LivingHellfire

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So Statesman isn't a part of the game anymore?

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Statesman is still a part of the company. He is overseeing several projects. He handed over the lead designer reigns to Positron during the second anniversary if I'm not mistaken.

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He's still the number one guy for all things City of, however.

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Prime example yes. But none the less, they really should not give out release dates when they are nowhere near even close to having a game done.

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well, no kidding, that's kinda what I'm getting at.

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Yeah, but when unforseen crap comes up, would giving us one bit, then another bit, then the big bit be better than just posting on the forums and taking a break from the game itself until the issue finally hits?

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Well, we don't really know how it's put together. It could be that every issue is more or less a package deal. It seems likley with I8 that they could have given us the issue and then the vet rewards later, I guess.

Either way, people like to talk about how active the devs are on the forums, but quite frankly, as much as they might be, I'd like to see a little more feedback on stuff like this.

"Hey, guys, we're running behind because we have issues X, Y and Z to deal with. Not sure how long it'll take, we'll keep you posted."

"Hey, guys, got issue X dealt with, just wrapping up on Y but Z is still giving us some trouble, keep you posted."

But there is very little of that in terms of how they communicate their timing. Instead we're supposed to sit on our hands.

I might be wrong, but hasn't the time between "New issue on test" and "new issue on live" been greater than normal?

There are a number of things that, when drawn out to their maximum, can be that much more pleasurable when finally occuring. However, if drawn out too long any additional pleasure is lost as a result of the frustration.

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Our devs can do better than that.

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Not even Blizzard, a company highly regarded for it's quality of games, can do the things you ask.

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It's very easy to produce quality games when you produce them years behind schedule/release dates.

Star Craft Ghost anyone? Release date, November 2004, shelved until further notice.

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To be fair, though, Blizzard wasn't the ones actually developing Starcraft: Ghost. It was a third-party from the very beginning, with Nihilistic being the original developer, before it was later moved to Swingin' Ape studios.

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Ok, well how about WoW, it was delayed. The update for battlegrounds was also delayed. D2 was delayed way back when, so was Brood Wars. In fact, I honestly can't remember a single game that came out when they first said it would hehe.

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Now see, that part I'm not denying at all.

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tha'ts because it's a developement house that publishes their own games, so the games are pretty as hell with all kinds of fancy cut-scenes and movies and pretty graphics, but by the time the game is released anything "new" about it will have been done already because it took so damn long to come out.

For as muhc as I hate publishers like EA and LucasArts and Atari for pushing their dev houses too hard and playing the "release it now, patch it later game", Blizzard is a prime example of the other end of the spectrum.

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After digesting this thread for a little while and thinking about it fully, I've come to a conclusion.

The Playerbase really doesn't know what it wants.

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Now, this will apparantly come as a shock (hur hur) to you, but the Playerbase is not some gestalt entity with a hive mind. Did you think that the 170,000 some odd players were all members of the Borg or something? Are you actually suprised that a group made up of thousands of individuals has conflicting priorities and viewpoints?

This is basic human nature stuff. I'm at a loss to understand how you may have missed learning this rather basic fact of life.

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Dude, you've been around for two and a half years, look at who you're talking to... seriously...

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Wait... you're a celebrity?!

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(in best "drill sgt." voice) Celebrity? Hell, no, private! I work for a living!

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This guy walks into an agent's office and says; "I got this great act, you'll love it..."

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But is what you want feasible?

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World of Warcraft seems to handle it just fine.

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*rolls his eyes*

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4. (Where we are now.) The initial euphoria of finding out what's in the new issue has waned, and impatience sets in as people wait for it to go live. There's no point in getting excited about the next issue down the line, as it's too far away. The longer the wait goes on, the more frustrated people get

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This is it, really. This is really the only place where the whole "No matter what the dev team does they're screwed" is a valid statement.

