A rhetorical question for the ToD team

[Hungwell]

For a long time the excuse for lack of certain things in AC was "not in current tech". When ToD was planned the decision was made to not upgrade the graphics engine. I Ass-u-me this was decision was motivated primarily by the effort it would take to bring the current game system in line with a new engine. A secondary motivation would be to insure that the folks out there still playing on 286's wouldnt lose their game. (hehe). In either case here is my question.


Assuming porting to a new engine took X amount of work and upgrading the textures/ redoing the GUI took Y amount of work, looking backwards in the developement of ToD, has Y turned out to be greater than X?

For all the bugs and rework found in the original client could you have just redone it as a new application under the AC2 engine?

Just wondering.





And, since we have this 6 minute timer I will stay on my soap box and preach some more. I have played AC since the first month of retail and consider it to be the superior system in existance today. I have spent the past 5 weeks on vacation in one of the other games and this experience has given me pause. Right now in the domestic American market, AC has 2 competitors: GW and WoW. I dont know GW but have played WoW. If you intend for AC:ToD to make any kind of showing against WoW you need to think forward on some radical changes to AC.

Dual weild - a new 4 credit skill allowing an offhand weapon instead of a shield.
2 hand weapon - a new 4 credit skill allowing the use of a 2 handed weapon instead of a shield.
Scepter weild - a new 4 credit skill allowing the use of specialized casters not available to those who dont have this skill.
Pets - either as trained, temporarily charmed, or summoned creatures.
Crafting changes - Being able to make armor/weapons from scratch even if they are not the uberest items would be cool. Making failure less traumatic would also be cool. Imbued items are absolutely essential to playing AC for non mages and blowing one up is WAY too common and WAY too costly. Also, for god sake drop the burden on high level foods. This would breath some life back into cooking.

The above are just a few items. I know the answer will be "Not in current tech" but I dont care. The fact that you guys cant figure out how to make this happen is YOUR problem. I am not a doctor. I can't make you well but I can sure tell you when you are sick. For AC to be anything more than a boil on the butt of WoW or GW, some of these features will have to be implemented.

Best of luck guys. I sure hope this expansion doesnt suck.

[Mal the Mad]

. Also, for god sake drop the burden on high level foods. This would breath some life back into cooking.

.

yes, i always wondered why 100 sport drinks are lighter than 100 granola bars, that is all

[MaddyFF]

I know the answer will be "Not in current tech" but I dont care. The fact that you guys cant figure out how to make this happen is YOUR problem.

Then you enjoy ignoring reality. If the engine isn't capable of somethign, it isn't capable To make it do something it ins't capable of (correctly) would require resources, meaning people and money. In regards to AC I doubt Turbine has a lot of either available beyond the current team. It might less resource intensive to use another existing engine, but that brings its own oitfalls, we may not have the same game dynamic wise as we do now.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

For all the bugs and rework found in the original client could you have just redone it as a new application under the AC2 engine?

This was discussed and rejected because the game would be AC any more. The AC2 engine does not support the fluidity or motion or the the critter densities that we are used to. Put the AC2 engine in and no more PvP or DarkTide.

Then there would be a lot of work to rewrite quests like the Burun Kings, Singularity Upgrades, Black mire to reduce the number of critters. They would have to reduce the outdoor spawns of AL. They would have to upgrade all the textures or modify the AC2 engine to understand the low resolution textures.

The effort to redo the AC content to run the AC2 engine was deemed to be to cost too much. There is only so much money available. Plus Turbine was concerned this kind of change would not well received because of the changes to game play and content.

In addition, Turbine it would have a serious impact on the monthly patches. It takes four times the effort to produce content for the AC2 engine. They were concerned that players would not like having 9 contents updates per year cancelled. In other words, split the January update into two pieces and deliver half in Febuary and half in April.

The decision came down to what updates could be done with the money, staff and time available. Plus what Turbine thought the player community would accept. As we all know, they did not do a good job on finishing the update on time. I shudder to think what would have happened had they tried something even more complicated like a complete graphics engine replacement.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Ghorak]

For both Maddy and Yula:

I'm not sure unless we ask him, but I think that Hungwell would agree with the comments that you both make (That this would take significant work) are valid, however, you're missing the point of the second part of his post.

