It is my less than humble opinion that if the folks who are responsible for developing, marketing, and charting the course of the game had a set time during the workweek where they were required to play in standard player mode, that a lot of the things we constantly see as bugs, new and reintroduced, would get resolved.
Now, it is possible this is already a requirement. The streams and the state of the game argue against it, but, perhaps, this is in place.
Every update, every new shiny - SQUIRREL - idea argues that folks involved in deciding and coding this game have no connection to it.
They do. They play on internal servers when at work for testing, and play on personal accounts when not at work (and wonât advertise where, you know⊠because this community are dicks half the time and would harass them).
I agree the community would harass them, we see the childish rants and name calling/threats all the time. So, them being anonymous is a sound strategy.
However, if they are playing in standard mode, and they tolerate the state of the game, it does not speak well.
During Exploit Hunters I tagged along (played bait) on a couple of Dev interventions on Official Servers. One Dev in particular had an awesome rapport, and even joked with another player about how his âunfindableâ base had been discovered. Even after wiping the bad actor Clanâs illegal building, everyone was very cool. I wish we could go back to this style of presence.
I would argue that is not quite the same thing. Iâve spent extensive time testing and extensive time playing (as, I know, have you and many others) - they are quite different experiences and can provide very different results. There are many things that I have discovered while playing and would have missed while testing. Both, of course, need to be done, but I do find myself questioning how much time any Funcom representatives are spending engaging with the actual play experience.
They may well play privately in addition as you say - though I find myself questioning how much, just on the basis of human nature. Iâm sure many (most?) game devs are themselves also gamers, but after 8hrs a day, 5 days a week working on a game, it would be quite reasonable that many of them might prefer to put their downtime into a game that is not directly associated with âworkâ.
Whatever the case, it is quite apparent that there is a broad gulf in understanding between the way the devs engage with the gameplay experience and the way players tend to. We wouldnât be told that key QoL features that many players use consistently were considered âunimportantâ and are therefore being removed. I think the point of this thread is that the devs need a clearer understanding of what the game experience is really like from a player perspective - and however much time they may spend âin gameâ, that understanding really appears to be lacking right now.
(And yes - staying annonymous is absolutely necessary for the reasons you suggest.)
Failing all that, this one would like to know what their vision of the game is.
While this one may find the changes largely undesirable, if there were an actual explanation of where they are going with them, that might help.
And no, this one does not simply trust that there is a grand plan and good reasons. Not since the Age of War. The commodity of trust, already thin due to this oneâs inherently suspicious nature, has been expanded to itâs utmost and is now in deficit.
As far as them internally playing. This one thinks they recall mention from long ago that the internal version they are playing is several builds in the future from what we play. This one finds that⊠unlikely to still be the case, but regardless, it would be unhelpful. The play that must be understood is the play that the player base is experiencing. Thus they should be logging time on their own officials. And if that isnât considered fun⊠Then that should be their first warning that something has gone horribly wrong.
I would point out that the fact that we get balance changes, new features, and other additions are evidence that they do not tolerate the current state of the game. If they did, we would simply see Bazaar and Battlepass updates. But those monetary things fund the fixes and changes they want to make.
We can argue about the direction of the changes being good or bad, but the fact is they are modifying the game because they want to change it from how it is.
What I personally know is that there are many things they have done recently since Age of Sorcery that are kinda shit(ty), but only because they are foundational systems for other things. And there is some things I outright donât agree with. Some of that is seeing changes made in the devkit, some from testing, and much from watching streams.
Some of the most recent examples is the fatality system and the sword of crom. The fatility system is kinda meh for many people. Killing someone deader is well⊠ok for some. But its the foundational system for paired emotes which as Dennis said, would be required for petting animals and high fiving your buddy. Some of these things have been early spotted in the devkit. The Sword of Crom nerf is pretty stupid. The idea to make weapons useable by thralls is a good idea, but normalizing weapons to make it work is just not good. But admittedly, that is just my opinion.
So I want to clarify that. Imagine sitting with a bunch of buddies and you have all your PCs in one house and hooked up to the router. Someone uses the dedicated server software on Steam and hosts a server and you all connect locally. Its âtechnicallyâ online. But you all are physically in the same location. Thatâs what I meant when I said internally. Specifically for some heavy playtesting they did prior to Chapter 3.
Thatâs part of their internal playtesting.
