[ QUOTE ]
Ask anyone who has participated in Hamidon Raids.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now would be a good time to hush, Maldini. You're coming off like a moron.
Let me take off my tin foil hat a moment and make an inspired paranoid guess...
Badges are to encourage collectors to experience every single scrap of content in a game that isn't adding new content fast enough. They were not invented here, indeed they were used quite successfully in Star Wars: Galaxy to prolong the final death throws of that MMO by a month or three...
Adding badges (after release) that can only be earned at an early part of a character's life, and never gained after that point is a way of encouraging people to re-experience the content... ie. Start over if you want this badge Mr. Collector.
And finally, "loosing" badges is a way of making the collectors do some long hideous part of that badge earning again. It is super usefull for prolonging the life of your contentless game if you loose the ones that take hours and hours to do.
Oh yes, and if anyone calls you on it, have a dev step in and say it would take TWO YEARS to data mine the badges. Anyone in any database/programming position in the world who has ever worked on a game like this (or even on more complex programming endeavours) can tell you that if the data exists, and its in a database, the time to get it out is NOT 2 years unless you choose to wait 1 year and 10 months before you begin the search.
I'm sorry Statesman, I'm calling you on this one. That bluff doesn't sit well over here.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ask anyone who has participated in Hamidon Raids.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now would be a good time to hush, Maldini. You're coming off like a moron.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not even close. In many raids there has been a time when there wasn't enough trollers/defenders/blasters with holds to hold the Hamidon down long enough to stop him from spawning. Other times they were just on the borderline of not having him held. With 30 or so trollers/defenders/blasters using the Vanguard accolade power, that effects is multiplied greatly, and gives them that much more effectiveness.
Maybe you should look in the mirror before calling anyone a moron.
You people are really good at steering everything off topic and swollowing everyone in your flame war. Whether or not accolades are useful to any significant degree (which I believe they are not) is irrelevant, since none of the Badges in question are prerequisites for any Accolades.
The fact remains that you should never have spent a significant amount of time on something that was not fun just so you can get a BADGE, especially knowing it's a badge that doesn't even exist yet. The fact also remains that it's not worth the amount of time and resources it would take to retroactively assign badges to people in order to prevent them from doing a couple TFs over again.
I don't have a problem with people who feel the need to collect things, despite doing things that seem unreasonable. My problem is with the people who continue to whine even after it has been clearly stated that it's unfeasable. You are like little kids begging their dad to buy them a toy even after he has explained that he can't afford it. Selfish.
[ QUOTE ]
Let me take off my tin foil hat a moment and make an inspired paranoid guess...
Badges are to encourage collectors to experience every single scrap of content in a game that isn't adding new content fast enough. They were not invented here, indeed they were used quite successfully in Star Wars: Galaxy to prolong the final death throws of that MMO by a month or three...
Adding badges (after release) that can only be earned at an early part of a character's life, and never gained after that point is a way of encouraging people to re-experience the content... ie. Start over if you want this badge Mr. Collector.
And finally, "loosing" badges is a way of making the collectors do some long hideous part of that badge earning again. It is super usefull for prolonging the life of your contentless game if you loose the ones that take hours and hours to do.
Oh yes, and if anyone calls you on it, have a dev step in and say it would take TWO YEARS to data mine the badges. Anyone in any database/programming position in the world who has ever worked on a game like this (or even on more complex programming endeavours) can tell you that if the data exists, and its in a database, the time to get it out is NOT 2 years unless you choose to wait 1 year and 10 months before you begin the search.
I'm sorry Statesman, I'm calling you on this one. That bluff doesn't sit well over here.
[/ QUOTE ]
So given Positrons estimation of how long it took them to datamine when badges first came out, how long do you think it would take to sift through terrabytes of data per server?
I'm just curious, this is in no way meant to be cynical or negative.
[ QUOTE ]
You people are really good at steering everything off topic and swollowing everyone in your flame war. Whether or not accolades are useful to any significant degree (which I believe they are not) is irrelevant, since none of the Badges in question are prerequisites for any Accolades.
