Forums » General
I guess if you post on other forums, you could stick a link to VO in your signature, or something...
Well, so far that last post was a nice idea, anyways I'll get a permanent sub, when VO starts seeing around 500 online constantly. Till then I'll be seeing if I can get others playing.
1: not enough resources to have too many players.
2: not enough money to get the resources needed.
3: VO staff are all stoners,and cannot be arsed to do it.
debate..lmao
2: not enough money to get the resources needed.
3: VO staff are all stoners,and cannot be arsed to do it.
debate..lmao
No, it's all the garbage truck's fault!
@ AJRimmer If so, then the game with stay at its 100ish players max limit, if that's all the Dev's and players want then that's fine. But more players = more money = more resources. The player amount has to increase before the game does, works that way with every MMO.
deja vue
i think i was one of a long line who asked this same question a few years ago.
even tried to explain what a bigger playerbase could mean to gameplay and possibilities.
only just got the taste of trolls from down my throat from way back then..lol
i think i was one of a long line who asked this same question a few years ago.
even tried to explain what a bigger playerbase could mean to gameplay and possibilities.
only just got the taste of trolls from down my throat from way back then..lol
I think you'd have an easier time if you took the time to read Incarnate's posts about these very issues. They know all this, better than you do, but have a few things they feel they need to do before they throw the gates open and expend the serious resources to getting people in. Yes, they need more players to get more resources - but the players have to stick around and subscribe in order to pay for the resources. The devs are trying to address the retention issue before dropping serious resources on attracting new players in. If they expend money and can't retain players then they have wasted the money and have exposed potential players to a negative game experience.
Good point whistler, but that also means this game is in, for a lack of a better word, a "loop". And if what AJRimmer says is true, then this game pretty much has many years to go before it will have a decent number of players. :(
If the devs were sitting on their hands and allowing the game to stagnate, what you say would be true. Recently they've been on the promised fast-track for tackling the larger issues with VO - stuff that's been a problem for years. This bodes well for what Incarnate has written in his Newsposts (see 12/3/08) about 2009 being the year of major changes. V. 1.9 is on the immediate horizon, and 2.0 is on for this year.
Itani: 2039 Serco: 1567 UIT: 2025 Unaligned: 1 Total: 5632 Daily: 185/5632 Weekly: 905/5632 New users per day: 62
Ask yourself, why aren't there so many vets playing the game?
Whether they still subscribe or not is one thing, but why don't they play...for me and a lot of others it comes down to two things: 1) existing stuff is broken in different ways, and either will not be fixed per Inc (BS and CtC for example) or is awaiting a fix (trading and mining for example); OR 2) there are no things to do other than PVP past a certain level.
There's lots of newb missions, changes, etc. recently and that's great, but it really doesn't carry beyond the first month or two of a serious player's game time.
IMHO, the focus is twisted around -- the devs should not be worried about getting new players, but should be more worried about retaining the existing ones and keeping the older players actively playing. An *active* player base will encourage newer players and you can build off that.
Feel free to respond with your flames and trolls :)
Whether they still subscribe or not is one thing, but why don't they play...for me and a lot of others it comes down to two things: 1) existing stuff is broken in different ways, and either will not be fixed per Inc (BS and CtC for example) or is awaiting a fix (trading and mining for example); OR 2) there are no things to do other than PVP past a certain level.
There's lots of newb missions, changes, etc. recently and that's great, but it really doesn't carry beyond the first month or two of a serious player's game time.
IMHO, the focus is twisted around -- the devs should not be worried about getting new players, but should be more worried about retaining the existing ones and keeping the older players actively playing. An *active* player base will encourage newer players and you can build off that.
Feel free to respond with your flames and trolls :)
yep..
Vardonx, what do you consider broken in BS? Just curious.
What type of missions would you like to see to keep you interested? Some of the PCC folks might be interested in writing something up from an idea you may have.
What type of missions would you like to see to keep you interested? Some of the PCC folks might be interested in writing something up from an idea you may have.
"Will not be fixed per Inc".. what? We have BS changes going in on Friday. I even mentioned it in the bugs thread. And yes, I'm "fixing" CtC by completely replacing it. Why is that so wrong?
Anyway, I've written about as much on this subject as I'm prepared to, which Whistler has mentioned. If people think I'm totally wrong and out of touch, that's their call. I have access to actual data on new user behaviour, you guys don't. Even with that, I may still be wrong, but if all we needed were higher vet player counts, then why didn't more newbies stick around during the Holiday period when all the vets came back? Maybe because they don't even make it a few hours, let alone a few months. If even HALF our newbies were sticking around for a month, that would be AWESOME.
Then there's the fact that my top priority right now is FF/Faction stuff.. which sure as hell isn't a pro-newbie thing; but I am trying to make some newbie-related improvements as a part of it.
So, vardonx & company are welcome to whatever pet theories they may prefer. I'll be rolling with what I think is best for the game and the company as a whole, based on the information available to me.
Anyway, I've written about as much on this subject as I'm prepared to, which Whistler has mentioned. If people think I'm totally wrong and out of touch, that's their call. I have access to actual data on new user behaviour, you guys don't. Even with that, I may still be wrong, but if all we needed were higher vet player counts, then why didn't more newbies stick around during the Holiday period when all the vets came back? Maybe because they don't even make it a few hours, let alone a few months. If even HALF our newbies were sticking around for a month, that would be AWESOME.
Then there's the fact that my top priority right now is FF/Faction stuff.. which sure as hell isn't a pro-newbie thing; but I am trying to make some newbie-related improvements as a part of it.
So, vardonx & company are welcome to whatever pet theories they may prefer. I'll be rolling with what I think is best for the game and the company as a whole, based on the information available to me.
woo!
