Page 6 of 12 FirstFirst 123456789101112 LastLast
Results 101 to 120 of 239

Thread: Monthly Development Update - August 2014

  1. #101
    Dear devs

    Make the game playable and your jobs will be guaranteed.


    Did you know that it is more likely for a toon (on the live dimensions) to reach AI 30 without ever finding a useful alien weapon doing daily missions than the opposite?
    And that even if a player is lucky enough to find one, s/he can only find a bio to upgrade it by farming creds for countless boring hours, begging for help from other people or using a much higher level toon to farm it?
    Gustatus similis pullus.

  2. #102
    Quote Originally Posted by Nusquam View Post
    I am referring to the Live team - the Lego team are completely separate.


    Well, other people on the Live team have contributed to AO during the past year - creating art assets for the NPE, for example. I think what you perhaps fundamentally misunderstand here is that the Live team is a fraction of the dedicated developers that each project had in the past.

    Essentially the live team divides manpower among the games based on their revenue and budgets. As AO is the oldest, it has the smallest playerbase and therefore the smallest budget allocated.


    Why do you think there hasn't? We've just spent weeks training people in many aspects of AO - but remember Genele and Macrosun were only capable of working on AO - neither had any experience with AoC or TSW tools. In essence, they were dedicated AO devs because that was what they knew.

    Most people who work on anything for AO will never post on the forums.


    The poor decisions have very little to do with the current team. Besides that - AO is allocated the resources that align with its profits - I don't really know what else we can do. If the project becomes unprofitable in the long run, do you think it will be kept open on charity? There is some tendency for people to bring out the old "You've got to spend money to make money" argument here - which is all well and good - but the relationship between MMO player numbers and time is easy enough to plot on a graph and the only people who buck that trend are WoW and EVE.


    We are chugging along. I suggest going back and reading the past year or so of community updates. We are pretty transparent about what we are doing, and hell, we even have a beta of the engine up and running (finally). It's not as though we're discussing things that aren't tangible in some form.



    I can only suggest you read Michi's OP again. This is what we are working on. You can define that how you like (chug chugging!)
    People seem to want some vague long-term roadmap which, in all honesty, seems to have been something that they were given in the past and has led to the type of skepticism I see all over these forums.

    As for rebuilding AO from scratch as AO2 or whatever - I understand the wish but the reality is a bit different. A modern game on the scale of AO would cost millions that Funcom doesn't have (see quarterly report).

    It's been discussed many times over the years - AO really does hold a special place in the hearts of most people at Funcom.
    Just one single question Nusquam, there is in past some Booster and/or extension pack , we as community love this game, is it possible to put a Pre-pay Booster pack (for the engine and rebalance) that permit us to donate something in advance and help to pay the cost for this works that need to be done, i'm sure i'm not the only one that have the faith on it

    (and yes i know subs is high but i didn't care AO give a lot of fun in past and i don't play or log so much but it's my support as a sub and what Ao give me in past)
    Account Created => 2001-12-29 19:28:42 : Active and Back in business
    making a break from 2007 ( ok i have just buy one month in 2009 and 2010 to see if there is change).

  3. #103
    Nusquam, I want to make sure that you know that there are many (albeit less vocal) players who love AO dearly, understand the limitations on development, and aren't marching to Funcom's offices with pitchforks and torches.

    Since I started playing back just after AI was released (I didn't start posting on the forums until years later) I've always regarded AO as my home. My sub hasn't always been active due to time, finances, and other interests, but when I'm playing, I'm paying, and I do that primarily to support the further development of my favorite MMO.

    The forum here can sometimes make it seem like the community as a whole are angry and disgruntled, but that's not the case. The angrier members of the community tend to be the more vocal, but speaking for the players who just love the game, all we ask is that you keep working on it as much as you can.

    I can't stress enough the value of the monthly updates, and having devs who listen and respond. I think Michizure's going to do this very well.

    Finally, I'd urge the funcom team to always consider more tangible contributions from the community, along the lines of Docaholic's icon sets. We have some talent, and we have folks who really love the game and want to contribute, and I know FC's aware of that (the inclusion of Docaholic's work, the AORK variant of the default maps, etc) but if it gets to a point where Funcom needs more developers or artists than the budget will allow, don't forget that we're here.

