EQN:Landmark Beta Starts March 26th!

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Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Very much impressed with Georgeson (and SOE overall on this ), he has set the standard for what communication should be like. From Square to Bioware/EA and every other mmo company , they should take notes. The more communication and details you give , the better for the game , the company , and the fans. There will always be some idiots who rage no matter what , but if they were being "servers down , more later ,no ETA atm" and going away you'd have more than most asking for a refund. With their current communication instead you have the opposite , more wanting to buy into an alpha that is up and down (as alpha's should be anyway) because of the positive word of mouth they are getting specifically because of the communication.

Some of us have been saying for years that just communicating more , and honestly , would go farther than any mmo devs could dream in good will and health of whatever game.

No idea why it's taken so long for someone to actually try this. Just hope this stays the course during beta and retail also. Communication is always a good thing. Bad news is far better than silence , always.

My only small gripe with them is the miss on numbers of servers needed. It's SOE , not a fly by night company , with them knowing the plans for this game overall , a bit surprised they didn't already have physical hardware ready to spin up. They definitely needed to stress test the servers , but its well beyond stress test land with lack of claim space and so on.

(and yes you are allowed to have a minor critique of them on certain things , before any idiots go "ITS ALPHA LEAVE SOE ALONE". I think they are doing great , just pointing out what I think is the one thing they could have done differently).
 
kaid

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Dahkoht_sl said:
Very much impressed with Georgeson (and SOE overall on this ), he has set the standard for what communication should be like. From Square to Bioware/EA and every other mmo company , they should take notes. The more communication and details you give , the better for the game , the company , and the fans. There will always be some idiots who rage no matter what , but if they were being "servers down , more later ,no ETA atm" and going away you'd have more than most asking for a refund. With their current communication instead you have the opposite , more wanting to buy into an alpha that is up and down (as alpha's should be anyway) because of the positive word of mouth they are getting specifically because of the communication.

Some of us have been saying for years that just communicating more , and honestly , would go farther than any mmo devs could dream in good will and health of whatever game.

No idea why it's taken so long for someone to actually try this. Just hope this stays the course during beta and retail also. Communication is always a good thing. Bad news is far better than silence , always.

My only small gripe with them is the miss on numbers of servers needed. It's SOE , not a fly by night company , with them knowing the plans for this game overall , a bit surprised they didn't already have physical hardware ready to spin up. They definitely needed to stress test the servers , but its well beyond stress test land with lack of claim space and so on.

(and yes you are allowed to have a minor critique of them on certain things , before any idiots go "ITS ALPHA LEAVE SOE ALONE". I think they are doing great , just pointing out what I think is the one thing they could have done differently).
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I am sorta curious if they just calculated what the maximum number of claims could be on a server if everybody aligned them correctly on a grid for optimal placement. Given how not on a grid and all over the damn place people are spraying their claims they are likely seeing significantly less claim spacing efficiency than whatever predictions they used. I think the claim world bleed through bug also had a huge impact on this as well because areas that may have actually been claimable were not due to the bug.

Honestly I would not be shocked to see a total claim wipe in the next few weeks/month with a revamped claim boundry code and give it another shot at the goldrush opening day model to see if they can make it work better/get more claims per server.
 
kaid

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
ah was reading that massively article. They just greatly underestimated how scattershot and inefficient peoples plot placements would truly be. One thing they may want to consider is for claims make each island a grid and lock in where you can drop your claims. It would at least somewhat boost the efficiency of where lands are claimed and it seems easy enough to get a few claim flags so between two or three claims you should be able to build what you want where you want and still have more efficiency for others to build what they want too.
 
D

Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Yeah and it's going to be a hard balancing act I know , as you want population , but in the final product I hope to be able to walk a foot without running into someone's claim. Hoping with all the additional biospheres they plan on adding (snow , jungle , whatever ) they have the numbers of servers still enough where it doesn't feel like downtown Manhattan.

It's early and not worried about it , just more thinking ahead of what I hope it is like in the final release.
 
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misery_sl

shitlord
495
0
Went to sleep last night before DG was talking about going to sleep soon. Wake up 8 hours later. Numerous new DG tweets, and he is posting up a storm currently. Plus a new interview. Am I dreaming or what's going on here?
 
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Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
misery_sl said:
Went to sleep last night before DG was talking about going to sleep soon. Wake up 8 hours later. Numerous new DG tweets, and he is posting up a storm currently. Plus a new interview. Am I dreaming or what's going on here?
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Ponytail is definitely making every other mmo dev out there look bad.
 
