Producer's Producering

Tiur

I'm a bit busy with some internal stuff that doesn't face the players, I'm sorry it feels like I'm not doing anything! I built a whole new system for gods to use to keep track of things... I feel like it deserves an announce post, but none of you could see it. Sadface.

So, what would you all like to hear from me next I'm being transparent? Word it well enough and I'll actually answer your question. Even things like plans and revamps. But you have to convince me!

Vash

Tiur said:

I'm a bit busy with some internal stuff that doesn't face the players, I'm sorry it feels like I'm not doing anything! I built a whole new system for gods to use to keep track of things

Tiur

***************************[ Schedules for Aetolia ]*************************** ID Name Owner Completion Needs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Vampires Tiur [ ] C B 3 Exploding! Tiur [********************] 4 Tiurjobs Tiur [*****NEVERENDING****] T 11 Test Tiur [********************] 17 Packchallenges Tiur [********************] ******************************************************************************* Key ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C: Coder P: Progger B: Builder D: Designer M: Mapper D: Describer P: Possessor T: Producer !: OMG PRIORITY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looks like this. See, just a thing to keep track. I've removed all of the fun stuff, you'll notice.

Vampires still have a few loose ends, Exploding is just a new set for Survival, Tiurjobs are things like "Reply to messages" and "Ignore issues that require newspaper swatting on the nose" and Pack Challenges are annoyingly semi-broken. Nothing fun or worth an announce for players.

Kelliara

Tiur said:

...and Pack Challenges are annoyingly semi-broken.

To be fair, the entire Pack System needs a critical eye, I think. But that might just be my 10c

Tiur

Agreed. I'm not sure they were finished, or what purpose they were meant to serve. I could see tying it to Rankings later. But it's one of those things that seems like a lot of work for little gain.

Kelliara

I have opinions on the subject (SO MANY OPINIONS) but I won't go into them here, as it'd derail your thread.

Vash

I am disappointed in all of you! Where are all of the questions trying to pry information out of @Tiur?

I don't know enough about the game yet to come up with anything good to ask but that does not mean I don't want to live vicariously through the rest of you.

I mean there are over ten things hidden from that list, this is a target rich environment.

Antehe

Alas, he showed you the exciting ones. Here is the list in full.

1    Mopping          Ignotum        [                    ] 
2    Vampires         Tiur           [                    ]     C B 
3    Exploding!       Tiur           [********************]
4    Tiurjobs         Tiur           [*****NEVERENDING****]     T 
5    ChangeNewspaper  Keroc          [                    ] 
6    RefillWater      Keroc          [********************]
7    Litterbox        Keroc          [********************]
8    G-T-L            Keroc          [********************]
9    Shops            Keroc          [********************]
10   Bugs             Keroc          [********************]
11   Test             Tiur           [********************]
12   Chicken4Razmael  Kyna           [                    ]  
13   AddCraftRules    Antehe         [                    ] 
14   DillyDally       Antehe         [********            ] 
15   CleanHelpFiles   Antehe         [                    ]    
16   Nap              Antehe         [********************]
17   Packchallenges   Tiur           [********************]

Tiur

I am very disappointed with Antehe's progress in Dilly Dallying. This is important, @Antehe ! If do your work, who's going to not do it for you? FOR SHAME

Sarthan

Others might know this, but I'd really like to know what a typical day in the life of a Producer is like. How much is taken up by things like Issues? Same goes for other things like Codework. How often are you down in the Codemines, unearthing gems? Is much of your time taken up by stuff that is more IRE related than Aetolia related?

Tiur

I was really tempted to do a "Day in the Life!" post, with all the information changed to not be specific, funny that you bring it up!

Issues are very fast, if they are cut and dry. If they are not, I spend HOURS of the day discussing what we can do, how it should be punished/fixed/whatever. I would say every other day I steal a player up to Admin and we chat for a few hours to come to a compromise/fix.