The "reality" that Maddy refers to is also a reality that says that this significant work will need to be done in order for AC to compete with GW and WoW, regardless or Turbine resources or staffing. Just because Turbine doesn't have the "people and money" or "resources to redo the AC content" doesn't make the game exempt from the fate of aging games in the face of new competition.

.

[Heideggar]

I'm not a graphics guy so the time spent with the graphics upgrade is wasted on someone like myself. However, had they spent that time on something I _would_ like to see, that'd be something to know. I mean, had they spent all this time with augmentation gems, skill credits, graphics, etc., and put in an Elder Game with Land Control would it have taken more or less time, looking back?

That's not an easy question, I know. It's an interesting question to me non-the-less.

Elder Game (includes Land Control) = Always Ongoing, Always Changing, minimal dev time spent increasing this aspect per month.

You could literally spend months and months playing the Elder Game, fighting over territories, defending areas, gaining boons, taking them away, altering your environment, and AC's potential future.

ToD: I don't plan to ever grind for the xp to get the skill credits, augmentation gems, rares, or anything like that. Grinding for xp has never been fun. So, what's left: Graphics and Quests. A lot of quests are set up so when you've completed them there is little to no reason to repeat outside of helping someone else through.

I jsut see the Elder Game to be an ongoing quest. When I used to PvP heavily long ago I would rarely do a quest, or much else for that matter, outside of Protecting, defending, and taking areas from my enemies. There's a way to do this for PvM as well, which would be part of the Elder Game. I'm just saying, for that timeframe of roughly 8 total months, I wasn't concerned about content patches.

Outside of some PvP, there is no ongoing dynamic in AC that changes with the players. Without content patches to keep people occupied AC will die. The Elder Game is dynamic and changing to the players, which makes it a lot tougher to "beat" like you can a quest, or to obtain an item.

We'll see. I still have a sliver of hope for Turbine, else why would I even be here still posting. I think the Elder Game would have been a better thing to have for the XPack, but we'll see how things go.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Just because Turbine doesn't have the "people and money" or "resources to redo the AC content" doesn't make the game exempt from the fate of aging games in the face of new competition.

I agree with this. There is no viable option that would allow AC to compete with the current generation of games. It is just not cost effective.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Hungwell]

You are correct G.

And the response from maddy and yula were exactly the response that i expected from maddy and yula and part of the reason I dont post here much.

The making of AC is a business. All business' are in business for exactly one reason. To make money. When AC stops making enough money to do better than break even, it is gone. An expansion that gives high levels something to do ( and lord knows we needed it) appeals to 2 groups of people: those still playing and those with high or near high level toons that will return. It does not appeal at all to new customers or those that never got characters above level 100. For AC to continue to make money it has to 1. retain current customers 2. Re-Call customers that have left 3. Make new sales to totally NEW customers. ToD should help with 1 and help somewhat with 2. It will have little or no impact in the area of 3. The game must at least keep WoW, EQ2, and GW in sight in order to have a chance of beating any of them to the cashier at Best Buy. Without added feature function and a picture of a hawt anime chick with boobz on the cover, AC has no long term viability.

[MaddyFF]

The "reality" that Maddy refers to is also a reality that says that this significant work will need to be done in order for AC to compete with GW and WoW

My opinion, they aren't trying to compete, and would be a mistake to compete with them. You carve out your niche market with something like AC and aim to be the best in that market.

And I look at this totally from a business prespective. Look at what Turbine has on their plate with LOTR and D&D. Those are what are going after WoW and the other new games, not AC. AC has to build on what it has for strengths and what they have the resources to do. AC has great quest and lore, and good solo for group play (solo needs some addressing at the high level).

Asking AC to try and compete with the likes of WoW and the people that will play that game is asking AC to drive the nails into the coffin faster.

And the response from maddy and yula were exactly the response that i expected from maddy and yula and part of the reason I dont post here much.

Yup, sucks when people point out business reality.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

And the response from maddy and yula were exactly the response that i expected from maddy and yula and part of the reason I dont post here much.

You should not worry too much about our responses. All we did is state what should have been obvious before wrote some of it.

There is nothing really wrong with asking for these kind of changes. The dual wield and the two handed weapons may very well be provided further down road. The crafting stuff might be too. Some of the others have been beat to death. The AC2 engine is one of those. Pets and mounts are likely another one that is not worth the effort to add and play balance.

This game is what Maddy said. It is an dated niche market game. Iit will make money and do quite well in its niche. It can not compete with the block buster new games and any attempt to do so is a waste of money. Turbine made the correct decision. Tubine has two games in development with all the lastest bells and whistles.

Yula the Mighty - HG

[Hamfast]

You are correct G.

And the response from maddy and yula were exactly the response that i expected from maddy and yula and part of the reason I dont post here much.

The making of AC is a business. All business' are in business for exactly one reason. To make money. When AC stops making enough money to do better than break even, it is gone. An expansion that gives high levels something to do ( and lord knows we needed it) appeals to 2 groups of people: those still playing and those with high or near high level toons that will return. It does not appeal at all to new customers or those that never got characters above level 100. For AC to continue to make money it has to 1. retain current customers 2. Re-Call customers that have left 3. Make new sales to totally NEW customers. ToD should help with 1 and help somewhat with 2. It will have little or no impact in the area of 3. The game must at least keep WoW, EQ2, and GW in sight in order to have a chance of beating any of them to the cashier at Best Buy. Without added feature function and a picture of a hawt anime chick with boobz on the cover, AC has no long term viability.

Hungwell,

I suspect the "Boxes on Shelves" that is part of the ToD release will have an effect on your reason number 3...

The bleeding of accounts (some times slow, some times fast) has been made worse by the lack of availability of the game for the past several years... and yes, the cover art needs a picture of a hawt anime chick with boobz on the cover. just to attract the adolescent youth with his parents credit card...

[Hungwell]

In my line of work, which is oddly enough, software, our products exist in one of 3 status' These are called compete, maintain, and sundown. The meaning of compete is pretty obvious. Maintain from our perspective means that we will do the minimum possible to keep the application up. That means government regulatory changes are about all that will go in. A product in maintain status is one that we have decided has maxed its market share and will yeild profits until its replacement pushes it into sundown. Sundown means "thanks for buying our product. Good luck with it"

Which state is AC in? Under normal circumstances you dont put out an expansion for a product that you dont want and expect to grow. Since monthly patches have been discontinued I suppose the arguement could be made that the maintenance money has been used for development and what you have is a zero-sum game.

All that being said. If you dont believe AC can be competitive, why do you play? Any of you? Are we just holding on to all the crap we have accumulated in game and the chance to chat with our few friends that are still online occasionally? If AC is going in the toilet in the next 6-12 months is there any reason to stick around? And...if you believe AC is a doomed proposition why the hell would you bother posting here of all places?

C'mon everyone. Clap. Dont let tinkerbell die.

[alchustriel]

Why is it that everything has to be in qbsolute black and white terms? Life is simply not that way. I am sick to death of the argument "if you don't like it why don't you go play another game". No game has or will ever have the features to completely satisfy any one player. There will always be something that each player does not like and features that they absoutely love. Before leaving any game you have played for years and love, it is only natural to want to make sure that it is over before letting go. If there is still hope that the development team may breath new life into the game, you may be relictant to want to let go. I understand where many of these compaints come from becuase I believe in much the same way. AC has some very good features and game play mechanics that no other game has (and I have played many). That does not mean that I like everything about the game. There is room for improvement and if you do not see that then you are among the group of people that many label "fanatical" and "disillusioned". There is always room for improvement. If a game has a large number of features you like, you would like to stick with in for as long as you can. In the case of AC, there are many strong features. But as time goes on, a product must either evolve and adapt to the changing market, or it must get out of the way for a new product. The players change and become more exereienced and so to must the game. I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that I and many are simply trying to get a commitment from Turbine as to whether they are going to "evolve" or become extinct over time. If AC is to be places in maintenance mode than so be it. However, Turbine continues to ask for our opinions and feedback. They advertise that they hope to bring in new players to the game. A game in maintenance does not seek these things. Either they want new players and they must evolve or they do not and they should not send out signals making others think they do. Many of these suggestions and opinions seem to be based off the fact that Turbine has sent us signals indicating the desire to being in new customers and bring new life to the game. I for one would love to see this. But once and for all, make it clear whether this is the goal or not. It is hard for any individual player to make a decision as to whether they want to stay and see things change, or go try out other games, if they keep getting mixed signals from their current game developer. Mind you, I am not advocating for one feature or another. But adding content and improving high level content does little to bringing in new players. The comment was made in this thread that if you make the software box aluring that people will come. That model only works in single players games. In a subsription based MMORPG you must have a reason for the players to stay and continue to pay their subscription or they will leave. I have tried many many times to bring friends to AC and have met with disappointment many times. The majority of the time they find the controls, graphics and difficulty of getting used to the starting play to be too much of a burden to overcome. In the end most of those I brought over quit after only a few days of play. And I hear the same story from other friends who have tried as well. If we are really going to get new players into the game, the infastructe must be layed to do it or we should stop disillusioning ourselves and being told that this is the goal. Which is it?