The fact remains that you should never have spent a significant amount of time on something that was not fun just so you can get a BADGE, especially knowing it's a badge that doesn't even exist yet. The fact also remains that it's not worth the amount of time and resources it would take to retroactively assign badges to people in order to prevent them from doing a couple TFs over again.
I don't have a problem with people who feel the need to collect things, despite doing things that seem unreasonable. My problem is with the people who continue to whine even after it has been clearly stated that it's unfeasable. You are like little kids begging their dad to buy them a toy even after he has explained that he can't afford it. Selfish.
[/ QUOTE ]
Knowing that the Shard TF's didn't give a badge when I went through them, I tackled all of them, including Dr. Quarterfield's just to say I did them. It was more becaues everyone was like "oh that TF takes forever, dont' even bother." I don't know....maybe I just like a challenge.
The bottom line is, most of us complaining will probably do them again. I will do it again, just to find the quickest way possible to complete it, so that I can share the information with others so that more people can experience the TF's with the smallest amount of aggrivation possible.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Let me take off my tin foil hat a moment and make an inspired paranoid guess...
Badges are to encourage collectors to experience every single scrap of content in a game that isn't adding new content fast enough. They were not invented here, indeed they were used quite successfully in Star Wars: Galaxy to prolong the final death throws of that MMO by a month or three...
Adding badges (after release) that can only be earned at an early part of a character's life, and never gained after that point is a way of encouraging people to re-experience the content... ie. Start over if you want this badge Mr. Collector.
And finally, "loosing" badges is a way of making the collectors do some long hideous part of that badge earning again. It is super usefull for prolonging the life of your contentless game if you loose the ones that take hours and hours to do.
Oh yes, and if anyone calls you on it, have a dev step in and say it would take TWO YEARS to data mine the badges. Anyone in any database/programming position in the world who has ever worked on a game like this (or even on more complex programming endeavours) can tell you that if the data exists, and its in a database, the time to get it out is NOT 2 years unless you choose to wait 1 year and 10 months before you begin the search.
I'm sorry Statesman, I'm calling you on this one. That bluff doesn't sit well over here.
[/ QUOTE ]
So given Positrons estimation of how long it took them to datamine when badges first came out, how long do you think it would take to sift through terrabytes of data per server?
I'm just curious, this is in no way meant to be cynical or negative.
[/ QUOTE ]
Given a reasonable server, the time to read the entire database should be somewhere near 200 Mb/s (megabytes per second) assuming they have a half way decent FC 2G front end on their hardware. I'd expect them to have more than one. A snapshot could be taken of the data "instantly" if they have any reasonable server system. Then that snap could be read over the course of a few days while it remained unchanging. (snapshots don't show recent updates)
The only real trouble would be, as I said, if the data didn't actually exist, or if it was offlined to some slow storage medium... say tape in a warehouse somewhere. That would add some time to read in the tapes (but as a full restore only takes a few days we are still not talking 2 years.) NOTHING takes 2 years in the computer world people... please.
[ QUOTE ]
Getting pretty tired of this. Can't be bothered to find a better solution to the problem of mob stacking than to set an AoE limit. Can't be bothered to find a better solution to balance than chopping us off at the knees. Can't be bothered to post a dev response in the "Dev Response - Defender" thread, forcing us to sit around in limbo wondering what's going on. Now, you can't be bothered to do a little datamining and give us the badges we've already earned.
There's no excuse for this. None.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's a "little datamining" only if you consider 18 months of data produced by hundreds of thousands of players playing how many insane hours of CoH to be a "little bit" of data.
They're making a professional call. If they do this, they have to do this right or they'll have a good chunk of their playerbase in an uproar because heroes that should have the badge don't and heroes that shouldn't have the badge do have it. The last time they did exactly this, it took 3 months. Now they have 9 times the amount of data to mine than they did back then.
As many people on these boards who are in the professional software field know, the difference between a professional product that you can charge people for and an amateur product that you're lucky to give away is exactly the difference between doing a job right and doing a job "good enough".
[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure that's the cue for posters will tell you that NCsoft runs a far better MMO than SOE or EA....