A lot of time is dealing with msgs. Regularly an easy lookin question you guys throw me ends up being quite an investigation. Gotta go read quite a bit of code, and because Rapture is IRE specific I can't use your typical IDE tricks to learn how something works. Some bugs have existed for a long time because we can't figure out where things are coming from. @Elorin, I'm looking at you! (For some reason, everytime when you fish, we get like 10 errors. Only you. And through no fault of your own. I have been trying to figure this out for WEEKS).

Realistically this is a job that can devour a life. I try to pretend it's a normal job and keep it to 50 hours a week online, but in reality, I've kinda turned it into an always-on thing. I'm always reachable, and check messages a lot. I do not hit 50 hours at all, I overshoot that by quite a margin. But I might be watching something while I'm visible, just waiting for someone to need something or an issue to come up. I very much abuse that my laptop can sit next to me while the TV is on.

They say a good manager shouldn't have to do any work, right? I am lucky to have a really good team covering most problems, and I get left with Admin decisions and setting up the schedule.

As for codemines... When I was hired, it was with the idea that my two paid badasses Keroc and Razmael would handle the code. I needed to be able to handle some things, like fixing bugs and tweaking, but not really pump out new systems like they do. But it's actually kind of fun so you see my awful code all over the place, while Keroc and Razmael weep. It's just super neat to go type for a few hours a day, and a week later players are doing it. As to how often... I never really close the sourcecode anymore. It's always open to something I'm trying to decipher.

I'll try to do a day in the life sometime in the near future to make that more clear. And heck, if I ever feel safe to talk about what we're working on, maybe I can show snapshots of how that goes.

Have I killed "Soon (tm)" yet? Because I am scared to ever tell you all what I'm doing, lest that thing eat me.

Sarthan

Thank you very much for this. I have always been interested in the back end of things in general, not just IRE. In fact, there was a youtube channel about a Magic the Gathering card store, who was very transparent about his business operations and how things worked, what did and what didn't work and the best way to go about setting up a similar business. Loved those videos and hearing about the ins and outs of things.

Also, please forgive me, but I find that one bit of information about @Elorin spawning miscellaneous bugs whenever they fish absolutely hilarious. I picture them casting the line out, and somewhere across the world someones rift stops working. xD

You know what they say. 99 lines of bug in the code, 99 lines of bugs. Take one down, patch it around, 128 lines of bug in the code.

Lin

I feel like we can safely say Soon(tm) may well and truly be dead. Oleis buried it six feet underground, you trampled on its grave.

Vash

1. I am dumbfounded at how often you have to deal with ISSUEs.
2. I kind of want to buy a fishing pole now.

Sivekui

Is anything going to happen with them classes people hardly use? Teradrim, Archivist, Shaman, etc

I ask as on a classlead we get shot down because 'no one plays the class' .. That wasn't the reasoning but the bigger picture is, that was the reason why.

Archivist is only good for bashing now, 1v1 it cant do it as its missing the physical aff side of things. Link just gets you killed against absolve/annihilate (unsure why it was changed from the old link)
Teradrim has skills to heal out of softlock etc but, Paresis stops that skill from working
Shaman - only 2 people really use it at all for combat.

It would be nice to see them classes which people dont use in combat, be used in combat so we have more classes fighting, instead of the same 2/3 because theyre semi op.

This isn't a post to nag, or anything Just REALLY wondering as to whats happening/going to happen to them classes people dont like to play..

Keroc

There's a lot of reasons why people don't play a class, so what we end up doing to tackle the problem isn't always the same. Generally though, you can expect to see those classes get a couple of buffs to re engage interest in them.

Sivekui

Have to ask @Keroc this going to be through classleads or, Admin themself?

As I already have like 4 lined up just for firstaid.

Also, Thanks for the reply

Keroc

I don't think I'll change anything before classleads, mostly because I'm interested in seeing the player opinion on where certain problems lie. Afterwards, you might see me go through and make some changes from my own mind, usually based around feedback I've received.

Koda

Soon(TM) will never die, it's a part of Aetolia now! Even if it disappears it'll still be in our hearts, just like Knife Girl.

Sivekui

Thanks for the reply @Keroc, unsure what can be fixed in 3 classleads but guess we'll see.

Arbre

I miss Knife Girl.

Aishia

Xavin

@Tiur I hate to say this, but Soon(tm) will probably always be something of an Aetolian meme. That said, I don't think it's been too much more than a meme for quite some time now. Usually it can be chalked up to impatient players <_<

Rhyot

So, here's some questions that have been floating around in my mind .


1) With all the new changes, are there any plans with more bashing areas? Maybe possibly some higher level areas? The reason I ask is because between myself, Wylliam, and Isia... we can clear out almost all of the decent bashing areas within an hour and be left having to hunt mid game areas just to keep getting xp. Throw other people into that mix and you have a very lackluster hunting community.

2) Are there going to be any additions to havens and the haven points that people are just constantly accruing? I mean, I have 352 haven points with absolutely nothing to spend them on.

3) Is there any chance of being able to transfer permanent relic powers to that of other artifacts?

4) Is there going to be any changes to the prizebags? It has been stated multiple times that there needs to be good gold sinks in the game and the prizebags are one of them, however its greatly lacking for the amount people are forced to spend on them, to the point where people might as well not even buy them.

5) Are there going to be any future changes to the gold gained through bashing? I understand the desire to stabilize the gold economy and with all of the changes to the curatives, it gets difficult to upkeep your curative costs if you decide to gain xp/gold through bashing. Reason being, I can hunt for a few hours in some good gold areas and only make about 3500-5000 gold and that's not a whole lot of curatives or even commodities for curatives, for that matter. Yes, I know you can quest for buku gold, but not everyone enjoys questing. And yes, I understand bashing is a minority group in the game, but it's still a question I'm curious about.

6) Besides the Orrery and Lessers/Majors, are we going to see any other internal/external conflict systems arise that will make people work together towards a single goal, ie War System?

Kalak

- Transfer of Enchantments to Tradeskills and providing a Shadow-based tertiary to Sciomancers could be a great thing to announce. But as usual I am not keeping my hopes too high!

- As @Rhyot stated more conflict systems. But what I would like in a conflict system is that not a system like "Ylem conflicts" since it is more then possible to generate ylem without being involved in PvP. That particularly removes much of the motivation to participate in combat. Not much gain, not much loss. Not even visible bragging rights because you are not capturing a place to plant the flag of your city.

- Organizations being able to own shop artifacts (i.e casks)

- Relaxing draconian aura rules because it breaks the immersion massively. I mean the aura drops and then suddenly everyone becomes your best friend...Or you are held from doing a pre-emptive strike on an approaching war-party because they do not have the aura. That makes PvP feel like you are playing a subgame rather then giving the feel of you are actually participating in a war campaign for your city. Of course, for this as well I do not have high hopes.

- Eq Crown: The Barrier of Eq Classes. I do not wish to say more on that.

Tiur

I really hate issues. A lot of times they are things that should be dealt with IC, through IGNORE, or someone is just trying to get someone in trouble. It's draining to go through it, find the facts, and realize someone is lying or something. On the other hand, silly little issues like that mean that real issues aren't around. I've done issues on other IREs before, and our problems are nothing compared. As a whole you guys are great, and I rarely have an issue of the scale I used to see.

Feh, Soon(tm). I'm just going to avoid dates, but I'll let you know what I'm working on sometimes. And I figure, if these transparency posts show true, when I explain something is on hold, y'all will understand why. I'll try to be clear when something like that happens.

@Rhyot

1: Yep! Aetolia is weird in that it has a backlog of built areas ready to go. The problem is getting the story out there. One in particular is a high-level bashing area that I think is gross and icky.

2: Oleis anti-Haven stance lives on. I'm currently looking at redoing a lot of the endgame away from haven points and towards... something. I'm not sure what to do to make 100+ feel like it has progression. I'm open to ideas! Except know that I don't like raceskills turning everyone post-100 into the same thing.

3: I don't understand?

4: I really should update those. I will put it in my queue and try to remember.

5: So, I'm looking at PvE stuff in phases. Rebalancing the drops will come! It's kinda in a balance-content-balance pattern. Right now we're in a balance section, I'm going through all the hunting skills to try to even it up and get an idea of flavor.

6: Yes. But not a war system, because that's a biiig thing. But more conflict coming, with more ways to work PvE and PvP in. And crafting.

@Kalak
If guilds get the ability to own artifacts, it will be with gold. But it is quite a bit of work and, I'll be honest, gonna be backburnered for a while.

I think Aura should last longer, but Orrery and Ylem kinda are minigames.

I do not know you are talking about? "EQ Crown"? All I hear is Peanuts-Adult language. "Wah wah wah wah"

-------------------

So, before, I was talking about what kind of code things I do. So far, Razmael, Keroc, and I talk, and we plan out what needs to happen. Things that really mess with the game go to them. Huge new systems like what Keroc did to shops, or Razmael making Rankings amazing... these are things they bring up, have an idea how to approach, and we agree are worth the time.

I take something that isn't super important, but necessary. Like changing the Racetracks, or Minipet merging. If I fail horribly, the game still goes on. (I've said before, of four weeks in a month, Promos eat two).

Sciomancers/Ascendril, for instance, work. They're decent classes, if not super popular ones, and they're pretty balanced. So when I added recoloring their two skillsets and making a new third to the schedule, it's better that I handle it than Keroc/Razmael. If I hit a major snag the game is fine waiting on me to figure it out. I can pause and move to do promo stuff, then come back, and nothing horrible happens.

Rhyot

Tiur said:

1: Yep! Aetolia is weird in that it has a backlog of built areas ready to go. The problem is getting the story out there. One in particular is a high-level bashing area that I think is gross and icky.

3: I don't understand?

4: I really should update those. I will put it in my queue and try to remember.

Can you define what you mean by 'high level bashing area' because there have been some that have been released as 99+ and turn out to be subpar, case in point, Nal'jin Depths, Dovan Hollow, Forgotten Mausoleum, Forgotten Dome, Dramedo Warrens... these (to me) feel more around the 80-90 levels instead of 99+. Also, how is it gross and icky? If you need a test dummy, I'm game!

Permanent relics to normal relics. What I mean by this is there are plenty of permanent relics, like lifesense, sense_backlash, etc (just to name a couple). Relics like these are extra items in inventory space that can't be modified at all. Is it possible to allow these relic powers to be transferred to any normal artifact/item similar to the way artifact powers work?

Prize bag changes: If you are wanting maybe some rough ideas, there have been plenty of ideas tossed out in a thread here on forums.
http://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/2108/changelog-1115-no-cryptic-chests

--------

Also, really loving the feedback and transparency on things. Also love that you're visible on QW a lot.

Runas

@Rhyot bash without artifacts and you will see those level ratings are probably more on par...

Sivekui

Silly question. is the Game map you can download through mudlet ever going to be updated?

I sent Oleis a long email months ago about it (in another topic it was mention) but nothing came of it.

Basically, Some of the areas are not in the map at all and it comes up "unmapped" and the worst part is 'Highway of Sapience' taken over 4/5 areas and not using the proper names of them areas (old road, highways etc).

Vash

Back in my day when we walked uphill both ways in the snow we had to create custom triggers to capture rooms and add them to zmuds horrible buggy map. Then we had to spend hours trying to move rooms around by hand to try and making something readable only to realize we had dozens of duplicated rooms. Then it would crash and you would lose your work.

Of course that was better than cmud and no mapper. I still have some graph paper with my first Achaea explorations scribbled down.

Good times.

I have yet to find a place that was not part of the in game MAP but I have barely been exploring.

Between firstaid and path I feel completely spoiled (both were a huge help in letting me get back into playing).

Teani

@Sivekui: even though it's an outside source (not client map) there is a - somewhat- updated dot map on Aetolia's website. Otherwise, if someone can teach me how to use Mudlet mapper and how to possibly share it, and I could help with updating it (when I get back home).