Angus McGregor
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Posts posted by Angus McGregor
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This is a crystal clear line in granite, not sand. Either the pre-reveal exploiters are punished or all the words about disciplinary action for cheating mean absolutely nothing. As I said earlier, I don't care a flying fig who or how many there are. There needs to be swift identification and multi-week game bans for all involved. If they are part of the inner circle of 'testers', or mods - they shouldn't be any more - period.
Saying it's all going to be good when the ship mods get removed by future patches is NOT GOING TO CUT IT,
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7 hours ago, Kloothommel said:
Oh, come on! LOL! I've already taken down my tone quite a few notches.
I must say I have certainly noticed the difference. I was worried you'd give yourself an ulcer there for awhile.
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2 hours ago, Hethwill said:
The Game-Labs Naval Action development team is aware of the issue.
Also, remember this rules are in effect all the time. Two wrongs don't make any good. Good luck.
Also making such public display information of bugs/exploits, as it was made by some member-players, is a 200% sure way of damaging the game during the buggy test phase.
So think before you act. The Game-Labs Naval Action development team is reachable by several means, by forum PM and emails.
Respect Game-Labs and respect your fellow players.
Exploits and game breaking bugs.
It is the responsibility of captains to report exploits and game breaking bugs.
If you found something that allows you to receive abnormal amounts of XP, money or goods - please report this by using F11 or on the forum.
Its ok if you used that bug for testing reasons and reported all cases to us. It is not ok to use the exploits consistently.
Captains with abnormal net wealth will have all their assets removed and in subsequent cases their accounts deleted.I should think it should be a very simple matter to do a SQL query on the database and nail exactly who used this exploit. The conditions are clear and not normal game play. Anyone who has taken advantage of this before the story finally went public should be punished. Severely if they routinely took advantage of it, and I don't give a flying fig who they are. This is cheating - pure and simple.
I'm also not inclined to think much of anyone who heard 'credible' rumors that this was going on months ago and said nothing about it to the devs. Nice one ace - any and all of you. Btw - a pat on the back to those who did report unfair game exploits to the devs. I've only found one and it wasn't nearly as juicy as this - but I reported it and it was corrected within a week in the very next patch.
Not really in the same league, but IMO this also reinforces the fact that player solutions to mechanic deficiencies are a wasted effort because there's always the clowns who will F-it-up just because they can.
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Okay... with how much I detest the trolling in here... some of that was hilarious.
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23 hours ago, Wraith said:
You're telling me they can't afford some more disk space? The database to store ships for a game this size, would be what, in the 100s of thousands of records right? Any indexed table in a modern DBS is not even going to blink at that from a processing perspective.
I found that explanation hard to accept too.
In fact, I don't really see that 1 dura ships will result in needing more data storage. Every player fills all the available outpost ship slots they have. What does it matter if the slots are all full of ships with 1 dura or 5?
I would actually think that multi-duras will make the storage situation worse. If a 1 dura ship looses, it's gone and it's data record is deleted along with the records of all its mods - storage recovered. If a multi-dura ship sinks, none of that is true until it loses the last dura. But then all the mods have been off loaded except for maybe fireship.
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21 hours ago, Christendom said:
The game has been bleeding players for months (A) well before I started shit posting (B) and acting as the mouth of sauron (C). I'm not the problem.(D)
A: Yes it has, no argument there.
B: Thank you for acknowledging the general quality of your forum posting, That surprised me.
C: Mouth of Sauron? - someone else is putting the words in your mouth? So who's the real 'man behind the curtain'?
D: Don't underestimate yourself, you are very much one of the major contributors to the problem these days.
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1 minute ago, Intrepido said:
A basic request of a major market... All the US players that play in PVP1 are this "major market"? They have always said they are the underdog, a very small playerbase... and now they represent a major market.
I really wish this kind of info was made available by Gamelabs. But games companies very rarely reveal any info about player base numbers, so GameLabs isn't alone in this. Hell, companies will never admit to how many subscribers actually have played in the last 2 months, let alone info on where they are.
And yes, if players were grouped by country (not continent or timezone), I think the USA would account for a major market share of NA. Why do you think the first kickstarter ship pack is more US ships? Sheer coincidence?
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3 hours ago, Aegir said:
For one, it cuts right into Aussie primetime (8-9pm). Just another cheerful effect of trying to run global servers, since lest we forget the US server is just as global as the EU one and thus cant have any preferential treatment either, right?
By the way, your signature quote is from the Archer sitcom.
I know this is going to sound harsh but... the devs do have to balance server costs versus paying player base. I don't think there's any doubt that the US market is a big one... if not the biggest one. My issue is with GameLabs being so unresponsive to such a basic request of that major market.
