Realistic Expectations

[Bigbelly]

[EDIT BY minion79] "Blue Byte is working on both titles with 2 dedicated teams. A new game is being released and there is no change for TSO."



Please note that the following are pure speculation as the above statement is the only official information released on this subject by a BB employee.

[in response to following post]


There are a lot of good ideas in this thread but unfortunately a great many of the will never happen.
There are two reasons for this. 1. Money and 2.Game development life cycle.

TheSettlersOnline was created by a development team. The coders in this team have done their job and Manager-A now has them reassigned working on a new title. Making a new game can take years and deadlines are always tight. They wont be being reassigned back to this game to make changes just because you think something might be nice or will make your life easier. You are already playing their game and buying their gems which is what they want. The marginal return on adding suggestion-A is almost nothing. The only way those coders will be tasked here to make a change is if they have downtime for some reason, which is unlikely if Manager-A is doing his job correctly.

Right now we are in what is called a maintenance cycle. We stay in this until the game dies. BB make more money selling you a new game or shifting you to a new game, than they will from servicing this one with an ever dwindling population. After all who joins a game that is several years old when you can join that new one that was just released....

Don't get me wrong they haven't abandoned us, there is money to be made here, reputations to be maintained, and obligations to be fulfilled, which is why we will have a product manager, a community liaison, a couple of interns, and we will get allocated patches of time from designers who work out of sync to coders and so are often switched around titles as their work is evaluated / implemented.

These are the people who will be making the changes we are likely to see from here on out in this game.
This is the important part....Your suggestions therefore should be targeted at things that can be manipulated or influenced by these above mentioned people. It is almost certain that any suggestion regarding development will be ignored.

For example.
Most likely to see....
- New adventures. These are just maps and scripting reusing existing tools.
- New item objects or variable adjustments; such as buildings, buffs, generals, explorers. These are game variables that are added or adjusted and new art work added.
- Events that reuse existing code such as the Event Calendar. Alteration to an existing script.
- New Quests or changes to existing quests.

You are least likely to see...
- Land clearing. Involves development.
- Scale changes on the slider in the Barracks building. Involves development and affects game balance.
- New Islands for hosting new buildings. Involves development.
- New Tabs adding new properties to an existing building. Development and affects game balance.
- Stacking items in the Star Menu. Involves development.
- Island Planning / Hold area for buildings. Development
- Rubbish Bin for deleting items. Involves development and has customer service implications.

There may be a time when the developers are retasked or have a weeks downtime and in that case they may get asked to make one or two changes for us here or there, or it may be that one of those interns I mentioned earlier is a coder, but by and large any changes will be as I have described and will be those least likely to affect game balance.

Anyway... I am not making this post to discourage you from adding your suggestions but to try and shed some light on how software development works and to be realistic about what we can expect. I should know since this is my job.

I hope that by understanding this process any contributions made here can be more constructive and focused.

[Sharpielein]

Well, I know adventures are "just maps", but in the end, it's about the total amount of work invested.
Don't tell me Fairytales were less work than changing the maximum position of a slider in the Barracks.
Back where I work, sliders aren't done with "Magic Numbers", so changing something from 25 to 100 or 1000 is merely 1 entry in a config file and takes approximately 10 minutes, testing and deployment included.

The Fairytales, on the other hand, involved creating new buildings (Magnificient Residence, Gold Tower, Fairytale Caslte), new troops (Major, Quartermaster), new artwork, new game mechnics (buildings that don't produce anything until reaching a certain level) and don't tell me all of this can be done without any form of coding whatnotever.

If the total amount of work for the Fairytales adventures was LESS than changing a slider in the Barracks from 25 to 100, then frankly, those developers must SUCK a lot!

But yeah, I agree that it does seem like Bluebyte can easier produce an entire game map with artwork, items and everything associated than modify 1 line of existing code.

[Sharpielein]

One more thing:



- New item objects or variable adjustments; such as buildings, buffs, generals, explorers. These are game variables that are added or adjusted and new art work added.




- Scale changes on the slider in the Barracks building. Involves development and affects game balance.


Now, THAT is just, sorry, idiotic. If a new general or buff does not affect game balance, but a slider does affect game balance in significant ways, then someone hasn't understood the game yet.

[Bigbelly]

ok perhaps by using the words "game balance" I have been misleading here.

This is what I meant in general terms...

There is little resistance to adding new content but a huge amount to altering existing and viable content.

Consider the following....
To create a new buff, an intern could open a game editor, copy an existing buff and paste it as a new one. Then edit this new buff, change its name, change the icon for it, change it so that it only applies to say gold mines and set it 3x's value.... as an example. You can see how that is easy to do technically and whilst it does need a bit of consideration to make sure that it doesnt duplicate something already out there, and that it isnt over powering anything it is basically just an extension of what already exists.

