So let me be the first to publicly say that the battle to decide the King may have been a major killshot for the playerbase. Two weeks worth of hype on our little campfire chat room only to have our expectations not even considered. I mean everyone was ready for a town or two warring kings or even a very basic economy. I mean Everyone. What we got was a double king in name only and many players deciding to move on. I was planning on becoming a subscrpt member when I saw the game progressing, but the only thing us long term players(I've been here off and on since apoc 2) can count on anymore is that tiny additions will be added at such large intervals as to keep the new playerbase from growing.
TU was pretty advanced at one point. You're telling me that setting up a few towns and a simple economy and letting us kinda run a clan/kingdom based society wouldn't be possible. I mean at least if you give people something to do we wont come to the forum and b1tch, or declare TU dead.
Then once you have a simple primitive world, we can play as normal and you developers can sneak small stuff in to test it at your pace. On the otherhand if we will also be able to ask friends to join and there will be more people to test the game mechanics. win-win for both. I just know the broken promises are starting to reak of the old TU.
I already know I might get a response of "well, its a free game and i can do what I want..." But, some of these people on this game have been hanging around for literally decades. If I had people that stayed around for a decade, I might consider them friends, even if I never saw them in Real life. So I guess what I'm asking is, Do you care about anybody that youve met through this game experience? If you don't want to develop..tell everyone so we quit hanging on...and if you do want to develop, then be a developer.
Where is This Going?
I share your frustration. Activity has really died this week. Surprisingly so. I fully respect that Universal is a constant work in progress, but I am genuinely struggling to find anything to do right now in-game, other than log in to eat and drink, and that only takes a minute or so.
I kind of agree with what you're saying. If this is all under heavy development, then why not give us something to do in the meantime? I will stick around in the hopes that there will be more involving mechanics being introduced other the next few months, but I did come back hoping to play Universal. I've had fun making tools and such, but the gaps in-between updates are difficult because there's nothing left to do.
I kind of agree with what you're saying. If this is all under heavy development, then why not give us something to do in the meantime? I will stick around in the hopes that there will be more involving mechanics being introduced other the next few months, but I did come back hoping to play Universal. I've had fun making tools and such, but the gaps in-between updates are difficult because there's nothing left to do.
-
morbydvisns
- Posts: 1889
- Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:51 am
Yeh, it's Morb's fault :]
Ok, so:
For those of you who are frustrated that development is occasionally (well, frequently) slower than you would like... we sympathise. I can say with some conviction that mit would like to have more dev time than he does. Well, except for those rarish times when he thinks we should throw our computers away, grow beards and become farmers (I have already grown a beard, just in case). We do what we can: mit's time is limited because he is old and knackered, and so am I, for what it's worth. Kids, work, etc.
However, the most important thing is - and I direct your occular sensory organs to the top right of your browser - that we are currently in alpha. You're all valued and welcome members of the community, but also you're all alpha testers :] Not having as much to do as you'd like; not having stuff work as you'd expect; not seeing things change as quickly as you'd like... this is all part and parcel of The Alpha Tester's Lament.
Sorry about that :]
Personally, I don't think it is just about the swords/King thing. We saw a similar dip in activity at the end of the previous chapter-concluding-"big event". I just think it's natural for more people to get interested when they know there is Something Big And Exciting About To Happen. And once that Big Thing has Happened they all go away for a bit - especially when there isn't an invisible segue into the next chapter, and the next Big Thing (see comments about Alpha, above).
When we have more people that will be less of a problem. But we won't get more people until we've made (I say "we", I mean "mit" of course) the game more stable and slick and enjoyable for all, which requires dev time, and also requires plenty of testing, which is what you guys are all helping with.
So in a way, if you weren't feeling some kind of pain, we wouldn't be getting any benefit from this whole process. That is also, I think, part of The Alpha Tester's Lament.