[/ QUOTE ]
No, I came from playing a SOE MMO game, and its why I came here. Because this game was far and above better than them. SOE could not keep me happy so I left to a game that catered more to the casual gamer. This game is no longer gravitating around the casual gamer anymore. But that is besides the point. I am simply saying that you will get to a point of dimenishing returns when you continue to make your player (and income) base unhappy. Look at Matrix Online, that game is on the verge of going under (even though SOE bought them out). That game has not been out a year yet and they have already merged servers.
But more importantly than anything else, this does not explain why I have the Shard and Moonfire Badges on Test, and now they say it will not happen for Issue 5?
lvl 50 Energy Blaster
Protecting the Galaxy, one planet at a time......
@Capt Omega
[ QUOTE ]
But more importantly than anything else, this does not explain why I have the Shard and Moonfire Badges on Test, and now they say it will not happen for Issue 5?
[/ QUOTE ]
This is the burning question isn't it. I can't wait to hear what they say.
[ QUOTE ]
Given a reasonable server, the time to read the entire database should be somewhere near 200 Mb/s (megabytes per second) assuming they have a half way decent FC 2G front end on their hardware. I'd expect them to have more than one. A snapshot could be taken of the data "instantly" if they have any reasonable server system. Then that snap could be read over the course of a few days while it remained unchanging. (snapshots don't show recent updates)
[/ QUOTE ]
So that settles everything... Pull some arbitrary figure out of the air and the problem is solved! Have you ever done anything like you're proposing? You don't have the first clue as to how these servers work and you're making these guesses about how easy it is to determine if people have completed these missions or not.
I find it hard to believe that the developers wouldn't just award the badges if things were so simple. We've gotten numerous other badges just by logging in once the badge has gone live.
I guess it's hard to get your mind around this, but it's entirely possible there just isn't a switch in the game that turns over once a player has completed a task force. I'm guessing the developers have to manually sift through all the missions players have done, looking for the right conditions that prove a player went every mission on a team for the task force in question. That doesn't seem like an easy task to me and it certainly seems like it's open for error if a few details are over-looked. This is probably why some players haven't gotten their badges in the past.
Searching through the records for a hero near level 50, assuming every mission has been tracked, must be a monumental task. Have you ever tried that command that logs data or recorded no of those demo files? Within a short amount of time those files grow to massive proportions. Imagine keeping records of those files for 150,000 players and their multiple heroes.
It's easy to sit there as a consumer and demand the world without having an inkling of what it's like to be on the other end. Being able to use a desktop computer doesn't inherently provide some sort of profound insight into what the developers do.
Talk about whining Galactiman, all you seem to be doing is whining about people who disagree with you. And that is just stupid. Most people here know that these TF badges mean nothing, but most people here are collectors. So that means that they want all the badges. Also, believe it or not it is not to show off or make us think that we are better than you, because that would be stupid. It for the content feeling you get when you have a complete set.
Also it is not about if the TF are worth doing over again, because they are except for the Quarterfield (Ill never do that 13 hour run through hell again, badge or no badge). The whole point is why do we have to? Some players already did these TFs once why do we need to do them again? Now I have to do 5 TFs over again (Moonfire + 4 Shadow Shard TFs) to get a complete set of badges with my level 50 main.
Thats 5 TFs in which I have already done once, some even 2 or 3 times. It gets pretty boring after awhile. Have you ever read book 2 or 3 times? It is pretty dull after the first time. Ill do these TFs again with another character, because of the different play styles between the archtypes. It is going to be a real chore to do some of these TFs for the fourth time just to get a badge. So that will probably mean that Powerhawk, my level 50 Blaster I started the day the servers went live, will not have a complete set of badges. And as a collector that does not make me happy.
[ QUOTE ]
NOTHING takes 2 years in the computer world people... please.
[/ QUOTE ]
Unemployment officer - "So Mr. Nukem, it says here you've been out of work for some time now. How long would you estimate it has been since you last were gainfully employed?"
Duke Nukem - "Forever..."
Arc #345863 - When The Bough Breaks
"Curse you Perry the Plata...wait, is that Love Handel?" - Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
[ QUOTE ]
Uhm it is worth it. SO it takes a year? it will take at least that long to get the new Billion point badges anyway.
I say mine away!
[/ QUOTE ]
It all comes down to priorities.