Re Quote: I googled to try to trace it and discovered it had vague origins. One site attributes the earliest known source as Paula Poundstone in 1990 (But it is used frequently in Archer
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For the life of me, I don't get it.
I don't think Ink was saying that the player accounts would be forcibly segregated by hemisphere between the two servers. All I get out of it is that they don't plan to merge PvP1 and PvP2. I think (hope) a lot of people are reading too much into...
"Thus, to cut the Gordian knot, we decided that until release there will be two servers, EU and US, with their prime timers."
Having said that, I do not understand why the PvP2 maintenance schedule wasn't corrected shortly after OW release to something like 3 or 4AM USA central time. Something that *seems* ridiculously easy to do. Yes it would mean diverting a person (or persons) to do it twice each day instead of both at once. If that is the reason, just say so and be done with it. If it isn't open to debate, just go on the record and say so. Then players who have been asking for this for months can stop and decide what to do. Deal or leave.
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2 hours ago, Fargo said:
Totally baseless. I believe nobody buys a game like this for 40$ and quits after a few failed missions.
I think some people dont notice that they can upgrade the basic 4pders. Maybe give them a few free 6pd cannons, so they also dont sink necessarily in the first mission.
With Steam's refund policy, I am very critical in the first hour of playing a new game. If it doesn't seem to be what I had in mind when I bought it, that refund button gets clicked fast. So no - I don't think HachiRoku's comment is baseless at all.
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1 hour ago, Hethwill said:
You are totally correct. The game should from now on be focused on proper age of sail trade and the wars resulting from that. Need a living world full of activity, pve and pvp that may lead to wars and big battles where winning and losing makes sense.
2 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:This X1000.... I've said it before and I'll say it again... The physics and combat areas of this game should be put on the back burner for now. What they really need to focus on now is making this great Caribbean world they've created actually have a purpose. I know they've said they've never promised more than a good age of sail combat game, but honestly they are only a few good additions short of a really epic game. They need to hire a story teller who can add elements of Civilization and Pirates. Both of which would keep you engaged for huge amounts of time, despite having nothing as far as graphic beauty. Give me some goals other than turning dots on a map green.
This - omg this!! I have tried to stay positive, but I'm about ready to totally give up and just move on. I haven't played in over a month now because there's been nothing meaningful done since the new PB mechanic. And for the majority of players who don't participate in PB's, that was interesting but of ZERO benefit.
/Rant incoming
This dicking around with the basics is soooo old its painful. You introduced a new whack of damage model code that just needed to be tested and tweaked from the ground up AGAIN. A new damage model that may (or may not) be slightly more realistic? Who the hell cares??!! You're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the lifeboats are being lowered.
If there's no reason to be in OW, no trader or crafter will go to OW. If there's only problems in OW, they will spend as little time there as possible. With only wolves in the OW, it isn't a 'sandbox' by any stretch of the imagination. If GL just wants NA to be a naval combat sim, then get off the crapper and just do away with OW and make it lobby based.
The PvP crowd can moan all they like about any effort being devoted to PvE play. But without meaningful and engaging PvE content, OW is nothing more than the most inefficient and unbalanced combat matchmaker mechanic in the history of combat sims.
FOR CRIPES SAKE LISTEN and cut the size of the freaking AI patrol fleets and reduce the number of coastline defenses anywhere but at capital ports. Are you so unbelievably stubborn that you won't even try this for so much as a month? If actually removing the fortifications is a lot of work (I don't doubt it is), then just spike their cannons and give them a very dark coloration to show they won't fire. Take them out of play any cheap and dirty way you can, clean it up right later if the changes stay.
Try something, try anything to modify the alliance mechanic to break the stalemates currently killing RvR on both PvP servers and only contributing to the off-hours port flip issue.
Some of the changes in the pipe sound interesting. Perks shifting over from officer to captain. Ship crafting simplified and customization expanded. I hope I'm wrong but... why do I have the bad feeling you're going to repeat a mistake made several times in the past, and once again release one big patch with several major changes included all at once? The PB change was rolled out all by itself. It went well. There's a lesson there.
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3 hours ago, rediii said:
Maybe a driver update fixes it? Can you put a screenshot here?
Or maybe it's the contrast settings on your monitors?
Here's a screen shot of the ship trim visibility issue. It looks exactly the same on my big screen and laptop.
The only text I can read is 'Speed' under Built-In, and 'Extra Hammocks' & Charismatic Boatswain' under Installed. The rest are near invisible against that dark gray.
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1 minute ago, rediii said:
But why should anyone put work into something that gets overhauled at a later stage anyway?
You would only have double the effort and the ressources are pretty limited already. Changes need testing with every possible resolution etc. so if you touch it you want to do a final out of it.
And TBH if i would see one of the pictures above only as a background image i would either think "wtf this game got stuck in the last 20 years" or "this is the UI ... Oh..." because it would look like a amateur did it. The same goes for another suggestion here in the forum with a example UI that looked like a world of warships made in the year 98.
