Utopia Blog 29th July

[Catwalk]

From CW

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. I doubt any of that was done on purpose.

I'm quite certain they didn't mean to screw up. I also maintain that they made plans which were extremely prone to screwing up. The short round wasn't popular in the first place, it became even less popular after it was extended. And now we're getting ANOTHER "short" round? What they should have done (as was suggested to them by many people on the forum) was to simply let the game keep running on normal maintenance and schedule, then bring over the code when it was ready. If it was ready a month or two before a round ended, no big deal. The cost of waiting with the code a little bit is much lower than the cost of being in the current messy situation. That is an analysis they should have made prior to making these plans, IMO they failed at that.

As for the changes in game play itself, we do have some forward changes. You are just too negative to see it.

When these changes were implemented we were specifically told that these changes were NOT meant to be kept and were tossed into the game in a hurry because of time pressure and to avoid keeping us bored. There was also very little user feedback on them, and the ideas did in fact come from Roisin's Genesis monarch. Several players protested the rush at the time, that was brushed off with the argument that the changes were only temporary. Now they're being made permanent through the backdoor. And no, I don't agree the changes are very good. Elf is a silly powerhouse combo, orcs and undead are far too identical (both "train" elites on attacks), Cleric has managed to be even more pointless than Artisan and Raze has made wars unprofitable again.

[Mourhelm]

Does this mean that there will be zero upgrades to the trading system? I think that's one of the things everybody had their noses up for, as the first version was poorly designed (and not subjected to public feedback before being implemented).

Trading system has already been reworked from scratch.

Also, shouldn't there be some sort of communication and planning between Roisin and B&S? I mean, shouldn't the upcoming age be used to set up for changes that will take place on the new code (assuming there actually will be some tweaks)?

It was announced that the new code is a duplicate of age 42 (if I'm not mistaken).

I thought Sean and Brian were in complete control of Utopia and Roisin has moved on to 'other projects'...?

They are in charge of the new code, Roisin is in charge of the current code.
Edit- Now I noticed you quoted it too:

Roisin will continue to look after the incumbent Delphi codebase until we finally replace it, at which point she’ll move on to other projects within Jolt.

-

ok, so we should be able to. But you didn't answer my question of the functionality of the censor button? How is it going to work? we can go in and edit/censor anyone's posts as we see fit? delete their entire post (but obv leaving the "post" space there?) i still seriously dislike the use of the word "censor"... why not simply use edit? it has a much less negative connotation to it.

Bishop already answered that on the previous thread:

this post has been censored

^^ it does that

-

1. We've had time without Gen before, why not now? We're gonna end up with a freaking 6 month age at this point, and it's just stupid.

No one is forcing you to keep playing Genesis...
Just delete and create a new account on the next age of Genesis.
There's no need to stop the fun for other people.

[Lydias]

I have a horrible feeling that not extending the age existing in May was my idea - so I can only apologise.

[mbab]

Right, everyone on gen is having fun :p

[Luth]

I like gen more than WoL, that's why I want to keep gen up. And I'm sure there would be some people who only play gen.

And luth, you basically want to be a forum moderator?

Tzar, is that not what i am already as Queen/Page?

And as for gen...
as i said before, i'm in a top kingdom, and i'm dedicated to them and they are to me as well, and i will not give up on them. but we are already going into a 4.5 month age, plus another 2-3 weeks (or more, based on past experience), so if you don't want to just stop it and wait, end it and do another "short" age.

enough is enough already, geez...

[mbab]

tzar: Its not Luth's fault your wol kd sucks :p

[Sweetiepie]

This is the only comment that was made in response to massive questioning about this topic. Last age Roisin chose to implement random changes that weren't meant to be kept, as it was only a "short" round. Due to time pressure. Now we're under time pressure again due to poor planning, and we have yet another "short" round. I hope my concerns will be shamed by having a proper public feedback session about changes that are meant to propel the game forward rather than randomly stirring the pot, but not going to hold my breath. I also hope Roisin won't let her Genesis monarch dictate the changes again.

Does this mean that there will be zero upgrades to the trading system? I think that's one of the things everybody had their noses up for, as the first version was poorly designed (and not subjected to public feedback before being implemented).

I think you're missing the point completely, whether intentional or unintentional. We're quite happy that you're keeping us informed about the progress with the new code, to the best of your ability. And we understand that it's hard to make accurate estimates. What we do mind is you screwing around with the game to suit your own faulty time tables in the meantime. It would be perfectly possible to keep us informed about coding progress and simply keep Utopia running on the old code without resorting to "short" rounds and random changes that aren't intended to propel the game forward.

Harsh but true and fair, CW. True.

Censor button - silly idea, that's what a delete button is for, but I don't care.

[Ezzerland]

Ezzerland: Do you feel your changes to the in-game forums are beneficial to those whom use them? Your “don’t like it, don’t use it” attitude will not exactly be beneficial to anyone in utopia, period. It’s also significantly different from your answer in the interview regarding player suggestions. Don’t you think?

