Vinzyboy23
Member
Yeah, you're right.
To DEVS:
Can we host servers again? Pleeeeease?
EDIT:
Oh man, I forgot the splintering issue that will happen if we can do this.
When can we host private games?
- Thread starter Karnage
- Start date
To DEVS:
Can we host servers again? Pleeeeease?
EDIT:
Oh man, I forgot the splintering issue that will happen if we can do this.
Immanent
Member
I literally quoted this from the Donate section of the main website:
"Other people who aren't likely to benefit from these services are free to donate - however please remember that any donations go towards these current running costs"
So now, why actually bother donating for a particular server that quite a few people want except it goes to maintaining a server that does not concern you whatsoever? Not to sound pissy or brattish but if the US servers are doing fine and the EU servers are doing fine, why not channel Asia's donations into an Asian server instead of the running costs of US/EU servers that "have a player base of approximately 4,000" in total.
I quite enjoy highly intellectual comments.
Chameleon
New Member
http://www.legionsoverdrive.com/donate/One thing again and again and that's donations.How long can you cry about it?There are many players willing to donate,but where to donate??
An aircraft needs a runway to land...
Immanent
Member
that's for those of you who can't see or read. thanks champ
yes he said asian servers. not US/EU servers.
Karnage
Private Tester
Asian and ANZLA people please check out this post: http://forums.legionsoverdrive.com/threads/meeting-for-asian-and-anzla-communities.1482/
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Regarding the fear of whether Asian/Australian donations will go towards Asian/Australian servers:
Yes. Yes, they will.
That element of the FAQ is rather out of date. I spoke to Mabe extensively about this yesterday; donations that come from international locations will go towards international servers, provided there are enough donations to support a server. Only if there aren't enough funds coming from international donations to support a server will the funds go to other operating costs (for example, keeping the Update server up helps everybody!).
Put another way, if one dude donated 10 bucks, we aren't gonna set it aside in a savings account so that 35 years from now, we can give him one month of a server. If folks donate a couple hundred a month, we'll make it work. Even if I have to pay the difference out of pocket!
We want you guys playing, folks; we are not, however, fountains of money. =)
Yes. Yes, they will.
That element of the FAQ is rather out of date. I spoke to Mabe extensively about this yesterday; donations that come from international locations will go towards international servers, provided there are enough donations to support a server. Only if there aren't enough funds coming from international donations to support a server will the funds go to other operating costs (for example, keeping the Update server up helps everybody!).
Put another way, if one dude donated 10 bucks, we aren't gonna set it aside in a savings account so that 35 years from now, we can give him one month of a server. If folks donate a couple hundred a month, we'll make it work. Even if I have to pay the difference out of pocket!
We want you guys playing, folks; we are not, however, fountains of money. =)
By-Tor
Private Tester
I have to agree with Chi-Ro on this and disagree about the worry about splintering. I don't think you are thinking big enough. The key to this game is not PUB's and PUG's. The key is TEAMS. Teams require a place to develop(priv servers). In all my years of Tribes/Legions gaming, I've always had the ability to host a server for a practice with my team and this never caused us to splinter away from the community. Actually, the opposite. The more a team can practice together, the more competitive they can become. And hence, the stronger the community. I'm not saying PUG's aren't useful, they are great place to play a more structured version of the game. But please don't think that private servers or Teams actually using their own TS3 channels is a bad thing. It's actually a really good thing. To me Team scrimmages are even better than PUG's and that's what we need to try and get to.
I have respect for you guys for putting your time on the line for a free-lance project. Maybe it's because I'm not in the dev circle, but it just seems like you guys are missing is a clear gameplan.
Is there a 1 month goal? 3 month goal? 6 month goal? 12 month goal?
It seems to me that the CORE objectives of the game should be most important, and are discovered by answering:
What minimum product would we be satisfied with upon release? Where, if you left it alone, no guidance would be necessary (aside from eventual stagnation from boredom).