Sorry about that :]
f
Ok, so:
For those of you who are frustrated that development is occasionally (well, frequently) slower than you would like... we sympathise. I can say with some conviction that mit would like to have more dev time than he does. Well, except for those rarish times when he thinks we should throw our computers away, grow beards and become farmers (I have already grown a beard, just in case). We do what we can: mit's time is limited because he is old and knackered, and so am I, for what it's worth. Kids, work, etc.
However, the most important thing is - and I direct your occular sensory organs to the top right of your browser - that we are currently in alpha. You're all valued and welcome members of the community, but also you're all alpha testers :] Not having as much to do as you'd like; not having stuff work as you'd expect; not seeing things change as quickly as you'd like... this is all part and parcel of The Alpha Tester's Lament.
Sorry about that :]
Personally, I don't think it is just about the swords/King thing. We saw a similar dip in activity at the end of the previous chapter-concluding-"big event". I just think it's natural for more people to get interested when they know there is Something Big And Exciting About To Happen. And once that Big Thing has Happened they all go away for a bit - especially when there isn't an invisible segue into the next chapter, and the next Big Thing (see comments about Alpha, above).
When we have more people that will be less of a problem. But we won't get more people until we've made (I say "we", I mean "mit" of course) the game more stable and slick and enjoyable for all, which requires dev time, and also requires plenty of testing, which is what you guys are all helping with.
So in a way, if you weren't feeling some kind of pain, we wouldn't be getting any benefit from this whole process. That is also, I think, part of The Alpha Tester's Lament.
Sorry about that :]
f
-
morbydvisns
- Posts: 1889
- Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:51 am
It goes without saying that we appreciate the time that's put into Universal, and we are all aware that it's a constant work in progress, which doesn't always mean there'll be an entirely functional game for us to play.
That said, however, and with all due respect, it is a two-way arrangement. We stick around to test the game, and in return we get more game to play, and in turn more game to test for development. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement, when there is, in fact, anything to test.
When there isn't.. that appears to be where we have difficulty. Yeah, players come and go, that's the nature of most MMO's, but because the community isn't sustainable (sporadic periods of growth and decline) the game seems to pace along, when it could, without a huge amount of difficulty (I assume), run a stable and functional world parallel to a testing world.
That way, Universal gets a healthy dose of players to do testing when it is required, and in return we get a good reason to continue logging in each day. I'm not sure whether it is currently feasible to have a stable world running to keep us occupied with, but it would vastly improve the situation.
That said, however, and with all due respect, it is a two-way arrangement. We stick around to test the game, and in return we get more game to play, and in turn more game to test for development. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement, when there is, in fact, anything to test.
When there isn't.. that appears to be where we have difficulty. Yeah, players come and go, that's the nature of most MMO's, but because the community isn't sustainable (sporadic periods of growth and decline) the game seems to pace along, when it could, without a huge amount of difficulty (I assume), run a stable and functional world parallel to a testing world.
That way, Universal gets a healthy dose of players to do testing when it is required, and in return we get a good reason to continue logging in each day. I'm not sure whether it is currently feasible to have a stable world running to keep us occupied with, but it would vastly improve the situation.
Nods at fooli.
I feel your pain.. sorry, work deadlines got in the way for past couple of weeks - which was bad timing given the particular state of play right now.
Will be quiet still for a little longer, coz theres plenty of stuff still to get ready before we can move on (its not currently easy to just put up a temporary world coz theres a lot of stuff getting refactored and broken). Back to semi-normal in mid-April, when we'll advance to chapter 3.
Meanwhile there'll be a few more events comin up (in different forms) that are still worth a play, i think.
I feel your pain.. sorry, work deadlines got in the way for past couple of weeks - which was bad timing given the particular state of play right now.
Will be quiet still for a little longer, coz theres plenty of stuff still to get ready before we can move on (its not currently easy to just put up a temporary world coz theres a lot of stuff getting refactored and broken). Back to semi-normal in mid-April, when we'll advance to chapter 3.
Meanwhile there'll be a few more events comin up (in different forms) that are still worth a play, i think.