new server for elite players, please read , i think i am on to something

[brsuk]

dont get me worng i love AO . it is a very well made game and very complex .

i love rpg games, i am 20.m i love sci-fi etc..

the server i am talking about is just how i WOULD have liked to see the game. my main goal with this was to see if other people would think it would work , were it would and woudnt .

ideas in my first post are more likely way off the target, but its not written in stone. and yes Jaesic i DO want people do give lots of reasons why it will be crap. please keep posting . as every time somebody like yourself manages to find some real good rason why it wont work more than likely somebody will find a way around it.

but i dont think it would cost funcom all the extra money .

u talk about alot of recodeing . can u expain how hard it would be to change the amount of chrs from 6 to 1? and how hard it would be to delete all the shop zones? i am sure they could do that in 20 mins with there eyes closed and a japanses girl with a tight ass doing a lap dance on there desk .

Jaesic can i ask a question ?

would u as a person who has played rpg for 1/2 your life play on

A) a game were u get as many chrs as u like. and easy access to any items u need

OR

B) a game were u only get to make one chr and you are stuck with it through good times and bad, and u have to work and try hard for the high level items


dont avoid the question by saying something like " that is a silly question , the game is allready made and just play it as it is " as the main point of this post if for people to come up with ideas for a more extreme , more real server. dosnt matter if its a possible goal or not.


mabey funcom could do some of the ideas in the servers allready going. like crime etc

but the problem with the main servers is alot and alot of people .

if they did do this server it would me less lag as yes it would have alot less people. but i am sure u will find alot on it.

[Jaesic]

Originally posted by unit001

u talk about alot of recodeing . can u expain how hard it would be to change the amount of chrs from 6 to 1? and how hard it would be to delete all the shop zones? i am sure they could do that in 20 mins with there eyes closed and a japanses girl with a tight ass doing a lap dance on there desk .

Uh... I don't know of too many (male) programmers who would keep their eyes shut and be able to program in those conditions or for that matter... any guy in general.

However... trying to limit it to one character? How do you manage it... one character per account? One per IP address? One per mailing address? The last of those is probably the most likely to actually work... because few people would be willing to pay for post office boxes just to get around the system. You could still use relative's addresses and so on, though, if you really wanted to try. It's technically illegal to log on two characters from the same account now... people still manage to do it. Honor system? Then you have people with integrity playing one character and people who want to dodge the system doing what they're doing already.

There might be a way... but its not something I'd like to try to solve.

Jaesic can i ask a question ?
A) a game were u get as many chrs as u like. and easy access to any items u need

OR

B) a game were u only get to make one chr and you are stuck with it through good times and bad, and u have to work and try hard for the high level items

Thats actually pretty easy for me to answer. I've been playing AO since January. My primary character (Jaesic) is a 137th level nanomage NT (on RK2). I've done some playing around with other characters to see what is possible with those professions, none of which is higher than level 24. So, in a sense, I am already doing the one character limitation. Not because of any rule, but because I am focusing my effort on this one. I've done RP, been part of some events, and am currently an officer in OT Wolf Pack and in charge of guild event coordination. Wolf Pack is currently (or last time I checked the numbers), the 9th largest guild on RK2 (5 clan and 3 Omni guilds larger) and we are by invitation only... so we aren't just randomly recruiting people no one knows.

I'm also one of the few RK2 NTs with nullity, gotten the hard way, not by buying it.

but the problem with the main servers is alot and alot of people .

Try visiting RK2. Its really a lot different world than RK1. I'd love to convince FC to focus on RK2 for storyline development and RP... we seem to have more people with that inclination. Our economy seems a lot more rational as well. Hopefully it will stay that way.

-----------------

Jaesic
137 NT (RK2)

[_____________mazerex]

1. Ok, I can understand the reason behind limiting characters but not just to one. Sometimes we all get a little tired of playing just one character so we go for our alternate. The only way I see it happening is if they broaden the skills for characters to create their own stuff or become stronger in trade skills. Like an MA is only able to create MA armor or they are able to trade for what they need. Stuff like that. Not everyone is able to rely on other characters because they won't be around the whole time. Especially if that character that is on likes to solo. That's just the pros and cons I can think of, but I'm for the idea in all honesty.
2. Not everyone on the world of Rubi-Ka is good to do team missions with. Some people are just plain impossible to play with. I think it is a good idea to probably eliminate "those who do not play well with others", but then again, FC is out to make everyone happy whether they like to play alone or with a team.
3. Definitely agree with this one so nothing to add.
4. I kind of elaborated on this one to the extent of people getting extensive skills to create armor that is profession specific or getting better trade skills, but not better than a trader's ql. I think Traders, Engineers, and Fixers should hold the market on Higher QL items. That way you could survive on your own, but it's not recommended and if you want to be the best you have to buy the best. Lower levels shouldn't be able to gain access to the higher level equipment. I definitely agree with that.
5. This would help with the broader skill parts in trading. At least some of the professions that aren't strong in trading will have some means of taking care of themselves by investing in trade skills if they persist on not joining up with an org or trading with Traders and Engineers.
6. I totally agree with this one. I'm only level 49 and I haven't even gotten one. I understand they rock, but I'm not investing anytime soon. Lvl 100 seems to be a fair level. Making traders, or engineers have the ability to make or upgrade these would be the modern day version of a car dealer.
7. I'd almost say I'd rather lose the xp, but then again, I can always buy new items. I think people would lose alot of money and be walking around naked if this was implemented. The system itself seems to be good at what it is at right now.
8. Exp from the guards would rock. Read my posts in "War is coming". I agree with the higher hitpoints and damage for guards and even cities that should be set up for raids. Maybe even more guards if they feel it's unfair. That would make team or organization raids more fun if you get the xp from it.

[__________Holmgehirr]

Originally posted by Jaesic

...playerbase of 100.000 players worldwide...

Hmm... are there any demographics out there anywhere? Official ones? I know we polled our MUDs a couple times and most of what we had were in the 16-20 range... basically high school to early college/university ages.

Never believe demographics you haven´t forged yourself.
But I´ll give you a clearer statement, that we might discuss without starting a paper war:
IMO 5.000 players on a Real World Server would be enough to get an economy rolling (shop-owner offline features included, of course).


Ah... but isn't the idea to come up with something good enough to hit the professionals on the side of the head so they say "Oh... yeah... I like that... how can we make it happen?" Thats why I suggest putting the effort into ideas for the existing game. There's a lotta complaining out there... but it tends to bury the real ideas so anyone who really matters has to dig too hard to uncover it. Maybe someone needs to start a thread that posts nothing 'new' only links to the best stuff hidden in all the other threads that is getting missed.

nah ... not really. Well, most of us here hope, that something might happen in some way (I still think, running some test wouldn´t be a bad idea (Hello FC)), but on the other hand: we´re at the boards here; real development needs other matters.
...you mean a collection of gems of AO boards? go ahead!
Seriously, the good point in this thread are a couple of CORE ideas, how to start a different style of game mechanics, based on
experiences players made in AO.


Yeah right ... I think ARK has a good system from what I've seen and heard but I can't imagine enough people are willing to put up with the general attitude players have about them. I have taken my share of flack as a MUD Imm/imp and I know how fast it burns you out and makes you hide 'invis' somewhere fixing things in the background. But then, we really were able to do the 1 imm to 10-20 player ratio... I can't imagine trying to come up with that many people for an MMORPG.

yep ... the discussion about this point is still stuck.

ok, another suggestion (impossible at an AO clone, before you jump on that again):
A training ground not at the size of a backyard, but at the size of a city like Tir (maybe a Central Parc included to have some wild-life). Let´s call it the holo world of the Real World Server. Specialized Guides for Trade, Fighting, etc. ... an enviroment, that stays intereresting up to about lvl20 AND .. tata .. in the holo world you might have up to eight chars, but you gotta chose one (only one) when you decide to start the Real game.


True... possibly the case. But... this is kinda like the president having the ability to either veto the entire bill or line item veto. How many things get lumped into a good idea because the other stuff people like will carry the whole thing. Actually, I think FC does a little of that with patch notes

I did a general purpose veto rather than taking the time to do line item. In the future, maybe I'll use more quotes.

Guess, you´re out of the general veto now

Regards,

[__________Holmgehirr]

Originally posted by Jaesic

Thats actually pretty easy for me to answer. I've been playing AO since January. My primary character (Jaesic) is a 137th level nanomage NT (on RK2). I've done some playing around with other characters to see what is possible with those professions, none of which is higher than level 24. So, in a sense, I am already doing the one character limitation. Not because of any rule, but because I am focusing my effort on this one. I've done RP, been part of some events, and am currently an officer in OT Wolf Pack and in charge of guild event coordination. Wolf Pack is currently (or last time I checked the numbers), the 9th largest guild on RK2 (5 clan and 3 Omni guilds larger) and we are by invitation only... so we aren't just randomly recruiting people no one knows.

I'm also one of the few RK2 NTs with nullity, gotten the hard way, not by buying it.

You see?
Jaesic, you would LOVE the Real World Server, not because ppl are forced to play more in your style, but because for players like you, me and many more, the world we like to play in would OPEN up.

Try visiting RK2. Its really a lot different world than RK1. I'd love to convince FC to focus on RK2 for storyline development and RP... we seem to have more people with that inclination. Our economy seems a lot more rational as well. Hopefully it will stay that way.

yes, yes and again: yes
btw, I´m quite sure, that not much more than 5.000 accounts (accounts, not chars!) play on RK2.



[edit] ops, nearly forgot that: how to allow only one char?

Jaesic, should I LoL? How is the number limited to eight now? Did you find a way to log in with a second user name on one account? And is the possibility to work around ANY restriction something worth to discuss?
It´s always the same game: the harder the work around is, the fewer ppl are able to do so; do you really think I would be worried about the few ppl, who manage to launch more than one char on the Real World Server? (woulc be pretty easy anyway, get a second account and there you are) The idea ONE char per Player is nothing to get total control over. the majority would have one char, and ... hell... I don´t give a damn about the bored young millionere, who´s buying 10 accounts.

You get the idea? It´s just a general limitation, not something to be after like mad.


Regards,

[brsuk]

this is cool we are moeving on from the orginal idea but still keeping the sprit of it.

please please please can more people like Jaesic ,mazerex and others who have looked closely into in and come up with some real good ideas why it wont work. THANKS .

one think i wanna clear up from what i have read from a few posts.

some of u seem to think that your going to get less for your money and u wont have the option of playing any other chrs than one.
this isnt the case. u will choose real-world sever like rbi-ka 1 and 2 , if u want to play around with chr types and races use one of the 2 main servers or a test server. this is more for people who have played for a couple of months they can choose to start again on the real-world

[_____________mazerex]

I'm just giving pros and cons for brainstorming because I like the ideas. Not to say the current system isn't good to play on. I just see alot of friends leaving from boredom cause this MMORPG is starting to get like the others. Hack, slash, kill!!! Whether you're RPing, on a mission, or just out killing, most of it's just to kill NPCs. I like this part, but like all things, it gets boring. Whichever way funcom wants to do things, as far as making an elite server or improving the current one, is up to them. They already are talking about dimensional travel(server to server) and adding new servers anyways so I don't see a problem with requesting an elite server. As far as the rules are concerned, I leave that to their discretion on who makes more sense. Let's keep beating this down. Maybe we'll come up with something that they'll like.

[Oliewabie]

I would love a Hardcore Server and I am willing to pay more for it.

A nice feature would be to include in the player information a field that includes the number of times you were killed.

(Hey there is that Lvl 135 character who only got killed once, wouw)

Also being able to loot other players is a must.

Shops only sell the items that players have sold to the shops.
This solves the problem of not being able to trade when no-one is online.
The shops act just as a go between.


Oliewabie.

[Kuro]

An 'Elite' server would mean maintaining separate codebases. That would be a developmental nightmare for everyone involved. Look at the EQ Legends servers for example. The gameplay mechanics are fundamentally unaltered from the normal servers. All they're really doing is getting content earlier and enhancements to features outside of the game mechanics.

What do you think would happen if the code for item loss snuck into the 'normal' dimension's codebase? Or code for the 'normal' dimensions snuck into the 'elite' dimension's codebase?

[_____________mazerex]

So, in effect, you think that the AO team that maintains these servers don't know how to do their job? Seriously, these topics we're talking about aren't impossible and I know for a fact they aren't a nightmare. I had a friend who used to write game codes for virtual reality simulators. Not sure how much you think you know about the codes, but I'm sure that the AO team that designed this game so far knows what they can and can't do. Unless you're speaking for them? If not, then I wouldn't compare this to EQ until you have an idea of what kind of a WAN or LAN AO is running on and what their team is capable of. I'm sure they're not going to just jump when we say it, but it doesn't hurt to put the ideas out there. They brainstorm from these posts. Are you that afraid that someone will listen?

[Kuro]

Originally posted by mazerex
So, in effect, you think that the AO team that maintains these servers don't know how to do their job? Seriously, these topics we're talking about aren't impossible and I know for a fact they aren't a nightmare. I had a friend who used to write game codes for virtual reality simulators. Not sure how much you think you know about the codes, but I'm sure that the AO team that designed this game so far knows what they can and can't do. Unless you're speaking for them? If not, then I wouldn't compare this to EQ until you have an idea of what kind of a WAN or LAN AO is running on and what their team is capable of. I'm sure they're not going to just jump when we say it, but it doesn't hurt to put the ideas out there. They brainstorm from these posts. Are you that afraid that someone will listen?

Am I afraid someone might listen? Damn skippy I am. WAN/LAN technology would be the least of the problems. But having different dimensions running with different core mechanics would mean either having to essentially program 2 separate updates for the different mechanics or originally starting development with that feature in mind and compartmentalizing the core mechanics. And either way, they'd still have to partially split their development team which means less focus for both sets of core mechanics.

[_____________mazerex]

You know, I work on a LAN for the US Government out in the Pacific and I don't know how much you know about LANs or WANs, but here's a little bit of what I might know. From what I'm reading on their site, they're already going to be expanding the servers according to the volume of players, they're going to be making it possible to transfer characters from one server to the other, Rubi-Ka1 to Rubi-Ka2 for example, and if they do expand, maybe from what I know, most people have one domain server that manages all the others which makes it easier for updates and patches. I doubt they'll have to split their development team because they'll have to hire regardless to support the volume of players anyways. The patching is already split because they do several of them on the test servers before final review anyways(thus why they have a TEST server). I'd figure an elite server or separate servers would take alot of traffic off of the main servers, such as Rubi-Ka1(which is lagged up and overloaded anyways) and make it easier on the petition system for those who don't like being put lagged up, lagged out, stuck, or bugged. As I said before, most of your response is basically questioning the competence of the people who work and maintain AO and their management skills with their personnel. I'm sure if it's beyond their cabability, they'll either ignore this string of posts, or at least draw what they want from it and use it. They encourage these posts for ideas which is a great idea. Why you persist on saying what they can and can't do makes no sense, and in effect, makes an attempt at trying to discourage people from giving their ideas about how to improve the system. That's like saying this board is a stupid idea. I think FC can determine whether or not these ideas are good or not without your help. Core mechanics? Compartmentalization? Seriously, do you see the little patch part come up every time you change domains from Rubi-Ka1 and Rubi-Ka2. Each time a character would change servers, they'll have to upgrade the patch either way whether you've uploaded it on another server or not. So I really don't see a problem unless someone from FC can point it out to me or anyone in this post.

[__________Holmgehirr]

Originally posted by Kuroshio
And either way, they'd still have to partially split their development team which means less focus for both sets of core mechanics.

*sign* ok, again. Ever heard about the concept of hiring more ppl, to get more work done, the concept of a growing company?
Or do you see the ppl from FunCom as something like Gurus -unreplaceable due to their pure genius- and you want them to meditate in the way, YOU want them to do?

Ha, ok, five amusements points.

But read the posts from Jaesic, his thoughts about a potential customerbase and the difficulties about the proportion between interested players and the amount of manpower to realize things like this are much more ... erm ... intelligent. At least he gave some reasons for his fear about the missuse of limited resources.

What you post here is a simple whine with a decent lack of content.

Kuroshino, if your only contribution here is the advice to drop ideas and stop creativity.....

... sorry about, but ...

Shut up!

I may try to simplify this even further, but I hope you got the message.



Mazerex, thank you for this posts of yours, very interesting as I do know nothing about Coding and Servers.
One question, you probaly can answer:
I thought, RK1 und RK2 are running on even physically different servers (I know, the 'Neue Welt' does). right or wrong?
The point is, when i.e. RK1 completly collapses/crashes, this wouldn´t affect RK2 !?
Thx in advance.

[brsuk]

ok i have seen a big change in what people are talking about in this post what is SOO cool

it seems that you would all be intrested in a more real-world/elite server and all the post are simply . can funcom do it or not.

i see alot of people saying they know how funcom works. and some saying they know but saying totally diffrent things.

i think more than anything now there has been 50+ replys to my first post and all the replys now are focused on is it a possible thing on funcoms side.

basicly i think we NEEED a reply from funcom telling us if anouth people wanted this idea if it was something that is possible for them as a company to provide, and if so how many people would they want before even lookig into the idea.

FUNCOM PLEASE READ AND POST A REPLY TO THIS SAYING IF THIS IS A POSSIBLE DREAM AND HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD HAVE TO PLAY IT FOR U TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF IT !!

i think that is our biggest question u will all agree.

keep up the posts

[Kuro]

Originally posted by mazerex
You know, I work on a LAN for the US Government out in the Pacific and I don't know how much you know about LANs or WANs, but here's a little bit of what I might know. From what I'm reading on their site, they're already going to be expanding the servers according to the volume of players, they're going to be making it possible to transfer characters from one server to the other, Rubi-Ka1 to Rubi-Ka2 for example, and if they do expand, maybe from what I know, most people have one domain server that manages all the others which makes it easier for updates and patches. I doubt they'll have to split their development team because they'll have to hire regardless to support the volume of players anyways. The patching is already split because they do several of them on the test servers before final review anyways(thus why they have a TEST server). I'd figure an elite server or separate servers would take alot of traffic off of the main servers, such as Rubi-Ka1(which is lagged up and overloaded anyways) and make it easier on the petition system for those who don't like being put lagged up, lagged out, stuck, or bugged. As I said before, most of your response is basically questioning the competence of the people who work and maintain AO and their management skills with their personnel. I'm sure if it's beyond their cabability, they'll either ignore this string of posts, or at least draw what they want from it and use it. They encourage these posts for ideas which is a great idea. Why you persist on saying what they can and can't do makes no sense, and in effect, makes an attempt at trying to discourage people from giving their ideas about how to improve the system. That's like saying this board is a stupid idea. I think FC can determine whether or not these ideas are good or not without your help. Core mechanics? Compartmentalization? Seriously, do you see the little patch part come up every time you change domains from Rubi-Ka1 and Rubi-Ka2. Each time a character would change servers, they'll have to upgrade the patch either way whether you've uploaded it on another server or not. So I really don't see a problem unless someone from FC can point it out to me or anyone in this post.

Not questioning anyone's competence. I'm questioning the intelligence behind splitting developmental and support resources. And while hiring more people would work with the support part of things, you can't just hire programmers and plug them into a programming projects. Just because I know C/C++, SQL and Java wouldn't mean I'd know the nuances in programming for AO. I'd have to take time and learn how they put AO together before I'd have a hope of doing anything towards programming for it.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Holmgehirr


*sign* ok, again. Ever heard about the concept of hiring more ppl, to get more work done, the concept of a growing company?
Or do you see the ppl from FunCom as something like Gurus -unreplaceable due to their pure genius- and you want them to meditate in the way, YOU want them to do?

Ha, ok, five amusements points.

But read the posts from Jaesic, his thoughts about a potential customerbase and the difficulties about the proportion between interested players and the amount of manpower to realize things like this are much more ... erm ... intelligent. At least he gave some reasons for his fear about the missuse of limited resources.

What you post here is a simple whine with a decent lack of content.

Kuroshino, if your only contribution here is the advice to drop ideas and stop creativity.....

... sorry about, but ...

Shut up!

I may try to simplify this even further, but I hope you got the message.



Mazerex, thank you for this posts of yours, very interesting as I do know nothing about Coding and Servers.
One question, you probaly can answer:
I thought, RK1 und RK2 are running on even physically different servers (I know, the 'Neue Welt' does). right or wrong?
The point is, when i.e. RK1 completly collapses/crashes, this wouldn´t affect RK2 !?
Thx in advance.

No, I will not shut up. RK1, RK2 and the German dimension all have the same game mechanics implemented. Now go visit the Test Dimension. It does not run the same game mechanics as RK1, RK2, and the German dimension. You have to run a completely separate client to connect to the Test Dimension. Obviously, what happens on the Test Dimension with game mechanics might not be applicable to RK1, RK2 and the German Dimensions and have to be addressed separately. Since RK1, RK2 and the German Dimensions eventually end up with the code from the Test Dimension they don't have to maintain separate development and support teams. But they would if the Test dimension maintained having unique game mechanics in order to support it.

This is simple programming for large projects.

[__________Holmgehirr]

Originally posted by Kuroshio


No, I will not shut up.

Thought so...



RK1, RK2 and the German dimension all have the same game mechanics implemented. Now go visit the Test Dimension. It does not run the same game mechanics as RK1, RK2, and the German dimension. You have to run a completely separate client to connect to the Test Dimension. Obviously, what happens on the Test Dimension with game mechanics might not be applicable to RK1, RK2 and the German Dimensions and have to be addressed separately. Since RK1, RK2 and the German Dimensions eventually end up with the code from the Test Dimension they don't have to maintain separate development and support teams. But they would if the Test dimension maintained having unique game mechanics in order to support it.
This is simple programming for large projects.

1. Thank you for giving an understandable explaination finally.

2. Question: Do you really think I would care, if the whole AO crew dumbs AO to create a game I like more?


Not questioning anyone's competence. I'm questioning the intelligence behind splitting developmental and support resources.

...erm...and who splits that? someone bringing up an idea?
I guess, Meserax got you right from the very start; if you didn´t question AO ppl´s competence, no danger could be ahead.

But you do....

Nice to see, that someone judges the ideas here good enough to distract FCs developers focus, but if this is right or wrong is definatly not my problem (see above: 2. Question... ).


But as you seem to have a little grip on those things: how many ppl are needed to run and maintain a test server? How many coders are needed to change an existing code in a way unit001 suggestes here?
Not all our brainstorming ideas, just the very core: ONE toon per player, no shops besides 'Basic', some more xp and better loot maybe to keep it all running.

I mean....how many Atrox does it need to put a lightbulb in?

A: 10, one to hold the bulb, 9 to spin the room around.



Regards,

[_____________mazerex]