It's reasonable to assume that the playerbase is going to want more of anything and everything. It's also reasonable to assume that doing anything will piss off someone. The argument that the playerbase doesn't know what it wants might be valid to an extent, but you're painting a picture of the dev team dashing about wildly trying to fill every tiny demand and it just isn't the case.

At the end of the day they'll do what they want and we can't say nothing about it. For the most part, with perhaps 1 or 2 exceptions the only changes that have been made to the game that have been as a direct result of player demands have been quality of life changes.

This particular thread and conversation seems to be about the percentage of those changes that have made their way into the Issues. Costumes, bug fixes, content, so on. I would find it very surprising if you could argue that the majority of the playerbase would complain about more of any of those. The majority of the complaints directed at the dev team have been about powerchanges and nerfs, and those are things over which we have had little to no input.

What I'm reading in your post is that because the devs aren't able to please everyone they're basically screwed. It's just simply not the case. They're not the victims you're making them out to be.

The playerbase is also, as a whole, not the whining, out of control, temper tantrum throwing baby that you're painting it to be.

(I can hear you spooling up from here...)

Now, there are a number who are but they're not the entire playerbase. In some ways the devs are screwed no matter what they do, but again, not to the extent that you're describing.

Bottom line is that more of anything is largely appreciated by the majority, no matter what it is.

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Okay, I can understand why everyone's not getting all excited about this. I know where the skepticism is coming from.

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Or as the Bard once said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me fourteen or fifteen times and we're talkin' a Lifetime made-for-tv movie."

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... William Shakespeare said that?

Are you sure you're not thinking of Robbie Burns? That's definately the kind of thing that he'd say whilst stumbling about in a drunken stupor.

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But what's clear from this thread - and from many, many posts - is that bases are "too expensive". To me, that's interesting (as it is to the Serious Games crowd). Costume changes come with a minimal cost that no one really complains about, but we complain about the costs of bases. Evidently, the costs exceed the perceived value of creating one's own HQ (btw, I confess that many other games have the notion of personal property, but aside from Second Life, I don't think they offer as much customizability as our bases).

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The comment that the base's cost exceeds the value is correct, but only simply due to the sheer volume of prestige involved in having anything decent.

It's no that the bases aren't worth much or aren't any good. It's not that they're not fun or that they don't have value, it's the issue of knowing that to maintain the base the price of rent for anything larger than a small plot is such that it is required to almost farm simply for prestige unless you have a great big supergroup of really dedicated players who play almost exclusively in SG mode. It's doable to an extent, but the minute you start thinking in terms of having toys and gadgets and goodies and a larger plot you have to actually make the effort to go out and get prestige as opposed to merely collecting it by doing the content.

So, yes, technically the commen that the cost exceeds the value is correct, but it's only because the cost is so very, very high. The imbalance doesn't exist because the bases are low value it exists because the cost is so great.

SJ is the most fun, but Fly has the most style.

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No its getting it without the *other part* (other part is in reference to something that very well is against forum rules and not everyone will want to know, have kids know, about it).

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Well, regen's become a joke, but something that most people don't realize is that /Dev has been nerfed almost every single issue as well. It started out as one of the secondaries that was really quite good and now it's terrible.

And Tankers have gotten attention. Sure, you've been nerfed, but so have blasters, and we've gotten nothing for it in return. We were told in OCtober of 04 that Secondaries were needed to be looked at and that it would get done and we're still waiting.

You want to talk about red-headed step-children?

I'm not saying you guys don't have your issues, and I'm not trying to compete with you over who's got it worse, but you better believe that it's a hell of a lot worse than what you're talking about. We're the only AT in the game that's been pretty much ignored with a borked concept (range as a defense? Are you kidding me?), sub-par damage (Scrappers out damage blasters in melee. I have a dev quote to back that up) and the need to be babysat by our team mates.

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Cicle, could you repeat what you're trying to post?

I imagine it's about the difference between when scrappers didn't do anything well on a team and when they were overpowered and everyone wanted to nerf them, but without seeing your actual post, I can't have a decent conversation with you.

