Game Director Letter – August 2013

[letsdance]

Before spending time on new content - seriously consider what the player base will accept and what will keep them occupied long enough.

I'm pretty sure that the main reason why devs in the past just wanted to create new content is that they wanted to put it on their CV to make it look pretty for the next job.

Fixing old stuff don't look good enough on the CV and is barely mentioned. I think that's the drawback from developing a game in a major game hub like Montreal.

It's great that it now looks like the devs have a longer term plan with what they're doing.

[Chaman-bourru]

Because people like it? Make no mistake if a dungeojn is not announced on Global or LFG channel that does not mean that no one bothers to do them. Join a cabal with Voice communication than those places are a blast. The new Dragon spine dungeon is gorgeous.

I was just trolling mate.
If the only content worthy was the one played by the majority the perspectives would be very limited.

[Anakhor]

just post total, weekly kills, quest etc list for each player its better than nothing. there used to be a pvp list right? at 64k kills, its reset. what happened to it?

[Bibik]

Unchained PvP is the new minigame mode that I have mentioned in the past where we are aiming to even out the stats for all classes and make skill be the deciding factor over gear

Does it mean there will be a class rebalance (nerfs/ups) before Unchained Minigame comes ?

[Jota180]

What content do PVPers want? Just give them a box to fight in as that's all it's about anyway. Make sure the lid is tight though as they can't help taking their fights to global, selfishly polluting the atmosphere for everyone else.

[CueQue]

Just fix floating sword bug and invisible horse bug and the game will be great ;D They have been bothering players for more then 5 years now

When you're mounted, you can zoom in and then out, and your mount should appear.

[Kurt2013]

Sure, when it comes to bugs you have a lot of choices.
You can ignore them and hope they leave miracolously with a new patch because a nice programmer overwrote or fixed them (this can work for minor undocumented things, but if the programmer does not document the changes or doublechecks the big list, it will create confusion).
You can catagorize them in important or not important and then ignore the ones, you deem unimportant (depends on your priorities and management. Bad choice if "important" stuff keeps being priorizes over the "unimportant").
You can catagorize them also in easy to fix and not so easy to fix and keep fixing the easy ones on a steady basis. (you willbe able to show a steady progression and the list will get shorter, allowing you to notice or concentrate on the "big" problems.)
You can ignore all bugs that have a workaround and leave them out of your list or simply treat them as other bugs...

Problem here is, that depending on how you measure "important/unimportant" and "easy/not easy to fix" and your controlling and documentation before releasing patches (new bugs), you will end up with a long list that grows instead of one that gets shorter sooner or later.
And even for bugs with a workaround...it is simply not a good advertisement (after a certain time and number, it ceases to be funny) and it hurts the reputation more than some people might think. You can't treat a workaround as a solution instead of a hint where to start fixing...
If you keep it too long, despite thorough documentation by the players and even presentation of a workaround, it just shows you are not competent enough to test and look for yourselves or simply do not care. Take the minigame rejoin and group bug. You can reproduce the bug. You can link it to a specific patch that caused it. You have a well documented workaround...why is it not fixed? Or do you plan to fix it with the "unchained mini" release, because you have to look at the join/rejoin/regroup code then anyway (which would make it all the more ridicolous, if it keeps around after that)?

And you don't rebuild a reputation by censoring, but a few patches with bugfixes (heck, just check the lists and choose the most common reported and easiest to fix, that will be enough stuff for weeks) can work wonders. The customers (and shareholders i guess) will need to get the impression things are changing for the better, even with limited resources.

[Vilkata]

First off I want to say "Go Joel!!" I don't think these people get it. This is exactly why I do not PVP. they are a bunch of whiners..
sorry if this repeats another suggestion, I couldn't take all the whining anymore..

I digress

I was only wondering if you could make the race go by play time versus date on the race..
IE someone who can only play an hour a day has a lot smaller chance of getting to 80 before someone who plays 20 hours a day.

So go by playtime, player 1 plays 1 hour a day and player 2 plays 20 hours a day. Player one gets his character to 80 in 38 hours (after 38 days)and player two gets his to 80 in 39 hours (2 days) Player one wins.
This would stretch out the time to allow those with more time to set other goals, like pvp levels, while those with less time can still have a chance at getting first in something.

Oh and don't let these negative posts get you down. The happy players are playing instead of whining.

[Kurt2013]

Or just both...one reward for first "dedicated" 80 and the second for most levels/timeplayed.

And have you posted that in the suggestion section already?

[freneticfangs]

I am going to greatly miss the gorgeous animations this game has.

Sadly, nothing is being done to earn my money.

There's no housing - and that's where I spend all of my cash shop money.

I would love to sub and run dungeons, but the lack of a LFG tool feels like a handicap compared to the quickness of other games.

The only thing that is left is RP/immersion and I certainly don't need to walk to China for that since I prefer my setting to be in the original locations of most Conan stories. (Not to mention most RPers I know flocked to Rift for their housing)

Do something to make me want to give you money. You have a gorgeous game. It can't be that hard to put in an LFG tool and let us decorate housing.