Winter Thorne

I don't think people in this thread feel entitled to anything. However, the devs have said they want to develop the game with our feedback, so we've been giving them our feedback. They've given no indication they've heard it or care about it, which is a bit silly. Yet, they continue to ask for it, so here we are. That's a bit condescending, and a little off the mark. It requires a profound grasp of the obvious to know this is a business. We are the customers after all. They are free to develop the game in whatever way they think will make them money. We are being free to tell them what they need to do to keep our business. That's generally how it works. The last bit of that statement subscribes to the 2nd theory of game development - 11th dimensional chess. We have no idea what they have in store so just trust them, continue to be a customer and accept their decisions and go with the flow. In the end you seem to be telling people who are trying to provide feedback to sit down, shut up, and stop I don't doubt that parts of this comment are very appropriate for some of the other discussions I've seen on this forum, but I'm puzzled as to why they're being made here where people are reasonably discussing problems they see with the game. In the context of this thread it reads like, "Stop being unhappy with the game and be quiet."

I don't think the goal is communications. If it was, they'd choose a method where the most people could participate, and they could pay attention to what people were saying. I think discord dev appearances fall more under the category of PR. Livestreams and discord provide opportunities to "be seen and heard", not to see and hear. Twitter is mainly one way as well. Back in the early days of gaming big producers and devs were real celebrities in the gaming community. Now...not so much, although I'm sure there are still a lot of players interested in being present for a grand appearance. But that's not communication. That requires thoughts and responses from all the participants. Right now we've got the occasional thought coming from the devs, with many shouted responses to it, with almost nothing being returned after that.

So we have three theories of what's happening at this point. 1. The devs ARE listening to the players, but there is an enormous group of players out there somewhere who want something different than what the players in the forums are saying. We in the forums are the minority and the rest of the players all want this new system. 2. The devs are engaging in 11th dimensional chess. They know nobody likes this interim design step they are putting in, but there is some fabulous overall system on the drawing board, which when implemented, will make this all make sense. 3. The devs aren't really listening to enough of the players, and have not used any logic or tried to foresee the problems in the new game design, and are just throwing ideas out there to see if something sticks. ************************************************************************************************************************************************ 1. This could be at least partly true. A few of the leaders of mega tribes have commented that they have had sitdown discussions with the devs and been asked for their opinions about the design. The design does look like something the megas would want - lots of control over the land. They may also be focusing on the pvp players. 2. Pffft. 3. Probably. Or thinking they have a handle on it because of #1, will be very surprised when nobody but the megas likes it. You know what would really help the whole situation? If they tried communicating the reasons behind they're doing, what they think the benefits might be, what problems they expect and how they plan to fix them. Or one time, instead of sitting down with the megas or shooting the breeze in discord, they had an open forum thread ...heavily moderated for a few hours for posting questions/responses and getting some opinions and ideas.

translated - archeage game, has pvp and pve on the same server, has an office that would like to have the atlas, atlas is ark with boats and little else, the cultivation of atlas is ark, the domestication is of ark, if we remove the boats and we place the dinos. Nobody would notice the difference of the atlas with an expansion of the ark. archeage has neutral zones and pvp, and the zones that change from neutral to pvp from time to time, the only thing that is pvp is the sea once you move away from the coast, the system is good for both the pvp and the pvp

I'm stealing that phrase.

I kind of agree with everybody on the thread. You never know what you're getting into with EA and alphas, and sometimes it can be a wild ride to launch day. I'd rather they didn't wipe, but it's not completely unexpected to me. I just use the time to goof off a bit, not worry about "progressing", and just try some of the stuff I haven't done yet. There's a lot of that, because I'm slow. I don't like to chew up the content all in the first few months. But Daemon has a point about what people expect, especially new people. A lot of posters here act like everyone's played ARK or Eve, or has done EA or alpha before, but many haven't. And when those guys read what the devs said, they might imagine a lot of changes, but not server wipes. I think the big problem with THIS wipe is that they're not doing it to bring in something the players are excited to see. If you wipe to get rid of notorious hackers and all their stuff, people see some benefit. Or if you wipe to make changes everybody wants, it's ok. This isn't that. If the changes are as bad as some of us think, it could mean another wipe just to undo them, and that would really suck. Then the next arguments will pro wipe for better design, or anti-design because of wiping. It will have been avoidable.