They are understaffed as is (all video game comapnies are), so its really selfish to determine that your TF's deserve a priority, especially when they have created a really easy and effective system to go back and redo the TF's...
If you put all of positrons duties (and I include his staff in this) out there on a poll and ask people what they consider most important, data mining for badges that you can go back and reget will be pretty dang low, especially if you tell them it will take a YEAR.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Given a reasonable server, the time to read the entire database should be somewhere near 200 Mb/s (megabytes per second) assuming they have a half way decent FC 2G front end on their hardware. I'd expect them to have more than one. A snapshot could be taken of the data "instantly" if they have any reasonable server system. Then that snap could be read over the course of a few days while it remained unchanging. (snapshots don't show recent updates)
[/ QUOTE ]
So that settles everything... Pull some arbitrary figure out of the air and the problem is solved! Have you ever done anything like you're proposing? You don't have the first clue as to how these servers work and you're making these guesses about how easy it is to determine if people have completed these missions or not.
I find it hard to believe that the developers wouldn't just award the badges if things were so simple. We've gotten numerous other badges just by logging in once the badge has gone live.
I guess it's hard to get your mind around this, but it's entirely possible there just isn't a switch in the game that turns over once a player has completed a task force. I'm guessing the developers have to manually sift through all the missions players have done, looking for the right conditions that prove a player went every mission on a team for the task force in question. That doesn't seem like an easy task to me and it certainly seems like it's open for error if a few details are over-looked. This is probably why some players haven't gotten their badges in the past.
Searching through the records for a hero near level 50, assuming every mission has been tracked, must be a monumental task. Have you ever tried that command that logs data or recorded no of those demo files? Within a short amount of time those files grow to massive proportions. Imagine keeping records of those files for 150,000 players and their multiple heroes.
It's easy to sit there as a consumer and demand the world without having an inkling of what it's like to be on the other end. Being able to use a desktop computer doesn't inherently provide some sort of profound insight into what the developers do.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, aren't we in a bad mood. I'll see if I can politely address your issues with my post.
1.) Its not an arbitrary number; its a standard. Yes, they could have chosen to use lower quality equipment for their servers. Yes, that would extend the time it takes to do the data mining; but not to 2 years without resorting to ancient hardware or the need to get it from some ultra slow offline storage media. (A possiblity for sure. As I say, if it doesn't exist it doesn't exist)
2.) Yes, I have done this sort of thing before. Surprise! No, I don't know how their database works... it could be horrible. I find it more likely it is good or at least acceptable, but you are right. I don't know, I can only guess. I'll bet you are in the same boat eh?
3.) As for there "not being a switch" that turns over when a TF is done... as I said, IF the data exists. You have made a fine guess that there isn't a character flag that is set when you finish a TF. If there was, we wouldn't be talking about this would we. There isn't much mining in looking at a flag, indeed I would expect the badge to just pop up on login if there was!
4.) So you guess that the devs have to manually sift data? If that's your true thought then I don't think any kind of facts would sway your opinion. I can toss this out though... 1 TB of data (and we may be talking many) is the equivalent of a thousand copies of the complete Encyclopedia Britannica. So, you are saying that they would read these manually? Enough said on that...
5.) I'm not a consumer for this service, should it be offered. I've not done any of the badges that this conversation is about and have no stake at all in the success/ failure/ attempt/or Non-attempt of this task. I'm just calling a bluff a bluff when I see it. 2 Years eh?
6.) I can agree that using a desktop computer offers no insight into the workings of this MMO... as you have proven well better than I ever could. However, working in the storage industry every day for over 20 years does give a good insight into what they could be using/doing... and that's the basis of calling this 2 Year bluff. What was the reason for your post? Just out for a trolling for this response? I hope I did it justice. 
In closing, I find it much more likely that a judgement was made and that the resources required to accomplish this task were greater than available at this time. In the end it is easier for us to do the TFs again (and even for them to alter the TFs to be fun to do repeatedly) than is is for them to waste resources (even 2 or 3 months worth as I'd expect this to take) not changing the game or adding new content for anyone to experience.
Its their call of course. And I may agree that its a waste of resources in the short term (being as I have no badges at stake here and would much rather have working new content), but I have to call a bluff when I see one.