A few examples:
Functioning pickup mode (so teams and pickups can happen regularly and with minimal hiccups)
Votekick/Votemap (so there is variety and constant gameplay online - and everyone doesn't drop when moonshine or nivosus come on in every server)
At least 1 server admin on at a time (so people don't wait 2 hours for no pickup game - easily fixed)
It seems like you should be recruiting more people (bear in mind, that means you have to manage them) that do specific things. On a cost-benefit ratio, how does spending significant resources on maps or weapons make sense, vs. the three examples above? Much better to use your core developers on the core objectives, and side developers who essentially ONLY work on maps or models. Since I've been playing, Gorge/Core were added, the Justice freezing issue was fixed, quickchat added, and grenades were added. How many of those hit CORE objectives? Honestly, RockeyRex's scripts have made more of an impact on my overall gameplay experience than those.
Put the bulk of resources on CORE objectives (although it is less fun), and allocate the side resources to maps, weapons, GUI. This will save you immense time before release. Put responsible players in control of running pickups, so admins (Mabel, Greaper, DeadGuy) don't need to be online. I've heard several people say they'd like to make maps but don't have the opportunity. Tell them the barebones of what you want and let them do it with their own personal map-making print. If you don't like what they come up with, have them tweak it, or shelve it for later use or inspiration.
People want to help, but you have to put them where they would be most useful and direct them effectively. You do that by having a plan.
My .02.
Is there a 1 month goal? 3 month goal? 6 month goal? 12 month goal?
It seems to me that the CORE objectives of the game should be most important, and are discovered by answering:
What minimum product would we be satisfied with upon release? Where, if you left it alone, no guidance would be necessary (aside from eventual stagnation from boredom).
A few examples:
Functioning pickup mode (so teams and pickups can happen regularly and with minimal hiccups)
Votekick/Votemap (so there is variety and constant gameplay online - and everyone doesn't drop when moonshine or nivosus come on in every server)
At least 1 server admin on at a time (so people don't wait 2 hours for no pickup game - easily fixed)
It seems like you should be recruiting more people (bear in mind, that means you have to manage them) that do specific things. On a cost-benefit ratio, how does spending significant resources on maps or weapons make sense, vs. the three examples above? Much better to use your core developers on the core objectives, and side developers who essentially ONLY work on maps or models. Since I've been playing, Gorge/Core were added, the Justice freezing issue was fixed, quickchat added, and grenades were added. How many of those hit CORE objectives? Honestly, RockeyRex's scripts have made more of an impact on my overall gameplay experience than those.
Put the bulk of resources on CORE objectives (although it is less fun), and allocate the side resources to maps, weapons, GUI. This will save you immense time before release. Put responsible players in control of running pickups, so admins (Mabel, Greaper, DeadGuy) don't need to be online. I've heard several people say they'd like to make maps but don't have the opportunity. Tell them the barebones of what you want and let them do it with their own personal map-making print. If you don't like what they come up with, have them tweak it, or shelve it for later use or inspiration.
People want to help, but you have to put them where they would be most useful and direct them effectively. You do that by having a plan.
My .02.
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Good post, Jack. Incoming wall of text in response!
The answer is yes. We have specific releases we would like to accomplish, with specific goals for each. They're numerically numbered, have proposed (but not hard) deadlines, and address all the major issues folks see "missing" from the game, and then a whole lot more on top. And no, we're not going to give out information on the precise nature of those plans, simply because our schedules are utterly wonky and things can change that re-prioritize our goals (e.g., testing might reveal that a map thought finalized in fact has a glaring error that requires a significant redesign).
As has been mentioned elsewhere, we are working on administration and voting controls, with enough breadth to solve the issue of "no admin, crap, no PUG."
Game development, generally, is split into "design," "art," and "coding." Thus, we have a coding team (Mabel and Vinci on core stuff, GReaper on web and server stuff), a design team (with DeadGuy and Bugs on gameplay, and DeadGuy and Bravo mapping), and an art team (with Faren, Poponfu, Fuzzy). That's it. Those nine people, plus me and Seymour doing random things and Kryst heading up the private testers, is our active development team. We do indeed have separation of powers, authority, and responsibilities; the teams are present, but as you can see, quite small.
As for what's been accomplished: We aren't going to implement major gameplay changes piecemeal -- they'll break the game without other gameplay changes to balance them out. As we've said before, we're working on new weapons and base assets, but you can't have one without the other, or we'll end up having to RE-balance stuff we've already balanced every time we make a change. This is why we're working in terms of bigger, chunky releases, because every change has to be balanced together. It would take an exponentially long time for us to make each change individually and balance it against the current state of the game, then repeat for the very next change, and so on and so forth. Every so often we'll throw something out there -- new maps, grenades -- but that's just to keep y'all satisfied and because those elements are tangential to the other major changes under way.