    Thanks for your continued replies, and please don't let the disgruntled segment of our playerbase get you down.
    Aldebaran "Krisanthe" Fairchild, Director
    Krisaata "Krisalee" Liandra, Communications Officer
    Kathryn "Krisaria" Fairchild, Medical Officer

    == THE HOMESTEAD ACCORD ==
    Exploration - Colonization - Commerce

    http://www.homesteadaccord.org/

  4. #104
    I hate SL, it totally wrecked the gamelore. Hope you revive the cyberpunk-theme.

    Will you ever make new char-models?

    Quote Originally Posted by Genele View Post
    Db3 was designed by me and the word building and artwork was done by Mstrbstrd.
    Who did santa's workshop? Was pretty leet.

  5. #105
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Tryptophy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nusquam View Post
    This is always going to be the comment that gets me in trouble and makes the PR people at Funcom cringe - but I stand by it.
    I for one *really* appreciate this honesty and openness.

    You probably don't know this, but would it be possible for FC to sell the IP rights to AO while retaining control over the game itself, i.e. so another company could develop a "spiritual successor"?
    General of Nocturnal Fear
    Trypha 220/30/70 Engy | Trypothecary 220/30/69 Doc | Tryptophy 220/30/68 Crat | Trypocalypse 220/30/70 Sold | Tryharder 220/30/68 NT | Trypointy 220/x/x Shade | Peasantry 200/30/69 Keeper | Trycharm 150/20/42 Crat

  6. #106
    MMOs are living products and tend to grow with expansions and content additions. If your plan of content expansion is to add an inferno like mission every 2 years, and keep asking the same amount of subscription money that just doesn't cut it. If Funcom can't fund an expansion or doesn't believe in AO anymore and preffer to invest money elsewhere, they'd better just shut it down all together for it's legacy shake.

    Any other way is not honest from Funcom imo.
    Why?

  7. #107
    *Slow clap*
    Once again, well played Funcom. Now I realize where most of the $15/month subscription fee is going...straight to the PR team. You guys know *just* what to post to keep taking advantage of desperate and gullible customers.

    FC: Hey guys, we're doing stuff.
    Fool1: Yay! I love you!
    SmartPerson2: It's been a year...where's the stuff?
    FC: Oh, its coming along. Soon.
    Fool1: Yay! I love you!
    SmartPerson2: Another year has passed...any word of the stuff? Whats going on?
    SmartPerson3: Can we at least get some info on development?
    *radio silence*

    FC: Hey Fool1, here's a pic of something shiny.
    Fool1: OGM THX PLX! *pays another month*
    SmartPerson2: ...but that doesn't answer our questions..
    SmartPerson4: In the meantime, could you fix the small stuff? 6+ year old bugs and such.
    Fool1: Hmm...those guys are kinda right. Whats going on with devs?
    FC: Oh hey! Ummmmmmmmm...the intern brought us the wrong lunch order so everything is pushed back for a year or six. We're still working on it tho I swear. *hands Fool1 a T-shirt*
    Fool1: OOGM SWEET THXPLX FC IS AWSUM *pays 12 month sub*

    SmartPerson1: 5 Years have passed. How's that update coming?
    SmartPerson1: Hello?
    SmartPerson1: Anyone available to comment and/or fill us in on what's going on? The players deserve to know.
    FC: Oh hey. Have you seen Fool1? The T-Shirts are green this year!
    Fool1: 4 REALZ?! I LOVE GREEN! FC RULZ *pays 12 month sub*

    Rinse and repeat.

  8. #108
    Make agent,mp,fixer,keeper at least semi playable and useful within say 90 days and you deserve not to get blasted out by us players.... I know that will never happen however cause it hasn't happened in the last five years+... The hate is well deserved at this point.

  9. #109
    Dear Angry AO gamers,

    Please be nice to the current Funcom developers that dedicates their time working on AO. Because it is not their fault for inherit this burden made by previous game developers who have already left FC long ago.
    Funcom isnt a good game company to begin with. If you, the angry gamers going to hate and blame anyone, hate Funcom shareholders and former CEO, Trond Aas.
    Trond Aas may going to jail for what he did. Its not everyday we can actually play a mmorpg where former CEO going to jail, so think how awesome it would be.
    This is not attempts of kissing up or getting brown nose on anyone, its just my fair opinion.

