A call for transparency

[Neptune]

With major things being implemented and removed, we're pretty much playing on a glorified test server as is.

We're not on a test server, and we're not pretty much on anything like a test server. Let me know when you learn to read and then come back in here and explain to me how we're on a test server.

Nah, they're already talking enough for what we have to know. I don't want to know if Yoshi-P has heart boxers or if Bill from Accounting has a Lacoste shirt rather than a Tommy Hilfiger one.

Renshi, I like you but I'm a little perplexed about your post. Did you not follow the history of communication I outlined above? The lack of transparency is affecting the community.

[Asmeret]

In the same way this thread affects our communication with SE.

[Renshi]

Nah, they're already talking enough for what we have to know. I don't want to know if Yoshi-P has heart boxers or if Bill from Accounting has a Lacoste shirt rather than a Tommy Hilfiger one.

[Spellbinder]

I'd say their level of communication is much better than the "locked away in an ivory tower" style communication I remember from my days in FFXI. I say let them crawl before they try to run a triathlon in communicating with the player base.

[Nipa]

I want one of SE programmer, one who is actually able to understand exactly why, for instance, adding mailboxes or LS remote control is so hard, to explain the broad workings of their whole client-server architecture, as well as their development chain.

I don't want this explanation coming from a manager, a designer or some PR people, I want it from someone who understand the inner workings of the whole game. I don't care if it's in Japanese, I don't case if its badly written, I don't care if it's not advertised in big font on the lodestone.

But I think now this is the only thing that could restore a bit of credibility in SE. Either they assume they don't have the skills to make a decent MMO yet, and it will take years to acquire them, either they continue BSing us with whatever new anecdotal feature planned for the next patch/month/semester and asking themselves fundamental questions such as "shall we jump?" or "what color for the new event bells?".

More transparency. Way more transparency.

[Mack]

I want one of SE programmer, one who is actually able to understand exactly why, for instance, adding mailboxes or LS remote control is so hard, to explain the broad workings of their whole client-server architecture, as well as their development chain.

Talk about time well spent (/sarcasm). Aside from the odd nerd that will understand anything that programmer is talking about I think the majority of people don't care WHY its so hard to add something like mailboxes or /searching or LS control but more care as to WHEN these things will be added regardless of how difficult it is. I can appreciate the programmers hard work and I understand, as your average gamer, how difficult it must be to program video games (I've done some programming long ago) but also as a gamer considering the programmer in this case is SE I don't care about excuses and want results.

I love it when people talk about others' lack of knowledge in software programming and keep making excuses for SE taking their sweet time overhauling this game. While those people are smart and know the overlay of the programming structure and its intricacies what they don't understand is that a company like SE, if they were serious about saving this game, would induce more and more resources into the project (that is if they actually think it'll pay off). To me, them taking their time doesn't bode well and tells me they don't think this game will ever become a big hit but a mediocre should have been sometime down the road.

[Neptune]

Amen Nipa.

Fair enough, Renshi.

To me, them taking their time doesn't bode well and tells me they don't think this game will ever become a big hit but a mediocre should have been sometime down the road.

I wonder if there is some truth to this. The only legit reason I can think of as to why things take so long is that somehow all of the existing code is super bad. They can't afford to lose time by creating a new game engine so they have to bring in new people to look at the code, which is definitely happening to some extent. I wonder if it makes a difference if you have 500 programmers or 1 programmer looking at bad code and trying to untangle the knot. It seems like the old "too many chefs in the kitchen" dilemma. But I also wonder, is bad programming the only thing to blame for how long things are taking?

Clearly SE in 7 months can't accomplish what most other MMO dev teams can do in 1-2 months. Aion just got another graphics engine. I'm not sure how long that was in development but I think it was less than 6 months.

[Mack]

Amen Nipa.

Fair enough, Renshi.



I wonder if there is some truth to this. The only legit reason I can think of as to why things take so long is that somehow all of the existing code is super bad. They can't afford to lose time by creating a new game engine so they have to bring in new people to look at the code, which is definitely happening to some extent. I wonder if it makes a difference if you have 500 programmers or 1 programmer looking at bad code and trying to untangle the knot. It seems like the old "too many chefs in the kitchen" dilemma. But I also wonder, is bad programming the only thing to blame for how long things are taking?

Clearly SE in 7 months can't accomplish what most other MMO dev teams can do in 1-2 months. Aion just got another graphics engine. I'm not sure how long that was in development but I think it was less than 6 months.

Well its not just the programming right? everything seems to have taken a slow route so to speak. What I hope is happening is reprogramming and battle system overhaul and in the background there are teams working on a lot of content but the producer letters tell me too little is being worked on so far. I'm less worried about "too many chefs in the kitchen" as opposed to too many eggs in a single basket....well not really worried, but just sort of observing now, since I've basically lost all care for this game lately. I guess we'll see what happens.

[Neptune]

Well its not just the programming right? everything seems to have taken a slow route so to speak. What I hope is happening is reprogramming and battle system overhaul and in the background there are teams working on a lot of content but the producer letters tell me too little is being worked on so far. I'm less worried about "too many chefs in the kitchen" as opposed to too many eggs in a single basket....well not really worried, but just sort of observing now, since I've basically lost all care for this game lately. I guess we'll see what happens.

You know you have a point. The battle system blueprint, released a couple of weeks ago, shows a surprising lack of finalization. How it could take the team more than 7 months to complete their analysis of the battle system baffles me. What else is a good example of something very slow going that might be unrelated to programming?

[Mack]

Off the top of my head, for example, they mention including only two dungeons in this coming patch for content - that is one thing, how long does it take to make two dungeons really? they've been working on this game past its release for 7 months like you said, if they have different teams (well loaded teams that is) working on different categories you would think 7 months of work would get us at the very least 2 dungeons per given level (i.e., maybe at R20, 30, 40, 50, etc.). And its not just dungeons, they are still just "talking" about Chocobos...what is there to talk about exactly? why has no one been working on this stuff already? what about player housing for example, or player companies that were promised to us last year even.

I know all these have a programming portion to them but according to the developer's letters they have hardly touched up on them yet. Just seems to me like SE are in a state of "we already screwed this up so we'll see what we can salvage and move on"...as in they aren't willing to inject too much more equity into this project (or at least not more than necessary by their calculations and I bet it wont be enough). From where I'm sitting this game wont even surpass FFXI in overall subscribers, I doubt that's what they had planned when they were working on it, it still baffles me how wrong things went too. Its too bad really; I know some people will call me a troll but I'm saying it like I see it, I would have loved nothing more then selling my soul to this game for the next decade but I don't think its ever going to happen.