The Pretty Good AE Debate

[Ruin Mage]

A badge for participating in testing? Eh. That'd cause its own uproar I feel.

There's no real inner circle from my view. It's devs and then the rest of us. There's a wide swathe of testers, and it's just a matter of either perfecting (or nearly perfecting) the idea or walking it back to the drawing board. Obviously, some ideas get scrapped or attacked from a new angle entirely. The whole inner circle stuff screams "EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET ME!" level of wild. Sure, some people have maybe built up a rapport with the devs but it's not like there's some super secret cabal influencing where HC goes. 

 

11 minutes ago, Puma said:

What Id actually LOVE to see from this sever is a large scale set of polling done to see what the current HC players feel about the state of the game, the direction they'd like to see it go, AND where they'd like to see resources focused, down to specific powersets, and have he Devs publicly respond with a long term roadmap. 

 

Polls, to me, are one of the worst ideas. I just do not see any good in allowing a community to drive a private server that much. I think using them to gauge opinions is fine, but full blown "where should we put our resources." is not what should be done for a volunteer team. If we were paying them I might agree, but we don't. Now, weighing community voices vs dev's goals? Sure, that works.

A roadmap isn't...the greatest idea because there's things that get scrapped all the time. Prior pages had some stuff scrapped and even this one had a Major Change walked back. It's not really something they should commit to if some ideas get pushed back or need more time on the drawing board. Otherwise, an idea might not work out entirely no matter how its approached.

These aren't inherently bad ideas, but they just would not work in this environment in my opinion.

EDIT towards Arcane; There's a few people vocal about nuking the AE, but people tend to forget how split down the middle this whole debate/debacle is.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Puma]

14 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

A badge for participating in testing? Eh. That'd cause its own uproar I feel.

There's no real inner circle from my view. It's devs and then the rest of us. There's a wide swathe of testers, and it's just a matter of either perfecting (or nearly perfecting) the idea or walking it back to the drawing board. Obviously, some ideas get scrapped or attacked from a new angle entirely. The whole inner circle stuff screams "EVERYONE IS OUT TO GET ME!" level of wild. Sure, some people have maybe built up a rapport with the devs but it's not like there's some super secret cabal influencing where HC goes. 

 

Polls, to me, are one of the worst ideas. I just do not see any good in allowing a community to drive a private server that much. I think using them to gauge opinions is fine, but full blown "where should we put our resources." is not what should be done for a volunteer team. If we were paying them I might agree, but we don't. Now, weighing community voices vs dev's goals? Sure, that works.

A roadmap isn't...the greatest idea because there's things that get scrapped all the time. Prior pages had some stuff scrapped and even this one had a Major Change walked back. It's not really something they should commit to if some ideas get pushed back or need more time on the drawing board. Otherwise, an idea might not work out entirely no matter how its approached.

These aren't inherently bad ideas, but they just would not work in this environment in my opinion.

EDIT towards Arcane; There's a few people vocal about nuking the AE, but people tend to forget how split down the middle this whole debate/debacle is.

The badge is for participating in the poll not testing. 

  

As for "no secret cabal influencing where HC goes...I mean technically  the Devs ARE a secret cabal.  We dont have elections to those positions.   But again, that's just how things work.   

 

As for the polling...I don't understand.  These volunteers are trying to make the server as positive and successful as they can.  How would the community having a clear say in what they think that would entail be a BAD thing?  Remember that things don't come to testing until a TON of work has already gone into them.   At that point a Dev has committed to it, and its HARD mentally and emotionally to change course.   It would make MUCH more sense if they had a roadmap that the player base had input on so they knew that at the very least, the direction they headed when they bring it to testing is one people are expecting and generally support. 

I work in education. I have for 20 years.  Ive worked for administrators who get things in their own head, work to come up with directions on things to "make the institution better" and then spring it on the staff to hammer out after the fact, only to find their entire approach or direction was either flawed, unneeded, or would actually make the staff and students LESS happy.    I've also worked with administrators who instead ask the staff and students and families AHEAD of time what the issues are, where they'd like to see change etc and then build plans based on that.  And I can say that in my anecdotal experience, that is ALWAYS more successful both in creation AND in outcomes.  

 

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Puma

[ShardWarrior]

It is laughably comical how certain things like the inner circle claim requires proof, yet stating that AE farming is driving away new players is taken as absolute fact and requires no proof at all.  Something seems out of balance there. 

[Ruin Mage]

Both require proof and/or evidence thereof. Neither is factual until something actually substantial is shown.

Both are opinions, and yet have somehow been touted as fact.

EDIT; to be clear i mean the inner circle as if its some big bad thing that's pulling shadow strings as claimed by a few folks.

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shadeknight

[Excraft]

12 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

Both require proof and/or evidence thereof. Neither is factual until something actually substantial is shown.

 

Where's the proof/evidence/explanation that AFK farming is a huge issue and converting EMP merits to reward merits is causing a market problem?  Where's the proof that there's a character naming problem and the name release policy needs to be put into place?  These are things we're told to accept as fact but we're not given any substantial evidence or data to even know there's a problem.  All that's been posted here is hypothetical stories and anecdote and the white knight brigade jumping all over anyone who disagrees or offers up a different suggestion.

[Ruin Mage]

Idk man, I'm not a dev. I just find the whole idea of some inner puppet masters as touted by you and others to be baffling or weird.


 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shadeknight

[arcane]

16 minutes ago, Shadeknight said:

Idk man, I'm not a dev. I just find the whole idea of some inner puppet masters as touted by you and others to be baffling or weird.