On the other hand you have the alteration of an existing game mechanic, one that is central to all game play at all levels. Even if it is just a matter of editing the top end of the slider and increasing it from 25 to 250 there are other things to consider and it is these "other considerations" that are the important part you are overlooking.

- There is no delete option for a currently running build. What happens if someone puts on 250 crossbow men and then changes their mind. This is more than 8 hours of build time. Players will then be moaning about that and their lost resources.
- There is no reorder build option. If we lock people in to multiple 8 hour + builds will we be limiting their game access.
- How will being able to build max troops affect someone just starting out? Will it be confusing and lead to them creating an army of unwanted troops? Will this ruin their experience and make them quit?
- Some people want a change, others couldnt care less and are happy with the limit being 25. Will the change upset them or how will affect their enjoyment of the game?
- Will there be advantage to some players over others if this change is made? How will they react?
- Will allowing the building of such large troop numbers cause people to log off sooner. It probably will and BB dont want that. Their success is measured and yardsticked against other games by how often you log in and how long you play for. If you log off sooner it makes their game seem less desirable.
- Who on our staff is able to make this change if we wanted it done and what is their workload? How much will this cost us both in time and money?

These are just a couple of things that came to me as I was writing this, there will no doubt be a lot more if you think about it.
The point is, because it is a centralised game mechanic that involves serious issues they are unlikely to venture from the status quo because they have nothing to gain by doing so (only your perceived happiness and gamers are a fickle lot always moaning about something) but they do have a lot to lose.

I hope I am wrong, I get no enjoyment out of the RSI inducing rebuilds.

[Bigbelly]

The Fairytales, on the other hand, involved creating new buildings (Magnificient Residence, Gold Tower, Fairytale Caslte), new troops (Major, Quartermaster), new artwork, new game mechnics (buildings that don't produce anything until reaching a certain level) and don't tell me all of this can be done without any form of coding whatnotever.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.

You just open that game editor, copy game object "Nobel Residence" and paste as "Magnificent Residence" and then load the new image(s), change various other properties and bam its done. Graphic designers did all the work here, not coders.

[Astraldimension]

bigbelly, make this a sticky

[IndianKid]

3 words....THEY DONT CARE.....
they didnt took any suggestion from forum...cant u see?

[Brayarg]

Thing is BigBelly, They have had more than enough time to create an achievement system, the entire collectable system, new skins for gold mines, granite pit and ewl pit (or whatever they are called) improved silo and stores, manors and new adventures, new graphics for the generals and countless other things. BUT they cant seem to get their communication right. There is never enough time in the day to be able to say

"sorry guys and girls this cant be done because of ........"
Or
"dev team are working on this eta 2014" "if this changes will keep you posted"

Now I don't blame the community managers, But its quite obvious that this company needs to work on their communication because it does cost them customers. I am certainly considering going back to EVE online.

A lot of people would be prepared to buy a new barracks, a super barrack if you will. Could be built from the merchant or a normal building from the expert build tab. It doesn't have to be an update to the existing barracks so I'm just not buying your unbalancing issues.

[SmurfAsH]

As I see it.. I think it's mainly a system failure in BB's organization.. It's TOO top-down managed..
Perhaps this is a result of the old-fashion german corporate culture, but it seems like almost every decision needs to be approved from the top.
We got a community team that can't tell (soon enough) things we need to know.. Sometimes because devs don't tell them (soon) enough, but what devs can tell must probably be approved in the first place..
Then feedback seems mostly used to confirm what the top already had decided...and here we are..

[Peajay]

I bet it took a lot of development time and code when they added collectibles. It does appear that some changes to the game were more costly than others, which didn't involve new buildings or adventures. So we know they can give some of the things that so many people have asked for on the forums if they wanted to.

[SmurfAsH]

Not necessary..
At the time they added collectibles, they had already used it in the anniversary advs and kind of in the advs Tropical Sun and Lost Skulls..
Also, the colls seems to basically be some modified "buildings".. Hence the bugs about workers (http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/threads/28735-Change-Log-22-07-2014) and BL (http://forum.thesettlersonline.com/threads/28517-Change-Log-18-06-2014) lost..

[jamieoliver1976]

like bigbelly said if its a case of adding an existing building into an editor and changing a few details then why is it so hard for the barrack slider to be increased in a `rarity` barracks? also by the time players can use one or be able to afford it they would understand the game mechanics a little more and be able to avoid building 1000 xbowmen in one go. the designers could make it only available to players over a certain level (when players are able to do BIG adventures) that way confusion should be minimised.