Fundamentally the in-game forum has not changed very much. We’ve added new features - text formatting and a monarch censor button. The text formatting at least should be beneficial to users. We’ve accidentally dropped the post deletion feature, but we intend to add it back. Our attitude since the AR interview hasn’t changed at all. We’re happy to listen to suggestions and take advice on board. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll agree with that advice or indeed heed it. In this case the censor button is an additional feature - not something to be getting overly worked up about.

From you blog last week:

Luth: Forums - CENSOR BUTTON??? are you kidding me? after all the arguments in the forums about censorship you’d actually put a Censor button in the game???
Don’t like it? Don’t use it. Don’t like your monarch using it? Vote for someone else. When something is censored, it shows up as such, so you know when you have Big Brother as your monarch.

and

Luth: Forums - will deletions of threads/posts still be checkboxed so we don’t have to delete one at a time?
You now click on the delete button to delete a thread. If people end up with too many threads to delete this way, we can look at it again.

What the two above quotes says to me is that you delete threads only and that was how this system was intended. That the censor button is there in place of the delete post button and if you don't like it don't use it, don't like your monarch using it vote for someone else. Either that was terrible wording on your part, terrible reading comprehension on my part, or a terrible mistake completely. Because you come back with this blog to say "oh, that feature was missed"

Well, it certainly wasn't mistakenly missed according to last weeks blog. In turn, I suggest you keep your story straight. That is an honest concern.

Ezzerland: Would it not be more professional to say something like “We are working on the new code and will repeat WoL on the current code until after the beta has been completed on genesis. At that time we will move the server onto the new code, when it is ready to harbor the entire community.”

uhgmebashu: [had similar suggestion]

It certainly is easier not to be wrong if you say nothing at all. Hoewever, we’ve tried to keep the community as informed as possible and to be honest we doubt many people would have been happy about being kept in the dark about progress with the new code while there were few (if any) bugs being fixed in the old code.

Hrmm. Being developers its typically your duty to think outside the box. In this particular case you seem to be stuck in one. Wherever do you get the idea that you cannot possibly give estimations of time scales, information of progress, where you are in the processing of bugs, or etc, by telling people that the current code will repeat until the new code is ready? Do you believe that it is simply not possible to be professional and still acknowledge and update your player base?

Let me give you an example of what you could have said, or still could say in an upcoming blog.

"Hello everyone,

We realize that the previous plans to launch the new code after a short one month age rode on false hopes that we would achieve our personal goal with minimal errors.

In light of this occurrence, we wish to inform you that the current code for the World of Legends server will be carried under the previously normal circumstances (12 week rounds) until we have effectively finished the alpha and genesis beta testing of the new code. Genesis will in turn also repeat until we are ready to run the open beta test in place of the genesis server.

Our current goal, or personal deadline, is to have the beta (replacing the genesis server) publicly launched by the end of august. Ideally, it should run for roughly two weeks prior to the launch of the first true age of the new code on the World of Legends server. This will naturally be delayed pending unforeseen circumstances. We'll be sure to keep you up to date with any large problems we handle and our weekly progress as we have been since our initial welcome on the Utopian scene.


Merry Christmas.

[flutterby]

Luth: Forums - CENSOR BUTTON??? are you kidding me? after all the arguments in the forums about censorship you’d actually put a Censor button in the game???
Don’t like it? Don’t use it. Don’t like your monarch using it? Vote for someone else. When something is censored, it shows up as such, so you know when you have Big Brother as your monarch.

Better question is... What happens if I AM the monarch and I don't want to use it?

The deletion system as it is, works fine. Why change it to something completely absurd and useless?

[MorbidAngel]

So you put in censor button and forgot delete button.. Enough said

Right, everyone on gen is having fun :p

Anyone is still playing it? Except RAH ppl

[Scontan]

Better question is... What happens if I AM the monarch and I don't want to use it?

The deletion system as it is, works fine. Why change it to something completely absurd and useless?

Flutteryby - If you are monarch and dont wanna use it - tricky one eeeh? (hint: you are not forced to do anything).

And as for bringing up the deletion thingy over and over again: its where a mistake due to human factor that lost it, and they plan to fix it - so what on earth is exactly the problem?


This reply works for MA as well i noticed. :)

Also in general: wtf is up with this crudase and bad mouthing? I mean c´mon, the biggest need this game has at this stage is more players. Those few who randomly drops by and se all your **** going on aer quite likely to be scared away.

Hell, i am quite so sure that those selected few who made it theri lifegoal to find errors and hunt mods etc are scaring away more players (new or old) then those few slots you take up in this game.

If you think its so horrible you calim, pls begone and find something fruitful to do elsewhere! I am sick n tired of that, and no, am not leaving this game, cuz i do have faith in S&B and their project, call me naive or not, but fact is, if they fail utopia will likely not be here for much more times.

