Someone on a different forum relayed to me that you have a “deathly fear of coding”.
EDITED to include the quote.
Here is the quote from that post:
“The devs have pretty consistently expressed their deathly fear of coding anything that involves NPC pathing in water. Everything involving boats, sea creatures and followers swimming is too scary. So if there aren’t going to be actual catch-able fish swimming around, you may as well just carry a fishing trap around with you, plop one down in a random spot, then sit there staring at it so it doesn’t decay. That’s more or less the fishing experience you’d get if there aren’t AI fish.”
I asked for any links for such a statement by at least one of (edit) developers because I wanted to read it for myself.
I understand coding can be a very daunting task and it is certainly no task for anyone who has less than a mastery level of understanding it (If you catch my drift).
I hope you’re better than that because such a statement doesn’t look good for you or your reputation.
A little insight could have disclosed to whom the question was directed.
But in this age of “political correctness” and sarcasm, clarification becomes a necessity to hopefully prevent such further responses.
So I have corrected the title of this thread to reflect the direction of the question.
Just so you understand, I ran a search of forum topics related to the question and as I suspected, found nothing. This does not mean such a question was never previously asked or that the topic was never discussed here.
@Perstyr: Is that your code for circular logic in an endless loop?
Really, I don’t find that funny. It’s actually menacing.
There was mention in the last dev stream that they “hate water” or something like that by Scott. He didnt really elaborate except to indicate that water placeables like ponds/lakes, boats and water fighting were not in the plan.
I don’t recall the original post giving any clarification other than that you’d heard on the grapevine that the coders have a deathly fear of coding, which I found dubious at best (if it was there and I missed it, I apologise for appearing menacing). I can assure you no menace was intended - it was just meant to be tongue-in-cheek code to point out that I think it highly unlikely that people who code for a living have a deathly fear of coding, to the extent that I thought the only viable option is that they do not. Sorry for causing offence.
Is this some form of sophisticated humor I’m too dumb to understand?
Just in case it isn’t, imagine if a professional racing driver said “I’ve got a deathly fear of driving a Yugo” and the next day the newspapers reported “Mika Häkkinen’s reputation in question after he said he had a deathly fear of driving”.
That’s kinda what you did here, except that in this case it wasn’t even the driver himself who said that, but rather someone who listened to a few interviews with the driver
No, it’s not meant to be funny. It’s quite serious actually.
That’s why I brought it up here.
I’d rather hear it from the horse’s mouth than via 3rd party.
It might shed some light on what’s been happening.
If a company was expected to comment on every negative rumor spread by trolls, they would never get anything done. I still don’t understand the point of this thread.
I don’t believe it was a troll post considering the nature of the original subject which brought this up.
Does it matter to me that programmers are confident in their work?
Of course it matters when the result affects a development directly or indirectly.
You know the story about horses and how they were finally implemented after it was once said it could not be done. (if I’m not mistaken, said by someone on the development team).
Whether or not a fishing mechanic is ever introduced into this game as well as “city life” and various other suggestions over the past couple of years isn’t the point. If you’re afraid of something, it’s going to hold you back from taking chances and at least trying. It will affect your work.
Admitting it is being human, but being a well paid professional is nearly inexcusable.
Are we to assume someone or the entire development team are amatures?
Because a random person on the internet said Funcom has a “deathly fear of coding?” No, we don’t need to assume that at all, and there is 0 reason why Funcom has to defend those accusations either.
Let’s consider this from another perspective: Funcom had determined early on that riding horses wouldn’t be possible in the game because the mount would move faster than the game engine could render. Did this knowledge paralyze the coders with fear? No. They found ways to do it anyway.
So if the game engine is poorly suited for water physics, and the game developers say that they’re unlikely to create water-based content, it doesn’t mean they’re afraid to do so. It means they don’t consider it a cost-effective use of resources to try to circumvent the issues.
“We can try, but we might fail” is a situation that is approached in a different fashion by companies than it is by individuals. A programmer might be perfectly willing to spend months trying to make underwater combat possible in the game, but his boss may not be willing to keep paying him for something that is not likely going to work.