    I agree with Dumode, think before you let all your anger out on someone who doesn't deservers it.
    . . . everything in creation is impermanenT

  10. #110
    Nusquam,

    From the vantage point of a customer, Funcom has horribly mismanaged this game over the years and I'd have to be a fool to believe that was going to change. It has never been the sole fault of any individual be it a designer, coder or director. So the past couple times that I've returned to AO, I returned in the spirit of: Play the game for released content, not for the hopes of what is to be released.

    I don't think it is unreasonable for us, as players, to expect that you at least make sure that existing content is working properly. Fixing bugs, exploits and correcting blatant game design issues with EXISTING/CURRENT CONTENT is reasonably in the scope of what one should expect when they pay for a monthly subscription. So if you are choosing to spend the resources our monthly subscription and item shop purchases provide on future content rather than focus those resources on what we are indeed paying for (per your explanation) then I guess I'd like to know why you're doing that? I mean I already know but since you're making it seem as if we're way off base to have reasonable expectations for future development then I'm very interested to hear why you aren't fixing what we have previously and are currently paying for, contentwise.

    For example:

    - I spent darn near 2.5 hours trying to farm a Brimstone Heart from a Brimstone Demon for the Inferno Anansi quest last night. We even killed the other type of demon there with the thought that maybe it was an either/or random roll thing to determine if a brimstone or the other demon would spawn. TWO AND A HALF HOURS to farm a quest item. I contacted a GM and was actually told that 2 mobs spawning in 90 min was working as intended. Additionally, there's a part of the same questline where you have to kill 5 mobs and only 3 are spawned at any given time. To add insult to injury, both my toon and another guy's got stuck in the geometry and had to deal with the good ole "Cannot use /stuck while standing" message. It makes absolutely 0 sense when about 90% of the time you get stuck its because you dropped down into something or hopped up through a celing and won't be able to sit down. The result, for me, was that my evening of questing with friends and having fun got completely ruined by messed up game design. I'd also like to add that I didn't even get to finish the quest on my fixer because I didn't want to hold the others up (they all got their hearts from the first spawn of mobs). So yeah, 2.5 hours on a quest, not finished and have to go back today to kill left/right hand to get it done.

    - The GMI was put on Live over 2 years ago and there are still things that were not completed from back then. We never got org bank functionality or a replacement for the 'org only shop', for example. This is the only MMO I've played that doesn't have any sort of org bank functionality, yet if you store stuff on a froob and account share you risk getting banned.

    - I was recording a How-to video the other night on basic GUI customization and went to open my friends list and got a blank panel. This happens quite a bit and has been a bug or problem since I started play over 10 years ago and still hasn't been fixed. I actually had to do that section of the video over because I stumbled through how to explain why my friends list wasn't populating. It really is mind boggling.

    - We've been asking for years to have inferno missions listed as easy/medium/hard with the same rewards regardless of if they are rolled by a 210 or a 220. Is there anyone that's played the game in the last 5 years that is in disagreement with such a change? Is it a hard fix?

    - It seems like most people I know utilize outside tanking at 2 Mountains and Kite Hill to level their toons. I'm generally anti-OST teams and I've even jumped on the bandwagon because the alternative is to level alone. There haven't really been any implemented solutions to address this long-term problem.

    These are the types of things that really need to be fixed with existing content. No matter how much effort you put into the engine or how much you try to re-balance the classes.. if you don't fix what is broken with the current content, the new people you manage to attract will leave. The people currently playing are going to be way more tolerant of the blatant game design flaws in live content than some new person trying the game for the first time. We are, after all, used to the problems and we just find a way to work around them.

    I'm not in your industry but I can't believe that some of these 'quality of life' fixes would take a lot of time. We're not talking about implementing new playfields or doing complete reworks of a profession. Some things are as simple as placing an extra mob or two in the world, adjusting spawn timers, fixing drop rates, changing loot tables and swapping out rewards. I have no idea what your budget is for the game but I can't imagine that pulling someone in for a 3-6 month clean-up project would break the bank or overly tax your resources. It would, however, make a world of difference to the enjoyment factor of your released content.