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Yeah I have no idea how that happened.

I just said blasters still are

In regards to scrapper blood.

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This is axiomatic.

But blasters really need something. Seriously, if I were primarily a blaster player, rather than brute/scrapper/tanker, I would've been so gone forever last year.

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Hi.

I'm a blaster.

Most of us are still here 'cause we're used to getting rammed in the pooper anyway, so what difference does it make.

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Because they didn't. Taunt should be a tool, like Power Burst. How would you feel if you thought Power Burst didn't fit your idea of a Blaster because it's got such a short range, and you had a bunch of people demanding that you take it, despite being capable of doing your job without it?


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no, of course not. But many tankers treat the idea of Taunt with a level of snobbery that goes well beyond that concept. It's almost like they're offended at the very idea which is just as silly as the example that you gave.

This is probably sounding aggressive, I didn't mean to come in and pick a fight, I've just always been baffled by the Taunt issue with tankers. It's like Defenders constanlty screaming that they're not "Healers" all the time at the drop of a hat.

I'm not saying I like this change or that it's a good one. I'm a squishy, I'm a blaster and a controller, I want my tanks to be able to draw aggro from the AV and I want them to be able to do it however they please, as long as they [censored] well do it. From the Dev point of view, though, it may seem as though this is the kind of thing (and typical of this dev team, by the way) that they would pull to make us take a power that they think is "fun". This stinks of Jack Emmert.

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Their purpose is to not have one apparently.

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I guess the "purpose" is to make Taunt worth something so that tankers will take it.

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I think having 0 endurance cost, being auto-hit, ranged, a long duration, and being AoE makes it worth taking. I hate the very concept of the power, but I took it because it's just too good for me to turn down, especially when facing dangerous, unhittable foes like MoGed Paragon Protectors.

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Then why are we constantly being assaulted by Tankers constantly screaming about how they don't need it?

I think it's a great power, I have it on my tank. I find it invaluable. My job is to take aggro, that power allows me to do that much more effectively than swinging my fists about, especially if I'm fighting something that +3 to me.

It could be worse, you could be a blaster.

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Their purpose is to not have one apparently.

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I guess the "purpose" is to make Taunt worth something so that tankers will take it.

That is the greatest post I've seen in a very long time.

A Blaster's Guide to Fire/Rad - Build and Playstyle

Yup...

I can't really imagine anyone arguing any of that, man.

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First off, I was talking inherents, not the ATs. Secondly, bull[censored]. Do Doms need attention? Sure. Do Blasters have it all over Doms in every facet of the game? Overstate things much?

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Something you have to bear in mind when talking to Thor is that he tends to speak from a PvP perspective. I like him and he makes sense from that perspective, but it's something I've noticed.

And you're right... this is basically just another nerf to blasters. How is it exactly that porting AT was too powerful?

They waited 'till I8 for this?

Gimme a break...

Off/On topic (your choice);

In beta they had an AT called the Gadgeteer. I'm not sure how long it lasted or if it even made it beyond internal beta, but they canned it shortly after the real developement started.

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Are you crazy? It boosts my 3 slotted hover to flight speeds!

Not to mention that it's free vertical sj and horizontal hover + midair jumps at level 1

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To what?... a single slotted Fly for 30 secs? :-)

I most certainly would not call it a vertical Superjump, considering how slow it is by itself. It is similair to Superjump in the way it works, except it's a fraction of Superjmp's speed. If one has Superjump already, it definitely makes a difference ...if you think that's worth the extra $....

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If you bought it only for the jump jet then of course you're disappointed.

I bought it for everything and at 10 bucks I feel I got my money's worth.

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Back in my day, Dark Miasma sucked, missions were frontloaded, and missions gave but a fraction of the xp they do now.

Uphill both ways.

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Back in my day the combat messages would read;

"<PlayerX> defeated <mobA> but <PlayerY> did the most damage"