Friday with Means - October 1st, 2010 - Gratitude

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Originally Posted by NoGoal

Now that you mention the sky, how is Rubi-Ka system like? Is that mentioned somewhere? Are there other planets? How is Rubi-Ka evolving around the 2 suns?

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I'm not sure about the specifics of the system but I know that Rubi Ka itself has 2 moons (they are named but I can't remember it and yes you can see them ingame, they're very large). It can orbit the two suns because the system is what's knows as a "Binary Star" (real science!); two stars orbiting each other very closely (literally only hundreds of millions of miles apart!) which effectivly create a single gravity well due to their closeness that planets can orbit firaly normally. I imagine this is the reasoning behind Rubi Ka (and Tatooine from Star Wars) being a desert planet: twice the suns means twice the heat (not real science. In fact, /sciencefail).

Anyway, back on topic I wonder if the new sky will be exactly the same as it is now, just rendered in DX9(ish). Because the one right now is good, but kind of smudgy. You could almost describe it as "low resolution" (though it's probably more complicated than the texture stuck on a mesh it's the same effect). A sky with clearly defined stars that twinkle and clouds that rush across it would be awsome.

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Originally Posted by Autohead

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I can see the reason quite clearly.

2 teams get together for ipande, of which 3 are lowbies with HH@B (as to how they got into a high level raid, you guys can come up with plenty of reasons I think).

TNH, pwned. Beast, pwned. Then the roll is done, and by luck... the lowbies win the most valuable items even tho those who did the heavy work (the high levels) get stuck with raid locks and the leftovers.

Not fair, but... it was also not fair to not include someone who DOES have access to Pande, that lowbie could be twinked up enough to be of SOME asset to the raid (specially if he is a doc).

I highly doubt that the last zone of SL where some of the most valuable items in the game can be acquired was meant for anyone under TL7. Sure it was nice to bring an alt and loot things you can LATER ON equip, but then the person who COULD get it on now who didn't win the roll, got screwed.

It's called balancing, it happens.

Like some omni org which I won't name, that got away with kill stealing Mercs because the loot rules regarding spawned mobs did not include Mercs and Hollow Island in specific, when Colin got word, the policy got changed so now anyone who does KS Mercs or HI, will face a GM.

Things change, not always for everybody's benefit, but I think Colin does his best to see the big picture and do what's best for the game and the community overall.

I can't bring any toon under 201 to Pande anymore, but getting a toon from 190 to 201 is not too hard, a few days of inferno missions solves that little bump.

For those of you who were making S7 twinks with Pande gear (which is who I heard ingame bitchng about the HH@B change)... ok you are 200, don't wanna be 201 and mess up your twink plan to pwn S7... but you had plenty of time to get what you needed from Pande for months.

I'm sure a 200 without Pande items is very much viable in S7 considering that will be the top level there. Semi twinked 150's do well in S10, so I would imagine the same would go with 200's at S7.

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{alright then}

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Originally Posted by Windguaerd

I can see the reason quite clearly.

2 teams get together for ipande, of which 3 are lowbies with HH@B (as to how they got into a high level raid, you guys can come up with plenty of reasons I think).

TNH, pwned. Beast, pwned. Then the roll is done, and by luck... the lowbies win the most valuable items even tho those who did the heavy work (the high levels) get stuck with raid locks and the leftovers.

Not fair, but... it was also not fair to not include someone who DOES have access to Pande, that lowbie could be twinked up enough to be of SOME asset to the raid (specially if he is a doc).

I highly doubt that the last zone of SL where some of the most valuable items in the game can be acquired was meant for anyone under TL7. Sure it was nice to bring an alt and loot things you can LATER ON equip, but then the person who COULD get it on now who didn't win the roll, got screwed.

It's called balancing, it happens.

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I don't think it has ANYTHING to do with loot that's in Pande, since a lot of it has level locks less than 201.

It's likely FC just being lazy and not wanting characters in S7 with +500 NR.

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Originally Posted by Windguaerd

I can't bring any TL6 toon to Pande anymore

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Sure you can, if they're 201-204. TL7 doesn't start until level 205. ;)

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Originally Posted by NoGoal

Now that you mention the sky, how is Rubi-Ka system like? Is that mentioned somewhere? Are there other planets? How is Rubi-Ka evolving around the 2 suns?

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There's info about this from the launch of the game. Players named the suns and named the 2nd planet/server (near as I recall). If you do a real OLD search it should still be somewhere on this forum.

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Originally Posted by Neista

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When you ask a question whose answer doesn't really matter, or you ask it in a hostile fashion, you're just challenging the choice in a passive-aggressive fashion. Presumably the people who 'want to know' why he changed the level lock on HHAB 'want to know' because they 'do not like' it. And that's because they've twinked toons up around it, or they've made a point of dragging their alts up to Pande on raids - where they did nothing for the raid - to mooch fats. Now they're upset because this method of uberizing their toons for no good reason is lost. No matter what reason FC/Means had for locking access to HHAB you're still not going to like it. So of course he's going to tell you to go pound sand.

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The DOF nerf on capping is a pain in the ass to me, since many of my toons are evade-based. That's their toolset, they evade. DOF runs whenever I can trigger it (long as I remember) and it will run for 45 seconds whether I want it to or not since it is inexplicably a hostile nano. So evaders are being punished/nerfed for using their toolset. I have no question about this. It sucks for me. But now I can actually attack other people trying to cap (since they can't AMS/BioCocoon/DOF). It's good for me.

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Originally Posted by If6Was9

Now they're upset because this method of uberizing their toons for no good reason is lost.

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With Sector 7 announced, TL6 toons have a perfectly legitimate reason to go to Pande and twink. Granted it's still possible to do so, but the process becomes thrice as hard, and the fact that no word has been given as per the reason when the original reason (giving no NR to anyone in 151-200 BS [which doesn't exist with this patch, mind you]) is invalid is up there with why we're incensed.

And you know what, when I was going to ding 200 on Hanettera I would have been more than happy to pull my weight to get my phats in a Pande raid. Don't paint everyone that disagrees with this claim in a blanket statement that we can't have our "easy phats" anymore.

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Originally Posted by If6Was9

Really, Neista, why do you care?

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I don't know about Neista, but I care because I don't like level locks. I'd like to know if this was a real, thought through change drawning on several factors or whether FC just decided to raise the lock on HHaB for convenience to solve one problem. If the desision has real merit then fine, if it doesn't then it could be a sign of MORE locks in the future, not less, which is something to speak up about.

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Originally Posted by Scabadus

I don't know about Niesta, but I care because I don't like level locks. I'd like to know if this was a real, thought through change drawning on several factors or whether FC just decided to raise the lock on HHaB. If the desicion has real merit then fine, if it doesn't then it could be a sign of MORE locks in the futer, not less, which is something to speak up about.

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110% agreed.

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Originally Posted by tazalanche

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I, personally, asked about this HHAB change up to 10 times in a past 2 days wherever i found chance to ask, not with intention to troll, but just because i am really curious to know. Did not get any answer at all.

I have doctor on his way to lvl 200, and my setup was pretty much based on pande gear... mostly Zodiac's gear. I also know very well i could bring her to pande if i reset body dev and get hot/make friend heal me, but it just makes it much harder... I would even be satisfied with answer like "we just dont want to make it easy for 200 toons, since this game already became too easy" it s valid answer, but ignore and givin answer like he gave is just not alright.

HH@B is highly OP'd item anyways. TBH, it deserves a level 210 lock (probably devs intention - misplacing 0 and 1).

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Originally Posted by -Klod-

HH@B is highly OP'd item anyways. TBH, it deserves a level 210 lock (probably devs intention - misplacing 0 and 1).

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It's an OP'ed item, sure, but there was more than one solution; they could have added (after reducing if need be) the NR buff to just the Signet rings instead of the base HHAB rings, which none can wear before 201 since it requires Xan items.

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Originally Posted by If6Was9

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You realize there's like under 100 ppl active on RK2 ? why even bother with this posts. Seams to me that you have manage to kill this game, finally. A MMO without population its dead no matter what patches you make, no matter what game engines you develop. The only time there is some people around, this days, its when you give them free time. One would think, maybe, just maybe even your old subscribers find the fees for this game a joke, or maybe its some other reasonable explanation. The only reason i reactivate was the 60Euro for a full year subscription, who would pay the regular prices really.


Just look here, the LFT for a 220, on a Friday evening .

@game
does that mean that rk1 also has such a low pop since both servers are equal in pop aprox?

(shoo rk1 promoters, i do not fall for your lies to help your cred transfer industry!!!)

i cannot enter 175- 214 BS... hooray?

Sadly even the population on RK 1 is shocking nowadays :/

Dont let anyone fool you that it's just people are spread out more, that's simply not true imo.

Don't get me wrong. I am not happy about a lot of the carrots that have been dangled in front of us for the past few years without resolution, but enough is enough. I have a level 185, plus 5 level 150 alts that will be needing HH@B some time after Sector 7 is released, so I want an answer too. However, to chastise the man for replying to a rude comment in an unprofessional way on a rare occasion is beyond nitpicking. It is childish for someone to ream him for something so trivial & 2 seconds later want to know when he is going to do X to improve the game. It is like a 3 year old saying, "I HATE YOU! Give me a cookie!".

The title of this thread is perfect for this situation. Show a little gratitude.

With a previous game director I would not expect to be given a reason for this change. With Means in charge, I honestly believe that when the AO staff is ready to give us a reason for why the level lock on HH@B was increased, they will.

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Originally Posted by Windguaerd

I can see the reason quite clearly.

2 teams get together for ipande, of which 3 are lowbies with HH@B (as to how they got into a high level raid, you guys can come up with plenty of reasons I think).

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I really doubt that's the case. Besides, when in a group of about 20-30 chars that are mostly 220 my little 200 tends to sit right in the middle or even a bit above for the DD lists people love to spit out. Also with things as they are people can easily do the heavy lifting on their 220 then swap to their 190-200 to pick items up. They did the work and may have even been critical to getting it done too.