It rocks that Rockey's scripts have been so positive for you; they are indeed epic. But they don't change gameplay, they merely enhance it by adding notifications or stuff like max-tap (which, if I may point out, has been fully incorporated into the game for some time). Scripts are fun, but they can only control topical stuff, not stuff underneath. And that stuff underneath -- that CORE stuff -- is what we're working on.
As mentioned above, we do.
We're working on a system that would make this issue moot, and keep us from having to manage a whole 'nother set of VIP players, with all the rules and regulations that would need to go into being a trusted admin.
If people show honest-to-goodness interest and determination, we'll help them show us what they can do. Hell, we already have, and will continue to do so.
In short, I think Bugs and co. are smarter than you give them credit for. It just takes time to do this stuff. Bugs is busy as all hell, GReap too, and the rest of us are squeezing our development time in the cracks. It can be infuriating, I know. But we're trying. =)
The answer is yes. We have specific releases we would like to accomplish, with specific goals for each. They're numerically numbered, have proposed (but not hard) deadlines, and address all the major issues folks see "missing" from the game, and then a whole lot more on top. And no, we're not going to give out information on the precise nature of those plans, simply because our schedules are utterly wonky and things can change that re-prioritize our goals (e.g., testing might reveal that a map thought finalized in fact has a glaring error that requires a significant redesign).
As has been mentioned elsewhere, we are working on administration and voting controls, with enough breadth to solve the issue of "no admin, crap, no PUG."
Game development, generally, is split into "design," "art," and "coding." Thus, we have a coding team (Mabel and Vinci on core stuff, GReaper on web and server stuff), a design team (with DeadGuy and Bugs on gameplay, and DeadGuy and Bravo mapping), and an art team (with Faren, Poponfu, Fuzzy). That's it. Those nine people, plus me and Seymour doing random things and Kryst heading up the private testers, is our active development team. We do indeed have separation of powers, authority, and responsibilities; the teams are present, but as you can see, quite small.
As for what's been accomplished: We aren't going to implement major gameplay changes piecemeal -- they'll break the game without other gameplay changes to balance them out. As we've said before, we're working on new weapons and base assets, but you can't have one without the other, or we'll end up having to RE-balance stuff we've already balanced every time we make a change. This is why we're working in terms of bigger, chunky releases, because every change has to be balanced together. It would take an exponentially long time for us to make each change individually and balance it against the current state of the game, then repeat for the very next change, and so on and so forth. Every so often we'll throw something out there -- new maps, grenades -- but that's just to keep y'all satisfied and because those elements are tangential to the other major changes under way.
It rocks that Rockey's scripts have been so positive for you; they are indeed epic. But they don't change gameplay, they merely enhance it by adding notifications or stuff like max-tap (which, if I may point out, has been fully incorporated into the game for some time). Scripts are fun, but they can only control topical stuff, not stuff underneath. And that stuff underneath -- that CORE stuff -- is what we're working on.
As mentioned above, we do.
We're working on a system that would make this issue moot, and keep us from having to manage a whole 'nother set of VIP players, with all the rules and regulations that would need to go into being a trusted admin.
If people show honest-to-goodness interest and determination, we'll help them show us what they can do. Hell, we already have, and will continue to do so.
In short, I think Bugs and co. are smarter than you give them credit for. It just takes time to do this stuff. Bugs is busy as all hell, GReap too, and the rest of us are squeezing our development time in the cracks. It can be infuriating, I know. But we're trying. =)
Daphinicus
Private Tester
Oh, something I forgot to mention: we are always open to recruiting new folks for the dev team. But finding someone with the requisite skill set and an absolute, unbreakable passion for Legions? That can be a tall order sometimes. If anyone out there thinks they fit the bill, well, good grief, what are you waiting for!? Contact Bugs and send him your resume!
SeymourGore
Flatulent Cherub
I'm still looking for an attractive female developer.
Ucantry2run
Private Tester
Karnage
Private Tester
I would like to nominate Ultraraptor (PureWhooopAss) and Moltendorf....
Daphinicus
Private Tester
I'm doing my darndest to fill the community in on stuff without gushing out with leaks and giving Mabe an aneurysm. But we WILL miss stuff and there WILL be grumblings, which is why iIdon't mind responding to posts like yours. =)