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Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the building and such. Why on earth did they go so half ass with instanced squares? Just so stale. No open world, no exploration I'm just not seeing longevity for me at least. Neat and fun but the more I play it the more half ass its seems for a MMO. Even if they add 10x the instances which they need to do to keep people from building on top of each other, its still just square_Zone_12.
 
C

Crowing

196
1
Is anyone else just flat out not able to use any of the tools other than Add? I don't even get a cursor change when switching to delete or heal.
 
kaid

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Crowing_sl said:
Is anyone else just flat out not able to use any of the tools other than Add? I don't even get a cursor change when switching to delete or heal.
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This happens to me once in a while. Its a reported bug. Relogging sometimes unsticks it as does leaving your claim and mining for a bit. That is what I normally do when it strikes I just go away from the claim a bit do some harvesting and it usually starts working again. It is really annoying though when you are trying to delete something and you just are waving your hand around infront of you like you just don't care and nothing happens.
 
Pyksel

Pyksel

Rasterizing . . .
840
284
The delete, heal, selection, and smooth tool all have had problems and often relogging doesn't work. I've got the paint tool but haven't had a chance to use it but I am sure it's also affected. It's a known issue so I'm sure it'll get fixed.
 
kaid

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
My friend has the same issue most of the time only his add works but sometimes he can get the other ones working too. Its been posted as an issue and pony tail is even commenting on it in twitter as they are trying to investigate the issue.
 
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InterSlayer_sl

shitlord
441
0
Kedwyn_sl said:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the building and such. Why on earth did they go so half ass with instanced squares? Just so stale. No open world, no exploration I'm just not seeing longevity for me at least. Neat and fun but the more I play it the more half ass its seems for a MMO. Even if they add 10x the instances which they need to do to keep people from building on top of each other, its still just square_Zone_12.
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Feelin the same way. Keep in mind though, there is going to be 1 mile below of explorable area to dig through, full of caverns, dungeons, ore, treasure, monsters, etc. The real part of the game (beyond building) starts there. We dont know yet if the top side is meant to just be for housing claims or also part of adventuring/exploration. We'll probably find out later on when they get the roadmap stuff released.

If it turns out the amount of in your face instancing and square block is as designed or can't be changed, expect some massive forum rage.
 
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Ira_sl

shitlord
11
0
Kedwyn_sl said:
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the building and such. Why on earth did they go so half ass with instanced squares? Just so stale. No open world, no exploration I'm just not seeing longevity for me at least. Neat and fun but the more I play it the more half ass its seems for a MMO. Even if they add 10x the instances which they need to do to keep people from building on top of each other, its still just square_Zone_12.
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That's temporary until they install the tiers underground and add the other Biospheres.
 
D

Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Also consider this , 2 of I don't know how many biospheres (whatever you want to call it ) are in. They add jungle , artic , whatever else you've got far more variety.

Then the mile underground bit.

Then adding mobs and combat which aren't in at all.

And so on. You can't really judge it when half the game isn't in even.
 
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Laerazi_sl

shitlord
293
2
Once they add water to the game, I'm sure we'll get more varied landscapes with natural shorelines, inlets, peninsulas, etc. and water that extends out into an unlimited ocean. As it stands, though, you can't really make it anything but a square, since there is nothing-ness on the other side of the boundary.
 
kaid

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
InterSlayer_sl said:
Feelin the same way. Keep in mind though, there is going to be 1 mile below of explorable area to dig through, full of caverns, dungeons, ore, treasure, monsters, etc. The real part of the game (beyond building) starts there. We dont know yet if the top side is meant to just be for housing claims or also part of adventuring/exploration. We'll probably find out later on when they get the roadmap stuff released.

If it turns out the amount of in your face instancing and square block is as designed or can't be changed, expect some massive forum rage.
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Well for eqnext in theory they are doing the map of antonica so the engine should be capable of more than just squares its a matter of what they are attempting for landmark if they will implement bigger landmasses. Currently without any fast travel if the maps were much bigger then they are it would be a real pain in the ass to get around.

I think in the future I would be pretty surprised to not see the maps more complex and or bigger and then you potentially have a mile deep of caves and what not and a mile high in the sky with floating islands and what not. So even on the current maps it actually is an enormous amount of space I think for landmark at least at start they are going for the most basic type of shape and make sure they can get that working correctly before working about expanding things.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,549
7,854
Laerazi_sl said:
Once they add water to the game, I'm sure we'll get more varied landscapes with natural shorelines, inlets, peninsulas, etc. and water that extends out into an unlimited ocean. As it stands, though, you can't really make it anything but a square, since there is nothing-ness on the other side of the boundary.
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This. I'm almost positive that in the final game the islands will be contained by water, rather than nothingness.
 
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