Geeze. Now I have no idea what’s going to happen with public worlds.
Do I bother with my plans, or go do something else for awhile to see what happens?
Not really interested in spending more time on something if it won’t exist in a couple of months.
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Honestly I don’t know. I’ve never been privy to how the “discussion” phase is or the timing or frequency. I talked twice about it but no idea how they really do any of that stuff. I just take people at their word and do assume that it does mean various discussions and touch points over that time.
Even if they talked every day about it, clearly something is missing - be that really understanding of how we all play the game - or us just not understanding their side and what they might be faced with.
We do need to be fair and acknowledge that we have NO idea what challenges they have or who higher up in the chain is forcing them to move forward. This happens a lot in companies… everyone says “hold on” and some boss says GO.
Either way I did think it would be tested longer too.
I don’t think a community manager will help at all in the box they have built with this game. It helps keep the community from pulling out their pitchforks but it does really nothing to help the X fix causes Y issue and Z loss of player. That is fundamental game design decisions that are now competing with other decisions. Like trying to serve too many people at once… it all goes to hell.
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Public worlds will exist. But honestly I think we are seeing the results of decisions about “how they should be played on.” I as well am not sure how we can scale in this conflict design and keep anyone happy.
I see this a lot where I work and over the years of my career - not saying we are doing so please get the main thought: Usually something that is easy to accomplish or achieve is done. If it looks like it should be and isn’t happening, it likely isn’t because the people doing it are stupid or clueless, it is because it is actually hard or there isn’t the right team all in place or something else somewhere is causing it to not work and people aren’t clear on what that is.
For me clarity of the situation and issue is mega important before I ever apply technology or design to try to fix. My job requires that daily.
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As a former QA Analyst in both fintech and telecom, this statement is calling to me. I’ve really been avoiding posting useless complaints or seemingly derogatory posts about the development process here, but this was a farce.
While it’s pretty devastating to create a situation where a minimum of 7-10, and up to 20+ players would have to collaborate to transfer a single beacon between two owners in a co-op build style that is repeated across the universe is an awfully big oversight.
Especially since the basic form of the problem was brought up immediately and even explained to them with pictures.
The footfall issue is a clear sign that no hard analysis was done regarding effects on core systems.
I’m sorry. I don’t want to antagonize the dev team, and oversight occurs. But this was bad, bad, bad.
Ah, right.
- “We’re going to change the way plots and beacons are handled”
- “Does this interact with the footfall system”
Definitely a subtlety far too deep for your average layman.
I’m sorry like I said I don’t want to just be derogatory but this is too bad to even discuss without either a ton of dancing around the point or sounding a bit rude. It was a huge misjudgement and clearly even the most obvious/immediate impacts were overlooked in favor of addressing some internal issues.
There’s no reason to spend too much time trying to dress it up differently. It only interferes with moving forward.
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James stated at the end of last weeks wipe thread that the boundless universe is persistent. It is not going anywhere. In any thread, conversation, or pm they have never said anything about abandoning the live universe or making private or rental planets any more than an option. I am comfortable with the rl money I have spent and used on plots that exist on a live planet. I feel the time and effort my guild has spent on our build is not wasted and we continue to refine and expand. We are not curtailing plans due to any inside knowledge that the efforts might be wasted.
Does not mean we do not want a private planet where we can create a city that covers the entire face of the planet (insert evil laugh and appropriate sound effects here), but I think that is future and still will not impact or cause us to leave our current home.
No one thinks they are stupid or clueless. Einstein and Hawkings made mistakes, everybody does - it’s how humans learn and grow.
We know the devs can’t just wave a magic wand and 
poof fix everything instantly. It’s a process. I think most people are willing to ride along with that and adapt…just communicate what is going on. If they need to make big changes, they should let us know, in some way. If something is just not going to work out…let us know.
We pointed out some pretty obvious flaws in the system that was added and those issues were not addressed. They need to stop adding more fundamental changes ontop of the problems and fix the existing issues first. Otherwise, it’s like the whole thing is being sabotaged.
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I get that and can respect each person’s view on this. For me, I think we have no right to judge them here. We are not part of the team. We are not part of the discussion. We do not have all the information - in fact we have a tiny bit of information.
Is it right to then try to judge the situation? Each person can have a view but we just don’t really know. So I’m staying humble and not judging them for this one. I don’t think it played out well at all, but I’m not going any farther in my criticism right now.
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Hell yes it is. We are spending time and irl $$$.
I’m not saying any of us do or that the larger aspect of the community is. But, in fairness we have some people in this forum that clearly communicate in a way that they believe the Devs are. More than a few posts that either said it or clearly insinuated it.
In this situation I think they need more benefit of doubt than less. I would love more communication but I still believe a decent amount of people in the forums cannot handle that type of conversation or that the mix of people we have hear will turn that situation into a bad mix of toxic sludge. If we had each person holding themselves fully accountable to how they act maybe we could take some of the “real challenging information” the Devs are faced with. But when people will throw things out often and not take their own advice how can that information not turn into a fight. Everyone needs to be on their best behavior and respectful if you are trying to deal with a huge challenge.
I do not know why they didn’t take that Buffer Zone Concern post into light and follow the suggestion to not do it or test more. Many of us provided good info. The team pulled the trigger so they clearly had a reason they felt was valid. It is their game, not ours. So I have to respect their decision.
Some of our problems will almost assuredly be solved by only by fundamental change. Only time will prove if that is true or not but I that hallway example is the type of way I think things have been approached. Who knows, though, since I don’t have all the info. Just wait and see with lots of bags of popcorn I guess.
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