What the players want.

[discoduuukk]

OK i have spoken with alot of people in game and in real life, and this is what they all say.

-communication from funcom stinks!
-there is no more patch notes until the patch has gone live
-no one is adressing people with thier problems, the only ones who are helping other players is players them selfs.
-pretty much i think almost half the people playing AO is just waiting for SWG to come out.
-if there is no more communication its only a matter of time before people will start hitting the quit AO account button. (trust me on this one)

solution
-let the players tell funcom what should be addressed in the new patch.
-make a daily post of the progress or upcomming plans.

I think this plan will go a long way with AO and funcom, you have had 2 years to do it your way, it's time you did it our way.

players please bump if you agree with me.

Thank you

[_______________Nooki]

That's funny.

[keiko]

solution
-let the players tell funcom what should be addressed in the new patch.
-make a daily post of the progress or upcomming plans.

I think this plan will go a long way with AO and funcom, you have had 2 years to do it your way, it's time you did it our way.

Agreed.. Players should have a hand in what Funcom should address, but still, you gotta think. People have been putting up with this service for what, about a year and a half? I personally have had my problems with Funcom's support, but in the long run, I'm pleased.

And BTW, the daily post is a great idea *nudges funcom* It would allow people to know what is going on with the patching.

[sarangas]

BIG BUMP

[speardancer2]

bump....

and yes, I'm waiting for SWG, hope they make the feb release date, mine and my wife's accounts are paid up thru 1/21 and 1/31, and I have yet to see any fixes that make me want to start them up again.

[locomdenom]

A daily post would be wonderful.

But pity the dev who actually does have to listen to the players... all of them.

And communication from Funcom has had its ups and downs, for sure, but Cz posts a lot more these days than the entire community team (Cz, Dai, and Cosmik) used to.

[Slicse]

Seriously, I have never seen such horrible company/customer relations in my life. I question everyday why I continue to let a company like this one charge my credit card every month. I also question why everyone else who hates Funcom does as well.

My best conclusion is that I love the game, and I get angry because the game isn't what it SHOULD be. But still, its a great game, and I guess i stay around because of that

[locomdenom]

I've seen much, much worse. I've worked for worse.

Hell, I've *been* worse.

Yes, they could be better.

But never, never forget that they could be worse too.

[______________Sepaku]

I cant wait till those people waiting for "SWG" get a taste of verants CS. Verant does what Verant wants, I played EQ for years. Verant has a habit of only answering Emails on thier MB, that way it can be filter, screened, looked over by legal and then released to public. To all those waiting for SWG ....cya back here about a Month after launch date.

Cheers
Sepaku
115 Atrox Fixer

[Ghump]

Originally posted by DiscoDuuukk
-let the players tell funcom what should be addressed in the new patch.

Actually if You go talk to the average player (not the 50 players that take some time to post on the forum, the 50.000 others) or look at the polls, what most players rate highest is

- Bigger guns
- Better armor
- More nanos
- etc... You get the point

Fixing old bugs, adding new content like Towers, stuff like that... Those things rate pretty low in those polls.

I also saw a poll about what is the most important feature of a RPG. The feature that over 80% of the voters pressed was not levels, development of the character, exploration, whatever. It was XP. >80% of the voters in that poll (I think it was on stratics.com) actually thought XP's was more important than the levels and the development of the character. You might as well just play some pinball or a shoot 'em up. Who get the highest score???

Of course I can't speak for all of us. But personally I think that with the massive bug-fixes in the latest patches I got what I wanted! And I think I can guess what most of You whiners want too. You want ALL the bugs to be fixed in one patch. And You wanted it yesterday! Somehow I don't think You will get it. It takes time to write code. And bug hunting is a long and hard process. Just because someone whines about a bug You can't just flip a switch and make it happen...

Why do I even write this? Noone cares anyway...

