Calm yourselves down people

[Charis]

I realize that it is currently the popular sentiment to go and make ridiculous statements about how this is amounting to the end of the world, but seriously... Calm yourself down and quit acting like a bunch of handitards!

OMAC isnt going to shut utopia down all of a sudden. OMAC has invested to much money and effort into the utopian community to let it fail all of a sudden. Brian and Sean have got the new code to what basically amounts as an alpha stage, bugs and crap are to be expected.

Once the new code is in place and running smoothly it would only make business sense to try and start trying to make some money off of utopia - so they will start advertising and new players will come in. Somehow they need to figure out a way to combine the irc community and the normal utopia community. Because once you get sucked into the irc community its tough to just up and quit :P

Utopia will go on and prosper. This community is so full of angst - be a little bit grateful out there for having the opportunity to play the best free game on the web for the last 10 years. We have had 45 ages and to many bugs/downtime under mehul to count. Do I wish things were handled abit differently? Yeah I do. But theres no need to start running around like abunch of chickens with your heads cut off.

[Nicco]

is so nice watching the newbies post.. thing is this code should've been up and running by first week of june;)

we are now in nov, 3 months later and they can't even manage to mount a server and keep the game online, which is not even borderline pathetic but outright ridiculous.

and you wonder why people are getting pissed off?

[hubejea]

Agreed. (edit: I agree with Charis).

I'm certainly not jealous of Sean and Brian, their life must be hell. The deployment plan for the new utopia application was not a good one. As a developer myself I can tell you that whatever angst the end-users are feeling, the developers have it so much worse. OMAC on the other hand has made some poor choices and it has lead to some poor results. Their job is to decide whether to allocate more resources to this project or to continue assuming certain risks and potential losses.

It's a tough spot for everybody to be in, but getting angry at each other isn't the best way to yield solutions.

And Nicco - just because people have the right or reason to get pissed off doesn't mean that they need to; it doesn't help anything

[DHaran]

They recoded NationStates to NS2 and shut it down soon after. Get a clue people. If our player base keeps dropping we are done for.

[Eigenvector]

That's why it's important that we be supportive and keep the player base running. If we quit, it's doomed to fail because we are the player base. Then who's fault is it that Utopia died? Ultimately, ours, and all because too many gamers are stuck up, impatient, immature people.

Every company delays announcements, releases, and everything else because they run into problems. Give OMAC a break.

Note: if you ever have a problem, getting pissed doesn't solve anything and usually just makes it worse.

[Erality]

is so nice watching the newbies post.. thing is this code should've been up and running by first week of june;)

we are now in nov, 3 months later and they can't even manage to mount a server and keep the game online, which is not even borderline pathetic but outright ridiculous.

and you wonder why people are getting pissed off?

They recoded NationStates to NS2 and shut it down soon after. Get a clue people. If our player base keeps dropping we are done for.

It would be wise to calm down

[steveagle]

But its a Catch 22, the reason why the player base is dying is because they cant get the game up. So if they decide to shut it down based on player base, its certain to go down.

[Nicco]

It would be wise to calm down

you think my post isn't calm? i guessed you didn't look at most of what is posted here today;)

[Morieta]

OMAC isnt going to shut utopia down all of a sudden. OMAC has invested to much money and effort into the utopian community to let it fail all of a sudden.

This is bs. All the money and effort (time) they have invested becomes a tax writeoff if the game subsequently fails.
And it sure as hell wouldn't be the first time OMAC has made investments just to shut down a game soon after.

[Eigenvector]

But its a Catch 22, the reason why the player base is dying is because they cant get the game up. So if they decide to shut it down based on player base, its certain to go down.

It's a vicious cycle.

1. OMAC has problems
2. People get pissed and leave
3. Player base goes down
4. Game credibility drops
5. Advertising drops
6. Their funding drops
7. OMAC has more problems (back to 1)

Now if we were all mature enough, step 2 wouldn't happen, there's no more domino for step 3, and we wouldn't have this cycle anymore.

[VT2]

They have two people who are currently employed to 'recode' Utopia.
So far, that's not gone over too well.

Nationstates2 supposedly had an actual team building it from scratch, and also got a similarly short beta-period before being unleashed on the users.
It didn't go over too well, and the game ended up discontinued shortly afterwards, with the final email herding players to check out Utopia kingdoms, which is a reskin of Khan wars.

That's a bit more hardcore an effort than hiring two people to rework something.
If Dylan C was willing to put all that money in the can, I don't see why we should feel any safer over here.
He got the names, and he got the brand-recognition. Utopia kingdoms has been released, and he's probably planning to make something really silly out of Earth.

Just give him time.

[Charis]

Keeping to people employed to code the game so that it actually works is not much compared to paying two people for months to code the game to this point. So yes I am quite optimistic the game will get running.

And for Dylan Collins 2 people is a team.

[Catwalk]

This is bs. All the money and effort (time) they have invested becomes a tax writeoff if the game subsequently fails.
And it sure as hell wouldn't be the first time OMAC has made investments just to shut down a game soon after.

I'm interested in hearing more about that, if you have knowledge on the topic.

[Morieta]

What is to hear? The first part is simple: Any investments made to produce income that subsequently do not, are tax deductible. And for the 2nd part? Just read above re: NS2. They put huge amounts of time and money to rework it, and then scrapped it totally shortly after release.

[DHaran]

It's a vicious cycle.

1. OMAC has problems
2. People get pissed and leave
3. Player base goes down
4. Game credibility drops
5. Advertising drops
6. Their funding drops
7. OMAC has more problems (back to 1)

Now if we were all mature enough, step 2 wouldn't happen, there's no more domino for step 3, and we wouldn't have this cycle anymore.

This made me laugh. How exactly is running a game that we can't even login to supposed to keep players? The pissed off players are the ones who will never leave. You don't get the point. The ones leaving are the ones who don't care as much, can't login, and just quit and go somewhere else. Get your head out of your ass and look at the real problems. Casual players need a stable game in order to stay interested. This game will die before its time, and the blame will lay squarely on Jolt's shoulders.