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 Post subject: What's next?
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:55 pm 

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So I reached out to Bob like plenty of people probably have with no response. I'm a year away from a computer science degree and have extensive knowledge of the shard.

If the staff want me and others to help, I will and I doubt I am the only one.

Honestly Bob's exclusivity and elitism and hostility towards the community (Yes I read plenty of old posts in which every one has a sarcastic and defensive tone.) has ruined this game. This game sucks massively and nothing works, yet the answer has been to let it die instead of letting people help.

We need new leadership, we need more than one person calling the shots. The only saving grace for this game is the community and that's who needs to take over.

I think the staff put in much more effort than most people would have, but I'm not going to sit here and act like they didn't ruin the shard. Let's get it out in the open here, it's time for someone else to take over.



What I think should happen



1. Anyone who wants to help should be given the opportunity to. This concept of being a mod for 4 years and then getting to be a real staff is ridiculous. The scripting is so simple anyone could make changes.

2. Once a group of new staff has been introduced, we all need to get together and outline the most important and crucial changes that need to take place. Forget all of the fluff that has been added in the past decade, I just want a working game that triggers my nostalgia like everyone else. Why every profession was reworked 20 times is beyond me, but that kind of stuff has proven to be a gigantic waste of time.

3. FIX THE BUGS, MAKE THE GAME ACTUALLY WORK

4. Finally, once the game is presentable we need to work on a marketing campaign to bring back all of the old players. A mass email can be sent out that highlights the fixes etc.


Here's the main point here, Bob has tried to do this by himself which is not only selfish but impossible. The community needs to work together and create the game we want to play.

If I get the reaction I expect to get I will delete my account and you will never hear from me again. Otherwise I am willing to do whatever is needed to fix this game.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 9:01 pm 

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I agree in parts with you LP, but I don't think we should blame Bob or Echo for this.

Some time ago they made a meeting on skype to chat about fixing bugs, add new features, systems balance, etc.
Only few players showed up and I think most of them didn't give a s*** about it. Basically they lost their time (otherwise, Echo was promoted to admin.. I'm sure he's learning some scripts and he's about to going to work on scripts soon).

Anyway, I'm always up for help with anything if someone need to.

By the way, I'd be very happy if old and new players join us and have some fun once again!


Regards,
Bruno

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 11:08 pm 

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I think everyone on this forum is afraid to speak out of fear that they will get banned lol. Enough is enough, it's time for a drastic change before every last person gives up. Of course Bob is to blame man, it's nothing personal, but the shard didn't script itself. It has been an utter failure through and through.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2016 8:49 am 

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Yeah, that's why I stopped playing. I think everybody was afraid that this shard is dead. It's one thing to "talk", quite another to "do". The shard is dead and essentially starting from scratch. So you have to approach it like it's a new private shard. People need to see action. Not talk. How about we get an "official" response??? :/

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2016 8:52 am 

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In the last 2 years we've got responses like: We are training new staff, we are working on it, soon someone is going to do some work etc etc. Next response, if there, will be the same.

The only response we want is source files on a dropbox/gdrive folder to download and work with, because apparently you cannot do it, and quit saying you are working on it because we all know its bs

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2016 3:14 pm 
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So, a while ago we had a post for new staff. We had several apply.
Each was given only the most basic of "restrictions", and they were as follows:

1. Identify what you want to change.
2. Identify how you think want to fix it.

That's it. The minute any of them did that, we worked with them on how to do it, getting them website files if needed, script portions, or talking more in-depth if they needed explanations of subsystems. They were also given contacts to me and echo that we promised (barring being out of town) to leave a reply within 24 hours (48 at most) to answer any questions and at most a 1 week turnaround on getting scripts/file requests, even if it meant i had to forgo sleep, which i did a few times.

Not to say i hit every single deadline, but i hit roughly 80% of them, and worked doubletimes on the ones i didn't to ensure it didn't delay their work too much. Surprisingly enough, after the intial planning session, and barring me and echo intentionally checking up, we got very little initiative from the new guys once it was explained how much work and prep it takes.

Several of them would go silent for weeks at time, then attempt the following conversation pretty much verbatim multiple times over the past few months:

Person: "Hey, you never got back to me"
Me or Echo: "Yeah I did, i saw what you wanted to work on, it's a great idea, except you just said "give me (all/what's broken) the scripts and i'll fix it". Can you clarify a bit more on how you're going to fix (issue that is fairly broad).
Person: "Yeah so give me (all/what's broken) and i'll just fix it".
Me or Echo: "But you never said what you thought might fix it."
Person: "Don't worry about it. Just give me (all/what's broken) and it'll fix it."
Me or Echo: "But that system interacts with these other systems. If you had a plan going in we can better help you and help you avoid breaking other things"
Person: goes silent for a few more weeks.