To be fair, I don't think all pvp players are toxic or just want to kill George. (Poor George). But there are enough of them that they ruin the game for me. It just strikes me as funny that the idea keeps coming up, and it always comes from the pvp side of the game, and the thinking is bizarre. If you're trying to convince a group that doesn't like your play environment to come over and join it, you have to offer them something they might like, but the ideas only ever include takeaways for pve players. Do pvp players have any ability to stand in someone else's shoes and understand how these offers sound? We've had one guy on another thread trying to push this idea by stating that - this is a sandbox game and sandbox games, by definition are pvp. Sandbox games by definition are also all players mixed on one server, and can't be split. When the pve players object to the idea, he calls them "bathroom challenged" mo*@#&^f*#ers, and millenial snowflakes and demands that they all come and play on his server. What an attractive prospect, to spend your leisure time hanging around with people like that, huh? I'm sure there are some pve players in companies on the pvp server. If I had a bunch of friends who wanted to play, and they all wanted to be on pvp, I'd try that too, to play with my friends, but I wouldn't be very happy there. I have played pvp in games before, but it was when I had time to focus more on the game, and when the game had real reasons for pvp in it...long term strategies to accomplish something more than owning a square of the map. Pvp here has all the depth of a board game of risk with some pew pew thrown in. Not interesting enough to put up with all the drawbacks.

Why do all the requests to merge pve and pvp have designs that pve people clearly wouldn't want? Hey, why don't you be a community with us, and we can attack your bases and you have to defend them? Well, because that's pvp and it's not how we like to play. Hey, why don't you all merge with us and you can have 8 squares of the map, and we'll put all the good resources over in pvp? Your salesmanship needs work. Here's an idea - why don't YOU merge with us. First you'll have to clean up your rotten environment, including group chat, character and company names referring to private body parts, griefing, childish name-calling, and all the rest of it. We'll give you 16 squares of the map to pvp on, and that's where you have to have your claims, but all the bosses and the good loot and resources will be in pve. And the skill system will change so that you can either do pvp or crafting but not both. Any takers?

Why? To be more clear, why do you think people choose to play pve?

I agree, but it seems logical that this is the first thing to do to bring those in. The temperature thing either needs a major rework or needs to go, too.

Nobody is considering that the vitamin rework is just the prereq to death penalties?

There are so many strange arguments being made in this thread. Whether it's a sandbox or an MMO doesn't matter. Both of those can be either pvp or pve or both. To say "It's a sandbox game, not a pve game" is like saying "This is a sandwich. It's not a lunch." It makes no sense. The idea that the pvp game is being hurt by the devs adding "pve" to it is crazy. The devs are bending over backwards trying to make the pvp players happy. You guys get two different server modes now. They are willing to split their code into two different modes and the upkeep that requires, all for pvp. Are they willing to make that kind of change just for pve? No. NONE of what's being added to the game was anything the pve players asked for at all. This is just devs being clueless devs. If you don't like the changes they're making for pvp, then tell them. That's what the pve players have been doing. But blaming the pve players for it is silly. You don't understand pve at all. You don't understand the players, or pve games or any of it, really. The playerbase IS split. It's split for a lot of reasons that you don't seem to understand. You can't glue it back together by giving the pve people some little territory on a shared server where they can "pve". There is no choice to put everyone on one server. There is only a choice to keep the pve players or lose them. Do you see any pve people calling for YOUR server to go away so that the devs can make all the changes that are good for pve? No. Do you know why that is? Because the pve people do not want to play on the same server as you. They don't like that kind of game, they don't like how pvp players behave in the game, they don't like the environment, and they don't like being in a little pve ghetto while the pvp players get the whole server and all the features of the game. What do you think happens if all the devs say "Hey, you pve people have to go play on this server you don't like with people you don't like?" The same thing as if they told the pvp people they all had to go play on pve , that's what. It's never going to happen. You should quit losing your mind over it. That quote is like your sandbox quote. You could make any kind of game from that description. There's not one damn thing in that quote that can't happen on a pve server. (Although there are a number of things in that quote that aren't on either server yet..like piracy) Only someone looking at the world through pvp-colored glasses sees that description as only pvp. But here's the last reason they can't combine the servers and force us all to play with you, and people like you, and play the game your way . Look at the way you talk to people - like everyone playing the game is just like you, and that's how people just like you talk to each other. There are all kinds of people playing online games, from teenagers to senior citizens, boys and girls, men and women, gay people, black and brown people..all kinds of people. In RL, many of those people would not be hanging out in places full of guys who behave like you. Why should they do it here? Sure, you can't get away from it entirely, but on a pve server there are far fewer d00ds, little boys, and anti-social screamers, and we can mostly ignore them. On pvp....well just look at the pvp representative here. Keep screaming at everyone about their "mother fucking quotes" and "bathroom confusion" and all the rest of it..because that REALLY makes us all want to hang out with you on pvp. Nice sales job. Keep it up.