[MaddyFF]

All that being said. If you dont believe AC can be competitive, why do you play? Any of you?

AC is competitive in the market it is going after, and can grow in that market. It isn't going after the WoW market, different players with different wants of a game.

Trying to make AC into a WoW competitor is like making a NASCAR into a Formula One competitor. Wrong market.

Go after the people that enjoy the playstyle of AC and those that are looking at playing a MMORPG but don't have the hardware for a WoW type of game.

[alchustriel]

I never said that AC should chase after WoW or any other game. As a matter of fact I said that AC has many unique features that makes it unlike many other games. But even in a vaccum, even if no other games existed to compete with, any game must evolve or be replcaed. As the player base changes and becomes more experienced, the game must change. I do not mean adding high level content, that is only part of an evolution. i am talking about things like updating the controls used to control movement in the game.

I know there are many that will neven admit it, but AC never implemented movement in a usable way to begin with. Try using the look up or look down feature to change you view only a little bit. You can't do it. The camera makes radical swings and you cannot control small movements. Other things such asmovable windows and an updated interface (yes I know they are doing this in ToD but it has taken forever). The fact is that many that play AC still play it because they know nothing else. No matter what they do these players will stay and resist change until they pull the plug on the game. But the sad fact is, that by resisting change and not actively seeking new players, ironically that is precisely what is happeneing. Hastening the death of the game. A poster earlier in this thread said it and it is so true. Regardless of what you want or do want to see in a feature set, the only way AC lives on is to continue to breath new life into the game.

Once the game stops attempting to bring in new players, it becomes only a matter of time before the player base drops to such a level that it is no longe financially feasable to continue to support the game. I don't want to see that happen. This is precicely why I am taking the time to make this post and to respond to this thread. It would be really easy for me to do what others have suggested and walk away from the game. But if everyone did many games would die a quick death without anyone left who cared enough to try and make a difference.

I do not want AC to become a WoW or any other game. I simply want to see it continue to improve itself and not become so outdated that we all loose it in the near future due to the financial equation that will be used to justify its existence.

[MaddyFF]

I do not want AC to become a WoW or any other game. I simply want to see it continue to improve itself and not become so outdated that we all loose it in the near future due to the financial equation that will be used to justify its existence.

I'll agree with you there.

[Al-Egre Arn]

Like others have said, AC cannot hope to compete with WoW or EQ2. Its designed for a niche market. Unfortunately, its share of that market has diminished. AC at its peak used to have 2000+ characters per server logged in. When Turbine took control from Microsoft, each server had peaks of around 900-1000 characters logged in. Yet the decline continues. Today, there are barely 500-600 characters logged in per server at peak times.

At best, ToD will succeed in maintaining the status quo, nothing else. Sure it will bring back some players who have quit. But most of them will quit again since ToD does not address any of the reasons why they quit in the first place. I doubt very few new players will buy ToD. After all, if you are going to start new, would you choose a new game with current graphics or a 5 1/2 year game with outdated graphics? Would you rather start at L1 in a game with alot of lower level characters to group with or would you rather start at L1 with almost everyone else at a much, much higher level than you? Would you rather start a game where you can reach the high levels in several months or a game where it would take years to reach the high levels?