    ----

    So I asked a question yesterday that I really should have asked a long time ago regarding who designed my favorite playfield in game. Turns out it was Genele that designed Dark Ruins.. and apparently, from her own statement, when she was new to using the tools. That instance, on an AO scale, is brilliant and probably the best designed in the game (with the exception of the fact that something a bit more awesome needs to be provided as the final reward.. to coax more people to do it). Whoever opted to have her working on whatever she was doing instead of putting out more of what she was obviously good at doing really dropped the ball. And I'll just leave it at that because anything else I could say wouldn't be founded in fact.
    Last edited by Traderjill; Sep 4th, 2014 at 20:39:23.
    You can find me at:
    Battlenet @ Marilata#1680
    Steam @ http://steamcommunity.com/id/marilata

  11. #111
    Quote Originally Posted by Genele View Post
    Dark ruins was my first content contribution to Anarchy Online.
    <snip>
    The team version of dark ruins was a collaboration between Lindelu and myself.
    <snip>
    Db3 was designed by me..
    Better late than never, but awesome job on Dark Ruins and DB3. You designed 2 of the 4 (in my opinion) top instances/dungeons in the game.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kintaii View Post
    The Gauntlet I want to say was me, Flaptoot & Mstrbstrd all on world-building and art, but for The Collector MB did the world-building and environment art, and *you* made most of the mob textures.

    Edit: I'll also only claim about 95% of The Gauntlet in terms of design; the central conceit of "I want a boss that shoves people off a platform" was an idea Means had been floating around ever since we got the knockback mechanic working (thanks to Macrosun), and what initially lead to the creation of the area.

    Also:
    This is also true of Alappaa (my first project on the game) and Albtraum, and I want to say one other Shadowlands area we added in while we were all there as well. The man loved him some tunnels.
    Again, better late than never but good job on Gauntlet and Alappaa. If I'm completely objective you did a great job on Albtraum. Unfortunately the old days of outdoor heck grinding gave me PTSD and, as a result, Alb is my least favorite dungeon in the game.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyberleet View Post
    Who did santa's workshop? Was pretty leet.
    I think that was Michi's project.
    You can find me at:
    Battlenet @ Marilata#1680
    Steam @ http://steamcommunity.com/id/marilata

  12. #112
    To: current Funcom CEO, Ole Schreiner:

    - Do you plan to short sell Funcom shares, by yourself or via third parties after the release of Lego mmo?

    Get your butt on the forum, and answer me NOW !!!
    . . . everything in creation is impermanenT

  13. #113
    anarchy online had allot of subscibers since it came out.
    any bleeding game can turn around a little becose old players always return if you give em a reason for it?
    anarchy online is by faar the best mmo game ever made, sucks it had to take so long with this engine and balance stuff.
    i also understand the challange for the ao dev team to do all this with limited resources and people leaving.
    i just realy hope for free mounth for old unactive accounts when next patch hits live so we can hopefully get some population and subscribers :P

  14. #114
    Quote Originally Posted by Nusquam View Post
    Essentially the live team divides manpower among the games based on their revenue and budgets. As AO is the oldest, it has the smallest playerbase and therefore the smallest budget allocated.
    Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  15. #115
    The issues with AO have NEVER been the content, that has always been well designed and beter than ever since LE expansion. The problem is the items that came with it were so overloaded with stats it put the pve in easymode and the pvp was shamefully broken beyond repair. OP LE/DB quest nanos and research procs, and more AAO/AAD stat in every slot, massive ability and treatment buffs so no-efforts could right click equip their 300 xan's, high min band-aid AS weapons for everyone! The game has tons of good content, it does not need more. Profession rebalance should be #1 priority, get it right first, then engine, then new content.

  16. #116
    Quote Originally Posted by Esssch View Post
    Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    This exactly.

    Hence why I said to throw another dev at AO to get some new content out stat so there's something for the players to re-learn and keep em occupied.

    @Nusquam, thanks for the personal response, while I appreciate the business "sense" I think your statements are loaded with a bit of rhetoric that is situationally applicable but not necessarily appropriate.

    In another thread I stated that I play for AO because I like the game. But that doesn't mean I can't have reasonable expectations for delivery of content which is standard across the industry.

    I'm not jaded. I'm realistic. I'm not a pushover, but I'm also ready to keep paying for 4-5 accounts because I find utility in them.

