Monthly Development Update: March 2012

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Originally Posted by drainbamage

You shouldn't have to run a 3rd-party chatbot to get basic functionality like "who the hell is online"

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Maybe, but take a look at WoW. It's guild system has quite alot of functionality yet there is still thousands upon thousands of addons for the game, just for guilds. People like to be able to get information readily and easily and in a fashion that suits them, not everyone else.

Bots do this, have done this for years and continue to do this.

Asking the Devs to put in something that nobody would use anyway is a waste of their resources.


I do agree on now having to rely on 3rd party though, but thankfully they allows us to.

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Originally Posted by x999

The way things seems to be going they will end up banned cause of EULA possibly.

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Well bots offer many functions which the game at this time does not offer. If the new GUI that will be built in the future were to include those functions, then yes... the bots would not be needed.

EULA could in theory be fully enforced, but then all the 3rd party would be banned, and in turn (again, in theory) all those involved in the development of such software. And how about the online sites that rip info from the AO db? those also could be in breach of the EULA.

Bottom line is that Funcom would be unlikely to ban bots, they have been a crucial aspect of player retention in the game.

Every day, people use the bot commands !level, !mission, !whois, !is, !oe, !buffs, !stats and more.

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Originally Posted by Demoder

I'm multilogging on test right now. Which makes me think you're experiencing the effect of a bug.

May I suggest reporting this bug in the bugreport forum, along with system specifications and what other programs (such as antivirus software) are running?

It may also help tracking down the cause if you ensure you're not running any applications which extract information from AO when trying to multilog on test. Examples of such applications would be Anarchy Online Items Assistant, Clicksaver or my PlanetMap Viewer. If the crash only occurs while such third party programs are running, it's likely not AOs fault.

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http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...58#post6054558

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Originally Posted by lindelu

Dual logging is broken, don't attempt it or you may crash, this will be fixed in the next version

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Originally Posted by Windguaerd

Well bots offer many functions which the game at this time does not offer. If the new GUI that will be built in the future were to include those functions, then yes... the bots would not be needed.

EULA could in theory be fully enforced, but then all the 3rd party would be banned, and in turn (again, in theory) all those involved in the development of such software. And how about the online sites that rip info from the AO db? those also could be in breach of the EULA.

Bottom line is that Funcom would be unlikely to ban bots, they have been a crucial aspect of player retention in the game.

Every day, people use the bot commands !level, !mission, !whois, !is, !oe, !buffs, !stats and more.

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This is something I brought up earlier in the thread myself. Changing systems itself isn't bad, changing them citing the EULA as a reason when, as you've pointed out, it's been breached for years already by third party tools just opens a can of worms. Picking and choosing which EULA-break will be allowed and which will not negates the impact of the EULA altogether. It's in FC's best interest to develop their own versions ( or buy out the original creators if possible, which is what I'd really hope for so the creators can get a nice reward for their creations ) of the tools for official incorporation into the actual client and be done with it.

Dual logging is internally slightly more 'broken' than on TestLive.
While it appears not to crash on TL, I can assure you the client is crying on the inside :)
There however is no permanent damage in doing so anyways.

This will be fixed with the next build for TL.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

I'm usually not one to say what will kill the game.. but this suggestion quoted above. will kill the game. Take away my ability to multi-log, at this late point in the game, and I would no longer even know how to function on a day to day basis playing. That might be sad. but it is true.

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Originally Posted by Lazy

are you willing to fork over the 15 euro/month/account that people pay for that privilage of multilogging to remove it?

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If all accounts are paid allow multi-logging. If any of them are fr00b accounts, do not allow it.

@Lazy Your $15 a month doesn't entitle you to a free storage account.

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Originally Posted by Kron

That would just limit multilogging to those with more than one computer.

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Virtualization? I just considered upside of it, you could run clicksaver at same time and play with other account...

I would love to know since you are talking about Rome if you are willing to rework Omni-1 Entertainment as this city is by far worse then any of the other cities and I would love to be there more then anywhere honestly...

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Originally Posted by Krattonomic

I would love to know since you are talking about Rome if you are willing to rework Omni-1 Entertainment as this city is by far worse then any of the other cities and I would love to be there more then anywhere honestly...

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Omni Ent is honestly not that bad. its just a lot more stale and vacated than the name implies that it should be, or it's design begs for it to be. a couple street gangs (npc's) combing the place and constantly killing each, coupled with a red light district or something (after being subjected to all the trox's in thongs over the years, I don't see the issue), and maybe homeless people asking for xxxplumbo... and whatever other ideas one could imagine, just might make the place seem more like an "entertainment" district. It is omni after all, and the city certainly has that sort of dark post-dystopian vibe going for it.

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Originally Posted by SoapTarder

Omni Ent is honestly not that bad. its just a lot more stale and vacated than the name implies that it should be, or it's design begs for it to be. a couple street gangs (npc's) combing the place and constantly killing each, coupled with a red light district or something (after being subjected to all the trox's in thongs over the years, I don't see the issue), and maybe homeless people asking for xxxplumbo... and whatever other ideas one could imagine, just might make the place seem more like an "entertainment" district. It is omni after all, and the city certainly has that sort of dark post-dystopian vibe going for it.

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It also used to be very populated. It wasn't the lifeless lump it is now. I'd be all for adding some (young) adult-themed dystopian content in there. Street gangs, stim junkies, night walkers, fixer hubs, back-alley docs, etc.

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Originally Posted by Phixalicious

If all accounts are paid allow multi-logging. If any of them are fr00b accounts, do not allow it.

@Lazy Your $15 a month doesn't entitle you to a free storage account.

