Monthly Development Update: February 2012

[Mastablasta]

Why post this now, this could have been a monthly update :P

Makes it easier to write this month's update

[Gorathon]

That *was* the monthly update. See you in April!

[Mastablasta]

That *was* the monthly update. See you in April!

Zing!

[Rapter891]

wheres the video

[Sugest]

22.03.2012 rampapam

[Exxxie]

wheres the video

I guess it's on a USB stick whirling around at Funcom's marketing division =)

"Hey, have you seen the stick with the archony online or something... video?" - "Na, the dog must have eaten it." - "Okay, nevermind."

[Magnificus]

I hope for AO and Funcoms reputation that you have the engine ready within a reasonable amount of time after promoting this video.

After producing nothing for years after your last 'new engine video', the fool me once, fool me twice rule is in effect.

[Pomidor]

I hope for AO and Funcoms reputation that you have the engine ready within a reasonable amount of time after promoting this video.

After producing nothing for years after your last 'new engine video', the fool me once, fool me twice rule is in effect.

I second that.

[Ilaliya]

It is funny that you say this because I was having a chat in-game and I said the exact thing.. that you and Lindelu don't see how the miscommunications to the community impact the gameplay experience of those of us still actively playing the game. lol, lo and behold I check this thread and you've said just that. Guess I win while I lose at the same time.

I won't pretend to be a psychologist or some expert in human behavior but I do see an impact on my gameplay experience everytime you disappoint, annoy, piss-off, or 'whatever' existing paying players. Everytime one of these mishaps, miscommunications, etc happens the tolerance level of yet another group of people gets exceeded and their gameplay changes.

Sometimes this is as simple/subtle as logging in less throughout the week. Quite often it is simply taking a break from the game even though the time has already been paid for in advance. And in other situations, it is a complete uninstall of AO and a complete move on to something else.

I speak for no one else but myself when I bluntly state, that what I described above has a serious impact on my gameplay experience, whether you guys realize it or not.

That being said, I am one of the most proactive people on Rimor when it comes to organizing raids and teams. I don't just sit back on LFT or hope that someone will organize things for me. I team with people of all 3 factions, I use OOC, forums, neutnet, teamspeak, ventrilo.. basically all tools possible to get things going in game and keep the game fun for me and my orgmates. When someone like me is struggling to keep things together, not to speak for others, but I think it is safe to say that others might just have an impacted gameplay experience as well.

Just to get this out of the way, I want to make reiterate that I think there's a substantive difference between a miscommunication, and telling you guys (the players) the best and most current information we have at the time. I've already explained a number of times why we decided to delay the video, and the rationale that we used, and why we thought overall it was the best move for the game because it generates interest outside the existing AO community. I believe in being frank and up front with the community, and if you think I'm operating in bad faith I don't think there's much I can do on the forums to remedy that until we have a track-record of delivering the big game features you care about (and lets be honest, this is primarily the engine, new player experience, and systems changes). Which isn't going to happen in my first months on the job.

Now, I see a lot of posters express their feeling that AO could benefit from more players in absolute terms (I don't think there are many games where this is not true!), and part of this is using traditional marketing strategies when and where we feel it makes sense. As I have previously mentioned, after we finished the video and showed it around internally, we decided in this case it made sense even though it would add a few weeks delay because there is a process there.

To talk about positively impacting the gameplay experience of all players, I personally think that's the benefit we gain of increased exposure outside of the AO community. And yes we had to weigh that against the obvious reaction we would get on the forums and I was willing to eat flames for a few weeks so to speak. But please understand that given the choice of pleasing the forum-posting community in the short term, and doing what I felt was the right thing in the longer term (in this case, meaning a few weeks from when the decision was made), generally speaking I try to do the right thing even if it's not necessarily the popular thing. I don't mind if people disagree with me on whether I made the right or wrong decision once presented the situation, but I think it's a fallacy to presuppose that the popular decision is necessarily the right decision. It certainly can be, but I think that's part of the discussion rather than a given.

