Monthly Development Update – Dec 3rd 2012

[Synnor]

One thing you Devs may want to start thinking about now.

Once AO hits steam the initial influx of players is going to be very massive (I've seen this first hand on other "f2p" games hitting steam).
A fair estimate is 3-4 million players trying it over the first month. With just one server a load of that size will obviously be a big issue. I'd suggest getting plans inplace for what could happen in that circumstance.

TLDR; Get your crash pants ready..

[Wakizaka]

Who keeps mail that old?

I still have emails stored from 2003, so me.

[Mastablasta]

One thing you Devs may want to start thinking about now.

Once AO hits steam the initial influx of players is going to be very massive (I've seen this first hand on other "f2p" games hitting steam).
A fair estimate is 3-4 million players trying it over the first month. With just one server a load of that size will obviously be a big issue. I'd suggest getting plans inplace for what could happen in that circumstance.

TLDR; Get your crash pants ready..

Totally unrealistic figure. If a 100.000 as much as registered, I'd be surprised.

[Mastablasta]

Hi, there. I was hoping we could get a confirmation of how many new character slots we're going to receive? This would help me in deciding what to delete and what to keep as far as characters go.

Why would you need to delete anyone? You can have all your characters after the merge, regardless of how many new slots you get. If, then, you don't want to buy more slots or subs never get any for free again, and you get tired of looking at them in the launcher... you can delete them.

[Mastablasta]

All good, except one thing.

Coast of Peace and Coast of Tranquility have always look like nice playfields and over the years I expected the Devs to take advantage of them and make some new content there. They are nice, and at least to me, it seemed that the development of both areas was not rushed like the German Ghettos (3 Craters East & West).

It would be a waste of dev time to scratch both coast when they have the potential to be a good places for new quests, RK missions and maybe even dailies.

If later on you make a new playfield, this may come back to haunt you, because some may say "wait a second, you removed 2 perfectly workable playfields you could have worked with and now you going to create something from scratch? ain't that a waste of dev resources?". Yeah, that.

Please reconsider, thanks for reading.

Uh, now they CAN actually use them for something cool. Instead of this silly spam location that it is now... what point is there, pray tell, in having a playfield like the ones that are there now, largely empty of everything, with city plots all over? Why would you go there?

so if we own a city here, and want to get benefit of our sauna, or use our tradeskill machine in lab, we can't ?

You will, like everyone else, get a voucher so you can build a new city in the instanced zone....This isn't "now", it's "when server merge has happened".

[cheolis]

this game is making it very difficult to continue my millionaire astronaut cowboy gigolo lifestyle that I am accustomed to

farewell, space cowboy..

[lazarus]

it seems the new engine is close enought that we can smell it.

[Freor]

Next step is testing the orgs to make sure all that data got properly moved (and fixing any issues that come up)... and then, we all migrate to a new server!
- - -
Next monthly update will be second week in January, due to the holidays.

I assume these two together mean no migration this year? Fair enough, I think most of us had our doupts about the original schedule. In any case, could we at least get a couple weeks warning when it does actually happen?

Also confirmed with the Steam guys that the overlay crash is something we need to look at on our end. Unfortunately, our coders haven't had time to look at it. They've been highly focused on all the above. Steam is happening -- all the assets are made and 95% of the work is done. It just happens to be a lower priority than the Engine Update and Server Migration, and coders are really on a roll with those.

I'd say this bug here is helping AO hehe. Much better getting Steam deal live after both NPE and new Engine are ready. Gives way better impression for the ones trying AO. Take your time with this bug, it might turn out to be really tricky one and only solved right after the two above are also ready

[Dumonde]

Finally, good news.

I´d like to thank you for this professional and elaborated information. Since we have experienced almost empty phrases month over month, I feel really like there are some big things knocking upon our door. And not only words. Few were telling that AO is dead, everything is lost. But I am now pretty confident that there might be a rescue. Server Merge -> New Engine -> (most important for me personally) Re-Balance.

Too bad that we wont experience anything of these things. The end of the world is drawing near, I doubt that anything of these promised shinnies will hit live before we all will end existing. A shame.

:/

[Honorbound]

While this has been brought up in replies to the previous monthly updates, I don't recall having seen any clear, easily accessible official warning about it, which I think would have to be done to avoid causing potential annoyance to many players...

Since the server migration will assign new character IDs to all characters, every character will lose all their preferences due to how client side prefereces are stored, unless steps are made prior the merge by the players which will allow them to restore the prefs once the migration of their characters is completed.

