Monthly Development Update: March 2012

Heh, if that is indeed true that Funcom does have some kind of server limitation on the db/code side for 8 characters..... then yeah you're all SOL lol. Maybe Macrosun and co have worked around that limitation now? Maybe Vhab's coding prowess has provided a means of doing so?

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Originally Posted by Lazy

the toons themselves merge fusion-dance style. so you'll have 1 toon with 2 toons' worth of perks gear implants and nanos.

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The Solper ! at last !

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Originally Posted by Malosar

Heh, if that is indeed true that Funcom does have some kind of server limitation on the db/code side for 8 characters..... then yeah you're all SOL lol. Maybe Macrosun and co have worked around that limitation now? Maybe Vhab's coding prowess has provided a means of doing so?

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Well that is my point.. if Funcom has worked around it, or is working to get around the 8 char limitation then that's pretty easy to say. In fact its a lot easier than some of the other responses I've seen from staff on the subject, tbh.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Well that is my point.. if Funcom has worked around it, or is working to get around the 8 char limitation then that's pretty easy to say. In fact its a lot easier than some of the other responses I've seen from staff on the subject, tbh.

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if you go to your account on the register.funcom.com page there's a new subsection where it says character slots: x (currently 8) maybe they're working on a feature to extend that number?

./speculation.

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Originally Posted by Lazy

if you go to your account on the register.funcom.com page there's a new subsection where it says character slots: x (currently 8) maybe they're working on a feature to extend that number?

./speculation.

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Interesting, yep, I see that now.. which makes a non-answer on the forums even worse if they are working to change it. A simple "We have had an 8 char limitation in the past and we're trying to see if we can get around it." is really all that has to be stated.. especially when they make such a public change (the addition of that Character Slot paramater" on the account page.

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Originally Posted by Ilaliya

We're going to do something with outdoor player cities. It just has to wait until at least after the new player experience is out for us to schedule any serious work there.

Honestly, speaking as a gamer ever since I played UO if someone asked me "what's the coolest hypothetical feature in an MMO" my answer would be some variant on outdoor non-instanced player cities/housing. Something that players could build out in the wilderness, in order to feel ownership over a piece of the game-world. It's about taking what is otherwise some random piece of terrain and whatever mobs happen to spawn there, and building something that is yours and calling that place home.

So I am extremely passionate about an outdoor city feature, and it's not something we're going to do away with. That being said, I think there are some deeper issues with the current implementation of outdoor cities. I feel in general that outdoor cities is feature that to be done properly should to serve some tangible purpose within the larger structure of the game, and also needs to have a high degree of customization and personalization. It also should probably not be strictly based on a first-come-first-serve basis, in the sense that for this feature to be successful you don't want a small number of land-barons controlling all the land. So you want mechanics that encourage participation and investment measured in something other than just having enough creds in the bank.

For technical reasons, the server merge/server migration means we need to reset the outdoor cities. Any serious improvement to the outdoor cities feature would also require a wipe, for obvious reasons. Since we have to clear the outdoor cities anyway, it seemed logical that instead of turning them back on we improve the feature first. In the meantime, we have the instanced cities. And then it's about reimbursing orgs who have outdoor cities and making sure that the pricing for the instanced cities is right, and addressing any functionality that went missing.

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In reading this I am coming to the unfortunate conclusion that the plan is to turn outdoor cities into more pvp zones. How else can this game deal with other than first come first serve. Ghastly idea if that is the plan. There are way more than enough pvp opportunities in the game already.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Interesting, yep, I see that now.. which makes a non-answer on the forums even worse if they are working to change it. A simple "We have had an 8 char limitation in the past and we're trying to see if we can get around it." is really all that has to be stated.. especially when they make such a public change (the addition of that Character Slot paramater" on the account page.

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gonna have to wait and see what linde says in her next monthly update i guess.

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Originally Posted by Lazy

if you go to your account on the register.funcom.com page there's a new subsection where it says character slots: x (currently 8) maybe they're working on a feature to extend that number?

./speculation.

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Or then it's TSW thing, they offer less than 4, but ability to buy extras.

Fun thing my TLJ sub has 8 slots too, and it's a single player game ;D

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Funcom has stated in the past that there is no option for us to be able to have more than 8 chars per account due to some limit on their side. This came up a lot prior to you being able to move toons from account to account.