What I meant by "not impacting the play experience" was intended in the strict sense of the term. Please keep it in perspective that this isn't a game feature we're talking about. I didn't announce a delay of a patch, update, major game feature, or even a minor game feature. If it could be called a feature at all, the engine preview video is inherently a relations feature (meaning some combination of PR, CR, marketing, etc). Forums are also not a gameplay feature in the strict sense of that word, even though forums clearly add to the experience of the game in the broader sense. So certainly while something doesn't need to be a gameplay feature (aka impact the play experience) to have value, I feel like the point of a game is to play the game and in my mind a several week delay on PR push doesn't short-change the players. That's all I'm saying.

I think what you are getting at is a separate issue, and it's one I completely acknowledge. And I'm actually a bit loathe to broach the subject because it's a whole can of worms -- but here we go. I think what you are talking about quite frankly is one of confidence in the future of the game, and the ability to fulfill the features that we've signed up to do. I understand this sentiment. To put things in perspective, I joined Funcom in early summer 2008, and I've worked on Conan's live product, Rise of the Godslayer, The Secret World, and now Anarchy. So, every single game that uses the Dreamworld technology. For me when the engine was announced, this was a few months shy of 2 companies and 5 games ago. Should the engine have taken five years? Objectively speaking, no. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that mistakes weren't made. But that doesn't mean we don't all want to see AO live up to its full potential.

Now that I'm here, its my job as Producer to assume ultimate responsibility for the success of the engine feature (which includes releasing in a timely manner); and in nuts & bolts terms this is generally stuff like planning, scheduling, prioritization, resource acquisition and allocation. And this goes for the other features as well. And the developers are of course the heroes, I just keep the swords polished and the spell-books organized so to speak and make sure they're slaying the right dragon. And doing the /invite when we need a level 10 Vhab in the party . So the things Lindelu talks about in this letter are happening. But there is no magic wand or silver bullet, and cutting corners isn't going to get us anywhere faster. The optimal path is doing things in the right way, in the right order, with the proper focus.

I'm not sure what your expectations are in terms of how much effort/work/etc a player of your game should have to do just to experience the MMO portion of your MMORPG but I can assure you that the effort required at this stage of the game is more than excessive by anyone's standards.

It is actually a little insulting to read that the Game Producer doesn't see this.. or is dismissing what the playerbase experiences as not being relevant.

I appreciate your perspective on this. But just so you know, this isn't my MMORPG. I actually just watched for the nth time the redlettermedia review of the first three episodes belonging to a certain prequel. In legal terms the license and the property of Anarchy Online belong to Funcom of course, but I think it's pretty obvious that an MMO doesn't exist without its community, and doesn't get anywhere by doing things contrary to the best interest of the community. The point I am trying to make is that sometimes we as the developers have to make tough calls as to what that is and generally this means weighing two or more imperfect options. And I also happen to feel it's just as important to explain the calculation to the community, and give as much insight as possible to our decision making process, and getting feedback on that. Which is all I'm trying to do here with the video.

[Mekh]

Thanks for a very good and informative post, Ilaliya.

Very much appreciated.

[Vhab]

And doing the /invite when we need a level 10 Vhab in the party .

Level 11.
Put all the skill points into Python \o/

[Traderjill]

What I meant by "not impacting the play experience" was intended in the strict sense of the term. Please keep it in perspective that this isn't a game feature we're talking about. I didn't announce a delay of a patch, update, major game feature, or even a minor game feature. If it could be called a feature at all, the engine preview video is inherently a relations feature (meaning some combination of PR, CR, marketing, etc). Forums are also not a gameplay feature in the strict sense of that word, even though forums clearly add to the experience of the game in the broader sense. So certainly while something doesn't need to be a gameplay feature (aka impact the play experience) to have value, I feel like the point of a game is to play the game and in my mind a several week delay on PR push doesn't short-change the players. That's all I'm saying.

I read your post and took your statement for what it was.. sounds like you wanted to say that the delay of the video doesn't affect any game mechanics instead of using the word gameplay experience... "gameplay experience" from everything I can tell is exactly what my post was addressing in response to your choice of words. Not a big deal if that isn't what you meant but I think game experience is about what we, as players endure/enjoy/encounter while in the game. I could be wrong by that definition and I'm sure someone will correct me if that's the case.