I made the (all/what's broken) distinction because there were two subclasses of discussions between the half-dozen staff recruits.

There was one other class of reply we got consistently:

Person: "Hey, just let me know when you want to work on stuff"
Person: "What do you want me to do"

Never any clear idea of what they wanted to do, but a willingness to help. This is great, but without a core architect, can really go nowhere. I've suggested to them they try working with another one of the staff candidates or read through old bug reports to get an idea of what they want to start on when they had no idea, but replies generally fizzled out after that.

To date only 5 issues worked on by the recruits was completed to the point of including it to a patch. 4 of those were from Zyon, who made GM last month due to that fact. This doesn't mean the others are gone, just they drifted away. I still have hopes that each of them will finish their projects and make GM as well.

I have responsibilities to those who might play here in the future, you are right.
But I also have a responsibility to those who still play here. Surprisingly enough, we still have roughly 3 dozen players who drop in every month or so, most for only 10-30 minutes at a time.

They are the reason I still keep the shard running.
While I would love to see it grow and regain players and become vibrant again, I will not turn it over to someone else just for them to play around for a few weeks, then leave it in a worse shape than they found it.

Me and echo talked about this for a long time before opening up this (expediated) round of new staff recruitment, because we agreed with the basic sentiment, the traditional method of vetting staff would not work. So we settled on these few, very small hurdles.

We agreed we wanted staff that:
1. Were willing to learn, not just how the shard works but the unique quirks that all the legacy code in our server has combined with the newer subsystems.
2. Were willing to take the time to do it properly. That means usually spending an hour to fix what will later be a 5 minute issue to them, to ensure it's done right and they understand every subsystem they are touching.
3. Weren't going to burnout and waste our time within a month.
4. Could survive without us, because we openly want to hand over the reigns.


As outlined in LP's initial post, we did steps 1 and 2.
It died at step 3, predictably. Just like the last few attempts at recruiting staff from the community. because everyone underestimates how much work it is, how much of a tangled complexity obsidian's code is, and quite frankly how much there is to learn to do a job correctly.
The difference is this time we got one new GM, who is still actively working, albeit learning the ropes slowly.

Were some of the other staff more competent programmers? Sure.
Were they more experienced in shard development? Definitely for some.
Were they willing to put in the work past lipservice and requests for script access? No.
Which is why Zyon is better than all of them, and made it to GM. Because he is willing to do the work, despite not having all the "talents" or "history" the others have.

Talk is cheap.
My skype, as always, is dxduomaxwell.
Any of the 5 other staff who were recruited this round are welcome to skype me, or if they want, public it in thread if they have grievances they feel needs airing.
Any new person who wants to try staffing, is free to skype me as well.
It is may, so i am out of town basically friday morning through monday evening, and will be gone the first week of june, but barring that, 24-48 hour turnarounds are in effect.

I welcome anyone who wants to do the work to help the shard.
I just won't let you rip it apart and then complain when i don't have time to put it back together. I'd rather spend hours helping people learn it, than hours patching hastily introduced bugs. Which is why i spent two weekends cleaning it up and locking it down so we can have new GMs without anyone complaining that i let xx gm or yyy gm and they're untrustable. I care not about your past, but about your motives, your drive, and your willingness to be cautious while you're learning.

Also, really? afraid to speak because of being banned? That's laughable. To date I'm pretty sure i have the least bans as an admin under my belt for the shard, and pretty much everyone can agree that we let behavior go on that would be tolerated almost nowhere else. Because I believe everyone has a voice, even if they can't put it out politely or even factually.


And just fyi. For what anecdotal evidence is worth:
My first 27 patches to the game were done without ever seeing a single script. I told broadband the issue and pretty much exaclty what his fuckup was from in-game testing and complaints. I don't expect this, I just point it out to show it's perfectly possible to work without having any of the scripts. I think this was extreme and only happened because he lacked time to ever even give me a script.

All I am asking of the new guys is to know what the bug is(brief 1 line description), and a general idea of a possible fix (not even one that isguaranteed to work). At that point I pull the script for them and help them learn it and see whether it'd work or not, and point out potential pitfalls.

95% of script work is in-game testing, identifying, and then planning, 5% is scripting.


TL:DR - We've tried what you suggest, people find out it's a shitton of work, and their energy fades. Me and echo can't put enough energy in to keep it going by ourselves, and need self-starters who are willing to actually learn the system instead of throwing random code fixes in without a clear plan.