    What I don't want is mismanagement, staff turnover that directly affects content release, and lack of transparency in operations. I do like to see where my money is going and see results.

    You are right- I don't have sub numbers. Are you allowed to tell us/provide a line graph that shows active subs since launch? (that would be cool)

  17. #117
    I find this line particularly funny:

    "Play the game for what it is, not what it could be".

    Yes, in an industry saturated with early-access/kickstarter/crowdfunded games and especially in MMOs, a genre explicitly known for steady content generation and 'carrot on a stick' actions. This particular train of through is frankly, a load of bollocks.

    Let's look at the 'big guns' of MMORPGs.

    WoW has a content patch on average every 6 months of it's expansion development cycle. When Blizz announced a year of ICC in WotLK, people left in droves. They did the same for SoO pre-WoD, it happened again.

    GW2 has a content patch every few months, with loads of story driven content.

    Wildstar has a monthly patch with new content.

    EVE has very frequent patches adding little bits here and there and HUGE patches adding swathes of new content.


    Why the hell do you think 'Play for now, not the future' is a viable business practice in a game with an extortionate subscription cost?


    LoX was released FIVE YEARS AGO. I'll let that sink in for a while.
    Last edited by Raggy; Sep 4th, 2014 at 23:56:47.
    Pricecuts - 220 Trader
    Feel free to contact me via PM or in-game.

    Raggy - 220 Bureaucrat || Raggeh - 220 Fixer | Back as 'Raggys' - Shade for the time being. | Nuclei - 217 Nanotechnician || Nanobiology - 214 Doctor

    Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.

  18. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    GW2 has a content patch every few months, with loads of story driven content.
    Story updates every 2 weeks, with a short break between seasons. Current story added a large new zone, big quest chains, and the story updates every couple weeks have added in extra areas and quests to that zone. They're currently doing a feature patch, which contains mechanics/systems changes like most MMOs' patches. For instance, their auction house is a custom webapp similar to AO's GMI. It's had some performance issues since launch, so they're completely rewriting the entire thing.

  19. #119
    Quote Originally Posted by Esssch View Post
    Story updates every 2 weeks, with a short break between seasons. Current story added a large new zone, big quest chains, and the story updates every couple weeks have added in extra areas and quests to that zone. They're currently doing a feature patch, which contains mechanics/systems changes like most MMOs' patches. For instance, their auction house is a custom webapp similar to AO's GMI. It's had some performance issues since launch, so they're completely rewriting the entire thing.
    Not only that, they somehow manage to keep up this level of development whilst having ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSCRIPTIONS. All their revenue comes from Box Sales and the cosmetic store.

    So how come AO has such a gigantic entry fee for all the expansions, an arguably P2W 'FC Point' shop AND one of the highest subscription fees of any MMO on the market today?
    Pricecuts - 220 Trader
    Feel free to contact me via PM or in-game.

    Raggy - 220 Bureaucrat || Raggeh - 220 Fixer | Back as 'Raggys' - Shade for the time being. | Nuclei - 217 Nanotechnician || Nanobiology - 214 Doctor

    Tip #743: As noted in Tip #244, tea bags have an infinite variety of uses. However, there's always one jerk who will want to give you crap over drinking tea. Particularly if in a new town, use this as an opportunity to assert yourself. Any drunken idiot can win a bar fight. It takes a real man to win a bar fight while enjoying a cup of Earl Grey.

  20. #120
    Quote Originally Posted by Raggy View Post
    Not only that, they somehow manage to keep up this level of development whilst having ABSOLUTELY NO SUBSCRIPTIONS. All their revenue comes from Box Sales and the cosmetic store.

    So how come AO has such a gigantic entry fee for all the expansions, an arguably P2W 'FC Point' shop AND one of the highest subscription fees of any MMO on the market today?
    GW2 was a sequel to a fairly popular game, sold MILLIONS of boxes, and recently released in China to sell even more.
    FC seems to have very little interest in their products in Asia. When you look at MMO games that pull top revenue with exception maybe EVE or SWTOR (I don't know how popular these games are there), most of them do it in Korea/China.

    Carbine is already backing off the monthly schedule with Wildstar as it has hit post-launch nosedive.

Page 6 of 12 FirstFirst 123456789101112 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •