jackmor wrote:This is most likly whats going on. You can only guess with your best understanding of business and marketing. Imo, I dont think any company would purposly leave the model of there product incomplete. It seems to be in their best intrest to make it the most popular game on the market. However, two major projects running at the same time would put a strain on any company. I give them a lot of credit for an ambitious and creative business stratagey.
It would be nice though from the player standpoint to have a better understanding of the companies goals and objectives. Since I believe they are a private company, they have no requirement to let the public know what is going on currently, or future plans. =( Some communication on this level would go a long way to solidifying the long-term player base, and eliminating the frustration-cancellations (CP).
At this point, I am fairly sure that the majority (>50%) of the community believes we are still playing a product that should still be in beta, a good product, but nonetheless should still be beta. The inability to curtail the re-introduction of past bugs, the lack of full disclosure of patch contents (not sure they know what is in the patch at this point), and the clear inability to have a cohesive plan for the release of content (i.e. early release of Encyc content bugs and problematic for early advanced players). All point to some deficiencies in the development process.
Fear not though, every software development team has these problems. And must work through them. Here is to wishing them a speedy process introduction and adoption schedule.
Now for my RANT stop here if you wish and please no flaming:
I get the whole living world thing, but here is my problem. On a server reset or server problem, the world does not act as through it is living. In fact it appears to just re-roll where everyhting pops-up at. BLAH, this is ugly. I am sure every mob location, and dispostion could be stored in a database if it currently is not and a server reset should read that information upon coming back up. Why on earth would the Yetin pop-back up in bog on a server reset. This does not seem to be living to me. Now, I am sure the complexity of this game is beyond my current imagination. There are 100's of moving and stationary objects flowing around the world making their own decisions on migrations, actions, etc. But please, please, please, live up to what you claim the world is or is trying to be. Everyone that is still here believes in the potential, and if you put your focus on the game and deliver big time, the community will cheer you. In fact, the revenues and numbers will show that as well. This community is very closely knit, and if you deliver to them, the entire MMORPG community will see it and hear about it from your current subscribers. We are your top advertisers and always will be. Your efforts to produce another revenue stream (Through comercial release of the NeL engine) makes good business sense, however without commnication to your current revenue stream (the Ryzom Players), the community only sees it as a splitting of the development efforts, and the staff. Communication, good or bad, is required. Being in the dar sucks, and I am sure you know that. I personally after seeing the release of the NeL engine, see this as the primary cause for the delay of recent patches. I know no different, please fill me in if otherwise. And lastly I hope, please tell me why you pressure and put the burden on the commuity for testing the releases on ATS. We are paying for a product, please pay for a third party testing company. Saying you are delaying the release due to a lack of player testing on the ATS is not an excuse. Nor does it position yourself well with the community, delaying the patch, as well as diverting blame for the delay.
As my last bit of contribution here that hopefully you read, understand and appreciate, please give each server a method for direct communication and feedback into the development and management teams. The mmorpg community has many many intelligent people that would love nothing more then to provide you with appropriate feedback that improves the game they are playing. This communication cannot be one way as it is today. We are spending our time providing feedback to you, please splurge and provide staff to communicate directly with us, and be sure that responses are sent. One way messages form us to you is not the solution. One staff member for communication to and from each server community on this level would be awesome.
I hope this was constructive, and not demeaning. I appreciate what you are doing, and would like to see you continue to do it and do it better. The entire SoR community would like nothing more than to see you conquer the mmorpg world as we wish to conquer the Kitin.
-With much appreciation.
Noinossalg
From what I see, Nevrax is currently not participating in publishing the number of current subscribers, or current active subscribers. =( It would be nice to see these numbers.
Needless to say, I'm sure they're spending lots of their time working specifically on Ryzom atm 