Community answers - part 1

[Cz]

I got a list from Scorus of old and new statements and happenings that have given us some trouble over the lifetime of Anarchy Online, and would like to go through them one by one and try hand out some proper explanations.

Scorus, here ya go.

(headlines added by me)

"Funcom hates camping!"
Why has every patch since you said "Funcom hates camping!" increased camping by increasing spawn times and despawning quest-dependent NPCs? Spawns for Trash King and Smuggler's Den have been increased, Dodga/Alvin despawn now. Only one spawn has decreased, that was one of the named robots who apparently was not spawning as often as Funcom intended. Why have you increased spawn times and camping instead of decreasing them and camping if you hate camping so much?

Several issues here. First Alvin and Dodga - and possibly other NPCs - were set to despawn to prevent an exploit. The exploit got fixed, and the despawning turned off. Unfortunately, the despawn fix was left out of the main code branch by mistake, and the despawning returned in the next patch.

By this time the problems with the spawn time on the different robots had become a problem, and to ease the load on Support it was decided to leave Alvin and Dodga despawning to not have too many people out on the missions at the same time.

So, what's being done?

We've had some discussions around the spawn times, and I believe the current agreement is to shorten the average spawn time on the Trash King, and stop the despawning of Alvin and Dodga. I'll have to check up on that though.

Story and events on Rubi-Ka 2
Why did you say there would be an equal storyline on RK-2 when there was never any effort made to make that come true? Even when the story was going strong on RK-1, there were far, far fewer events on RK-2. Attempts to get answers as to the discrepancy between Cosmik's very authoritative statement that this would NOT be the case and the fact that it was most obviously the case were ignored.

The effort was made, but several factors made this very difficult. First of all, we were not entirely prepared for running events on two dimensions. It is quite obvious that it would be hard running connected events on the two dimensions, as those participating in the first one might want to (or even have to) participate in the second.

In addition we have seen several times that running events on the second dimension is difficult. It is harder to find the event-loving people unless you have the right contacts, and when events had the reputation of crashing servers - something which was a main reason for people playing on Rubi-Ka 2 - events people were not always very welcomed by everybody.

What do we do with this? Right now, I don't know. I'll look into that.

Listening to players
How can Andre Backen claim that you guys listen to your players on the same day that a patch comes out with something that 83% of your players say they don't want (level reqs): http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...hreadid=31992.

And that increases camping, which almost 100% of your players have said they don't want in TWO different surveys that your staff have conducted on the boards. How can we reconcile that statement with your actions that very day?

Let me start off by stating that "listening to players" and "doing what the players say" are two very different things. To make an extreme example; Say 85% of the people voting on a poll wanted all players already having a level 100+ character to get all new characters created at level 50. We would listen, but I am pretty sure we would not do it.

This is a topic where I would rather comment on the specific issue, as I believe the problem is the lack of information about our desicions. Often we honestly don't want to give out the explanation because we want some secrecy (specific numbers on the agg - def slider), other times we simply can't (meaning we would reveal too much if we did, not that we are unable to).

Future actions: The level restrictions we have now answered, so I won't go into that. The lack of info to the players is more of the issue, imo. I believe we have good communication, but slip now and then. And we will work on avoiding those slips, to the best of our ability.

Forum archives
What happened to the forum archives? Here is the May 30th post (only 1 month, not ca. 2 as I said earlier) where you said you would find out: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...87#post471987. That was after months of us asking.

That I never posted the answer is entirely my mistake. I probably forgot to note it down, and with me living my work life on post-it notes, a few things get lost that way. I'm sorry about that.

The archives were run as an own instance of the vBulletin software, with locked posting, and for some reason it was inaccessible to the general public. I am not sure why it was not readable without logging in on the main board, but can assure you that it was not due to us wanting to hide what was there. Most likely some technical issue with the setup.

The archive was lost a while back because we did not have a backup of it. The server running both the new board and the archive crashed and the info on it got lost, and we only had backup of the main bulletin board. This is almost a deja-vu of what happened in the first bulletin board wipe (server operator killing the AO boards instead of the Midgard ones, and we had no backup), only this time the lack of backup was by choice, because we didn't view those data to be as sensitive as the new ones.

What now? Well, we do run constant backup of the current bulletin board. In fact, I think that backup is what you see when you go into the old link to the archive. The archive is lost, but we certainly hope to never lose a bulletin board again. Two times is two times too much, and the loss of feedback from you to us is an equally hard hit as the loss of info from us to you.

Memory leak
"There is no memory leak." This issue as almost a year old and I think it is WAY too late to comment on it. If you remember, that comment was the central focus of a lot of the Dr.Twister criticism that you guys took early on. It really set the groundwork for a lot of people to either assume that everything you said was spin or that you were just completely out of touch with the playerbase.

Perhaps too late to comment on the original issue, but there are still discussions on memory leaks. I'll see what info I can get on this, but let me just say that what many people percieve as a memory leak - namely that AO uses a lot of memory - is intended to a certain point. As long as you have memory available, AO will not purge textures and such, but keep them in memory for faster access. That is not a leak, but it will greatly decrease the resources available for other programs as long as you run AO (and a while after you end AO, until the memory is fully released again).