Note: Statesman said estimates at 2 years here, and backed off to "over 1 year" on a new more recent post that at least sounded like less of a bluff to quell the assorted rants here.
How about a compromise then? if you dont want to allow petitioning for those badges, then fine. Instead make a 'check' contact in the Shard that checks the current character for the necessary souveneers and awards the badges. This is a situation that you really should have foreseen given the past TF issues. So if it causes you some work to add said contact.. really too bad. Its simpler than datamining the entire DB and it doesnt overwhelm customer support with badge requests.
There are already level checks coded into the game (Hazard Zone gates for one). My suggestion above limits the search to people already in the zone (therefore of the proper level). Have the contact search the DB for the markers for those TF souveneers.
Necrosis, let me say that in this day and age anyone that doesnt create a way to sort primary values in a database makes acessing that database an unnecessarily gargantuan task. I'm giving the Devs the credit that they would make a way to access and sort their DB. Not making a sort by level option in a level-based game would be really really dumb dont you think?
While my suggestion may seem obvious it may be an approach not considered by the devs. (I'm giving them credit for being ordinary non-omniscient human beings.) Not evryone looks at a problem the same way, nor does everyone see an 'obvious' solution. It may well be that my suggestion has no merit. Thats not really for you to say. I, at least, was offering a helpful solution.
Post smarter, not harder..
~Liberty~
The LEGION (CoH) - The Fallen LEGION (CoV)
Forget your fears and want no more
50's - Renkoro, Remorseless
~Virtue~
Angry Angels / Jaded Angels
Global - @Puretone
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't earn my badges for you. Not to impress you, not to be better than you, not to have something you don't. Same goes for every other player. My badges are not for you.
[/ QUOTE ]
Then why exactly do you desire badges? And why are you upset that you will have to do some things over to get a badge? You were fine without the badge up until you realized that they would be giving the badge out in the future.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wrong. I was fine without the badge until I tried to earn it and found out the hard way that there was no badge.
I'm upset that I'll have to repeat the task force to get the badge because I don't like redoing anything. As I stated elsewhere, I've accepted that I'll have to redo the task force to get the badge. No, I'm not happy about it. I'm not crying about it, either. I'm not posting here because I think if I complain enough they will datamine for the badge; I'm posting here because I want to see that this sort of customer service breakdown is avoided in the future.
I get the badges because they are something to do. That's also why I do missions, and make characters, and play the game to begin with. It's something to do that I enjoy. Why is that difficult to grasp? I don't have a problem with you not wanting badges, why do you have a problem with me wanting them?
[ QUOTE ]
So now, the only difference is that some people will have the badge and you will not, even though you have done the same task. But that shouldn't matter to you, since you don't care about such things.
[/ QUOTE ]
As soon as they fix the task forces so that they properly award a badge, I'll be doing the task forces, and so I will also have the badge. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
[ QUOTE ]
Again, why do you desire badges? For the self-satisfaction of knowing you did a certain thing? Don't you have that already from actually doing the thing and having memories of it? Why does a little graphic with some text somehow enhance your satisfaction of the experience? Please, I would like to know these things.
[/ QUOTE ]
I see the badges as a checklist of sorts. The character that I collect badges with (only one, because I don't see the point of going out of my way to earn the badges for every character) is also the character that I've tried to have experience all of the available content. I don't want to miss out on any of CoH, so with that character I've done virtually every mission (missed a few on one contact plus I'd outleveled the Hollows and Striga content before it arrived, sadly, but I've got my fingers crossed for flashback).
There's plenty of badges I can't get on that character. Isolator. The healing badges (I did respec into 6-slotted Heal Other and try, but even the first healing badge was beyond me). I5 is bringing 3 more levels of badges, with higher thresholds, so many of those I won't be able to get (or they will take quite a long time). That's okay, though. I'm not an "I must have every badge" freak, like those people who protested the additional I5 badges. I love new content, even if it's not content that focused at me.
Sure, I could just checklist the stuff mentally, but why should I when the badge system is in place? After almost 1200 hours logged on that character I welcome the badge system for giving me continued incentive to play the character from time to time.
As for the little graphic, actually my memory needs a kick-start to work properly. A badge does just that (even with the characters with which I don't engage in outright badge collecting). I can look through my badge list and the visual que triggers my memory of earning that badge, and the events surrounding it. It's that aspect that I prize most about the badge system. Were I a more dilligent person I could just keep a journal and the result would be the same. Unfortunately, I know from experience that I won't be able to maintain a journal, and naturally a partial journal is of dubious worth at best.
So that's why I like badges. I'm sure there are plenty of other valid reasons for liking badges, as well as valid reasons not to like them. This reply is not intended to change anyone's mind about them. It is intended to explain why I desire them, as you requested.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
[ QUOTE ]
I have looked up Accolades, and all of them combined will probably effect your gameplay slightly moreso than a badge. That is, not much at all. Unless you wanna tell me that having 15% more HP will let you survive that fight that you couldn't before.
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It can. I've had numerous battles that ended with me out of useful inspirations and with less than 5% of my health left - so even the 5% from one of the accolades has made a difference to me. In fact, at least once I've ended a battle with 1 heath remaining. If you play long enough it could happen to you, too. Unless you don't challenge yourself, that is.
[ QUOTE ]
Or that extra 10 endurance will let you fire off one last attack that allows you to kill that AV that you never could before.
[/ QUOTE ]
No, that extra 10 endurance means that your rate of endurance recovery is increased (since endurance is recovered as a set % of your total endurance recovered per tick). I'm not going to take this thread totally off target by explaining why increased endurance recovery is good; you can look elsewhere in the forums for that information if you were genuinely unaware of that fact.
[ QUOTE ]
Or those powers that you can use once every 25 minutes will let you bump your difficulty up to Invincible, which was heretofore impossible.
[/ QUOTE ]
There, I think you're right. They kick in too infrequently to be very useful. I fire off my crey pistol when fighting an AV, but I don't believe that even 8 crey pistol shots have ever affected the eventual outcome of any of the AV fights in which I've personally participated. I have used Vanguard to avoid what I felt was certain death, but I've also activated it and been defeated anyway. They're not end-all game-breaking must-have powers, but they can be handy at times.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
[ QUOTE ]
Once again, as before, I'm up against you and your monkeyboy Foo007.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll stop laughing any minute now, honest.
As for the rest of your post, I'd toss you stars if they still existed...
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Trust me. If it involved engineering, we would have found a different solution.
[/ QUOTE ]
*nod* I imagine that's the same reason an mob limit was hastily slapped onto all AoE powers rather than engineering a solution to the problem of mob stacking.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds about right to me, Quason.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
[ QUOTE ]
The fact remains that you should never have spent a significant amount of time on something that was not fun just so you can get a BADGE, especially knowing it's a badge that doesn't even exist yet.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's the problem. Many of us didn't know. There was no effort to make this information public, and even when asked to make an official announcement to that effect NCSoft's representatives declined to do so.
I should have stopped paying you as soon as I realized that you were using my money to change the PvE game I love into a PvP game. It was foolish of me to trust you to leave PvE intact.
Beta_Nightfall,
First of all, I don't think I conveyed any sort of bad attitude in my post, which was quite the contrary in your post I replied to. However, it's pointless to discuss that matter considering that arguments tend to get heated on these boards when controversial matters are concerned.
I'm not going to bother replying to every one of your comments. Just because you've had experience doesn't necessarily mean you have any insight into the process. You are making too few assumptions. It's also pointless to get into what you meant by the post I replied to initially when you were quite strong in your observations, and didn't propose any of it as merely a possibility.
Regardless, to further buttress my argument I quote this post from Geko:
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The fact that you did the Task Force is NOT stored on your character anywhere. There is (well, there WAS) no reason to store this, since you could do them over and over again.
Suggestions like "just datamine ME" or "just datamine the level 44+ characters" don't narrow down the database query at all. We still need to look at ALL the data for the specific bits of Task Force related goodness that says "yes, this guy did the Task Force".
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.
.
We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.
[/ QUOTE ]
The original Task Force Data-mine was done because BADGES DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE ISSUE-2. I can understand you guys not keeping track of that information up to that point... but is everyone there retarded?