[Majikall]

Originally posted by Sepaku
I cant wait till those people waiting for "SWG" get a taste of verants CS. Verant does what Verant wants, I played EQ for years. Verant has a habit of only answering Emails on thier MB, that way it can be filter, screened, looked over by legal and then released to public. To all those waiting for SWG ....cya back here about a Month after launch date.

The difference being, Verant release quality software, while I get the feeling Anarchy Online is being held together by tape, wire and a bit of luck. People may deny it, because it seems to be the 'in thing' to do when you leave, but Everquest was and still is the best MMORPG out there. It had bugs, but they were very minor things, not the lag inducing, frame rate reducing, unique losing, backpack rearranging mess that AO is. Everquest had some quality programming. The only reason I don't play it anymore is because, for me, I reached the end of the game. I felt there wasn't much more to do but try to get another point in AC or a higher damage. Maybe if the new expansion had come out earlier I'd still be there.

Spookdoc

[Okatek]

DiscoDuuukk: Good post Bump!


Kiryat-Dharin:

But pity the dev who actually does have to listen to the players... all of them.

I see your point and its a good one. But the problem with
funcom is that thay make changes no boddy wonted or
just ignoreing every one in the community.

There shud be thread with solutions so every one can
be apart of the changes in to the game. Not just pulling
bulldozers over our heads.

Sometimes is very clear what the community wont
to change but still funcom leaves unchanged..(bad ide)

[svendor]

I agree with tecscope.

[______________Sepaku]

Originally posted by Majikall

The difference being, Verant release quality software, while I get the feeling Anarchy Online is being held together by tape, wire and a bit of luck. People may deny it, because it seems to be the 'in thing' to do when you leave, but Everquest was and still is the best MMORPG out there. It had bugs, but they were very minor things, not the lag inducing, frame rate reducing, unique losing, backpack rearranging mess that AO is. Everquest had some quality programming. The only reason I don't play it anymore is because, for me, I reached the end of the game. I felt there wasn't much more to do but try to get another point in AC or a higher damage. Maybe if the new expansion had come out earlier I'd still be there.

Spookdoc

VI had its share of problems, RoK and SoV were kinda painless. SoL was full of bugs you probably remember all the down time. Since you were in end game too, pretty much non stop raids cause all the mobs were pop over and over again. PoP again smooth. But thru this all VI will not balance or change game to benefit player base. VI will also straight out say "that bug doesn't exist" till the fix it, remember the FD bug(over a year to fix).

I dont think EQ is a bad game or that SWG is gonna be a bad game, I just say dont pretend like SWG is a mythical "bug-free paradise where the players input will be taken into consideration and acted upon".

-VI doesnt release patch notes before patch can be downloaded
-VI doesnt communitcate intentions to playerbase
-VI would never let players decide what issues should be addressed in a patch

I can not say that will not change in the future but that is how it stands now.


Sepaku

[Kuro]

The playerbase always has been able to tell the developers what they want fixed in a patch. But that doesn't mean the devs should listen to it...

Like it or not, the playerbase is setup of a whole lot of special interest groups. There are the profession special interest groups. The PvP special interest group. The 'Social' special interest group. Tradeskill special interest groups. And more that I know I'm missing. Reading the forums for a long time now, I've noticed the playerbase rarely agrees on anything except the most blatant or extreme of cases. And where there's no consensus, the development process would be hindered until all the arguing was sorted out.

Also, the playerbase has shown signs of 'unrealistic' thinking when it comes to development. We can always point out what needs to be fixed because that's always obvious. We can't point out when it needs to be fixed because we don't know what it'll involve to make the fix. And the development process does have to continue. Nevermind that the developers are broken up into areas of specialty and therefore a group not involved with one aspect of the game will have features ready for implementation before others.

I don't believe its reasonable to expect the playerbase, a mixed group with different goals and expectations, not to hinder the development process despite its good intentions. Actually I think it goes deeper than that. I think the individuals of the playerbase expect the developers to listen to them individually and do what they say, when they say it. And that's not a realistic expectation. But looking at the contents of most patches it's safe to say the developers have listened to the playerbase as a whole at least in identifying the areas that need attention.