I do appreciate your response as it does give further insight into your perspective regardless of whether or not it is something I agree with or want to hear.. I do thank you for taking the time to respond. I do quite often point people to the few posts you've made on the forums so that they can get some insight into how you view the game. Personally I always find it very interesting.

The only thing I did want to clarify is that when I said "your game" I was referring to you, a Funcom employee. One thing I've always been told and learned is that for any business the person that a customer speaks to IS the company. It doesn't matter if that's the checkout person at the grocery store, the salesman or the janitor. As a customer, anyone working for Funcom is Funcom in a way... in other words a representative of the company they work for. As such saying 'your game' when you hold a major role of responsibility for it isn't, I don't think out of line. But in the future, I won't try to imply that you have any level of ownership of the game.. bad choice of words on my part I suppose.

[Hardcore]

Interesting, so the video we are expecting will be instead a teaser-trailer to advertise the engine? Will there be more than one video presenting it, is this the main video so to speak?

Also, please avoid bringin up future plans that would exaggerate the community, then changing the plans, I think this is what annoys people the most. I mean I can wait for stuff so that the changes are made correctly, however saying stuff and not deliver is hard to take. (I do understand your situation, so no need to explain.)

Keep up the work guys, you guys are gonna rise AO up once again!

[Mastablasta]

A wild Ilaliya appears.

Ilaliya used Reason.

It isn't very effective.

[Lazy]

A wild Ilaliya appears.

Ilaliya used Reason.

It isn't very effective.

he's new here. give him time to get more jaded.

eventually he'll become one of us!

[Gorathon]

A wild Ilaliya appears.

Ilaliya used Reason.

It isn't very effective.

Because Ilaliya hasn't learned from this process. I am now forced to help.

...after we finished the video and showed it around internally, we decided in this case it made sense even though it would add a few weeks some delay because there is a process there.

...I was willing to eat flames for a few weeks bit so to speak. But please understand that given the choice of pleasing the forum-posting community in the short term, and doing what I felt was the right thing in the longer term (in this case, meaning a few weeks from when the decision was made)....

...I feel like the point of a game is to play the game and in my mind a several week delay on PR push doesn't short-change the players. That's all I'm saying.

Because it's never really been about the delay of an announced video, it's been about the delay of an announced video. I understand that the video has been delayed, and that there are reasons for it. This should give the folks in Canada some clue that the timetable is not theirs, per se, and that if they would just learn to speak in fewer absolutes they would eat flame less often.

[Exxxie]

Aside from agitating the community with unachievable timeframes it's just a damn freakin' video we're talking about! Just wait for it till it's done!

Speaking of timeframes. Almost every gamefirm/developer/puplisher/ what so ever is forced to give some schedule of any sort because there's always some little annoying girl at the backseat whining: "are we there yet, daddy?!"

[Gunforhire]

Speaking of timeframes. Almost every gamefirm/developer/puplisher/ what so ever is forced to give some schedule of any sort because there's always some little annoying girl at the backseat whining: "are we there yet, daddy?!"

I agree 100 percent. I believe if people would spend more time playing the game and less time on here grinding their axe that they wouldn't notice how long the video is taking and will be happy when it does come out. AO Rocks.

[Kauh]

..... And I also happen to feel it's just as important to explain the calculation to the community, and give as much insight as possible to our decision making process, and getting feedback on that. Which is all I'm trying to do here with the video.

Thanks for the update and the interaction. Perhaps (somewhat) soothing the community could be achieved by _more_ communication via more responses to peoples posts/inquiries/feedback. More than once every few weeks, that is.
Don't get me wrong, I do (as do most) appreciate the in depth explanations that are given -- But there is a long plethora if bickering among the indians with little interjections by the chiefs. Please,, talk to us more!

Thanks for the reply!

[Lheann]

I agree 100 percent. I believe if people would spend more time playing the game and less time on here grinding their axe that they wouldn't notice how long the video is taking and will be happy when it does come out. AO Rocks.

The problem is we can sit on LFT for anything and have the time to read these post and grind our axes and still not have an invite for any team. Hence the axe grinding is producing a rather sharp blade.