Friday with Means - February 5th, 2010 - Epeen Epreserved

[Means]

Another week has flown by. Today we had a fun visit from a couple long time friends of AO. Macrosun and Kintaii preserved the team epeen by defeating them soundly in Rock Band...where we really should have been having meeting concerning the daily missions. We also went out for pizza...Macrosun and Kintaii somehow won at that too...I'm a little hazy on the rules on that one. MstrBstrd, who is allergic to everything, survived lunch so that was also a good thing. Either way it was great to get to spend some time with a couple of you to remind us again why we all work so hard on AO. An hour of fun every now and then is very refreshing.

The guys working on the engine were not allowed any fun...so no delays were experienced in that area. I imagine I owe them some pizza (and possibly my eternal soul) at some point in the near future.

Lindelu, Flaptoot and Genele contiued to kill themselves working crazy hours this week getting another build together for the Test environment of the new daily missions. It is shaping up to be a great start for this new system.

Thank you for the feedback I have received this week concerning issues within AO. The feedback this week has directly resuted in:

- Free players gaining access to organization headquarters.
- LE Weapon upgrades found in LE Alien missions becoming Yes-Drop in the next update. I think we can agree that this was not "fun". These items will now become part of the world economy where they probably always should have been.
- The "Shut down the terminal" mission to "target The Beast from a close distance CORRECTLY" now updates the entire raid on the death of The Beast...when the "terminal" is actually "turned off". (I actually fixed this one myself...it was very exciting!)

...AND

Most importantly with all the amazing feedback and help we have received concerning the new missions they are improving every day. The changes and improvements suggested and implemented are too numerous to mention here...but I hope you all understand how much help you have been in making this a truly collaborative experience. Lindelu really can't say enough about how helpful the TestLive community has been. We can't say enough how amazing Lindelu has been getting these missions together. I understand she will be speaking to game design students at Stockholm University at some point in the near future concerning her work on AO...I think we should all show up with big emoticon placards.

Questions...oh no...

It has been a VERY long time since I opened up the floor for questions...I know we like to ask the same ones pretty often (ones we generally can't accurately answer)...but post your questions here and I will try and get to as many as I can over the next week. Try and make it "AO" related as I still feel sick from finding out where milk comes from.

Note: Anything I have to write a novella to respond to might not get done....but I will try.

Have a great weekend!

Tentative target date for transfer from D3 and Character name clean-up: February 26th.

[Neosh1]

first!
Good to see you guys reading forum :P. thanks for yes-drop clumps
Q: How long till engine gets in test stage?

[Ninjatrox]

Second

[Villagebike]

3rd!

[Junttius]

yay for yesdrop types

[Niles]

nthish

[Donzey]

will armor types also be Yes-Drop? LE weapons are becoming stale now and not many use them, however armor people still use.

[Blonskmir]

First

[Thwarn]

First page woot
Nice job on the LE types. Will make for less headaches

[Moyahno]

was just gonna ask about the armor too, hope armor ones are gonna be yes drop as well



and woot 9th



will there be an email warning about which characters will be affected by the clean-up?
or some information somewhere
such as what levels, inactivity for how long or based on what criteria?

[majere]

11th

first!
Good to see you guys reading forum :P. thanks for yes-drop clumps
Q: How long till engine gets in test stage?

Bump!

[Harios]

will armor types also be Yes-Drop? LE weapons are becoming stale now and not many use them, however armor people still use.

Same question!

[Arlancor]

First page

Eta on graphic update and rebalance? What should arrive first?

Any plans in introducing a SL perkline with bow for MA's?

[shadowgod]

omg late!

[Ukblizzard]

For everyone else the rules and conditions of the name/character cleanup will be posted next week.

Did you already post this?

[cbus97]

My question:

With the shiny new rebalancing, are there any plans to update BS with new map layouts and/or game types? We need a new playground to go with the new rules

[Saharinka]

Question: any chance, you could look up into system of selling cities? any chance city could be sold from one org to other, without demolishing everything and then rebuilding everything.
Atm, if a large org wanna change city, its getting something between impossible and a big headache to everyone

[Perseus]

Are you able to give a tentative timeline for the next round of information to be released on the rebalancing?

I ask because I am kind of in limbo at the moment. From the information released to date, I think I will be changing the profession of my main - not a decision to make lightly. There are quite a few things I could do for my current main, but they are generally grinding nodrop gear, and while that grind wouldn't be wasted, it will, at the minimum, be annoying to have to do it all over again. Anything you can release as to when this decision will become clearer would be appreciated.

[Ashes2Ashes]

The guys working on the engine were not allowed any fun...so no delays were experienced in that area. I imagine I owe them some pizza (and possibly my eternal soul) at some point in the near future.

HAHAHA! You just had to say that diddn't you? For those who constantly nitpick about resources being used for anything other than the engine will appreciate this, an shut them up this week at least lol


As for LE Types becomming yes-drop... AMG much <3 Means, thank you thank you thank you!!!

For questions...

Others, including myself I bet, sure want to know about the upcomming game mechanic changes that will be effecting Aim Shot (specifically for agents if you could elaborate), also what kind of ideas are you guys currently kicking around about healing changes?

Another question I have is regarding Fixers / Adventurers. Is there any plans on adding new weapons / tweaking older weapons to better represent these professions in TL's lower than TL 7? Now that advy's are going to be made into an Aim Shot profession... Doesn't make sense being a pistol profession that they need to use shotgun (craphander) in order to use AS.

As for fixers, any chance of lowering recharge on Hawk's full auto? For pvp, running around with burst, and FA every 60+seconds seems just a little too long, maybe around the area of 30-45s would be better. Maybe have a scaling FA cycle on the Hawks depending on QL would work out best? Lower QL hawks having a quicker FA Cycle I was thinking. I dunno, just a thought.

Thanks ahead of time, not sure if this one will get answered due to ALL the questions, but just throwing it out there. Have a great weekend Means and Crew!

[Lheann]

first page...

Nice work means and crew. Look forward to the updates....