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Letter from the Game Director - May 2010
eyeswideopen
Member Posts: 2,414
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=220980
This month has been quite a journey for us here on the Age of Conan team. Launch periods are always hectic and this one was no different. However while we might be a little tired this month, we are also pretty happy. An expansion on this scale is a major undertaking, and I am very proud of the effort the team has put in to launching Rise of the Godslayer (in two different regions, with the launch of the Korean version into open beta also having taken place this month).
It has been a lot of fun watching players get to grips with the expansion content, and seeing people enjoying their explorations of the lands of Khitai.
It almost slipped past without noticing since we were launching, but amid everything the game also celebrated its second birthday. It has been quite a ride over the last two years, with a lot of challenges along the way and a lot of progress. The expansion has really been the culmination of all that work, and everything we were working hard to establish during the last eighteen months. The game has improved in many ways, and it has been very satisfying to see people providing a lot of very good word of mouth to that effect.
That however does not mean in the slightest that we consider the job 'done'. The beauty of MMO development is that there is always the next target to look forward to. So you might be tempted to say 'no rest for the wicked', but let's take a look at what lies out beyond the expansion...
Moving forward...
So what comes next now that the expansion is out? In the short term we’ll be continuing with a few smaller updates, tweaking and adjusting the expansion content and adding in some new quests to Khitai. It is important that we make sure we can polish up the Khitan quests and areas as much as possible. So we will be continuing to focus on improving the performance there as well.
Looking a little further out we are already at work on the next stages of the tier four raids which will expand upon the story of the expansion, and start to draw together the mysteries of Kara Korum and the strange behaviour of the Imperial throne. We are also looking to add some more team instances to Paikang itself that expand upon the Insurrection and their goals in Khitai. We will talk a little bit more about that as we move along with these new areas.
There is another significant update that we will be working on behind the scenes and that is the next integration of our Dreamworld engine. This involves an update to the games engine, including new versions of the render engine. Some of it is 'under the hood' maintenance as it were, but some will also be noticeable in game as we look to improve the DX10 version of the game further, amongst other things. This process will start shortly and is a complex one. Strictly speaking it isn't linked to any specific content updates, so hopefully we will be able to also deliver some of the new content mentioned above while this integration is progressing. Continuing to improve the performance of our underlying technology is something that is important to us, and something that we will continue to work with.
We are also starting to look at a new draft of potential PVP changes. Some small, in the shape of some tweaks and improvements to the existing systems. We would definitely like to tweak the Shrines gameplay a little further, and that is something we will look at over the next few months. We are also though looking at a few things that offer longer term benefits. Included there are things like changing the way the mini-games queues work at a fundamental level to ensure fairer fights, and also starting to investigate further the possibility of offering cross-server PVP games. This is something that we would love to add to the game, but it is also something that involves a few technical challenges, so there are no promises on that count just yet, but it is an area that we are working on.
There is also the never-ending list of player requests and dev team wish-list items, things like vanity armor options, more bank options, the usual laundry list of class concerns and suggestions, and some more work on the GUI side of things that we haven't quite made decisions on just yet. These next few weeks as we work through the summer (when much of the team takes a well deserved break) are about assessing all those possibilities and seeing which of them are worth prioritising as we move forward.
So overall, the answer to the 'what next?' question is more of 'a little bit of everything' rather than one specific theme for the time being. We want to continue to improve the game and build upon the progress we have seen so far. That means now that the expansion is out, we will take the opportunity to address a wider selection of smaller and back-end or performance updates.
In Closing...
The expansion has been a major endeavour and we are very pleased that people seem to be having fun and enjoying the new content, and we are dedicated to keeping that momentum going through the rest of this year.
__________________
Craig 'Silirrion' Morrison
Game Director
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Comments
I am going to offer my laundry list, but I do like what was said in the letter update.
I know that the Tier 4 extra's are there as part of a chain add on to what came with Godslayer which is great. I would personally put that on the backburner a little as there is enough content still to chew through in the interim.
I would like the see something like this:
Q3 July / August / September
Bori Tweaks
Expansion Peformance Tweaks
Continue looking at PvP changes
Tower PvP? what happened to that?
Crafting - do something, start something
Engine upgrades etc
Start on GUI changes updates
Q4 October / November / December
Tier 4 completed
PvP content update released
Finish off Engine updates / DX10 etc. (Dec marks 2 years of DX10 "test" - need it finished!)
Class Balancing tweaks
Basically do the little stuff while people are on summer vacation then:
PvP updates like mentioned for that populous
Followed by crafting update back to PvE'rs and most neglected (Godslayer Crafting Hub would be nice or make something out of the Palace of Cetriss in this area.
Tier 4 / more quests, the Paikang slums update?
I can agree except I'd put some additional quest for faction/AA/tokens/etc., a bit higher. Wouldn't have to be anything elaborate, just to flesh out a bit and help with the grind by adding variety. Even just some simple "fedex" quests would help break the monotony of repeating quests a bit. For instance, there's only one quest as far as I understand it for gaining Tiger faction, that's borderline inexcusable considering the amount of faction needed to get to level 4. And some further adjustment of the tokens/faction gain needs to be done as well.
Performance tweaks should definitely be at the top end of the list right now, in both dx9 and dx10/. With dx10 unfinished, I know there's a big job ahead on that end, I'd just like them to tweak what they have now to an at least more "stable" condition for the time being.
Then I'd concentrate on the PvP'ers fully ( they've been neglected long enough I think ), followed by the crafters and then a couple nods to the Rpers wouldn't hurt, particularly with the social clothing/items, social tab, etc.
In fact, I'd like to see the crafting and RP players brought together more. There's no reason to have only armor and weapons as the sole focus of crafting. Social clothing and items could easily be integrated into the crafters kit. Maybe even a "Tailor" profession.
The engine and dx10 would be the domain of the main code monkeys, so the junior programmers as well as the artists and writers accomplishing many of the other things on that list concurrently with the engine/dx10 development shouldn't pose too much of a problem, at least I would think.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I agree with the above but I have read and may people who have played would also add to slow the lvling down and give meaning to grouping. The lvling is way too quick. This is a MMORPG that is designed to be played for years not a couple of months and to solo it all to max lvl is boring. There is no need to group. Many people left because of these points.
The problem is the players rush though and then say it's too easy to level.
I can give you one suggestion right now that would help encourage groups again. Lock level 80's from entering lower level dungeons and gearing out every noob in sight. Why bother with a team for dungeons when you can simply get in global and say "Any bored level 80's to run me through Sanctum?"?
Here's another. Make it so that once mobs are locked to a player or team, outside players hitting those mobs do zero damage and can not aggro them. And if an 80 hit's a lower level mob ( like an 80 tanking a level 30ish Frost Giant for instance ) first to "tank" it, then that mobs loot becomes bound to the 80 and unlootable by anyone else. This will stop everyone filling global with "Any 80's to help me with this mob for the quest?" and instead have them looking for a team to take the mob down.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
very good list Avery. Agree on pretty much everything. Their offices will also take summer vacation though, i dont think they can keep up with your list.
I need more vespene gas.
Bah, summer vacation? We need Towers and Bori fixed as they said they'd work on after the RotGS launch.
Towers first, Bori fix can wait, it's too late for that anyway, exploiters have gained the benefit anyway.
For the rest, nice list, I like it, looking forward to the patches in the months to come.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Towers? dont hold your breath. http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=1665092&postcount=53
Silirrion vbmenu_register("postmenu_1665092", true);
Game Director
Quote:
Originally Posted by doutorBero
Given the fact that you twice failed to reply on almost a pagefull of questions on the towers content, should we assume it has been abandoned?
As we talked about a little when we released the Shrines. The Shrines content was in effect the a 'light' version of the towers and was the test for whether we would proceed with the full Towers design. Given that I don't think we have smoothed out all the issues with the Shrines yet, the answer is that we aren't looking at the Towers right now as an immediate possibility.
So it's not that they have been 'abandoned' but they are certainly on hold until we decide if they are a viable addition to the PVP feature list. That might change once we have done another round of adjustments to the Shrines though.
I need more vespene gas.
Improving the performance is (should be) the top priority.
I think the majority of the playerbase will agree on that.
look what happend to Vanguard.Bugs and Inbalance can be tolerated,but how the game runs is always in front of you.
I won't consider coming back (bought collectors edition at release, played for 2 months) until the HIDEOUS GUI is changed. Its an abomination!
For a mmorpg that has so much invested in it, AoC GUI looks way too cheap. Change the primitive font while youre at it, aswell. Almost all Korean free MMOs have better looking, even streamlined GUI.
I cannot believe nothing has been done on it in 2 years. It's like getting in a brand new beautiful car and seeing it has old, worn-out wooden panels and a wheel broken in several places, put together by a duct tape.
One other thing that disgusts me in-game is jumping animation.
NEW IDEAS that can refresh the STALE state of MMORPGs
Use custom UIs 80% + of the player base does the same,we know that the current UI is inefficient/unpractical.
and with RotGS a wide arsenal of UIs were updated so you have a nice choise,
small buttons centered in bottom middle with a bit of transpanentcy between them shouldbe ideal,
after we memorize the skills all we want is to check the cooldowns with a single look and not to scan through sidepanels/switch between tabs + it will be ideal for 'clickers' to (high customizability of it is a must )
this should have gone to official feedback forums but pretty sure im not the only one mentioning it.
I used all modified UI that community had to offer, they DO NOT enhance or in any way turn for the better aesthetics of AoC UI. As far as I know, AoC UI can't be heavily modified like in WoW, therefore cannot be much improved.
Real pity, cause I'm sure that many who "did not like" AoC, couldn't explain why. Not everyone can explain what pleases his eye in the way of graphic design.
Compared to 90% MMORPGs on the market, AoC has the worst GUI.
NEW IDEAS that can refresh the STALE state of MMORPGs
they do,lurk more.
This is the first letter from the game director that's worth reading.
AA your list is good, but it lists important things not urgent ones.
I'd say the top #1 priority is the UI: from key binding issues up to the GUI lack of in game scaling.
In #2 I'd say there the issue with lowbie groups ganking higher characters and so abusing the murder system. Add the issue with AoE debuffs too and being attackable while speaking to NPC
#3 would b to fix the weapon hooks
Then once the game feels more polished it will be the time to work on other things.
UI
Crafting (complete revamp, have chance to proc insane items somewhat like aion, but actual system like EQ2 imo best crafting of any game)
Towers
Cross realm pvp (devided between pve and pvp servers, kind of like battle groups if you must use the comparison)
Appearance armor tab/ tons of social items to work for spread throughout every dungeon and zone in the game. (Again look at EQ2 for help)
Gamepad (something like the 360 controller with the mini keyboard in the middle would just be EPIC)