If they succed, even if not with those 100k ppl they mentioned in their blogg, but even 30-40-50k its a huge success and means i will be able to enjoy this game for many years, and i do enjoy it.

[Dolgil]

From CW

I'm quite certain they didn't mean to screw up. I also maintain that they made plans which were extremely prone to screwing up. The short round wasn't popular in the first place, it became even less popular after it was extended. And now we're getting ANOTHER "short" round? What they should have done (as was suggested to them by many people on the forum) was to simply let the game keep running on normal maintenance and schedule, then bring over the code when it was ready. If it was ready a month or two before a round ended, no big deal. The cost of waiting with the code a little bit is much lower than the cost of being in the current messy situation. That is an analysis they should have made prior to making these plans, IMO they failed at that.

Opinion for a short round was initially positive. It was not until it was announced that several people began to complain. Second time around, they took a poll which was more or less a dead heat.

I'm of the opinion that raze in war is not a good thing. There are several people in these forums that DO want raze in wars back.

In short you do not speak for the Utopian community nor does your opinion reflect more than that.

[MorbidAngel]

Scontan, delete post button is very important when you want to make some thread clean, like aid/orders/contacts. Not everyone uses IRC for that. You cannot just go and censor 10 posts after your order and then put new order. It will make stuff messy and you will have to recreate threads a lot which is dumb

And imo, censor button was unnecessary as delete post did same thing.

[tzar]

Luth, no, you're not a forum mod, as you can't edit any post if you so desire.

Giving someone the power to edit any post in the forums, I don't feel that's right. Especially if some people in the kd are trying to revolt against the monarch. As far as I know, revolting is quite popular in WoL kds, isn't that right mbab?

[Ezzerland]

Flutteryby - If you are monarch and dont wanna use it - tricky one eeeh? (hint: you are not forced to do anything).

And as for bringing up the deletion thingy over and over again: its where a mistake due to human factor that lost it, and they plan to fix it - so what on earth is exactly the problem?


This reply works for MA as well i noticed. :)

Also in general: wtf is up with this crudase and bad mouthing? I mean c´mon, the biggest need this game has at this stage is more players. Those few who randomly drops by and se all your **** going on aer quite likely to be scared away.

Hell, i am quite so sure that those selected few who made it theri lifegoal to find errors and hunt mods etc are scaring away more players (new or old) then those few slots you take up in this game.

If you think its so horrible you calim, pls begone and find something fruitful to do elsewhere! I am sick n tired of that, and no, am not leaving this game, cuz i do have faith in S&B and their project, call me naive or not, but fact is, if they fail utopia will likely not be here for much more times.

If they succed, even if not with those 100k ppl they mentioned in their blogg, but even 30-40-50k its a huge success and means i will be able to enjoy this game for many years, and i do enjoy it.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and guess that while you've been semi-active or etc on these boards you haven't actually read any of the concerns from players nor why there is any kind of mess to begin with. The answer to essentially every question in your quoted post has been answered several times by several people over the last several months. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't appreciate getting banned because a mod didn't like someone elses avatar, and I asked why they had to take that out on me, for example. Nor do I appreciate a mod calling me a moron where if I were to directly call someone else said thing, let alone a mod, I would (and have been) warned/banned for the same thing.

At the same time, I don't appreciate lies and bull****. The delete button is an issue because in the last weeks blog S&B said that you were only going to have the option to delete threads and you could censor individual posts only. And if you don't like it, f off. That most definitely is not human error. That is rather intentional. Perhaps you should read things in the order they come before you attempt to make an assessment of the situation.

I suppose you couldn't be happier that the one month age was 3 months long and that they are saying, once again, that we will only have a 1 month age, right? I bet you're overjoyed. Not everyone is, you know. Some people are upset that they made a deadline and failed it by over 400%. In case you'd forgotten, their initial deadline was at the end of last WoL age, and the 1 month age was an extension to that. A one month extension which has now become a ~4.5 month estimation until completion.

If I really need to continue this dispute with you, you're more than welcome to MSN me or msg me on IRC and we can keep the BS off these forums so that we don't "scare people away"

If you take a look around, these same ppl you say do this gather quite a few compliments from new/old players alike because of our assistance to them. We keep our "fight" with omac, directed at those it belongs to. Moderation, on the other hand, has scared the majority of the "helpful" people off of these boards. As a result, there is essentially nothing productive coming around here, and the helpful people that remain are, most of them, steamed at OMAC/Jolt

Luth, no, you're not a forum mod, as you can't edit any post if you so desire.

Giving someone the power to edit any post in the forums, I don't feel that's right. Especially if some people in the kd are trying to revolt against the monarch. As far as I know, revolting is quite popular in WoL kds, isn't that right mbab?

She asked what the functionality did and listed examples of what it could be perceived to do; not what she wanted it to do. And yes, she is a forum moderator in her own forum and war forums as is any monarch/page.