I know everyone can make fun of this VAUGHN2006 guy or whatever but many of us were around when they closed down the german server and their only option was to move to RK1, RK2 or both. If they had toons already on either RK1 or RK2 and a full set of 8 toons on the german server their only option was to either move some of their toons to another account (i.e. forced to pay for another account), move some toons to RK1 and some to RK2 or simply leave their toons behind (which to my understanding eventually became unavailable for transfer).

So laugh all you want, and I appreciate Vhab stepping in to say that toons won't be deleted.. but how about shedding some light on what other options Funcom is considering. Has the 8 char per account limit been overcome such that it won't be an issue?

I'm sorry, but the track-record of Funcom on this type of thing is bad (based off the german server situation) so its not like people expressing concern about this are psychos running around claiming that the sky is falling. It is a very legit concern.

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Interesting, yep, I see that now.. which makes a non-answer on the forums even worse if they are working to change it. A simple "We have had an 8 char limitation in the past and we're trying to see if we can get around it." is really all that has to be stated.. especially when they make such a public change (the addition of that Character Slot paramater" on the account page.

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It would be nice to know if there is a plan at least to work on allowing more than 8 charaters per account on the new server ... not a promise necessarily, but at least an attempt. Otherwise ...

Kinnik

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Originally Posted by Vhab

VAUGHN2006, as you've been told before:

No characters will be deleted during or after the transfer, even if your total amount of characters exceeds 8.

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If they're not deleted from RK1/2 when they get copied to the new server...

OH EXPLOITABLE!

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Originally Posted by MajorOutage

If they're not deleted from RK1/2 when they get copied to the new server...

OH EXPLOITABLE!

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Uhhh! I just love division by 0 mishaps.

"We are very sorry to inform you that some of your characters where lost during reassembly on the new server. The character transfer mechanism employed illegally inserted some 0's in your characters' BLOBS".

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Originally Posted by Gridpain

you have only 220 engi ?

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MP/Enf/Sol/NT/Keep/Crat

215 doc
200 eng
150 ma

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Originally Posted by Traderjill

Funcom has stated in the past that there is no option for us to be able to have more than 8 chars per account due to some limit on their side. This came up a lot prior to you being able to move toons from account to account.

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Potentially true.

However multiple accounts can be merged and they could solve this 8 slots limitation by automatically merging a new account and giving you 8 additional slots there. Moving toons between accounts is now something quite easy to do.

This would fix it for those that have 16 toons total on both dimensions.

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Originally Posted by Psikie

MP/Enf/Sol/NT/Keep/Crat

215 doc
200 eng
150 ma

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I think his joke was that 6 froobs with AS could take down any 220 without blockers.

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Originally Posted by JustinSane4

I think his joke was that 6 froobs with AS could take down any 220 without blockers.

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Yea I thought about that before I even responded... but it's not hard to prevent 6 froob agents from capping those hits. Maybe the mp/crat I suppose could be. But I'm more than willing to try it out though. :)

Dibs on the two froobs that die first.

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Originally Posted by Deemure

In reading this I am coming to the unfortunate conclusion that the plan is to turn outdoor cities into more pvp zones. How else can this game deal with other than first come first serve. Ghastly idea if that is the plan. There are way more than enough pvp opportunities in the game already.

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Haha I'm sorry, but I had to laugh :-D oh dear so funny. But I had the idea first, so I claim ownership. It is a great idea though, stop whining about pvp.

Apparently some missed the point. For the last few years almost every change to the game has been to encourage/allow/enable more pvp activities at the expense of other content/aspects of the game. Making cities pvp/attackable would simply take one more step down this path at the expense of balance and enjoyment in other parts of the game. Essentially making it evem more uni-dimensional, essentially relegating the rest of the game to only leveling for pvp. That is the basis for considering it an atrocious idea, use the city changes, as they apparently must be made, to encourage other content.

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Originally Posted by Deemure

Essentially making it evem more uni-dimensional, essentially relegating the rest of the game to only leveling for pvp.

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what other reason would you have to level?

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Originally Posted by Deemure

Apparently some missed the point. For the last few years almost every change to the game has been to encourage/allow/enable more pvp activities at the expense of other content/aspects of the game. Making cities pvp/attackable would simply take one more step down this path at the expense of balance and enjoyment in other parts of the game. Essentially making it evem more uni-dimensional, essentially relegating the rest of the game to only leveling for pvp. That is the basis for considering it an atrocious idea, use the city changes, as they apparently must be made, to encourage other content.

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Not really, no. In fact pvp has been stuffed into an instance, just like pvm has been. AO pioneered player warfare and there's been nothing done to expand on it.