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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2016 9:16 pm 

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I'll add you on Skype, the only reason I posted here is because I couldn't get a response via PM. My hostility can be attributed to that, but your post is making me reevaluate my perspective so I'll apologize for being a dick and calling you out. However I will stand by my claim that the game is buggy and broken and the only people to blame are the ones who have been doing the scripting.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think players have the resources to test every profession, every loot table etc.. but I also agree that most people given the opportunity would cause more harm than good if given access to the scripts. Also most people don't have a grasp of computer logic and wouldn't be able to infer how something is scripted simply by playing the game. I believe your perspective is very flawed here, people don't all think like computer programmers. Also I believe you had more resources than the average player when you were finding these bugs you talked about.

So how can we let people understand the workings of the game without having direct access to the scripts? That I don't have a great answer for, but I will do some brainstorming. It possible with the current motivation of the player base, people just want to relax and play a working game and that's perfectly reasonable.

Clearly what has been happening hasn't worked. I don't think you should consider the last mass staff hiring as an example of how another would go. If I had to take a guess I would say at least 2-3 new people need to have direct access to the scripts and be able to at least suggest changes.

I will contact Bob privately about directly helping and I hope I am not the only one who does.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2016 5:08 pm 
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What your skype name is DXDuoMaxwell? Does that mean that's your in game character?!?

LOL all jokes aside its nice to see threads still being made.

Honestly the shard is pretty good as is, yeah there are minor bugs and fixes that need adjusting but honestly 1-2 days of work would suffice.

The truth why this game is dead isn't because of the staff, but rather because we are focusing to much on the players that are already here rather than the potential players we could gain from advertising.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2016 6:26 pm 
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What your skype name is DXDuoMaxwell? Does that mean that's your in game character?!?
Yep, we covered that years ago. Short and long of it was broadband wanted to retire and after years of telling him "I don't want to staff, i can just bugfix", he gave me the options of be staff or be banned.

Which I was not particularly pleased about, but it worked. :/


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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 8:40 am 
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I haven't gone anywhere, though I admit I'm more in the ""What do you want me to do" category. I think it would help to have more organization in planning in the staff only forums. "Hey let's all talk on Skype" doesn't really work out for me well. I think a combination of both that and using the staff forums more would get things rolling better.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2016 2:38 pm 

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Yeah I think identifying the main issues and outlining clear solutions is the most difficult part, but that's what needs to happen to get any work done. Like just constantly brainstorming and working on random things you think of is generally pretty inefficient compared to outlining tasks before hand.

I imagine people encounter bugs regularly and just don't post about them, also when scanning the bug forum it's hard to see if the problem has been fixed, or still needs work.

Maybe the first step should just be marketing to get some old players back. The reason I say old players first is because new players will be much more likely to join if there are people online. So what would be the best way to get people excited about playing Obsidian?

I think staff will also be more motivated to fix random bugs if people are active. So I guess the question is what is the bare minimum that needs to be done to attract new players, are we already at that point? If so then small bugs can be fixed as they become relevant and we should focus on getting a few active players again.

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Thu May 05, 2016 11:12 am 
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Yeah I honestly was thinking that someone could add some type of reward system for logging in each day.
For instance each day the user account must play 30 minutes to 1 hour to receive the daily award. Have them be interesting enough for players to want to at least have their accounts logged in for that long. It would give the appearance of a player base.

At the same time we could do some type of marketing, even though the game is so old it is honestly the best system I have seen in any MMORPG. I have played practically everyone out there. People just need to try it out and they will get hooked.

The problem with this is in order for them to currently try it out and be hooked they would have to get a taste of the end game content which makes obsidian what it is.
I was thinking every weekend or maybe just Sunday's offer an event such as that Test Server one. Instead of requiring staff to set skills, just add some type of skill stone or even give players permission to set their own skills (of course you would want restrictions like not being able to set over 760, 100 per skill, etc...)

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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 4:06 pm 
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Could be interesting if someone wants to tackle it to make it work.
Spinning up the mirror server was always on the long long wishlist for one-off events, such as the "destroy the world" event with explotion potions that destroy everything (including houses) that a certain old staff had wanted to try.


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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2016 7:46 pm 
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I'm not completely out of it either - happy to talk things over with you Andy.


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 Post subject: Re: What's next?
PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 5:27 pm 
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Hey everyone. I'm still here too. I would likely play still. Sorry Noone has seen me for a while. I got addicted to herein and I went to prison for a year.

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