What next? I'll check what we have on memory issues in the bug database, and talk with the coders. I am not too updated on this myself, so I will have to check with them.

Storyline
"The story is well underway, and events are starting to influence the future of Rubi-Ka." Took this from a Funcom release late last year. What the heck happened to the storyline? After a couple of promising starts, everything fizzled out. Attempts to claim that the storyline really is still going or to call the EQ-style dungeons and quests a storyline have made it look like you guys were either in denial or spinning like mad. What happened when you brought this poll up "with the people in charge": http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=25630 ?

Storyline... probably the most difficult topic in the e-mail. Everybody knows there is not too much of it visible right now on Rubi-Ka. There are reasons, but I really can't divulge much about it. I'll try get away this time around with saying that we do have plans, and there is movement, and leave for the future (close future, I hope) to show what's coming.

Quality vs quantity
We have decided that we should focus on quality versus quantity in our updates. This was when you cancelled the daily updates. Why can't you provide us with both quantity AND quality? Do you have any idea how many times in the last couple of weeks you have told me "There is a reason for that, but I can't tell you what it is." Can you think of another industry that could get away with telling their customers that?

The "quality versus quantity" was about updates on the web site, and marked the end of the Daily Updates, and the beginning of the Designer Articles. The articles have been going steady since, though at some times been away for a while. We still want to keep the information on the web site focused on quality, not quantity in the future. Quantity should be more focused through other channels, though I will take the topic of posts here on the bulletin board some other time (maybe later this week).

Answered and unanswered questions lists
There will be an answered and unanswered questions list... You and I have discussed this on the boards before, you were apparently unaware that Savant had promised this and that Cosmik was supposed to be working on it. After checking with Cosmik you said that you were now aware of the issue. Last we heard of it.

Again something that I lost off my post-it notes. (/me makes a post-it note to find a better system soon.)

Cosmik started the answered questions list ("Official Answers") even before this was said, and kept it going for a long while. But, the bulletin board became more active, and due to changes in Community, Cosmik was given the task to stay on top of it alone, and since then the thread has been more or less dead.

Why? Well, there are 2000 posts on this board every day, and he has to go through as many as he can. Then he must relay all this to the designers, codes, testers and who-not, and try get answers. Those wanting the answers are usually looking in the post with the question, so that is where the answers get posted. Keeping it all gathered in one thread in addition to this is a bit of extra work, and unfortunately a bit we currently do not have the resources (read: time) to do.

But, we're looking into getting some new routines and system up and running, that will change our focus slightly when giving answers. I want the plans to advance a little further on this before giving out more information though.

Skill or level based?
AO is still a skill-based game. A lot of new equipment and all new nanos have level reqs. While it is true that they also have skill reqs, the skill reqs are easily attainable far earlier than the level reqs, often unbuffed. Thus the game is far less skill-based and you have said yourselves that that trend will continue, culminating with Shadowlands. Is it fair, at least, to say that AO may be skill-oriented but Shadowlands will be level-based?

A lot of opinions on this, and it's hard to get everybody to agree. Anarchy Online is still a skill based game, and will stay so in the future. That is my opinion, at least, and Funcom's one too. (Note to self: Verify that last part tomorrow.)

Yes, we are adding level restrictions, but this does not turn it completely around. You still need skill, and though I am not sure what is most common, I believe at least some of the nanos are made so that you reach the level requirement before possibly getting to the skill requirements. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

"Less skill based" - as you say - is probably correct, though I'd wait and see a few patches ahead before saying level is the main restriction now. The new nanos in 14.4 were one batch of new items. There are more batches to come. And the skills are still needed, and will always be needed, hence it is still skill based.

---

Ok, that's what I have for now. Let me just finish off with saying to those who miss the 110% statement on the list, that the statement was given with regards to the billing system, not the game, so don't even think about bringing it up.

I'll be back with more info, and hope you'll bare with me in the meantime.

[Routeen]

CZ,
I appreciate the difficulty of your position -- there are oodles of posts -- no way you can or even should respond directly to everything. Additionally, players can be extremely conservative about any changes, so efforts to improve the health of the game overall can often be met with whimpers and snarls.

However,

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cz


Future actions: The level restrictions we have now answered, so I won't go into that.

This is unfortunately false. Yes, you posted an "answer." But to speak plainly, the answer given makes ZERO sense, as it stands. I wont rehash all my aguments or those of others, I willl just mention one:

If extreme nanoskill increases are available in Shadowlands, adding lvl reqs. only to new nanos cannot possibly be a balancing solution. This is obvious, since all the pre 14.4 nanos will not have lvl reqs. (as far as we know...), and will thus be abusable in precisely the way you are trying to avoid.

Much like your pt. that listening does not equal obeying, merely making a statement does not mean that you have actually answered the players' questions.


Skill or level based?

Yes, we are adding level restrictions, but this does not turn it completely around. You still need skill, and though I am not sure what is most common, I believe at least some of the nanos are made so that you reach the level requirement before possibly getting to the skill requirements. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

"Less skill based" - as you say - is probably correct, though I'd wait and see a few patches ahead before saying level is the main restriction now. The new nanos in 14.4 were one batch of new items. There are more batches to come. And the skills are still needed, and will always be needed, hence it is still skill based.

First, you are right, some of the adventurer nanos have high enough skill reqs. that the lvl req is the least worry. However, for many of the new nanos, this is NOT the case, especially if you customize your character around nano-skills.

Yes, skills still play a part in AO. In that sense, it is "a skill-based" game.

However, the new lvl. reqs, combined with proposed new gear in Shadowlands that offers massive buffs to nanoskills, really threaten to make skills a secondary concern altogether.

This is easy to see if you think about the word "based." From the player's perspecitve, "based" essentially means what requirements do I have to satisfy in order to do x? For nanos, up until now, this has been primarly answered 3 ways:

ip-expenditure
implants (maybe some small gear buffs)
mp/trader buffs.

So, casting nanos was always "based" on getting up to the skill requirement. This forces both implant choices and ip expenditure,both of which have an opportunity cost.

However, if you add 1) gear that massively raises nanoskills
and 2) lvl requirements

You can now have sufficient skill, and still not be able to cast. So, what casting is really based on, what the hardest requirement to satisfy (in many cases) will be getting the gear, and grinding the lvls.
Yes, they will have to raise nano-skills, but I doubt in a way that will force trade-offs as before (again, depending I am sure on the nanos/profession to some extent). Especially if they are gettting all that additional ip in order to meet the lvl req.


This is a massive change to the feel of AO, since it changes what you are primarily striving for. And this is why people are so upset, since they feel you are sacrificing one of the central features that attracted them to AO in the first place.

[Cz]

Routeen: While I do not want to avoid the discussion on level requirements at all, I would like to keep it to the threads already handling the topic. I understand your points, and largely agree with them, but - to everybody - keep the actual discussion to the dedicated threads.

Cosmik will make a summary on the level requirements issue, and bring it to the dev team. Please continue to add your feedback to it.

[Warlock]

Originally posted by Cz
Routeen: While I do not want to avoid the discussion on level requirements at all, I would like to keep it to the threads already handling the topic.

The problem is that these thread currently appear to be viewed only be the players. There has been little/no evidence you guys are reading them at all - which is a huge chunk of the problem. It doesnt even _look_ like you are listening to the players.

While your post contained lots of things I'd like to comment on. In the interested of keeping all the relevant stuff in the right places I'll only say this.

Originally posted by Cz
Skill or level based?
AO is still a skill-based game. A lot of new equipment and all new nanos have level reqs. While it is true that they also have skill reqs, the skill reqs are easily attainable far earlier than the level reqs, often unbuffed.

So whats the point of the skill reqs?

[_____________Mr Bean]

Intresting time to post now before he ignores the thread!

I'll ask this for all adventurers and traders out there

First off a quote then my few questions

Let me start off by stating that "listening to players" and "doing what the players say" are two very different things. To make an extreme example; Say 85% of the people voting on a poll wanted all players already having a level 100+ character to get all new characters created at level 50. We would listen, but I am pretty sure we would not do it.

Yes but the thing is
We are NOT asking for that
The fact is we have been asking for so many things for so long
Like a reload key, 3000 yes votes your Response?
Naaaa
Why is everything self only?
*silence from your end
Now onto the numbered questions


1. Why oh why does Leet Friend line of nanos have SO many restrictions on it?


2. Why for bob sake is every single bloody FIX being tossed on TEAM misison bosses?

Where oh where has my solo-ability gone?

3. From Traders
Thanks for nerfing our heals now that with OE you took Engies only thing away(Big bot wayyy over level) and NTs are still hurting
NTM whatever else will break
What else do you plan to do with us?



And finaly from all

The poll closed at 86% for and some idiots aginst for Leet Dolls
Any word on them?

[Bionitrous]

If the 'level' is the hardest requirement to satisfy which is apparently the case in 100 of the 103 new nanoformulas with level requirements, then it is a level-based game. Why do people choose NanoMage if they can't execute a nanoformula that they have the _skills_ for until 15 _levels_ later when even a braindead Atrox can do so?

If the 'level' is the hardest requirement to satisfy which is most definately the case with almost every single piece of gear to come out with level requirements, then it is a level-based game. I can self-buff into Servants of Eight armor that I can't wear for 23 'levels'. Remind me again why my _skills_ matter versus some guy who dumped 357,000 IP into Sharp Objects.

Why do you lie to us? What is really going on at your corporate headquarters?

Level requirements per se are not necessarily an evil thing if used as a 'sanity check'. But, if a character can execute a nano or wear an item 20 levels before you 'anticipated', then you set the requirements too low. As it stands, the level requirements appear to all concerned to be a cop out. It appears to be your game designers throwing their hands up in the air and giving up on ever being able to deal with what the original developers spent so much time on.

[Peisinoe]

Yes, we are adding level restrictions, but this does not turn it completely around. You still need skill, and though I am not sure what is most common, I believe at least some of the nanos are made so that you reach the level requirement before possibly getting to the skill requirements. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

That was funny. First off, because of your careful choice of words, I can not call you a liar. However, I find it disturbing that you can use the 3% of nanos that fit in the category of skill before level as your PROOF that Anarchy is still a skill based game. You ignore the other 97% that are most definitely level based because they do not hold to your mantra: 'Anarchy Online is still a skill based game, and will remain one in the future.'

Well, being a customer service rep, I find this very hard to post arguments. You, CZ, have no power to change things. Your job is to write absolute rubbish so as not to compromise Funcom's position, and yet to appease the masses. Priority in that order. So the following suggestion isn't aimed at you. It's aimed at your employer.

Don't lie. Lying merely pisses people off. If you straight out told us that yes, Anarchy is switching slowly to a level based game, we would whine and rant, but we wouldn't feel nearly as betrayed. It's the blatant lying that really pisses most of us off the most. We might even have been a little more constructive in our posts if you hadn't LIED to us.

[Darkbane]

Cz, some thoughts on parts of your post.

"Funcom hates camping!"

Well, this on has been done to death, there are hundreds of posts on this in several threads. Go get the designers to read them, then come back to us with an article presenting their thoughts and plans.

Listening to players
I agree, but... the perception is that you aren't listening. How can you improve that perception? Increase activity on the boards, even comments such as 'seen it, passing it on' are welcome. If you say 'i'll get back to you on that one', then do it within a reasonable time frame, even if just to say 'still looking into it'.

The devs can help by increasing the frequency of articles. I'm not suggesting you drop quality, but it should be possible for someone to post an article a week. It doesn't need to be huge, even a few paragraphs on a 'hot' issue would do.

Memory leak
Well, I haven't seen any problems as such, though testlive did run out of memory and fall over when I had only 256Mb. Now that I have 512Mb, both live and testlive are very stable (and compared to 6 months ago...)

Storyline
There have been small things going on, but yes, the main story seems to have gone quiet for now.

Quality vs quantity
See above, but you should be able to increase quantity without any sacrifice in quality above what we currently have.

Answered and unanswered questions lists
It's a good idea, and I'll wait and see what happens, but if you're struggling to manage, why not get some more of the community involved? There are plenty people here who are regular posters, and i'm sure some of them would be prepared to help. The profession reps is a step in the right direction, but why not find a few more people who you feel you can trust and let them handle parts of the board in terms of collating questions for you then posting the answers. If someone else is reading the boards and bringing important threads to your attention, then you won't have to trawl through the dross...

Skill or level based?
Ah, *the* topic of the moment. Yes, we got an answer, no, it wasn't a very good answer, being rather unclear and probably written in a hurry. Can you get a clearer answer for us? Read the thread and see if we've got the right end of the stick... cause at the moment, the reason for these new requirements is *not* fully understood by much if not most of the playerbase.

Ask the prof. reps for fixers and adventurers to make suggestions as to what levels they think are appropriate for these nanos, you will then have a list that the designers can review and see if any mistakes were made in assigning levels.

[Myers]

Thanks for attempting to answer our questions. Hope you can get better and more definitve answers soon. I know it must be hard trying to keep people happy and be productive.

[Jayde]

Just my observations here...

1) Funcom does listen. I won't deny that. They just don't care.

Argue whatever you will...call me a troll...call me a "whiner"... Go right ahead. But if anyone thinks Funcom really does care what the player base thinks about most of their decisions, they are deluding themselves.

Once Funcom makes a decision, it is not up for debate. We Know Best (tm) policy is the order of the day. They can, and will, come up with as many BS reasons as possible to ignore the opinion of the players. Overall, it doesn't matter. 1% of the suggestions on the board will be utilized. Everything else will be swept under the carpet with varying levels of discretion based on how likely the issue is to cause subscription cancellations. However, Funcom rarely goes to extra mile to keep paying customers, and will do the bare minimum in order to temporarily appease people.

2) "Not as skill based" = Not Skill Based.

Sorry. With level/title caps already in place, putting "pessimistic" level reqs on nanos removes the purpose of skills.

Yes. Skills are there. They make a wonderful thing to play around with in your spare time, and are fun to look at. They just don't matter much.

Skills are in the game inasmuch as you cannot be good at every skill in the game simultaneously. That is all. Skills are a limiter right now, NOT an enabler.

When you remove the skill-based advantages of breeds (Nanomage = pointless) and buffs (forget about MP's and Traders) skills are just there to make sure you aren't proficient in everything at the same time. This is NOT a skill-based situation in the spirit of a true skill-based game.

Skills should allow you to EXCEL at certain things, not simply USE certain things at the PREDETERMINED threshold. That is the key difference. Most of the higher-level nanos with level reqs are just as easy for an Atrox to use as a Nanomage. The few extra points Nanomages get via dibble-down are basically worthless, while the Atrox's 75% higher HP makes a Nanomage basically pointless as a race.

3) Memory Usage

"long as you have memory available, AO will not purge textures and such, but keep them in memory for faster access."

Not true. AO will not purge texture *period*. It is not an issue of checking to see if you have memory available. AO will keep allocating memory until your system crashes to a halt and forces you to log off. This is a "memory leak" in that memory allocated is NEVER de-allocated. Typically "memory leaks" are referring to memory which is allocated and "lost" due to poor programming, however this situation is conceptually the same. Unfortunately, it means that it is a voluntary memory leak, and Funcom's coders are either unwilling or unable to code any memory management routines whatsoever.

Funcom's idea of memory management is: Allocate until use is forced to close the game and purge everything at once.

I have 512 megs of physical memory. 420-odd free megs of physical memory free when I start AO. After a number of hours, not only has AO allocated ALL of my physical memory, but it has taken the liberty of using 300 megs of swap file as well.

Yes. AO had an effective footprint of over 720 megs of RAM. My commit charge was 910 megs with AO running, and roughly 180 megs after AO was closed.

This is simply unforgivable. Truly it is. AO needs some better memory management, and BAD. At *least* let us specify a memory cap. PLEASE? Or, if you don't true the user at all, do some auto-detection and be smart about memory usage. Just because you can successfully malloc(200000000); doesn't mean it's not gonna cause someone's system to bork out.

4) Camping.

Fixing one MOB's spawn time is a drop in the bucket. There are soooo many spawn problems with AO as a whole, this is nothing more than a gesture to get people off their backs. Not good enough. Figure out the policy, and if you want AO to be an EverGreed clone or not, and stick to it.

5) Misc.

"The exploit got fixed, and the despawning turned off. Unfortunately, the despawn fix was left out of the main code branch by mistake, and the despawning returned in the next patch."

Common problem. Funcom...PLEASE, for the sake of your entire player base, pay more attention to your code branching. It takes you guys forever to get rid of bugs, and it's quite disappointing when they come back the VERY NEXT PATCH.

Example?

"14.2: Fixed the "65555 Appetizer Glasses" - bug. This item appeared as loot in team missions from time to time."

This item started spawning in chests in 14.2.2 (or whatever you called the next one). It is still in there as of last night. (Found one in a Varmint Woods cave mission.)

"14.0: Splintered Test Bone and Rough Club: These items were never intended to be available to players. They are seriously bugged and easily exploitable. We have now removed them from the game, and they have been deleted from the inventory of all players who had them. We apologize for this, but it had to be done."

These items started spawning in boss loot after 14.2 hit the servers. They were later removed a few intermediate patches down the line, but they DID start reappearing, and WERE exploited in that time.

These are just 2 examples off the top of my head. Glitches are often fixed, then find their way back in. It's VERY frustrating, and it would behoove Funcom to improve their versioning and code tree maintenance to avoid crap like this happening over and over again.

Another pet peeve: Why are little fixes--those that should be so amazingly simple to implement--ignored for so long? Especially IMPORTANT ones. BBI Faithful anyone?

I'm sure you realize, Cz, that 90% of the pistol advents use BBI Faithfuls. Your init string was set improperly in the database, and yet we have seen it promised as a fix and IGNORED for two patches running. Nizno promised it in 14.2, Cosmik promised it in 14.4, now JimSalabim is promising it in 14.6. How long do we have to wait for you to correct an integer in your database? If Auno can read that value, I highly doubt you don't have the resources to modify it with the flick of a hex editor. (Since Funcom doesn't seem to have develop any robust tools for modifying or reading any of their data--server logs included.)

So, what? It would take an outside contractor well versed in database interface applications a week max to write you a server log analyzer? Yet GM's and Cosmik have mentioned on numerous occasions that you have no robust tools for analyzing server logs? That's atrocious. Simply atrocious. I'm a programmer by profession, and that is terrible form...you NEVER write a custom database (assuming it's custom...if it's not custom, you have even less excuse) without writing a good interface to read the data. Logs are worthless if you have to dig through them by hand.

This is the *sole* reason for a lack of a MUCH-NEEDED reimbursement policy. Yet Funcom seems to think it's No Big Deal (tm). It doesn't matter if people die because of server glitches, or BUGS YOU INTRODUCED. (Fall damage in team missions, anyone?) You can't reimburse anything? Come on. That's just absurd! Take at least some semblance of responsibility for developing a streamlined customer service methodology. ARKs/GMs can't do anything aside from move people who are stuck and give n00bs basic gameplay tips. Woohoo.

Hopefully someone, somewhere got something out of this post. If not, I guess that's just another in the plethora of constructive criticism-related posts that have either fallen on deaf ears, or derided as "whining", "flaming", or "trolling."

-Jayde

[___________Evilspork]

I... am... so... pissed... off... right... now!!!
[/cartman]

[Mhar]

The Customer is wlays right... FC should make the game fun not aggravating. Sensible.. practicle...

[_______MartinDeShade]

If that is their answer then here here is mine: I am cancelling. It is rather sad since I only recently started here. After trying the 7 day trial at the beginning of the year and quitting because of the bugs and odd gui. Like not being able to look up while in mouselook in 3rd person, and having an atrox toon taking up way too much screen real estate. However, I tried it again and was able to adjust to it. But after seeing Funcom at work with rushing 14.4 out the door, and basiclly flipping off the 80%+ of players that don't want level restrictions. It is my only option. Unfortunately, most of the other online companies aren't great with their customers either. Just not to this extant, though.

Martin

[Tetra]

Originally posted by Cz
I got a list from Scorus of old and new statements and happenings that have given us some trouble over the lifetime of Anarchy Online, and would like to go through them one by one and try hand out some proper explanations.

gee... I see threads (some even started by FC people...) with XXX and better replies, not vapid no content bump posts but replies that have either no responce, have a responce that was so illogical it was imediately shot so full of holes that only the most rabid fanboys dare defend it, or have a discussion about why someone's post was deleted without having any actual responce to the issues raised in the thread. Don't get me wrong this is a nice gesture in that you attempted to answer some questions but considering that many of these questions have hundreds upon hundreds of posts complaining about them the proof that your "making an effort" has yet to be seen.

"Funcom hates camping!"
Why has every patch since you said "Funcom hates camping!" increased camping by increasing spawn times and despawning quest-dependent NPCs? Spawns for Trash King and Smuggler's Den have been increased, Dodga/Alvin despawn now. Only one spawn has decreased, that was one of the named robots who apparently was not spawning as often as Funcom intended. Why have you increased spawn times and camping instead of decreasing them and camping if you hate camping so much?

Several issues here. First Alvin and Dodga - and possibly other NPCs - were set to despawn to prevent an exploit. The exploit got fixed, and the despawning turned off. Unfortunately, the despawn fix was left out of the main code branch by mistake, and the despawning returned in the next patch.

By this time the problems with the spawn time on the different robots had become a problem, and to ease the load on Support it was decided to leave Alvin and Dodga despawning to not have too many people out on the missions at the same time.

So, what's being done?

We've had some discussions around the spawn times, and I believe the current agreement is to shorten the average spawn time on the Trash King, and stop the despawning of Alvin and Dodga. I'll have to check up on that though.

Then why the smoke and mirrors when we questioned you guys on it? I remember things like [paraphrase] "the quest was set to shorter timers to lessen the strain caused by the new parts being fixed, it's now been reverted to how it was originally intended"

Considering the tiny number of quests that exist in game it's hardly excusable to still be trying to decide what needs to be done, not to mention you [funcom] still have horrible problems with camping caused by spawntimes on the various other NPC's in and about rubi-ka.... when will the rest of the spawntimes be set to something that supports a server of X many thousand players

[Listening to players
How can Andre Backen claim that you guys listen to your players on the same day that a patch comes out with something that 83% of your players say they don't want (level reqs): http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...hreadid=31992.

And that increases camping, which almost 100% of your players have said they don't want in TWO different surveys that your staff have conducted on the boards. How can we reconcile that statement with your actions that very day?

Let me start off by stating that "listening to players" and "doing what the players say" are two very different things. To make an extreme example; Say 85% of the people voting on a poll wanted all players already having a level 100+ character to get all new characters created at level 50. We would listen, but I am pretty sure we would not do it.

Name one thing that changed based on player complaints on 14.4 as it was placed on test compared to how it was placed on live and try to tell me that/explain to me how you guys at funcom are "listening to us" again.

This is a topic where I would rather comment on the specific issue, as I believe the problem is the lack of information about our desicions. Often we honestly don't want to give out the explanation because we want some secrecy (specific numbers on the agg - def slider), other times we simply can't (meaning we would reveal too much if we did, not that we are unable to).

Fixers and advents recently had a patch... the notes were posted in the incorrect forum and the patch was rushed through without notice... or actually we did have notice I suppose... we had a 2 week WTA which was great even if it wound up being 3+ weeks assuming we had an update as to why, of course this simply made all the fanboys stand up and shout how we were overreacting and had plenty of time given the lack of anything in the "next patch forum" as our complaints of being ignored got more vocal due to time constraints

Now the fixer and advent forums were filled to the brim of constructive criticism that later broke into downright outrage at being ignored yet completely devoid of funcom contact. Show me ONE thread in the fixer or advent forums where someone from funcom attempted to communicate with us over our complaints. And before you ask, no... blowing smoke 1 time and having the argument instantly shot full of holes that even the fanboys didnt try to defend it only to never return again does not count as "communication".

Future actions: The level restrictions we have now answered, so I won't go into that. The lack of info to the players is more of the issue, imo. I believe we have good communication, but slip now and then. And we will work on avoiding those slips, to the best of our ability.