Did NO ONE say "Hey, I bet people are gonna want badges for these new TFs... we should start keeping track of them right when we add them in"
The fact that you have to datamine AT ALL only stands as proof that boneheads are running the show.
P.S. If a dev, reads this.. here's your lesson for today: Keep track of what players do! If you even THINK that you might add that "Sky raider force field generator badge" you'd better start keeping track of those generator kills NOW.
bull, you either have the souviner or you don't, you did stop the souviner in the Shards, but some of us did them before and still have the souviner, SO once again what about us,
Sorry, Playing WOW now, 6 active 50s on 2 servers and NOTHING to do with them, and now those that did the shards, get zero credit for them, would love to do them again,
you going to force the great players I did them with to come back and play, they wont, also, we did them without a controller, without a Tank, and before issue 3 when AVs didnt get watered down from power and only upped with regeneration, and before the up scale in MOG.
sad, once again, we get nothing for what we earned, and people wonder why players leave, I am gone at the end of the month when my last payment runs out, don't even play, so enjoy the free month from me, sorry, I look for a game that doesn't go out of it's way to kill the fun, no matter how
we feel,
your game, if I don't like the changes, I can leave,
so, nothing else to say
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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.
The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.
We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.
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Ummm at the introduction of badges, was in issue 2, which came out in september if i am not mistaken. the game went live in april, that was 5 months worth of badges. Now yes the game has been out like 15 months not 18 but wouldnt it stand to reason since you caught up to atleast september, and since then any badage TF has awarded, and no TF was added acept strigas moonfire and hess, oh and that calvin scott one, and those were added in issue 3, that really your talking about datamining from issue 3 in january to present. So like 8 months and only for 3 TFs, unless your finally badging the SS tfs which still again not added until issue 2 so going back to sept and 1 year, not 18 months.
COH has long herald itself as a game for casual players. Well as what i consider a casual team player in that i play mostly at night, if i get on line during the day for a TF and spend 5 hours completing it, that is a rare luxary. Andnow i wont get reward for it. Nice is all i have to say. I guess at some point not only did the VISION not include multi spawning pets, herding (though powers increase in effectivness as you do), perma click powers, good aoes, good holds, good defense, an useful blaster inherent power, level 50 cotent..... lets see what am i missing? Point being seems like we players are taking alot of changes for the benefit of living out you alls VISION, how bout cutting us some slack and actually doing something for us for a change. And no the current idea of "balancing" is not for us. Its for your ideas to how we should play not how we want to play. But if we live with it, we dont even get credit for the things we did take part in is kinda, i dont know, craptastic to say the least.
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You know... you got me thinking about that. Issue 2 didn't hit Live until the end of Aug 04 to the beginning of Sept 04. Issue 2 is when the Shadow Shard was put in-game as well.
So they aren't having to go back over 18 months of CoH. They only have to go over 12 months. I also cannot understand why it would take so long to go through the databases. Databases are made for data storage and recovery. They are MADE for queries like this. It's the whole reason to USE a database.
To me, this is just another thing that makes me wonder about the skill level of some of the people working at Cryptic. Amateurish things like simply amaze me especially given the number of years that MMORPGs have been around and lessons learned from them.
These sorts of things make me wonder if they'll be properly managing CoV when it finally goes live.
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I make this comment only because the thread as a whole makes me laugh.
When they did the datamining last many of my friends got their badges over the course of 3 months.
However, I also had friends that didn't get their badges as though they had done the TFs the datamining did not turn up them in the list.
This included myself, who had to petition, and harass the support staff for my badges.
Needless to say, it was a hassle for me, for the support staff, and for the devs who did the datamining.
Now that being said, there are how many new TF / Trial badges that are out and not awarding badges?
I don't believe there are too terribly many. Maybe the Striga and the Shadow Shard TFs????
So in the grand outlook what's the trouble of doing these few over again? I don't see any trouble.
While if the devs do datamining it would take 1 year to complete, it wouldn't be perfect, it would hassle EVERYONE, and it would probably be done so that those who canceled their accounts in anticipation of I5 wouldn't get the badges anyway because their accounts weren't active and thus piss them off too after they reactivate.
So when it comes down to brass tacks, just redo the TFs, get your badge, earn some XP or work off some debt and be happy.