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no. the froob program entitles me to a free storage account (2 actually + 1 for bots). my 15x2/month entitles me to duallog toons that are on separate accounts.

I see AO is hiring a Senior coder - is this additional staff, or is Macrosun planning on leaving?

RE: Omni City upgrades:

Omni cities are way oversized - this fits their motif, but not actual player desires.

Borealis is the city of choice for most omnis because it is the most compact and efficient city in the game. Not sure what you can do to get them to live in their own cities but you can brush things up a bit at the home front:

Trade - this city is almost normal, and pretty efficient in terms of being a massive supermarket - add a few NPC's and curiousities and move the tower/ofab shop from Rome to there close to the grid exit(the tower PvP crowd hangs there). Clan Tower Shop should be moved to Tir not far from the grid as well, for the same reasons.

Entertainment - As suggest earlier, add NPC's - vagabonds, hookers strolling the red light district, some roving thugs in the far reaches who will aggro small chars. Also open a few more shops and/or clubs

Rome - Poorly laid out, period. Who's idea of a joke was it to call the grassy part 'Rome Red', anyway? Needs some general chopping and rearranging, especially with an eye towards newbies arriving at the doors.

...

Personally I'd like to see Omni Ent be converted into a sort of quest area for low level omni players. Root out clan informants, deal with local small time criminals, etc. Perfect place for some hard-boiled cyberpunk stuff.

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Originally Posted by Dagget

Omni cities are way oversized - this fits their motif, but not actual player desires.

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This is entirely true, although I think there's untapped potential here. Rather than see these cities shrunken down to (forgive the example) Age of Conan standards, I'd like to see their size and layouts taken advantage of. Omni-Entertainment is just begging for content. You've got parks, slums, an arena...why not turn this into some prime lowbie leveling content? It'd also be a great opportunity to introduce new quest lines emphasizing the Omni-Tek lifestyle that's been watered down ever since the propaganda announcement V.O.s were removed...or broken...or whatever happened to those...

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Originally Posted by drainbamage

Personally I'd like to see Omni Ent be converted into a sort of quest area for low level omni players. Root out clan informants, deal with local small time criminals, etc. Perfect place for some hard-boiled cyberpunk stuff.

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This....

Omni Ent should = Vegas.

I'm a L33t and "the global-market-cross-dimensional-shop-system" was my idea LOL.

Wait wait wait wait. Getting rid of my city? I never had a big org that had tons of credits and chipped in to buy my city. I've been with this game since launch, and I have always stood by the decisions of the devs- whether I liked it at the time or not. But the cities? It's the one "personal" thing there is in the game. The "social" wear is so outdated and unattractive. (I mean, how hard is it to make some clothing meshes that still look feminine without looking like you get paid for sex?) I mean, I get that the bulk of the population is male, but come on.

Anyhow. Not the issue.

How do you reimburse how much I paid for my first city? I had to scrounge up 104.5m every month, and I have only once ever sold a bot. (Recently. To fund buying my city back.) All of it went to friends and orgmates. All of the get-rich-quick schemes were never for me. And then, my friend practically gave me my next city for what my other friend gave me for my old one. (Altogether about 100-200m.) Still. Paying 55m every month drained me a lot. And I've been doing that to his day. There was a short phase about a year ago where I actually lost my city because I had to deal with RL issues. Luckily, I was able to buy it back from the good person who picked it up for what he put into it. But all-in-all, I had to raise about 800m out of nowhere to 1: buy back the city and 2: let the other org's rent expire so I could pick up the city anew and just pick it up with my org that I didn't want to break up. But I worked hard for my city. Practically all of the credits that I've ever owned in the game has gone to friends/orgmates and that city.

There's a lot of history in my city, and it may not mean much because in the end, players will always be just a number. But I've been loyal up until now and kept with AO for what feels like forever. Losing my city again? One I've worked so hard for? Several times over? Yeah, that's just a huge slap in the face. I definitely don't think that a new engine would even interest me in the game anymore at that point. This game is all about my Alliance mates and friends to me anyhow. But seeing the legacy of my old friends tossed out like that would just be too much. I'm sure others have had some similar experiences with theirs.

Like back when they were actually hard to attain and maintain. To me, they still are. 55m a month is a lot to me, even now when people see that as a drop in the bucket. But I'd rather have to spend some extra time making money than to not have MY city. Even if they become obsolete, I don't care. I'd still maintain it. And my friends would still raid in it with me.

All this time, I've seen things added to the game. The experience pool, expansions, one new set of social clothing, storyline (...), instances, raids.. But taken away? Okay, you took away fall damage because it got broken somehow in things like vehicles. (Many a hilarious time getting to a BS mission.) And though I wouldn't mind having it back just for the sake of my fun old tradition of flying to the top of OA and dropping out of my new yalm every time I got one.. actually having some meaning. I don't really remember things getting taken away. I know there's a lot of junk in the game already that can be tossed out. Can we start with old bugs first? The ones I never complained about for all these years that just kept getting added on to with new content rather than smoothed over and fixed? And the new content of course came with its own set of problems.

And could we just leave the cities where they are? Unhindered? I know for a fact that there are more people than just me who have worked hard for theirs. Unless you plan to compensate us for all of our credits and time spent.. all of the stress of hunting down a good new spot. All of the time spent trying to figure out how the heck to make the city parts.. Well, no, even then, there is no reimbursement for time wasted. And in the end, that's what it is. The time has been absolutely wasted. Because after all of the hard work and effort, there will be nothing to show for it.

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Originally Posted by Dagget

I see AO is hiring a Senior coder - is this additional staff, or is Macrosun planning on leaving?

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Additional staff.

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Originally Posted by Vhab

Additional staff.

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C++ experience required, right? :/