GD letter november

[twinklez3]

what I don't understand is why they keep trying to reinvent the systems. Why not just add to or modify the current systems? It seems the ROI would be not worth it.

This is the kind of development that needs to happen to brand new games, not aging 5 year old games.

[Gevlya]

Regarding the announcement that all resource nodes will be deleted from gathering/building areas,

(resource there ISN'T infinite, nodes like everywhere end up at 0% with an extremely slow rate to refill)
(instance ISN'T private at all, anybody can freely access all instances)

How does the random spawn location of the nodes WILL NOT HURT the players at the same time as making it harder for the bots ?

Is it planned to introduce a players skill that helps locate the spawn location (like a search skill that can be trained through expertise in gathering/new AA branch, that will allow to locate by resource types (minerals, metals, precious metals, rocks) then by resource types and level, then by resource types and name? )

How does the current situation hurt the economy ? Is the purpose to bring the prices of traded resources on an higher point ?

Prices are already rewarding for players-gatherers, so if the nuisance are the bots (ie gold sellers?), then act against the gold sellers and their spam, this is what hurts the game. But the economy is OK. Better had implemented a customisable filter on the chat windows, and find a way to ban them permanently.

Right now, a Tier 3 building costs around 30.000 materials, at current prices on trader this is about 750-900 gold for 1 single building. Many guilds renounce to even bother building walls in that they provide no bonuses.
If you make it that much more difficult to gather resources, that WILL HURT the guilds that want to pursue building in higher tiers.

That will even more hurt architects who focus on city decorations and sculptors. These decorations cost already sometimes as much as 75 rare of type 1 + 25 rare of type 2 resources worth sometimes from 100 gold to 150 golds, for a tiny decoration (sometimes if not even kind of deceiving by its look) that gives no bonuses, that cannot be recovered and moved (they have to be deleted without any compensations when you want to move place or replace one). Many don't bother at all, those who care can hardly spend sometimes a month or more to gather what is needed for a single sculpture that gives no bonuses.

To compensate the added rarity on resource gathered, will there be a reduction in the quantities required for construction buildings, and even bigger reduction for sculptures? Will it be possible to recover a good proportion of the materials from salvaging decorations? Will it be possible to move a decoration at all (remove it from field and having it back into inventory to be placed at no cost somewhere else) ? Will players be able to train specific gathering skills either to gather faster or to locate finely the resource they need? IS it planned that resources nodes will refill quicker or if they not refill but spawn somewhere else, that the respawn is fast and a newly spawned node is full and ready to harvest?

After reading that letter, this is what i have in mind... Running hours into openworld 'public' instances to look for those 10 pieces of copper you need to craft a level 20 green dagger because you have no idea where is the node now, to only discover that someone else is already emptying it, and if you ninja gather it you might recover 2-3 of that copper and repeat the process 3-4 times, for a total of 3-4 hours wasted, is it how will look the future gathering of the long-awaited craft revamp ? Decoration sculptors will just cease to exist, all people looking for decoration will turn to those that are sold at NPC merchants for 10-75 silver coins.

Anyway if this is the way you want to go, check that 'inspirational' video about what can be done about gathering materials in a MMO to make it equally interesting but not hurting to the player:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvYsVgr7QEA

[Halfdead]

You're atleast a year, Year and a half early on that one.

Priorities are so out of wack. Should be working on the new T5 raid and new pvp content to keep any playerbase. Stupid tradeskill revamp means nothing and is a huge timesink, probably chock full of bugs, and is already a year behind with no replay value.

World Bosses are fine, but a year to wait for a quest? Big hopes anybody will still be playing this game by that time. By the time it takes a GM to answer a petition and little knowledge they even have, I doubt they could handle spawning a boss ever.

Makes no sense the direction this game has been going. My entire guild is inevitably leaving because there is no new raid or pvp. PVE server already feels dead. Why continue such a slow dwindling pace with no timeline of anything?

[Kurt2013]

...

Exactly my concerns, too. Maybe just with better words

[twinklez3]

Makes no sense the direction this game has been going. My entire guild is inevitably leaving because there is no new raid or pvp. PVE server already feels dead. Why continue such a slow dwindling pace with no timeline of anything?

This is now it always goes with Funcom. We ask for XYZ pvp changes and we get Bori- something nobody asked for. This problem is a symptom of the lack of community involvement. The staff at Funcom develop in a proverbial bubble insulated from the experts who have over 5 years of experience to back up their opinions.

GG, it was good while it lasted despite all of the bumps in the road.

[Kurt2013]

what I don't understand is why they keep trying to reinvent the systems. Why not just add to or modify the current systems? It seems the ROI would be not worth it.

This is the kind of development that needs to happen to brand new games, not aging 5 year old games.

Maybe because in some branches, if you work too good you can seem "not working" and if you have nothing shiny to show, you will get a bad reputation even if your understanding and skill is excellent. Also depending on predecessors, to change a system you have to understand it first and you might get compability problems.
In addition it might be, that in the creative field you like to put "your" stamp on a product, sometimes leading to weird extremes like with Mr. G. Lucas who started to twist his own legacy
Still you are right, that approach (if taken as philosophy or general approach) is risky or unnecessary and is a sign of bad respect to those that created the first product. In some cases it is necessary though and hard to avoid, but i am convinced that in most a less harsh approach is possible (heck even with the crafting revamp where systems appear completely different it is possible to just convert).
There are a lot of examples from other artists and companies where they revamp by adding and modify without touching the original atmosphere and idea (a bit like movie remakes...you either like them or not). Even Funcom did this with Turan, Khitai, halloween, Dragonspine, Commons and Ymirs, Dead mans isle, forgotten city, breach, AAs etc..

[Spewie]

For the upgrade to account wide bag if you have already purchased one contact a GM or live Chat they should be able help you not have to purchase more point then what you need.

I find you get a much faster response from the live chat from the account page.

[gcustoms]

As far as legendary items go; obtaining them would have to be a remarkable process. Since the entity is an omnipotent god-alien super-race from another planet who fries people with a single photon beam t5 would have to be?... all-in-one?

too bad funcom has already done this as a t3.5, the Lurker at the Treshold, as far as I can see the only thing that would be believable as far as play ability and storyline would be that if the "Lurker at the Threshold" was a projection of Yog Sothoth, much like Hong Gildong in Kheshatta. Then killing the lurker could yield a portal key that would transport the players to the plane that Yog exists on, fight the children and summon the him etc etc... just throwing out ideas I had in the shower.

[Jaedelyia]

Well, if there's one thing Funcom doesn't lack, it's good writers. I don't worry too much about how they will introduce the eventual T5, I don't think the writing will be disappointing.

[letsdance]

As far as legendary items go; obtaining them would have to be a remarkable process. Since the entity is an omnipotent god-alien super-race from another planet who fries people with a single photon beam t5 would have to be?... all-in-one?

too bad funcom has already done this as a t3.5, the Lurker at the Treshold, as far as I can see the only thing that would be believable as far as play ability and storyline would be that if the "Lurker at the Threshold" was a projection of Yog Sothoth, much like Hong Gildong in Kheshatta. Then killing the lurker could yield a portal key that would transport the players to the plane that Yog exists on, fight the children and summon the him etc etc... just throwing out ideas I had in the shower.

I hope they go back to more commercially viable foes, like Xaltotun or Thulsa Doom. (although Doom is from Kull universe he's been used a lot in Conan comics and movies).

There is also a new Thulsa Doom movie planned that is set in the Conan universe and not Kull, ontop of the new Arnold movie.