The Expansion is not going to jump start the population. It will merely allow the life support to stay on longer. Without a major change, the pops will continue to decline. Only Turbine knows how many subscribers AC needs to remain profitable. Only Turbine knows, if, and for how long, they are willing to operate AC at a loss. Until then, I'll keep playing because of the friends I've made in the game. But if all my friends decide to go to another game, I'll definitely go with them since there will be nothing else to keep me in AC.

[Hungwell]

Let me put forth a proposition then...


What if, the developers of AC 1 have been directed by Turbine upper management to provide an expansion for AC1 for 1 and only one reason. That reason being to string the current population along until LOTRO or DDO can get to market. The thinking behind this would be that an AC without hope of an expansion would lose people to other games at a faster rate. The good customers, being defined as one that finds a game and sticks with it, would go to other games and be dug in there when Turbines new games come out. This would make them less likely to subscribe to the new games.

So is this just a minimally staffed minimially funded effort to play us along for another 12-15 months so that we can be sold one of thier new games?

[MaddyFF]

What if, the developers of AC 1 have been directed by Turbine upper management to provide an expansion for AC1 for 1 and only one reason. That reason being to string the current population along until LOTRO or DDO can get to market.

The resources they used for the expansion pack would have been put to better uses if that is what they hoped to do. Do live events, monthly updates, then offer betas to LOTR or D&D to current AC subscribers. Cheaper then developing an expansion pack.

[Hungwell]

I disagree. The live events are pretty flat. The first few were good but now they are just routine. One of the first ones i did was to take a drudge npc to do the barons amulet quest. This sort of event is fun and interesting. The "come find me where i am hiding" "watch while i spawn 9000 monsters" or "our prison system sucks track down the escapee" events are fairly boring and not worth the rewards given. The dangling carrot of an expansion does far more to inspire folks to stick around than a monthly update or live events that do not involve significant employee involvement.


The cost of the expansion is offset by preorders. Since monthly props have been suspended, the difference in expense between reworking the client for the expansion and doing monthly props should be completely offset by the preorder dollars. I am assuming they did not hire employees to do in game events but instead are using their regular support staff to do them. This of course means that support issues will take longer to resolve when an event is going on. If they did not do this then montly props + live events could actually cost more than doing the expansion.


All that being said, adding my original question to my previous post we are presented with a choice as to the direction Turbine is going with AC. Either Turbine is using the expansion as a stop gap to hold us for DDO and LOTORO or Turbine really believes that AC can compete in the current MMORPG market. I do not believe that Turbine is dumb enough to think that AC can continue to exist in its current niche. I know personally at least 50 ex-ac players. Of these less than half anticipate comming back for the expansion. They have moved to WoW or GW and will not come back. As far as surviving within a niche goes, perhaps 6 months ago when we still had 5-7 hundred clients attached during US primetime, we might have been at a level where AC could maintain its niche and remain viable. Now, with less than 400 on during primetime and well under 300 in off hours, I just dont think that is possible. Assuming 50% of those that left 6 months ago return for the expansion and actually stick around more than a couple of months, you still only have 500 actives at the most during prime time. This would be less than 25% of what you would see 2 years ago.

In my opinion AC cannot exist in this niche because the hardcore population of this niche has been decimated by attrition to other games. AC can only survive by gaining new players and that means taking players away from other games. Steps must be taken by Turbine, if they have a long term active vision for AC 1, to make the game more attractive to new customers. If these efforts are not taken, 1 year from now there will be no AC.

[Al-Egre Arn]

ToD will be profitable. Five months of monthly updates were cancelled for it, yet they still received monthly subscriptions from players. Add in the box cost of ToD. Also factor in that they will get a month or two worth of subscriptions from those who come back to try it. Plus, ToD will lessen the attrition rate of lost players, at least for a little bit. So it is financially sound for Turbine to release ToD. They will make more of a profit than if they didnt release an expansion pack. AC's numbers will continue to dwindle, like always. I doubt AC will be kept alive past the release of DDO and MEO. And I think that is the goal of Turbine. Keep AC alive until those 2 release and then shut it down.

[MaddyFF]

The cost of the expansion is offset by preorders.

I doubt it is even close.