 

The only area I think they might have a point is PvP. I too am suspicious that the devs listen to a very specific slice of the PvP community over anyone else that might have an interest in PvP. But oh well, that’s on the devs. If they don’t want PvP to grow they can keep catering to an insular sub-community all they want.

 

Other than that, every other accusation of white knights or gatekeeping or whatever other meaningless buzzwords they like to throw at the wall… well they appear to be a bullshit scapegoats don’t they. Because the idea that guys like me have some sway over development… well that’s lizard people pizzagate talk right there.

Edited July 30, 2022 by arcane

[Nemu]

Looks like my cover's blown.

 

I am the inner circle.

 

No use hiding in the shadows anymore. There's gonna be some changes around here now that I've been unmasked. Drastic changes.

 

I have in my possession the accounts/alt accounts of everyone in the farming community, and they will be promptly moved to a secret server.

 

I also have in my possession the account/alt accounts of everyone in the anti-farming community, and they will be promptly moved to another secret server.

 

In addition both parties will receive a perma-ban on the forums, your opinions bore me and I will have it no more.

 

While I'm at it I will do the same with the KB/anti-KB crowds.

 

I will also do the same for the folks that consistently /jranger any suggestion without coming up with any feedback or alternatives other than /jranger. You do not speak for me. Away with you peons.

 

The day of reckoning is at hand...

 

You can stop this though.

 

If you convince @Yomo Kimyata that I should be the winner of his scrapper contest.

[Ruin Mage]

Damnit, Nemu. I was trying to protect you.

[Coyotedancer]

Do I need to drop a fire ant down Nemu's shorts for breaking The Code?

[Nemu]

Bold of you to assume I'm wearing shorts.

 

Or anything at all.

[Ruin Mage]

Nemu is after my own heart.

[Coyotedancer]

5 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Bold of you to assume I'm wearing shorts.

 

Or anything at all.

 

That's true.

 

*A fire ant shakes its tiny fist and squeaks something about 'being thwarted this time'-*

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Excraft said:

Where's the proof/evidence/explanation that AFK farming is a huge issue and converting EMP merits to reward merits is causing a market problem?  Where's the proof that there's a character naming problem and the name release policy needs to be put into place?  These are things we're told to accept as fact but we're not given any substantial evidence or data to even know there's a problem.  All that's been posted here is hypothetical stories and anecdote and the white knight brigade jumping all over anyone who disagrees or offers up a different suggestion.

 

Excellent questions.  I believe we were told that we would be receiving a digest to explain why some of these changes were necessary.  So far, just crickets.

[MoonSheep]

1 hour ago, Nemu said:

Looks like my cover's blown.

 

I am the inner circle.

 

No use hiding in the shadows anymore. There's gonna be some changes around here now that I've been unmasked. Drastic changes.

 

I have in my possession the accounts/alt accounts of everyone in the farming community, and they will be promptly moved to a secret server.

 

I also have in my possession the account/alt accounts of everyone in the anti-farming community, and they will be promptly moved to another secret server.

 

In addition both parties will receive a perma-ban on the forums, your opinions bore me and I will have it no more.

 

While I'm at it I will do the same with the KB/anti-KB crowds.

 

I will also do the same for the folks that consistently /jranger any suggestion without coming up with any feedback or alternatives other than /jranger. You do not speak for me. Away with you peons.

 

The day of reckoning is at hand...

 

You can stop this though.

 

If you convince @Yomo Kimyata that I should be the winner of his scrapper contest.

 

you too?

 

[ivanhedgehog]

I was under the impression that there were people involved in a private beta before they announced this, but I dont know if that is true. A lot of games do that. some do it ok, some really mess it up like swtor. in a big development studio they would have a bunch of people to do it, so I see the need.

Edited July 30, 2022 by ivanhedgehog

[roleki]

I wish the devs would just come out and tell us "We're seeing X, so we're doing Y, in order to Z."  Look what happens in the absence of that; there's accusations of a secret cabal, suggestions that would send farmers to Ceti Alpha V, instant 50s nobody asked for... it's not pretty.

 

 

 

 

[ivanhedgehog]

1 hour ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

That's true.

 

*A fire ant shakes its tiny fist and squeaks something about 'being thwarted this time'-*

use the giant mutant teenaged ninja pirate fire ant. that will get him.

[Troo]

fyi - Setup a poll in the Beta forum. Hoping this will give a quick peak as to which way things are leaning rather than wadding into multiple long thread. Voting takes just a second.

[Troo]

2 hours ago, Nemu said:

I will also do the same for the folks that consistently /jranger any suggestion without coming up with any feedback or alternatives other than /jranger. You do not speak for me. Away with you peons.

 

does this apply to those of us who took the time to create a character, a movie, and animation?

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Troo

[Nemu]

32 minutes ago, Troo said:

does this apply to those of us who took the time to create a character, a movie, and animation?

Especially those of you. You will also get 100k downvotes added to your rep immediately.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Having been summoned, I would like to complain about the misleading title of this thread.  This debate is hardly “great.”  I’d accept “pretty good” as more accurate.

[tidge]

Please, can we all just give our likes and lock the thread so I know who won?

[blue4333]

 

[Bionic_Flea]

37 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Having been summoned, I would like to complain about the misleading title of this thread.  This debate is hardly “great.”  I’d accept “pretty good” as more accurate.

 

I was having a great debate.  But now that it's been downgraded I'm logging in and setting up several AFK farmers to get it while the getting is good.

 

So long, suckers!