Guess I'll pet my theories and stand over with Vardonx despite my opinion that this subject amounts to beating a dead horse.
I always thought this comic was Must... Control... Fist... Of... Rage...
But, I guess it was Death. Carry On.
Incarnate, you have said so in both past PM discussions with me and in various posts on the forums.
Absolutely nothing is wrong with not fixing something and replacing it, if it's one or two or even a few scrum iterations down the road -- but at some point things need a temp fix to carry it to a point where it can be replaced.
Nebulous dates are an IT specialty, and I have more than enough years of development and project management experience to recognize it when it happens -- and at some point the users always start to get up in arms about it :)
Here's a constructive suggestion: Since you obviously have some sort of road map for the year, why not share that with the users. I don't mean the more nebulous news posts that we have already, I mean something with some meat that month by month or even quarter by quarter shows the projected development road map -- and then keep it updated as things change. One of the biggest mistakes PM's make is not keeping users informed -- doing so would probably eliminate a lot of these conversations.
Absolutely nothing is wrong with not fixing something and replacing it, if it's one or two or even a few scrum iterations down the road -- but at some point things need a temp fix to carry it to a point where it can be replaced.
Nebulous dates are an IT specialty, and I have more than enough years of development and project management experience to recognize it when it happens -- and at some point the users always start to get up in arms about it :)
Here's a constructive suggestion: Since you obviously have some sort of road map for the year, why not share that with the users. I don't mean the more nebulous news posts that we have already, I mean something with some meat that month by month or even quarter by quarter shows the projected development road map -- and then keep it updated as things change. One of the biggest mistakes PM's make is not keeping users informed -- doing so would probably eliminate a lot of these conversations.
God, you're an (a-hole). [pointless edit by Whistler].
vardonx, I would love to see a link to a post where I said BS was not going to be fixed. What I find the most frustrating is that you post things like this, which are diametrically opposed to what I've actually said, believe, or am otherwise aware could be interpreted in any way from my statements. Like in my newspost from the 23rd:
Border Skirmish needs a lot of work, we know. I expect we'll be re-examining that fairly soon (and not Soon(tm)). We've been trying to nail down some highly sporadic bugs related to the general "Skirmish" stuff, each release has added new debugging tools in one area or another, so please keep telling us whenever you run across Border or Hive Skirmish related problems. We would really like to nail down these issues before we expand on the gameplay.
Michael, Andy and Ray have all put a lot of man-hours into BS-related fixed over the last few months. Particularly Michael. Of course, you mostly don't see these fixes, so far, but it's not unreasonable that we try to fix fundamental bugs before we move forward with changing and expanding gameplay. It really sucks for all of us who spend a lot of time working on fixing a given feature or problem or whatever, when you guys say things like "The devs are never going to fix it", after we've burned hundreds of man-hours trying to debug things and rework them, and told you about it.
There's plenty of stuff to be honestly frustrated about.. that I'm taking too long to fix the economy, or that I'm not prioritizing mining improvements high enough.. or.. whatever, without inventing new points of contention. It makes me wonder "what the hell am I not communicating?", after all.. I make these newsposts, I post on the forums, I got you guys to make a whole thread dedicated to BS-problems, but you still end up both retaining the perspective that I'm never going to fix Border Skirmish, and also implying that to others.
I have no idea what I said to you in PM in the game, or what may have been heavily misunderstood; but BS, and the Dynamic Warfare that is supposed to descend from it, has been one of my crown jewel gameplay goals all along. I find it very difficult to believe that I ever said it would "never be fixed" or some such, since that's basically the opposite of my perspective.
Creating a list of milestones and bullet points for development is a great idea. In fact, I mentioned that a couple of months ago in the newspost, the section "The Future and the Big Picture". But it has not been feasible yet. I've mentioned it in posts on here (General) as recently as the last two weeks, so yes, it is still planned.
But, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter how much information I post, if you choose not to read/believe it.
Border Skirmish needs a lot of work, we know. I expect we'll be re-examining that fairly soon (and not Soon(tm)). We've been trying to nail down some highly sporadic bugs related to the general "Skirmish" stuff, each release has added new debugging tools in one area or another, so please keep telling us whenever you run across Border or Hive Skirmish related problems. We would really like to nail down these issues before we expand on the gameplay.
Michael, Andy and Ray have all put a lot of man-hours into BS-related fixed over the last few months. Particularly Michael. Of course, you mostly don't see these fixes, so far, but it's not unreasonable that we try to fix fundamental bugs before we move forward with changing and expanding gameplay. It really sucks for all of us who spend a lot of time working on fixing a given feature or problem or whatever, when you guys say things like "The devs are never going to fix it", after we've burned hundreds of man-hours trying to debug things and rework them, and told you about it.
There's plenty of stuff to be honestly frustrated about.. that I'm taking too long to fix the economy, or that I'm not prioritizing mining improvements high enough.. or.. whatever, without inventing new points of contention. It makes me wonder "what the hell am I not communicating?", after all.. I make these newsposts, I post on the forums, I got you guys to make a whole thread dedicated to BS-problems, but you still end up both retaining the perspective that I'm never going to fix Border Skirmish, and also implying that to others.
I have no idea what I said to you in PM in the game, or what may have been heavily misunderstood; but BS, and the Dynamic Warfare that is supposed to descend from it, has been one of my crown jewel gameplay goals all along. I find it very difficult to believe that I ever said it would "never be fixed" or some such, since that's basically the opposite of my perspective.
Creating a list of milestones and bullet points for development is a great idea. In fact, I mentioned that a couple of months ago in the newspost, the section "The Future and the Big Picture". But it has not been feasible yet. I've mentioned it in posts on here (General) as recently as the last two weeks, so yes, it is still planned.
But, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter how much information I post, if you choose not to read/believe it.