I hope you're not one of those college, or maybe even high school, junkies that thinks either cause he has the credits to get an associates, bachelors, or masters degree in computers he knows all because it won't mean squat in the real world when you graduate. If you also knew anything about how most people hire, you'd know that they definitely wouldn't hire inexperienced people with or without college degrees. On the job training is alot different than just some base computer knowledge, whether it's college or high school. Common sense would tell you that they would have already hired and trained people to help that have the on the job training or experience to learn the codes. Straight from college, most people think they have an idea of what they're doing, and I'm not saying they all don't, but they find out the hard way it's not as easy when you have to apply the knowledge. C++ and C are impressive on a resume, but how often are they really applied in a work environment? I rarely use either one of them where I work, and we use WINNT and UNIX for our operating systems both for servers and workstations. I have over a hundred officers at work who think they know more than me, which I don't know much, about computers, yet they still call up when they have problems with their computers or when they think they can't fix it themselves. Most of the time these so called college Computer experts screw up their own systems and then make more work for me, and NO none of them are suppose to be fixing their systems(they aren't OJT computer techs or even in my section), they're suppose to be doing their jobs with missions and strategic planning. Not making my job harder. I don't have a college degree, but with all of the knowledge that I learned from OJT, I'll get a job way before they will in the real world. What's even more messed up? I've learned and fixed more systems and software at my work place that supposed experts from the companies that made the software or hardware attempted to. There are other jobs that go along with maintaining a LAN/WAN though and that's probably what most of the new employees do before they even touch the game codes. Any good computer tech would know not only how to take care of the hardware, but eventually learn and maintain the software. So I'm really begging right now please please please somebody from FC shut him up. Geez! I deal with people who try to talk up computer talk every day and they think that i can't see through the bull.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by mazerex
I hope you're not one of those college, or maybe even high school, junkies that thinks either cause he has the credits to get an associates, bachelors, or masters degree in computers he knows all because it won't mean squat in the real world when you graduate. If you also knew anything about how most people hire, you'd know that they definitely wouldn't hire inexperienced people with or without college degrees. On the job training is alot different than just some base computer knowledge, whether it's college or high school. Common sense would tell you that they would have already hired and trained people to help that have the on the job training or experience to learn the codes. Straight from college, most people think they have an idea of what they're doing, and I'm not saying they all don't, but they find out the hard way it's not as easy when you have to apply the knowledge. C++ and C are impressive on a resume, but how often are they really applied in a work environment? I rarely use either one of them where I work, and we use WINNT and UNIX for our operating systems both for servers and workstations. I have over a hundred officers at work who think they know more than me, which I don't know much, about computers, yet they still call up when they have problems with their computers or when they think they can't fix it themselves. Most of the time these so called college Computer experts screw up their own systems and then make more work for me, and NO none of them are suppose to be fixing their systems(they aren't OJT computer techs or even in my section), they're suppose to be doing their jobs with missions and strategic planning. Not making my job harder. I don't have a college degree, but with all of the knowledge that I learned from OJT, I'll get a job way before they will in the real world. What's even more messed up? I've learned and fixed more systems and software at my work place that supposed experts from the companies that made the software or hardware attempted to. There are other jobs that go along with maintaining a LAN/WAN though and that's probably what most of the new employees do before they even touch the game codes. Any good computer tech would know not only how to take care of the hardware, but eventually learn and maintain the software. So I'm really begging right now please please please somebody from FC shut him up. Geez! I deal with people who try to talk up computer talk every day and they think that i can't see through the bull.

UT Austin CompSci major until I realized just how much money I was wasting in tuition. So sans college degree I've been a System Administrator, Network Consultant, Customer Support Manager, Technical Support Consultant, just plain ole Consultant, and currently my title floats somewhere around VP of IS in my current company (I say 'floating' since we have no titles. But then I don't need to file a capex to order 20 more servers nor justify the PO to anyone neither ). I've worked inside companies like Shell, Enron (yeah them), Texaco, IBM, BMC Software (as noted before) and Penn State University.

There isn't a machine on my network in my company that I don't know inside and out, with several depts running 2k Advanced Server clusters and all the goodies that along side them. I said I think this is a bad idea and why I think so. So you want to resort to comparing zipper sizes and rude behavior against someone you don't know at all, all the while showing a miserable naivete towards divergent development processes for large scale programming projects. If that's your wish knock yourself out.

It's only natural that implementing different game mechanics on different dimensions would lead to less focus on AO as a whole. That would probably slow down development and implementation as people sat around trying to figure out how to balance new features against 2 different sets of rules. Then programming those differences so they don't interfere with the wrong dimensions the wrong way.

[__________Holmgehirr]

Originally posted by Kuroshio

It's only natural that implementing different game mechanics on different dimensions would lead to less focus on AO as a whole. That would probably slow down development and implementation as people sat around trying to figure out how to balance new features against 2 different sets of rules.

jeez, so after three posts, you managed to make a statement.

I repeat, this is a thread of ideas, if you don´t wanna participate i would probablysuggest: Shut up!

With amused regards,