People can speculate as to the reasoning all they want but real answers are far more useful. Also while Means and other devs have responded to many even trivial things in the past they have not said a peep about this other than that less than professional response. If a player griped and whined that an ARK/GM supposedly made some jackass unprofessional error Means has on at least two occasions said to send him a forum tell and he'll look into it. Oh, then remember when a GM stripped one of Arty's chars and Means started a thread to apologize? Even worse than saying nothing though was to say something like that which comes off as highly unprofessional and not appropriate to his station. So yeah, we're a bit annoyed.

The most likely reason for the change seems to be related to the +500 NR on the Pand rings. In which case changing that seems far more sensible than an increased lvl lock. Especially when that came promptly after he expressed his distaste for lvl locks. If you look at all the other basic SL zone protection items they all have nothing to provide other than zone protection except for the Inf boots and scuba gear which give rather minor ACs as well. Then there's HH@B with its enormous NR buff and a decent RS buff too. The De'Valos Protection Ring is also now useless to lvl 190-200 chars but would have taken some doing to get the parts for.

Presuming it is about the NR buff what makes the sense is to make HH@B provide perhaps nothing but zone protection, or maybe give it a scaling lvl based buff on use. For the De'Valos Protection Ring make it somewhere between nothing and what it was. Then the signet rings stay the same while the lvl lock for both goes back to TL6. Although if it's not related to the NR buff then tell us what it is related to.

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Originally Posted by Saetos

It's an OP'ed item, sure, but there was more than one solution; they could have added (after reducing if need be) the NR buff to just the Signet rings instead of the base HHAB rings, which none can wear before 201 since it requires Xan items.



He said himself he didn't mind what the answer was if it was a valid excuse; I don't either. If the response turns out to be "Level 200s getting Pande phats is OPed, toughen up buttercup" I won't be happy, no, but it'll at least be a reason.

Our problem is that he and the rest of Funcom have been completely silent on a reason for a level lock - level locks, by the way, Means said he hates - that carries no valid reason at all. "/trollfail" certainly isn't a response, and nowhere close to being an appropriate first response, to NUMEROUS inquiries as to why.

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Fair enough. What I did wasn't entirely appropriate...making more work for our own moderators is hardly rational behaviour. What is acceptable...and I use the term losely...behaviour from members of the player base is not necessarily "Ok" from me. I'm sorry if turning tables a bit there wasn't "Ok". I'm even sorrier that some people took themselves so seriously that they were unable to see the humor in it. Some of you work pretty much full-time trying to get under my skin. Sometimes you manage. The vast majority of the time I think I handle the collective scorn thrown at me and my team rather well. I didn't explain this (HHAB changes) earlier as other pressing issues kept me busy. Friday with Means is now written on Thursday to give the community team a chance to translate it in a timely manner...this one was finished at 10:30pm last night.

Giving an answer as to why we changed HHAB doesn't necessarily mean you will agree as I imagine some of you previously had characters with HHAB equiped and you therefore will have perhaps less than unbiased perspective on the subject.

While not *everyone* will agree that +500 NR on a single BUYABLE item is excessive...I think we can all agree it is significant. We felt that it was too significant in both PvM and PvP at the levels it was currently available at. While we are in the process of changing level ranges for PvP and making a PvM playfield that covered the level range in question we felt we would change it. We did not "add" another level locked item to the game...but we did change the nature of it. I do not like level locks but there was no other way to remove this from players of that range. I would prefer to have switched it to a pure skill requirement...but removing it based on people not meeting that skill requirement on log-in would produce obvious results in this game. I recognize this will make life difficult for players who at level 190 feel they need Beast loot. The fact that this is the gear being used seems like another small problem to me rather than something that should be further enabled and encouraged. We have further plans for this item and others that I am not prepared to share at this time. Sector 7 (new upcoming 150-200 Alien single team instance indoors playfield) will more than likely have a more level appropriate ring covering similar stats...and likely without a level lock but rather skill requirements.

Level locks are bad. I still feel that way. Things are not always black and white unfortunately. No matter how much some of us wish they were.

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Originally Posted by tazalanche

Don't get me wrong. I am not happy about a lot of the carrots that have been dangled in front of us for the past few years without resolution, but enough is enough. I have a level 185, plus 5 level 150 alts that will be needing HH@B some time after Sector 7 is released, so I want an answer too. However, to chastise the man for replying to a rude comment in an unprofessional way on a rare occasion is beyond nitpicking. It is childish for someone to ream him for something so trivial & 2 seconds later want to know when he is going to do X to improve the game. It is like a 3 year old saying, "I HATE YOU! Give me a cookie!".

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Tiny problem.

Autohead is not the only person asking for a reason. He has, so far, replied to one person - Autohead - with a disparaging comment, and it comes off to all of us as "No, you don't get an answer, quit trolling". I know Autohead didn't ask it in the kindest, most polite way possible, but you know what? He's pissed off. So am I. So are several others in this thread who feel absolutely cheated, because a man who has told all of us that "level locks are bad" and that he loves twinking has given no reason why this ring is locked, besides "Stop trollin'".