A Call for a little transparency, just a touch.

[DR_Mechano]

11 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

 

Recruiting, inducting and training people is another one of those things that takes time 🙂 We also want to clear up as much technical debt (the recent powers updates and the upcoming retirement of safe mode) as we can before that happens, otherwise a good chunk of that training could go to waste. And the talks of course do have an impact, it's much more preferable to us that we are able to be more open and transparent when recruitment does finally begin.

I am planning to post up a "What you can do to help" thing soon-ish, as the original development recruitment threads were put together in a rush many, many months ago.

Ok fair enough, that I understand. I get clearing up technical debt because we don't want the same situation CoH was in when it was live aka the "the person who knew how this worked has since left and nobody has any idea how it works any more so what we trained you on is completely pointless!" Thank you for your honesty Jimmy.

Edited January 26, 2020 by DR_Mechano

[jubakumbi]

Just now, siolfir said:

Truer words were never spoken, but...

 

...if they ask what we want, don't feel bad for telling them. Just don't expect everything you ask for to happen, let alone expect them to give you a when, where, why, and how while working on the what.

I do not disagree at all.

Input into the process when desired is often quite helpful to get things started and help people know what they are building will be liked, to get over creative dry spells, etc.

 

In this case I am a total realist.

Whatever they do some will love and some will hate and both groups will think they are in the majority, both in numbers and 'being right', just more unneeded drama, IMO.

This has not changed IMO with these things since I started playing MMOs and reading the forums for them, I don't expect the results here to be vastly different.

 

Therefore, all the servers runners should really just do what they want and people can like it or not, full stop, IMO, and not give much of hoot about what the tiny percent of the population that uses the forums cares about anything, but then again I have never cared about what anyone thinks of me or my actions, so I am very biased here...

[Abraxus]

Personally, I agree with the approach so far.  They do have something of a roadmap, and Jimmy was good enough to reiterate it here. 

1.  Get the legacy client issue resolved completely.

2.  Fix completely issues with previous patches/changes before moving on.

3.  Complete the legal process, on which so much depends.

4.  Don't attempt anything HUGE (or promise/hint at such) until all of that is good

 

Points 1, and 2 are well underway, and each of them is a lot of work on their own.  Point 3, well things like that go at the speed of the corporate legal system, and there is nothing on the planet that will make it go any faster.  So, have patience.  Point 4 is a wise course, given the other 3.

 

In the meantime, we have CoH to play, and that is enough to get me through to the good stuff on the other side.  There are other servers doing things that folks are aware of, and wonder why the same things can't just be done here.  I believe all of the respective servers are now on their own development path.  Some of those changes might eventually come this way, but not before we get the current business finalized.  Given all the plates currently spinning, we have been given a lot already, but we always seem to want the shiny objects we've seen elsewhere too.  I think it's been said many times, but it's still applicable.  We really have to keep expectations realistic, and look at what we've got, as opposed to what others have. 

[Snarky]

No.

[Ironblade]

10 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

Ok fair enough, that I understand. I get clearing up technical debt because we don't want the same situation CoH was in when it was live aka the "the person who knew how this worked has since left and nobody has any idea how it works any more so what we trained you on is completely pointless!" Thank you for your honesty Jimmy.

Not to mention, "the person who knew how this worked has since left and we're afraid to touch it now."

[Lazarillo]

22 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

"Super Strength is going to be looked at" and nobody was like "oh my god they're doing it right now!" it was just "Being looked at" and everyone understood WHY the Rage changes were pulled, surprisingly civil about it in fact, so it shows we can handle our 'nerd rage' if something doesn't work out.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll note I'm still damn bitter they pulled the Rage buff.

[Troo]

@Jimmy above and beyond.

 

[Myrmidon]

28 minutes ago, Troo said:

@Jimmy above and beyond.

 

 

[Snarky]

2 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll note I'm still damn bitter they pulled the Rage buff.

I play SS. It is in my main. I have played it a lot going all the way back to my first character.  So.  Rage crash is annoying.  

 

Here is what you do:  pull up the character info. All the data with resists defenses health damage bonus etc. click on monitor damage bonus. Slap that somewhere near where you monitor your attack powers

 

keep a weather eye in the damage bonus. It will hit the floor for a few seconds every two minutes.  Oh no!  I will die!  Forfend, wither and what shall we do?

 

first take a deep breath. Okay if you do it yoga style your damage is back to normal continue playing.  But youre not gonna do that are you?

 

sooooo.  Combine inspirations. Maybe pop one or three.  Delete the ones that are useless

 

use Sands of Mu or Blackwand/Nemesis staff. They are not subject to damage bonuses. They work fine. 
 

at incarnate level use your Judgement power.  Not subject to damage bonuses. Works fine

 

look around and see what your idiot teammates are up to.  You think you know but you been crazy busy. What are they really doing?

