Plans for the future
With the schools now in game, where you can create items without obtaining the item itself, but twice the experience, most of my current plans for EL are finished.
One idea was to start working at a few new items, such as the summoning stones and various other combat related items, but considering the large amount of bitching I am getting regarding pretty much anything I implement, I think it's time to take a small break from adding new items, and focus on some internal things that were on my to do list for quite a while. So for a few months there will be no new items.
We also decided to actually enforce our forum rules, namely the no bitching rule.
From now on, everyone not following the rules they implicitly agree to when they use our forums, will be suspended for 1 year. Depending on the gravity of the offense, all their posts might be deleted as well, and they can even lose their game account.
This is pretty much standard practice in the big, commercial MMOs. I didn't really want to do that, but it's getting to a point where it becomes too frustrating for us, and it is not worth it.
Other people also complain about how some people buy ingame items for cash. Nevermind that most of the people in the top 50 paid very little if any cash to us.
Nevermind that we wouldn't be able to spend so much time developing this game if not for some cash.
Of course, they do not really care about such insignificant details, to them complaining and whining is more rewarding than actually playing the game.
So as I told them on our forums, if I keep getting complaints like that, we will remove the option to buy items for dollars, use our existing cash reserves to develop the game, and in the not so distant future sell out to some company interested in our technology.
The next thing I will start working at soon is the bandwidth statistics. We want to know which packets take the most traffic, both up and down, and try to focus on optimizing them. This will be very helpful for when we have over 1500 players playing the game at the same time.
Next, me and Learner will work at dynamic maps, which will keep us busy for a few months.
One idea was to start working at a few new items, such as the summoning stones and various other combat related items, but considering the large amount of bitching I am getting regarding pretty much anything I implement, I think it's time to take a small break from adding new items, and focus on some internal things that were on my to do list for quite a while. So for a few months there will be no new items.
We also decided to actually enforce our forum rules, namely the no bitching rule.
From now on, everyone not following the rules they implicitly agree to when they use our forums, will be suspended for 1 year. Depending on the gravity of the offense, all their posts might be deleted as well, and they can even lose their game account.
This is pretty much standard practice in the big, commercial MMOs. I didn't really want to do that, but it's getting to a point where it becomes too frustrating for us, and it is not worth it.
Other people also complain about how some people buy ingame items for cash. Nevermind that most of the people in the top 50 paid very little if any cash to us.
Nevermind that we wouldn't be able to spend so much time developing this game if not for some cash.
Of course, they do not really care about such insignificant details, to them complaining and whining is more rewarding than actually playing the game.
So as I told them on our forums, if I keep getting complaints like that, we will remove the option to buy items for dollars, use our existing cash reserves to develop the game, and in the not so distant future sell out to some company interested in our technology.
The next thing I will start working at soon is the bandwidth statistics. We want to know which packets take the most traffic, both up and down, and try to focus on optimizing them. This will be very helpful for when we have over 1500 players playing the game at the same time.
Next, me and Learner will work at dynamic maps, which will keep us busy for a few months.
posted by Radu at 9:21 PM
4 Comments:
hi,
i just read this post. i understand this blog as a documentation of the progress in eternal lands. and documentations shouldnt be falsified.
you mention that you will punish people in forums or even your game with bans when they bitch.
let enlighten this a bit. there is a very controversy discussion about a certain item namely "Branch of Destruction" from the day this item made its way into the game. and from the day there was a unwritten community rule which say dont use this item. almost all players but 5 agreed to that afaik.
then 5 people bought themself player characters from other players that quit for 400$-1600$.after a while they found out their high stats dont make them allmighty and they were the ones who start to use the branch which has no protection at all. several people lost some ingame madeable stuff which is in fact a good thing for the productive part of the el players (manuers,crafters aso).the worse thing started a bit later. people start to lose weapons only buyable from eternal lands shop for 90$us/75 euros.
when the 5 people find out they can destroy items only buyable for real money they changed their "tactics" to only use the branch to destroy as much as possible items in the hope they can destroy el shop items.
after a while i myself lost my 90$ item in an event on the very first hit i got (i dissed the second i saw the branch) so my 90$ purchased item was gone.
after a while your el incarnation popped up and start talking about a status quo. what means they use branch , you use branch. sounds like a strategy until here.
but again here comes real money into play.
how should a player get a stand against people with almost unlimited supplies they optain by buying ingame services for others ?
the very same night you announced a special cape that gives you protection against the branch. but unfortunately you made it really fast break. tests of players prooved it breaks after 1-5 hits.
so branchers had to change their strategy to hit 5 times with a sword and make you again a nice victim for the branch.
after that a new discussion regarding the branch started in forums and the 5 players willing to use the branch started to bitch against opinions of other players who still try to play eternal lands.
so what did the branch change at all?
we have empty maps where players can fight eachother for some serious fun destroyed by 5 players.
players quit your game because they think none of the developers listen to them
a simple poll would show that there is a overwhelming majority against this weapon ingame. and your statement to stop developing ingame visible stuff for 6 months because of the bitching isnt helpfull at all.
anyway most of recent implementations were a real improvement for eternal lands.but i fear to say that with the implementation of the branch you were wrong.
thanks for reading this point of view of a
player who loved eternal lands once.
and yes i will accept any punishment forum/game wise for voicing my opinion.
Those who claim their cape breaks after 1-5 hits are either extremly unlucky, or they bullshit.
1-5 hits means a breaking rate between 100% and 30%. In reality, the chance of that cape to break is 0.8%, which I think is pretty low. Of course, if you use it all the time it will break often, and it was not designed to be used all the time.
Well, one way or another, I still think you should not punish like 700 players, or I don't really know number, just becouse 20 or so are bitching all the time, why just not punish those that bitch?..
I fail to see your logic
on a sidenote, one of the best game develop blogs, gives a huge insight into actual game management.
@ago
Unfortunately, in the context of online communities, too much freedom is pretty much anarchy. This is due to the fact that many people say thing online that they wouldn't dare to say face to face.
@Anonymous
Most of the people are not affected by those decisions. Only a handful of high level players that engage in PKing are affected.
And what I am working at now (statistics) will benefit pretty much everyone, by finding bottlenecks in the protocol and potentially reduce the lag.
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