So whatever is going on in the originally quoted post, they’re barking up the wrong tree. The coders don’t make the decisions in the business world.
“Boats, sea creatures and followers swimming…” is just a system that can be implemented similar to mounts, building, etc. This hasn’t been implemented in the game right now, probably because it is not a priority for the game and not a key feature the game relies on to provide content/DLCs. So, you won’t be seeing this in game anytime soon. This could be a marketing decision, definitely not a “deathly fear of coding” as you call it.
In the same stream, someone mentioned that UE4 (the engine the game’s running on) does not like buildings in water (or: the engine is not optimized for anything in water).
I’m not aware of any planned water creatures. There are fishmen implemented with The Sunken CIty dungeon, so if you want to kill something fish-like, you can already do so.
The current eastern sea might benefit from having more water creatures (although they might glitch through the mesh, given that the map exceeds UE4 limits in said area). There is also a map expansion dlc upcoming (see this wiki page) which will be set on and around a sea.
Feel free to start a topic in the Suggestions subforum if you would like to suggest water creatures.
See, this kind of thing is exactly why I thought you were attempting some weird humor or maybe even trolling. And I’m trying real hard to stay polite here, because I’ve been a professional programmer for more than 20 years now and this crap gets my blood boiling.
Okay, deep breath.
First of all, you’re talking the word “afraid” too literally:
You’re describing an emotion, which is what “being afraid” normally means when talking about people. But the wonderful thing about natural languages is that they depend on the context a lot, so you can say “they’re afraid of trying to implement that” instead of a long, boring phrase such as “they evaluated the risks and potential benefits of implementing that, contrasted them to other features that are competing for their limited time, and decided that it just wasn’t worth pursuing under the circumstances”.
Second, you’re reacting to something someone said on some forum. Not even Funcom forums – because there’s no trace of what you wrote on these forums – but that doesn’t really matter. It’s as if @Multigun said “@CodeMage has pimples on his butt” on Discord and then someone came here to make a post about how disgusting my butt is. In other words, that’s gossip.
Now, there’s gossip and there’s gossip. Speculation about new map is the fun kind of gossip. Demanding that the devs defend their reputation and suggesting that they might be amateurs because you heard some gossip is entitled and arrogant.
And while we’re on the topic of professionalism and amateurism, let’s discuss that a bit. If your endodontist bungles up the work on your tooth and you lose it, feel free to call him an amateur and to say things like “he should be a butcher, not a dentist”. You might be wrong, but at least you have an honest reason to say that, a concrete outcome. But if your oral surgeon tells you “I’m afraid to try to extract that wisdom tooth”, you have no basis whatsoever to call him an amateur.
TL;DR: Feel free to study and work for years, get all the necessary experience, and then judge the professionals based on their risk assessment (or even rumors of it). Until then, a bit more of respect and a bit less of entitlement would be nice.
@CodeMage
Does working professionally in military electronic warfare count?
This included 4 years (equivalent) of university level studies just to get into the field. (Over 2500 college credit hours including the OJT and supervisory work).
So reconsider your condescending attitude.
Do I know programming? Yes I do, but that’s all I’m going to say.
That was my professional career. It kept our pilots from being shot down and continued with Radio Telecommunications Maintenance after that.
This post isn’t about you nor is it directed at you or intended to insult you. Relax.
If I see rumor, I ask for information. Still the person who posted that remark (considered a troll by someone) hasn’t responded to my request for a link to his source. That’s why I came here.
I’ve been playing this game over 4000 hours since EA and I know others have put in more time. The mistakes are obvious. Believe me, I’ve seen my share of them. But I’m not one of Funcom’s employees. People are complaining (after updates, that should be expected). Damage control apologizes for inconveniences and that’s okay.
You folks are jumping into this and I expected that to happen, so it’s no surprise to me.
As to whoever is afraid of coding. That’s between them and their supervisor especially after that remark because you can bet your last dime they’re going to have a chat about it.