The implementation stage of things tends to sway back and forth. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. But without knowing how difficult it would be for them to implement some of our suggestions, it's also hard to criticize their choice of implementation as well. I've seen some suggestions that would obviously involve ripping the guts out of the client code and starting anew, something which if it could be done would not be done in a timely fashion.

[Metalynx]

Face the facts folks. You want "open communication" with Funcom. Look to these boards with a neutral view. If, Funcom set it up so the PLayers woudl have direct support to updates and patches (meaning asking hte playerbase directly what they want) patches woudl take 6 months in between. Why you ask?

Becasue non of us can agree to the same thing. SOme peopl want bigger guns..some want Tara to spawn 16x. Others want to solo Ian Warr. Others no matter how realistic a idea comes up, will argue ANY point given just for the sake of arguing.

THen we get the greifers who delight in casuing strife to everyone around.

(get the picture?)

We as a player base dont agree on anything. A few basic points we do agree on (get rid of lag..make pet pathing better etc). However, this game wasnt coded in C+, where you coudl just plug a chunk in and make 2 quick adjustments. Unless you Personally work for Funcom, I doubt you have even a inkling of how they set this up behind the scenes. (And before you try I oudl care less how many programming degrees or whatever you have...you ...Didint...WRITE THE BLOODY GAME!).

Personally I think a "Open Communication" woudl KILL this game faster than it is allready dying. Why? becasue the 5-8 self proclaimed "armchair experts" out here woudl constantly nitpick every possible permutation of things in the game, and Funcom would not be able to output.

I dont belive Funcom ever had the idea to create a game where the playerbase was never ending..where you coudl continue to level and grow in power. There has to be a Cap sometime. Otherwise they cannot stop to improve the little things (bugs etc). Peopel are so concerned with High leve content..and they have cried enough..Funcom is now putting in High level content..at the sake of Fixing long term problems. SO on and so on...the more player complain and force Funcom to continue putting out half assed ideas..the worse it will get.

Heres an idea. its a simple one but one that I think noone actually has put any thought into. lean in close...you might not hear this....

"LET FUNCOM BE! LET THEM WORK ON THE DAMN PATCHES IN PEACE!! EVERYTIME THEY PUT OUT PATCHNOTES BEFORE THE PATCH YOU ALL TRASH IT!! EVERY TIME THEY PUT OUT NOTES ON IMPROVMENTS..YOU ARE ALL CAMPING THE SPAWN THAT THEY MENTIONED WOUDL APPEAR 2 WEEKS EARILER!!"

Does that make sense? IEvery time they put out a Patch note in the past mentioneng "new nanos" or etc, the DAY it happens hordes of peopel are slamming the servers camping immediatly for them.

Christ you people are actually making things worse. I woudl think by now most of you have figured out when they slap a patch up..that a min of 3 days is taken to fix bugs Bugs even in testing they cannot forsee. And they DO fix these bugs.

(bloody hell...if you think your 12$ a month bestows you the ability to TELL funcom how to do buisness...maybe you shoudl go buy some damn Stock in their company ...then you have a real reason to tell them how to do theri work)

[Slavor]

I don't think anyone is advocating player-directed development, and micromanagement of funcom developers. Any reasonable person would realize that there would be big problems getting such an approach to function.

However, it is clear that AO's player-base is screaming for more information about the game, and issues that is sees as problems. Most players feel like they are "in the dark" about the evolution of the game.

What would help
1) Add a thread that contains Funcom's answers it has provided to various threads. A simple hyperlink to Funcom's post would be sufficient. This way, we can quickly and easily see what was commented on and when. Sure we can use the search feature, but if everyone is searching for the same thing, it makes sense to incorporate it into the layout.
2) Create a thread that is specific to the development of AO. Make it so that new threads cannot be created in it by anyone other than a funcom developer, or by an admin; threads are "moved" here. This method would facilitate some communication of detail between funcom and the players.