No, you really havent "answered them" you gave an excuse that made no sense and has hundreds of posts pointing out the utter nonsense proposed by it. Funcom has made no attempt to correct this complaint about your excuse since then aside from covering their ears and saying it's explained already.

Skill or level based?
AO is still a skill-based game. A lot of new equipment and all new nanos have level reqs. While it is true that they also have skill reqs, the skill reqs are easily attainable far earlier than the level reqs, often unbuffed. Thus the game is far less skill-based and you have said yourselves that that trend will continue, culminating with Shadowlands. Is it fair, at least, to say that AO may be skill-oriented but Shadowlands will be level-based?

A lot of opinions on this, and it's hard to get everybody to agree. Anarchy Online is still a skill based game, and will stay so in the future. That is my opinion, at least, and Funcom's one too. (Note to self: Verify that last part tomorrow.)

Yes, we are adding level restrictions, but this does not turn it completely around. You still need skill, and though I am not sure what is most common, I believe at least some of the nanos are made so that you reach the level requirement before possibly getting to the skill requirements. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

"Less skill based" - as you say - is probably correct, though I'd wait and see a few patches ahead before saying level is the main restriction now. The new nanos in 14.4 were one batch of new items. There are more batches to come. And the skills are still needed, and will always be needed, hence it is still skill based.

The level restrictions are completely random Cz, as an advent I have a couple nano's I can self cast now on my own after having gone through 15 titlecapped levels except i'm still 5 levels away from being allowed to cast it, on the flip side I have gobs of nano's that even at the level req I need massive buffs to cast.

Level restrictions should be
QL1-50 the level a nanomage with maxed int/maxed secondary stat+Implants+mastery+50pts to account for possible wrangle and random buffing items like sekulotek chilled plassteel or dillon armor and such could cast it. If fixer the proper NCU hacker interface doodad

QL51-QL80 the level a Nanomage with Maxed int/maxed secondary stat+Full implants for the needed skills+mastery+102 wrangle+nelebs+25 bonus points from random items. If fixer the proper NCU hacker interface doodad

QL81-120 the level a nanomage with Maxed int/maxed secondary stat+full implants for needed skills+infuse+132 wrangle+nelebs+30pts for random items. If fixer the proper NCU hacker interface doodad

QL120-180 the level a nanomage with maxed int/maxed secondary stat+full implants for needed skills+Mochams+132 wrangle+nelebs+shades of lucabrasion+prof van horne's vest+50pts for random items If fixer the proper NCU hacker interface doodad

QL181-250 the level a nanomage with maxed int/maxed secondary stat+full implants for needed skills+mochams+132 wrangle+nelebs+shades+prof van horne's vest+60pts for random items just to be damn sure anyone who gimped themselves in wierd ways to have the uber buffing equipment under the current system can cast it. If fixer the proper NCU hacker interface doodad

Ok, that's what I have for now. Let me just finish off with saying to those who miss the 110% statement on the list, that the statement was given with regards to the billing system, not the game, so don't even think about bringing it up.

I'll be back with more info, and hope you'll bare with me in the meantime.

If you live up to those two parts I bolded then I'm certainly willing to bare with you in the meantime, but for now you have funcom's abysmal track record on forums to contend against.

[Darkbane]

Originally posted by JaydeStargunner


3) Memory Usage

"long as you have memory available, AO will not purge textures and such, but keep them in memory for faster access."

Not true. AO will not purge texture *period*. It is not an issue of checking to see if you have memory available. AO will keep allocating memory until your system crashes to a halt and forces you to log off. This is a "memory leak" in that memory allocated is NEVER de-allocated. Typically "memory leaks" are referring to memory which is allocated and "lost" due to poor programming, however this situation is conceptually the same. Unfortunately, it means that it is a voluntary memory leak, and Funcom's coders are either unwilling or unable to code any memory management routines whatsoever.

Funcom's idea of memory management is: Allocate until use is forced to close the game and purge everything at once.

I have 512 megs of physical memory. 420-odd free megs of physical memory free when I start AO. After a number of hours, not only has AO allocated ALL of my physical memory, but it has taken the liberty of using 300 megs of swap file as well.

Yes. AO had an effective footprint of over 720 megs of RAM. My commit charge was 910 megs with AO running, and roughly 180 megs after AO was closed.

This is simply unforgivable. Truly it is. AO needs some better memory management, and BAD. At *least* let us specify a memory cap. PLEASE? Or, if you don't true the user at all, do some auto-detection and be smart about memory usage. Just because you can successfully malloc(200000000); doesn't mean it's not gonna cause someone's system to bork out.

Hmm, I don't doubt you have problems, but, are you playing the same game as me? Sure it will use most of your available RAM, but so do most modern games. Its been weeks since AO crashed on me, and I usually have IE and CS running in the background. And I'm running Win98 - hardly renowned for excellence in memory management...

And a modern OS should do resource tracking for applications, so memory leaks are simply not possible at an application level.