 

reposition your character. This is a great time to taunt if you are a tank. Change the battlefield bu controlling your enemies. 
 

use a power that does not do damage. I run a lot of Rogues and so use the PBAoE confuse power here.  It’s fun, helps you clear content faster, and increases Your survivability

 

Think of all the reasons Snarky annoys you. Like lecturing you and calling you a whiny baby for losing out on a few seconds damage on one of the most powerful sets in the game for melee

 

okay. Get back to fighting now. Go on. Keep an eye on that damage bonus

 

 

[Lazarillo]

8 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Think of all the reasons Snarky annoys you. Like lecturing you and calling you a whiny baby for losing out on a few seconds damage on one of the most powerful sets in the game for melee

Well, that one's impossible.  Every time I try, I remember his winning smile, and who could be mad at a grin like that?

[NNDeepdish]

So here's the deal with these types of threads: the HC team could post a word for word breakdown of every single thing they did in the course of a day. They could post hour by hour updates. They could post a novel every day detailing every single thought they had ever had about planning to do anything in the future with HC and these types of threads would still be here.

[Shred Monkey]

TLDR, 

 

Great stuff is happening!  That costume thingy you want isn't one of them.

[siolfir]

2 hours ago, NNDeepdish said:

So here's the deal with these types of threads: the HC team could post a word for word breakdown of every single thing they did in the course of a day. They could post hour by hour updates. They could post a novel every day detailing every single thought they had ever had about planning to do anything in the future with HC and these types of threads would still be here.

Well, yeah. I mean, I didn't see what I care about in there, so they obviously aren't keeping me up to date!

 

(apparently I wasn't being obvious enough about the sarcasm, so I'll add this line to indicate that I'm joking)

Edited January 27, 2020 by siolfir
footnote

[kenlon]

On 1/26/2020 at 6:49 AM, DR_Mechano said:

It doesn't just HAVE to be your small dev team anymore.

Simply adding more people won't suddenly make things faster. The Mythical Man-Month is as true today as it was in 1975. And just as little understood by most.

[Abraxus]

Until the legal issues are resolved, we can't know what things currently fall under the NDA, and therefore cannot be discussed, or shared.  So, sharing what the future may hold is very likely difficult once the things that are covered under NDA are stripped away.  I sure wouldn't want to have to do that legal dance every day, if I were one of the Devs.  I think they do a pretty good job of communicating the things they can talk about.  But, continually telling us that most things can't be discussed because of the on-going legal talks (since that's all they can really say) isn't really necessary.  Most of us know that, and for those that don't, there are plenty of us to let them know. 🙂

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Abraxus

[Doc_Scorpion]

32 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Simply adding more people won't suddenly make things faster. The Mythical Man-Month is as true today as it was in 1975. 

Yes... and no.  You can't necessarily make (say) the much discussed SS/Rage overhaul faster by adding people.  But you can increase the pace overall by having people work on multiple tasks in parallel.  Especially so when the tasks aren't bound to each other.

That's the problem that DR Mechano and others seek to solve... and they're not at all wrong.  Adding people increases parallelism.  There's a reason the OG dev team (any MMO team that I've seen) had multiple people specializing in various tasks.  The Powers person could work on powers, while the Character Creator person worked on costume options, while...  well, you get the picture.  Our current team doesn't really have that luxury.
 

35 minutes ago, kenlon said:

And just as little understood by most.

You are absolutely correct.

[DR_Mechano]

Just now, Doc_Scorpion said:

Yes... and no.  You can't necessarily make (say) the much discussed SS/Rage overhaul faster by adding people.  But you can increase the pace overall by having people work on multiple tasks in parallel.  Especially so when the tasks aren't bound to each other.

That's the problem that DR Mechano and others seek to solve... and they're not at all wrong.  Adding people increases parallelism.  There's a reason the OG dev team (any MMO team that I've seen) had multiple people specializing in various tasks.  The Powers person could work on powers, while the Character Creator person worked on costume options, while...  well, you get the picture.  Our current team doesn't really have that luxury.
 

You are absolutely correct.

Thank you, yes that is what I meant. It means you'd have more people working on more things, not more people working on one thing. That way if there is a breakthrough in...I don't know...they way costumes work and suddenly we can have asymmetrical costumes. The people working on that aren't causing a hold up with any power balancing changes because that is their little project and as such you don't have to first wait for everyone to finish doing 1 thing to move to the next. It means the team can focus on things like costumes, bug fixes, new powersets, UI updates etc. all at the same time without having to laser focus on one thing because they simply don't have the people to not get that one thing done first then move on to something else.

[kenlon]

28 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

But you can increase the pace overall by having people work on multiple tasks in parallel.

Yes, except for when that doesn't work. Adding more people adds more communication overhead, requires more coordination, requires time to bring new people up to speed on what's already happening, etc. So, like I said: Adding more people won't suddenly make things faster. It adds the possibility of making things faster - but it can also make things slower/more buggy.

 

Software development is a pain that way.

[siolfir]

12 minutes ago, kenlon said:

but it can also make things slower/more buggy.