http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2009/04/23/5-pirate-myths-and-the-facts-that-belie-them/ Myth 1: Pirates were bloodthirsty fiends who never turned down an opportunity to battle. Fact: Pirates were loathe to engage in a fight. Pirates were businessmen; they were in it for the money. And battling targets could be expensive. Battle could injure or kill pirate crewmembers, damage the pirate ship, or damage the prospective prize. Because of this, pirates much preferred to take their victims without conflict, which they overwhelming did. To encourage merchantmen’s peaceful surrender, pirates promised to slaughter those that resisted them and “give quarter” to those that complied. Just to add: Pirates' targets were not often other pirates, but rich merchant ships. There are no rich merchants ships in the game. If there were, on the pvp server they would be other players. On the pve server they would be NPCs. One rich merchant ship is as good as another.

Ok, the wiffle bat thing just cracked me up.

I could do that, actually...if it's good pvp. The game I've been designing with a friend over the past many years is a mix of pvp and pve. There are real reasons for the pvp in it, and real things to fight over, and real reasons for the pve people to contribute to that. No smack talk or comparisons of private parts necessary. But that's not this game, or 99% of any of the new games coming out right now, because they can't be arsed to provide the depth needed to make a rich game environment. In games like this? Pfft. Pvp is silly and toxic and meaningless. It's like kids running around with sticks, pointing them at each other and yelling "pew pew".

I can't find the exit. Maybe it's because I'm bathroom-confused. This IS the bathroom, isn't it? Smells a bit in here.

Well, first I have a couple cups of coffee and read the news. Then I feed the pets. After that I clean up the house a bit and then goof off until lunch. Oh, you said without boring anybody. For you I recommend decaf.

We used to call that "throwing up all over your own shoes", where you have a huge seething mass of disconnected thoughts in your head and you just open that sucker up and let it pour out through your fingers onto the page in one long hurl. Hunter S. Thompson used to use that kinda stream of consciousness writing, but he did it much better.

Even a week wouldn't cover vacations. I can't see devs ever getting involved in those kinds of arguments anyway. I think when it's done, it's done, if it follows the game rules.

And you wonder why nobody wants to play on the same server as you?

Paragraphs are your friends.

Neither. I want to be the person who comes in and starts setting up post offices everywhere. Atlas Mail - Let's Go Postal TM

And you wonder why nobody wants to play on the same server with you?

That's a good point. I suppose you could argue that if something is possible to do, someone WILL do it. Although we've already heard the counter argument to that - with incentives to behave well (landlords need tenants to pay tax and keep costs down), why should anyone behave badly? The test sounds fun anyway. Can I volunteer to be a chaos factor that just goes around doing what I please? It would be a real stretch for me, but I'd try hard.

Well the subject was the land claims situation. The problem is that people want a claim and they can't have one. None of those theories have anything to do with that. It's fun kicking around game design ideas, but there's not much point in having long discussions about stuff like - What if they made a random island just blow up every day? Flotsam everywhere. What's the point of it?