could not stand the gfx.

I'm pretty sure they'll be back after the new engine is finally there.

[Xamofne]

bah hate waiting 8 hours for update 30 days waiting is nothing compared to last day ! :P

[mishikato]

you know.... I'm really getting tired of waiting and waiting and waiting zzzZZzzzzZZZz..... and..........................................waiti ng.

[Swifttech]

I hope the update will come fast

[Vhab]

soon(tm)

[Peku]

soon(tm)

So its going to be 2017 or 2018?