[_______________Intra]

in the past I would have been all over this... but I have lost alot of faith in the point in talking to FC.

I have to say that, Cz, to me the main problem is that you believe you have good communication with the players. This means that there are not going to be radical changes in the future to improve it. Which is unfortunate as it does need changing and improving a great deal. I think the fact that you had to even post this post goes some way towards showing that.
Each of these issues could have been dealt with very easily with better communication, and there are other issues that players have needed answering that have just gone un answered in the past.
I would even go so far as to say that communication between the community staff needs to be improved.
I sent an email via feedback a day before the patch asking for an official stance on level requirements. The member of the community team that answered the email (I dont like to name names, but since it wasnt you then that leaves 2 others ) didnt have a clue what I was talking about and asked me to explain even further.
This was at a point where the community were frustrated and there were so many questions about level requirements.
The community team had came across as having no understanding of what the community was feeling or needed answers for.

to sum it up... the community team need to start understanding the community and realising that answers ... even a "if we said to much on this it would spoil future events" would work!
saying something like that or a "no comment" at least lets the players know you have read but cant comment, not that they are being ignored.

If communication was as good as you think it is then I would not have pressed that cancel button

ok.. so I said more than I intended to... but hey, this community is the best that I have found in an online game, despite all the trolls. but you will get them in every game.
I have just felt Funcom have disrespected the community on too many occasions.
Show the players some respect please, speak to them when they ask on major issues early and not leave it to the last minute. Make it seen that they have your attention so they dont feel ignored.

ok, I will shut up now

[Cz]

First; This is still not a thread for discussing the level requirements. We're handling that issue in another thread, and we are making a full summary on it to bring to the designers.

And why do we bring it to the designers? Because they need to see what you people think about it, and see your very valid arguments on the issue. That, Zylina, is my (and the rest of Community's) job. Not writing rubbish. Not trying to appease the players by making fluffy posts (that's the PR department j/k).

JaydeStargunner, to do the hard facts; Our job depend on you customers, so we have to care. However, that is not the main argument. Almost every single person in Funcom is a gamer, and care about both the people playing the AO (and other games), and the game itself, very much.

About the small fixes, and glitches introducing new (and old) bugs; I really don't have a good explanation, as it is something that is not supposed to happen. We have banged our heads against the wall several times due to this, and will continue to yell at the people responsible.

The BBI Faithful bug is a very unfortunate one, and should have been fixed a looong time ago. I think the problem is that those adding it to the bug list didn't use the "please stuff this into 14.x" field to give at hint at how soon we wanted it fixed. We have now set it to 14.6, and due to the 'simple' nature of the fix, I can't imagine it being bumped to 14.8. (I will try make sure it is not.)

And we're working on getting some more verified plans about reducing camping.

Intra, I hate comparing to others, but yes, I think our communication is relatively good. In no way do I think it is good enough. I want it to improve a lot, and I am 110% sure () that the rest of the team agree with me. Radical changes might not happen, but changes there will be, and hopefully you will notice the improvements.

---

Ok, I have collected some new questions here, and by e-mail and in other channels. Things to check up now include:
- Memory issues
- Storyline and events (might take a while...)
- Reload key
- Self only nanos (I guess it was about nanos, Mr Bean. Is that right?)
- New stuff onto boss MOBs only (well, almost)
- Other camping issues, plus verifying future changes on the Alvin /Dodga and robots spawns
- More designer articles (they've been absent for a while)
- Deleting old characters to free up names

This, and hopefully a bit more, will be in new threads, not this one. I prefer to have the initial info in the first post, not on page 3.

[_______________Zhorr]

Damn! Sorry to see you go, Intra.

We never grouped, but I follow your threads wherever I see them. Still remember your "fixer shops" and "fixer shops to fixer only" ideas.

The game is loosing a great member. Sad day.

[Cthonian]

Originally posted by Cz
Say 85% of the people voting on a poll wanted all players already having a level 100+ character to get all new characters created at level 50.

Do you think, players are so stupid, there would be ever the majority even from 100+ players,
on the change, that would screw the gameplay for others ?
By the way such would destroy the game for both veterans and newbies

I have read almost every poll;
not a single with high number of voters and 2/3+ majority for something
soggest anything that would harm the game

Current Strats in Level Req. on Nanos Poll:
550 have voted so far, 82% are against level requirements for nanos, only 10% for it.
No one can vote twice
How many accounts in AO are there at all ?
Put the poll in launcher, and lets see what happens.

[Cz]

Cthonian, no, I don't think such a poll would get that kind of voting. I said it was an extreme example. I'll try find a better term to use next time.

Originally posted by Cz
We've had some discussions around the spawn times, and I believe the current agreement is to shorten the average spawn time on the Trash King, and stop the despawning of Alvin and Dodga. I'll have to check up on that though.

This is now confirmed. Shorter average spawn time on the Trash King, and no despawn on Alvin and Dodga, is the way it's intended to work, and the way it will work in the future. I'm not completely sure when this will be in, but I doubt it will be later than 14.6.