Monthly Development Update – Dec 3rd 2012

[Genele]

About playfields we close during server merge: They are not deleted and we can re-introduce them later when we have found a new purpose for them.

About daily missions for serenity islands: the door is still there and the missions are actually made in a cloned playfield of the cities. (translates to don't worry they will still work.)

About Tax building: It will be sold in the new vending machines.

About building tradeskills: They still exist for buildings that have not been removed.

About Towers: Tower fields will not be transferred so prepare for battle.

[Ekarona]

About playfields we close during server merge: They are not deleted and we can re-introduce them later when we have found a new purpose for them.

About daily missions for serenity islands: the door is still there and the missions are actually made in a cloned playfield of the cities. (translates to don't worry they will still work.)

About Tax building: It will be sold in the new vending machines.

About building tradeskills: They still exist for buildings that have not been removed.

About Towers: Tower fields will not be transferred so prepare for battle.

What buildings will be available from shop? And also if the old buff giving onces are how are they price compared. Currently a building can cost around 50-100M at max QL.

[Genele]

What buildings will be available from shop? And also if the old buff giving onces are how are they price compared. Currently a building can cost around 50-100M at max QL.

What buildings available: All of them.

The price of the buildings will be higher or equal to that of the upkeep price increase they add to the city. It also greatly depends on your comp. lit. skill.
I can write a more number oriented post before the merge.

[Ekarona]

What buildings available: All of them.

The price of the buildings will be higher or equal to that of the upkeep price increase they add to the city. It also greatly depends on your comp. lit. skill.
I can write a more number oriented post before the merge.

Umm that sounds like price will be way too low. I would guess that correct modifier should be 10 or 20 times the upkeep increase at least to make tradeskilling viable.

Buildings are bought onces, upkeep every month. So around 12 or 24 times would seem like resonable if the tradeskillings is going to be supported.

[Liwa]

What buildings available: All of them.

The price of the buildings will be higher or equal to that of the upkeep price increase they add to the city. It also greatly depends on your comp. lit. skill.
I can write a more number oriented post before the merge.

Umm that sounds like price will be way too low. I would guess that correct modifier should be 10 or 20 times the upkeep increase at least to make tradeskilling viable.

Buildings are bought onces, upkeep every month. So around 12 or 24 times would seem like resonable if the tradeskillings is going to be supported.

New players who want to build a player city or the rest of us who want to add a building do not need to pay your over-priced amounts at the Tower shop for buildings just so that you can still make large profits on tradeskilling them ...

Effectively paying for the building every month with increased rent is enough. I prefer Genele's pricing ...

Kinnik

[Phixalicious]

What happened to the replacement of functions that were removed when the game went from the GMS to the GMI?

- Org shops
- Shop sales tax helping to offset city upkeep

GMI took the place of org shops. Those aren't coming back, and there's nothing to replace.

Edit: I read org tax when you said sales tax.

Sales tax can still be done through the GMI. I'm sure they can add a "if seller is in org, x amount of sale goes to org" or something like that.

If not, just raise your org tax an extra % to cover the loss.

[fixedsys212m]

I'm glad that the new GFX engine and the NPE are finally arriving --- the flying spaghetti monster knows how long we've waited for the new GFX engine. And I think it's great it's being completed before the release of a Steam client.

Once the Steam client has finally been figured out may I suggest reserving the recently freed server as an emergency server in case the AO community increases in population again?

Also, a fellow orgmate wonders if Steam will be required in order to open AO in the future?

This may be a bit soon but I can't help but ask: With the new GFX engine out of the way I'm wondering if any sort of expansion pack is being pondered over. I think the idea of some sort of Cyborg Expansion Pack is the most popularly supported among the AO community. I figure the Steam Client and the new player cities are probably just the beginning of the to-do list now that the greatest burdens are soon to be out of the way, but an addition to lower-level Rubi-Ka content for the influx of new players I think would be a smart idea. And fun to work on, now that you have the tools.

[Phixalicious]

I'm glad that the new GFX engine and the NPE are finally arriving --- the flying spaghetti monster knows how long we've waited for the new GFX engine. And I think it's great it's being completed before the release of a Steam client.

Once the Steam client has finally been figured out may I suggest reserving the recently freed server as an emergency server in case the AO community increases in population again?

Also, a fellow orgmate wonders if Steam will be required in order to open AO in the future?

This may be a bit soon but I can't help but ask: With the new GFX engine out of the way I'm wondering if any sort of expansion pack is being pondered over. I think the idea of some sort of Cyborg Expansion Pack is the most popularly supported among the AO community. I figure the Steam Client and the new player cities are probably just the beginning of the to-do list now that the greatest burdens are soon to be out of the way, but an addition to lower-level Rubi-Ka content for the influx of new players I think would be a smart idea. And fun to work on, now that you have the tools.