According to eariler information given, each successful character migration will be confirmed in an email sent to the contact address of the given account. Since I'm pretty sure the process itself will have to "know" both the old and the new char ID to make the migration happen anyway, I wonder if it would be possible to include them, along with the character name, in this letter for each migrated character? This way even those who did not prepare for the migration in advance would have all the information they need to be able to restore their prefs after the migration.

So, I think a warning about it is a must, and the sooner the better, and providing the char IDs would be nice.

[Mastablasta]

Something tells me that they won't be sending out emails for each character migrated...

[Cogline]

More likely an e-mail for each account migrated, I'd have thought. With a list of names, old IDs, new IDs, and instructions on what to do to keep your preferences. Only one way to ensure it though. Dear Hogfather, I have been really good this year and for Hogswatch I'd like...

[Misat0]

I still have emails stored from 2003, so me.

Make this +1. I still got mails from then on my private and my work mail accounts, though I honestly don't know why I keep the ones on the private.

[...] In any case, could we at least get a couple weeks warning when it does actually happen?

I doubt it will be a couple of weeks and I think this would be to much anyway. A day or two would be far enough.

[...] Much better getting Steam deal live after both NPE and new Engine are ready. Gives way better impression for the ones trying AO. [...]

I absolutely +1 this!
I'm sure there will be an initial rush of players. Although I really doubt the 3-4 million scope brought up - like Masta I'm guessing 100k is far more realistic - this is a one shot to get a larger amount of new faces and could also bring back a few old ones so AO should be presented as best as possible.

[Dumonde]

... and could also bring back a few old ones so AO should be presented as best as possible.

Like the legendary family of Tremor. I miss Tramson ;/

[Misat0]

Like the legendary family of Tremor. I miss Tramson ;/

Only him? :P Patroness Mortizia is not amused.

[Synnor]

Totally unrealistic figure. If a 100.000 as much as registered, I'd be surprised.

{removed by Anarrina}

A little strategy/mmo game called Stronghold Kingdoms had been around for 2 years, it had one server and roughly 200,000 players.
It hit Steam.
Within one month the Devs had to open 3 more servers and popped 2 million users. 2 months later, 2 more server and hit 4 million users.
That game sucked, it was like a Facebook game.

That's just one example, do some research instead of just trying to refute something with your mentally challenged logic and you'll quickly learn THAT IS THE NORMAL WHEN GAMES HIT STEAM.
To claim AO will not do what every other f2p game has done is just moronic

{removed by Anarrina}

[Mastablasta]

Casual audience exposed to thriving, popular casual game = success is not a surprise But I do hope that I'm wrong. Chances, however, are that I'm not. But I guess you won't come with an apology when it turns out that way. But then, perhaps the idea of random claims going uncriticized is good to you. Maybe you should back up your stuff in the future, because.. why should I if you shouldn't? and really, there could be any reason that's not steam for that other game's perceived additional success. Did they have 200k actual players? Or just registered accounts? Did they support more than 50 players pr. server? You lack quite a lot of data to make a convincing argument :|

I still say that your 3-4 million is completely ridiculous, based solely on empirical data related entirely to AO and any and all marketing pushes in the past. But if I'm wrong? Wonderful! I'll be surprised if we get 10000 registered froobs in the first month.

{removed}

[Otansaanpas]

images

i recall reading new engine supporting SSAO, but i can't see that in those pictures.

[Xamofne]

{removed}

A little strategy/mmo game called Stronghold Kingdoms had been around for 2 years, it had one server and roughly 200,000 players.
It hit Steam.
Within one month the Devs had to open 3 more servers and popped 2 million users. 2 months later, 2 more server and hit 4 million users.
That game sucked, it was like a Facebook game.

That's just one example, do some research instead of just trying to refute something with your mentally challenged logic and you'll quickly learn THAT IS THE NORMAL WHEN GAMES HIT STEAM.
To claim AO will not do what every other f2p game has done is just moronic {removed}

I agreee with Masta,tho i would like AO server goes boom with those 3-4mil people from steam, but that is hard going to happend..AO is just not that type of game.When kids see how hard and complex is they will just give up.Few days ago on one gamers forum i read a post in Skyrim theme, kid is impressed with Skyrim and would like to see TES VI with guns and stuff,while saying Morrowind is totaly crap and cant believe how people could play it..See thats today player base,AO is classic but todays gamers doesnt see it like that...We can just hope for those 100k new and some of old players come back...

PS sorry for bad english

[lainbr]

All I can say: Small lil shinies ;o (and somehow I did not manage to find the resize