[imyourmum]

when u deIete the que in barracks u get res back yes the first 1 you shouId be carefuI of course but thats a given, maybe get back the res {if u notice} the rest of whats not been made so if u make 1000 xbowmen by mistake and it makes 50 then u get back 950 worth of res?

[Sharpielein]

Actual Java code:

Old:
Slider troopCreation= new Slider(0, 25, 1);

New:
Slider troopCreation= new Slider(0, 250, 1);

Save, Commit, Finished.


And no, there's seriously no game issues in creating buffs.
A intern can create a completely new database entry by copying an existing one (giving it a new ID), change the name, change the effect, add new graphics (where does the icon come from?), change the constraints (applies only to gold mine)

Which is why there was no issue with extra XP being awarded when using Weak Point Poitions.
Which is also why Weak Point Potions didn't have to get nerfed first, then completely replaced.
Which is why the rebalanced WPP didn't bugs for nearly 2 months on the Test server.
Which is also why Ranged Support wasn't deactivated from the shop for a full month.

Sure.
Nothing to see here. An intern can do that.

BUT NOT ADD A FRICKEN ZERO???

[Sharpielein]

- There is no delete option for a currently running build. What happens if someone puts on 250 crossbow men and then changes their mind. This is more than 8 hours of build time. Players will then be moaning about that and their lost resources.

You do that ONCE, then you learn from it.
Lowlevels won't accidentally spend 2500 Crossbows, because they won't HAVE them, so it won't happen to them.

High level players my have to rebuild 5000-1000 troops PER DAY, which currently takes 15-20 minutes of clickfest.
Their moaning doesn't matter?



- There is no reorder build option. If we lock people in to multiple 8 hour + builds will we be limiting their game access.

And this is currently better as in: I have to cancel 800 stacks of 25 Recruits because I failed a block and lost cannons?



- How will being able to build max troops affect someone just starting out?

Um, when I just started out, I could build 1 Recruit, because I didn't have more troops.
I couldn't move the slider to the right, because my resources turned red.
That will be different as in: how?



Will it be confusing and lead to them creating an army of unwanted troops? Will this ruin their experience and make them quit?

Where on earth does a player "just starting out" get 250 Settlers, 1250 Brew and 2500 Bronze Swords from? I know I didn't have that style of resources until I had cleared out at least 5 sectors.
As mentioned before, it took me nearly 1 week into the game until I could build enough troops to actually have something you'd call an "army" (and it was about 20 Recruits or so).
You know, a lv1 Bronze Swordsmith doesn't even produce enough Bronze Swords for 1 Recruit per hour!
If a lv3 player has 26000 cannons in their storage, then something else is wrong!

For low levels NOTHING will change except that there will be a bigger "red area" on the slider.



- Some people want a change, others couldnt care less and are happy with the limit being 25. Will the change upset them or how will affect their enjoyment of the game?

Yeah, And some people couldn't care less about a new buff. You're REALLY straining the logic.
The same logic can be applied to even correcting a typo in the patch notes...



- Will there be advantage to some players over others if this change is made? How will they react?

It's just REMOVING a terribly, terribly FRUSTRATING clickfest. You're really, really walking on thin ice here.
Dude, really. If they had put at least 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of a percent of that kind of thought into Weak Point Potions, of which the community even WARNED them once they were on test, they wouldn't have had to nerf, nerf, remove them.
Do you seriously believe that they would have put up GOLD TOWERS as a reward for the Xmas event if they cared about game balance and new player's experience of the game so much?

[Sharpielein]

All that said: Realistic expectations are that their developer have intern- levels qualifications, their customer support knows squat about the game and from management side, the entire game is about finding easy ways to milk lots of people for lots of real money without investing up front.

[imyourmum]

+1 sharpieIein think im becoming a fan hahaha

[BB_Ravel]

Bigbelly, it would be highly appreciated if you made it clear when things you are stating as facts are pure speculation on your part.

To set the record straight, Blue Byte is working on both titles with 2 dedicated teams. A new game is being released and there is no change for TSO.

This is not a game suggestion per se, so it will be moved to the appropriate section.

[Bigbelly]

1. I do not work for Blue Byte or even know anyone who does. Anything I say is speculation.
2. The speculation that I have posted is based upon my own experiences working as a software developer for 20 years and from playing TSO for approximately 10 months.
3. If I was Manager-A and I had a "dedicated team" working on this title, and they shipped content at the rate we are getting it, with the number of bugs we are seeing, I would have sacked them all by now.... or quit because I can't do my job.