You will not need Steam to run AO. You'll still be able to run the client on its own just like now. Only games made specifically for Steam require Steam.

As for expansions, don't get your hopes up for anytime soon after the merge, engine, etc. Expansions take 2 things to make: devs and money. Two things AO is sorely lacking right now, and there is no guarantee that putting lipstick on the old girl is going to improve the situation past the first month or two after "re-release".

[Gaveup]

Umm that sounds like price will be way too low. I would guess that correct modifier should be 10 or 20 times the upkeep increase at least to make tradeskilling viable.

Buildings are bought onces, upkeep every month. So around 12 or 24 times would seem like resonable if the tradeskillings is going to be supported.

You make enough off tradeskills. Again this month I don't wanna read all that jibberish for something that should be front page of anarchyonline.com as there have been no updates... to the update section; yaya everyone should spend all day catching up on all the threads here. I take it that buildings currently placed on city plots won't be refunded since FC is going to sell them to us?

[McKnuckleSamwich]

easy fix to keep tradeskillers happy is to offer the buildings in shops only up to QL 250. 251-300 only buildable by TSer's.

That way, you can still charge a hefty premium for top of the line buildings, or, you can outfit your city with "gimp" buildings for dirt cheap.

[Gatester]

Umm that sounds like price will be way too low. I would guess that correct modifier should be 10 or 20 times the upkeep increase at least to make tradeskilling viable.

Buildings are bought onces, upkeep every month. So around 12 or 24 times would seem like resonable if the tradeskillings is going to be supported.

I believe they said buildings would be nodrop. Might want to recheck that and make sure.

[Traderjill]

GMI took the place of org shops. Those aren't coming back, and there's nothing to replace.

Edit: I read org tax when you said sales tax.

Sales tax can still be done through the GMI. I'm sure they can add a "if seller is in org, x amount of sale goes to org" or something like that.

If not, just raise your org tax an extra % to cover the loss.

I am well aware that the GMS was replaced by the GMI or were you being funny? And what do you mean by raise your org tax an extra % to cover the loss? Who even uses the org tax functionality in this game when it charges players per min or whatever logged in?

Anyway, in case somehow my question wasn't clear enough...

I was asking for status on the tax building and also a status on the statement from Lindelu that they were looking into implementing some form of org-only shop functionality since that had been removed with the implementation of the GMI. and prior to that the statement from Illaliya saying about the same thing.

[Utopian]

I believe they said buildings would be nodrop. Might want to recheck that and make sure.

Asked the question about this - was he talking about the "complete, ready to place" buildings only in the update?

If the TS process to make buildings is still available to those of us that like to farm and build them - are they also going to become no drop too? That wouldn't make sense.

[Windguaerd]

Asked the question about this - was he talking about the "complete, ready to place" buildings only in the update?

If the TS process to make buildings is still available to those of us that like to farm and build them - are they also going to become no drop too? That wouldn't make sense.

The last step in the TS of the Sauna, makes it NODROP, so only someone from your own faction can make it and place it in your city.

[Windguaerd]

About playfields we close during server merge: They are not deleted and we can re-introduce them later when we have found a new purpose for them.

Thank you very much, this makes me a happy man. But do delete the german ghetto, it was ugly.

[blackhawks]

What happened to remodeling tree's I remember a developer said they were working on them? Or have they been lowered in priority?

[Lheann]

I still have emails stored from 2003, so me.

Yep I worked for company that had a do not delete email policy and kept all email archived on the servers forever. Any company that has legal action against it is required to sequester all related emails that are about the legal action and generally will require a two year from date of notice to completion of all legal proceedings be sequestered. So in today's world that means pretty much all email is kept forever.

General info for everyone: If you don't keep emails outside of junk email you should. Ever get sued and it could save your butt.

[Boltgun]

1+1=2.

Translation.

New server, all fields open to be claimed.

The first week, there will probably be tons of PvP action in the fight to "reclaim" fields.

Omnis and clanners hating each other again, that's the good news of the day.

[Enno]

Yep I worked for company that had a do not delete email policy and kept all email archived on the servers forever. Any company that has legal action against it is required to sequester all related emails that are about the legal action and generally will require a two year from date of notice to completion of all legal proceedings be sequestered. So in today's world that means pretty much all email is kept forever.

General info for everyone: If you don't keep emails outside of junk email you should. Ever get sued and it could save your butt.

This reminds me of a great JWZ article: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/rbarip.html
His summary at the end is that following the rule to shred everything after 90 days would have been best, but I don't think you can do that in today's corporate America, where everyone is pretty much being sued by somebody at all times. The best thing that upper management does for you in any job is not telling you how many frivolous lawsuits they are shielding you from on a daily basis...

[Dumonde]

About Towers: Tower fields will not be transferred so prepare for battle.

Woohoo !