They do this as well, and in some cases they get members of the community to participate in closed beta testing them. What I donât know is how much of the current version that they play, the version about to be released, and versions that will be released after.
I suspect it changes depending on what is needed. Depending on the individual I suspect they are playing anywhere from 2-4 versions of the game at any given time. Thatâs my guess based on anecdote.
The premise of this thread is that they developed in a vacuum. Which isnât the case by far. As well as the perception of how badly the FC rented partner severs are. That last one is a major contention for some. All I can say is no, they are not going to run tests on a live server, those are for players to play on. Theyâre not going to take up slots and building space on a live sever for that purpose. No survival game does that. And probably not going to run tests on a copy due to privacy reasons. The amount of personal information that people leave behind is ridiculous (information security needs to be a basic course in all levels of public school, IMO as people leave stuff like phone numbers and addresses in guild MOTDs and Journals). So FC is going to limit access to those as much as possible.
Petting a pet that you better never take out because of the easy meat shield they are.
High fiving requires 2 people, so better hope they build quickly on this foundation. or youâll be high fiving air.
And holy cow, the dive. Most useless waste of animation dev time ever.
And tbh, if this is a foundation for a Dennos idea, then we really are screwedâŠRemember how syked he was about the bat, and how he got merced by a camp while flying?
Well, i have never had an arrow shoot me down, npc or guarding thrall in a base.
They did actually play Conan recently and this is what killed it
Did you see Andy playing on the last stream? He canât even walk straight in this game.
They did play the game before AoS launched I believe and then made all these changes that made people leave.
They applied changes to cater to their own gaming skills, which are very poor.
If anything, they should do like the guys do in MMOs, consult balancing of things with the most hardcore gamers who play on max difficulty, while making sure that there is also easy content for newbies and progression towards becoming the hardcore player.
But what do they do? Look at youtubers they feature âsorry guys, I donât know how to play PvE and I never tried PvP, but guys, look at this new shiny at Bazaarâ.
Instead they should be talking to wak4863 who knows everything about this game and lives his real life in Exiled Lands.
You cant develop a game without playing it.
If the devs do not play it with you it is an entire other issue.
It is impossible that a developer absolutely not play the game they developing unless they are doing just art, in which case, they are not developers, just designers.
And I really dont know from where they take that the developer on the stream dont know how to play the game. He plays it normally.
The fact that he pass by 3 thralls tucked in the foundation and doesnt even remark on it is a little concerning, but sure a proof he is used to play the game, otherwise it would be something that would catch his eye.
Letâs not forget that the people who develop the game are not the same people who decide company strategy. The board of investors or whatever they have most likely donât spend their time playing games other than the stock market.
I donât know who writes the big script for the Ages etc., but itâs highly likely that the marketing department has more say in matters than game developers.
I must disagree. I use the dive animation all the time, my main base being built over deep water. Most emotes that canât be assigned to thralls are a waste of time, but diving is something I can perform while still actively playing, rather than just posing for the camera.
My only criticism is that the dive transitions too quickly to the horizontal swimming animation.
Iâd be very interested in the grand plan (where its going as a whole etc) but I can totally see why weâre not told. Some people like to throw stones simply to throw them. Those same people would frame the plan in the most negative light they can and that would turn into just negative advertising for something that isnt finished and wouldnt be refuted until the âgrand planâ had finished. The way it is now, we can speculate where stuff is headed, but we have to play if we want to actually see it. The proof in the pudding so to speak. If we like the game, we play it; if we donât we play something else. Weâre being told the grand plan in a sense as time marches on and the game changes. Its just being told to us on a need to know basis.
This one doesnât care where they are going narratively.
They have proven moderate to highly reliable narratively.
The Ages system is not the issue.
The where they are going is about all the system changes.
There is this rumour of high fives and pet the dogs being the place they are going with the executions.
The combat system change was a lurch towards what cheap AI would consider Souls Like.
The Inventory UI is a shift for what clucking reason other than to ape Unshrouded?
The move to the build hammer looked very much like raft and a couple other games.
Are they just grabbing ideas from other games and making some forsaken chimera or is there an actual vision for how the game should look and be played?
Bit whay gameplay element does it add. It is great as âfunâ emoye, but how micj dev time was used to create something just for fun. And every has it. So it was a wadte, when there are pressing issues that need addressed.