The UI at the moment shows that it is not a try to do a UI. If you look at it you think "that's functional" and that's it.
Any change of the UI would be for the people not looking in the forum like it would be a real new UI and if this looks crap they will complain about it loudly
Ok then you have a bigger resolution than me.
i can read it perfectly on 1920x1080 (on both monitors)
You probably have better eyesight than me.
I'm already running at less resolution than what my gaming rig is capable of. I'm playing at 1600x900 on the big monitor. My laptop is 1366x768.
Yeah - I get that this is just a bare bones functional UI. But it isn't functional for me and I really don't have these issues with other games at higher resolutions. *shrug* I find it hard to believe I'm the only one with a problem.
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1 minute ago, rediii said:
Which ones do you mean that you can't read at all?
The biggest offenders are the colored text that lists the wood type, trims and regional bonuses built into a ship. I can't read 90% of that text on two different monitors.
I also struggle with the cargo, storage inventory list font size, especially the numbers. Yes I could change the resolution... at the expense of losing graphic fidelity on the best part of NA, the visuals while sailing near the coast. It's a lose/lose proposition.
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The crap state of the UI is definitely one of the leading reasons why I've stopped playing. It doesn't take but a few hours to go into the code and change some font sizes and colors to enhance readability. I'm not looking for a 'new' UI, just tweaks to what's there so I can see it.
I often defend the devs and their efforts in other areas of the game. But if 'they' can't be bothered to put out that little bit of effort, then screw it. I'm done with perpetually squinting at the screen giving myself eyestrain and headaches.
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1 hour ago, maturin said:
Thus introducing route-planning and strategy, and adding natural texture to conquest.
Why am I the only person in the universe who recognizes how prevailing winds makes sailing easier, not harder? It means that sailing upwind is a choice, rather than a RNG lottery that will unpredictably frustrate you half the time.
All you have to do is trigger the ssscccaaaaaary realism part of people's brains, and they stop thinking.
Picture this, the wind across the *entire" southern coastline from Trinidad to Tampico is blowing strong and steady from east to west. Near impossible to make headway against. To sail eastward, you have to go north to the south coast of Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and across to Antigua. If you're up there and want to sail westward, you've gotta go down to Costa Rica before it's remotely possible. That is not fun.
And no, for the most part the wind is only really frustrating in the OW for about a third of the time.
You think think people squawk about long sailing times now? IMO we'd be longing for, bitching for a return to, the current situation if tradewinds were ever implemented.
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2 hours ago, rediii said:
Make a suggestion how to make OW fun. I have no idea how this could be achieved
I am not a fan of adding micro-management "busy work" like having to manually adjust the sails, or dealing with crew discipline, etc...
But several people (including me) have suggested random things found on islands and mainland beaches.
- stranded castaways frantically waving, burning signal fires, that turn out to be rich merchants, or diplomats offering reward for transport to a specific (maybe unfriendly) port.
- beached shipwrecks with treasure aboard (a'la sealed bottle treasure contents)
- lone grass hut with evidence of long dead occupant leaving behind a treasure map (equivalent to sealed bottle)
- the list goes on... you get the idea.
- possibly just a few of these existing at any one time on the entire server. A replacement doesn't randomly spawn until one is found.
There are ways to improve OW without a *huge* amount of effort.
Edit: and these are WAYY more interesting and engaging than fishing, and actually encourage OW sailing.
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1 hour ago, Anolytic said:
While I'm hoping for the implementation of different wind strengths and more variable weather. Real world wind data would not make for good gameplay. The Coriolis effect, among other things, means that the wind in the Caribbean is mostly blowing towards the west afaik. So the wind would practically always be blowing in the same directions, and going from one place on the map to another you would almost always have the wind against you or with you conversely.
This has been done in other Caribbean Age of Sail games and it is a right royal pain in the hiney. It makes for some very long voyages by anything but direct routes to try to catch prevailing winds in the direction you want to go. Sounds cool, but believe me it isn't. I *would* like a more natural feeling variation of wind direction and strength, but not prevailing trade winds, please no.
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On an individual basis, I don't think there's a willingness to bite this bullet and actually be the player who cannot have, or afford to use, 1st rate ships. It'll be okay as long as it's someone else. When you say, "imagine when seeing a SOL in an attack fleet is a wow moment." Everyone pictures themselves as the object of envy. When reality comes around and it isn't them, they'll just be frustrated and cry foul.
The trick is to arrange as many battle scenarios as possible that naturally make SOLs the poorer choice of ship to use. For instance there's a suggestion for PBs to make one, or two of the capture circles ignore SOL class ships for cap counts. It's an attempt to mimic the effect of shallow areas in the PB instance without the devs having to actually code detailed bathymetric maps. Something they're said they're not willing to do. It's a simple idea, and better than what I suggested by far.