...and usually does at the onset. It's not until the new people are up to speed that any extra progress is made, and how long that takes depends as much on the system complexity as it does the new people.

[Pixie_Knight]

And CoH's code has always been notoriously complex. Anyone else remember some of the disastrous content updates? With one of them the game lagged so badly, you'd get DC'd after five minutes or five steps... whichever came first. The hotfix patch to fix that ended up removing the doors that allowed you to enter/exit Recluse's tower. And the fix to that bug trapped people in the elevators in Recluse's tower. It got to the point where I'd give up playing for a couple days when a major content patch came out due to it taking that long for the game to get back to a playable state. Oh, and scheduled downtimes for releasing content patches would always end up lasting all day due to problems cropping up.

[Sailboat]

Probably already stated elsewhere, but....

 

There's no upside.  Literally.  There's nothing they could post that would actually satisfy everyone, especially those who relentlessly reiterate this issue.  All it would do is sap time and energy from the volunteers.  We would still get whatever they can develop as soon as they're ready to release it...except it would be less stuff and longer before release.  No upside, no desirability, no value.

[_NOPE_]

On 1/26/2020 at 12:45 AM, VileTerror said:

We're not in a publisher-dictated developer studio paradigm any longer.  We're a community with MANY talent people, with skills that can compliment one another.

We're poised on the precipice of OpenSource greatness.  The more open discussion there is, the more information that becomes available, the less room there is for uninformed rebuttals.  Things can only improve with more information flowing more freely.  Even if there's ultimately very few people making the final decisions; they can be more informed themselves by sharing their information with a wider audience.  It's an upward spiral.  Share knowledge to gain knowledge.

 

The only context where secrets play out to someone's advantage is when it comes to manipulation.  a.k.a.:  Marketing.  That's why publishers have been so adamant about driving this narrative to developers that it's somehow in their favour to keep secrets from the end users.  OpenSource development has demonstrated that keeping the userbase informed allows for some terrific advantages in ensuring progressive design iteration.  Expanding and diversifying the userbase does that as well.

 

We have a level of transparency on the donations that's pretty damned good.  I want to see that level of transparency spread further.

This, all of this. However, I can see where they might not be able to do this. Right now, I suspect that since the negotiations are ongoing and seem pretty serious, it looks like the HC team have to, legally, wall themselves off from the playerbase, both for the protection of the on-going negotiations (NDAs are a heck of a thing) as well as the protection of the playerbase itself.

 

Try this thought experiment - if HC WAS to completely open their doors, and allow anyone to "work for" them even while the negotiations are ongoing, what would happen if the negotiations were to fail? Let's think worst case scenario. Let's say that NCSoft changes their mind about the whole thing, they decide that they want to play the game of whack-a-mole to shut down all the servers and keep their property to themselves (even if they aren't friggin' doing anything with it). If HC was in those negotiations, they may have to legally provide the names and other personal information of all people that had ever touched NCSoft's legally-owned code. Then, NCSoft could go after anyone that's ever tried to "help" HC or any other private server. It would be McCarthyism at a smaller scale. "Are you or have you ever been a CoH Code Tinkerer?"

 

Just a thought as to why the doors might be largely closed, at least for the time being. I could be completely wrong, of course.

[Frostbiter]

There's nothing wrong with a little transparency but everyone should really be keeping their hands to themselves.

[golstat2003]

On 1/26/2020 at 1:45 AM, VileTerror said:

We're not in a publisher-dictated developer studio paradigm any longer.  We're a community with MANY talent people, with skills that can compliment one another.

We're poised on the precipice of OpenSource greatness.  The more open discussion there is, the more information that becomes available, the less room there is for uninformed rebuttals.  Things can only improve with more information flowing more freely.  Even if there's ultimately very few people making the final decisions; they can be more informed themselves by sharing their information with a wider audience.  It's an upward spiral.  Share knowledge to gain knowledge.

 

The only context where secrets play out to someone's advantage is when it comes to manipulation.  a.k.a.:  Marketing.  That's why publishers have been so adamant about driving this narrative to developers that it's somehow in their favour to keep secrets from the end users.  OpenSource development has demonstrated that keeping the userbase informed allows for some terrific advantages in ensuring progressive design iteration.  Expanding and diversifying the userbase does that as well.

 

We have a level of transparency on the donations that's pretty damned good.  I want to see that level of transparency spread further.

I wouldn't. Especially because of the discussions happening about the game possibly going legit.

 

If they list out any sort of roadmap, and as a point of getting NCSoft to agree to  . . . well anything . . . then they have to get rid of that roadmap a lot of folks would be highly disappointed. 

 

From any angle I agree with others that the best is "wait for it to get on BETA, then you know what they're working on."

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, siolfir said:

...and usually does at the onset. It's not until the new people are up to speed that any extra progress is made, and how long that takes depends as much on the system complexity as it does the new people.

As someone who works on QA and sees this pretty much EVERY DAMN TIME they bring on new devs, QFT!