What can be done to make this true in OW too? I dunno - but we have smart people in these forums. Hopefully a few more will have Einstein moments and come up with good ideas.
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8 minutes ago, EliteDelta said:
Its an interesting idea (although it sounds rather tricky) but i'm still not seeing how this would change the current dynamic. Wouldn't this fleet commander still just check "yes" for every agamemnon in a 4th rate? Why would he let ingers, conni's, or even 5th rates and lower in.
Well, the idea is based on PBs having requirements for different ratings within the PB like Aventador suggested. What is now a 1st Rate PB would have quotas for other ratings as well to make the both attack/defence fleets more historically accurate and diverse.
- 5 - 1st rates
- 7 - 2nd rates
- 8 - 3rd rates
- 5 - 4th rates and under
The 4th rate PBs would have similar quotas for ships of lesser rating.
- 7 - 4th rates
- 8 - 5th rates
- 10 - 6th rates and under
Numbers given subject to debate.
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The problem with any restrictions by rating of ship means the PB entry almost certainly has to be lobby-based. Otherwise deciding and tracking which slots of each rating are being taken by who becomes a headache. Not an insurmountable one, but a headache all the same.
I'm wondering about a system where the PB is 'owned' by one captain, a 'PB Commander', on each side... highest hostility earned? What other measure could be used? I'm tempted to say 'appointed' by attacking and defending nations, but how? Have to consider the cases where PBs are being fought entirely by allies.
That 'PB Commander' has a separate screen that opens for 2 minutes when the PB activates. That screen indicates all the captains/ships that have clicked the swords indicating they'd like to join. He can approve/deny each individual captain/ship for each rating slot. He has that 2 minutes to make his decisions . The captains/ships he picks enter the PB instance immediately when he selects 'Attack' or when the 2 minute timer expires. After that, any captain with hostility points can take an open rating slot and enter the PB instance if his ship qualifies. After 5 minutes, any captain can enter if his ship qualifies for a rating slot still open.
It's kind of a lobby system for the first 2 minutes, but not a lobby after that.
I think the main stumbling block to the idea is picking the PB Commander for each side in a fair and agreeable way, or at least one not open to dispute. That and the coding involved for the PB Commander approval screen.
Comments?
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9 hours ago, Wraith said:
Did I misread something or did they not say that players can jump in to make these PvP events? If it works in this way I think it might be a reasonable compromise for player-generated content that's not necessarily uncontested but can be quite PvP heavy if the nations involved are active at the same time that the raid is generated, etc.
I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until we see how they work in any case, because anything is better than the ridiculous PvE hostility grind we have now.
Thank you! My understanding is that the raid starts...
- no advance warning
- a defense force of NPC ships is deployed
- I'm hoping an announcement is sent to port owning nation that raid is in progress (unconfirmed)
- defending nation and allies can take command away from the AI, and start controlling one of the defending ships.
- I assume it is not possible to bring your own ship to the defense of the port. (unconfirmed)
The knee-jerk reaction of always seeing only problems and flaming the devs is getting very very old. Calm the hello kitty down, read it again, look for ways you've misread it, read it again, go away and think for 5 minutes, then write a post with questions and/or suggestions.
IF I were a dev or mod, a few people would be temp-banned just from crap in this thread.
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56 minutes ago, Powderhorn said:
When you see a thread get off topic, report it. We can't be everywhere at once. I assure you, those sorts of reports are much more appreciated than the 99% that we get that fall into the category of: "I disagree with this person, and want to 'win' the argument by silencing him or her."
What some people are missing (or choosing to ignore) is that National News isn't going away. It's just that now Captains need to work to roleplay, and can't keep doing this low-energy, flame-bait, sophomoric drivel.
Understood
But not really what I was commenting on - there's threads I can tell just from the title that I don't want to read the avalanche of flaming it is sure to provoke.
DonJuan DiMarco suggests - ALL PORTBATTLES ARE CANCELLED
in National news
Posted · Edited by Angus McGregor
I *have* worked with SQL databases and the only way Wraith is wrong is if some very basic information is not being logged with each Shop contract transaction. Seeing as it's been patched, I have no qualms about getting more specific. In this case, if a ship's mod was bought and the buyer and seller are equal, you've got a potential tribunal case. Who ordinarily buys a mod from themselves?? I'm surprised the game ever allowed this at all.
Anyway - the SQL query conditions are simple...
Check records pulled and calculate sum of instances for each player name. No issue with anyone doing it once just to prove what they heard was true - but send PM advising that failure to report the exploit is a violation of EA agreement.
If player used exploit...
It's just that easy.
Edit: if GL isn't using a SQL database for the records - then ya gotta wonder why.