Roadmap

[Rosebud]

It’s not my place to tell the developers how to produce their game. I know that, but I did pay money to play it. It’s not my place to question their releases, patches or content. I know this as well, but I did pay them money, so in my mind I do have the right to voice my opinions on their forum, wrong as it may be too many.

 

 

It seems to me that tweaking an already fleshed portion of the game (combat) is a waste of customer patience. I’m willing to stick around if meaningful changes continue on a regular basis. By 'meaningful' I mean largely untouched portions of the game like crafting. It seems counterintuitive to me that people are introduced to your game with a bland blue-grey page while you turn ramming on and off or adjust grapeshot results by two percentage points. Buffing a scratch out of a car fender is secondary to seeing if the engine runs.

 

 

I have patience when I see real movement, like adding land to the combat instances. If the idea is to release a patch every week or so fine, but a roadmap would help significantly. Knowing what the final vision is and your progress toward that end is not a negative when it comes to player retention. It’s an important part of the contract that you entered into with the players who surrendered their money to your vision. I have no right to tell you how and what to do, but you have no right to keep me in the dark.

[William the Drake]

May I ask, if you were building a house (or better yet a ship) would you be satisfied of the cornerstone or the superstructure (or say the keel section and frame) where not 100% complete, or that they showed signs that they were not properly placed or some such. Would you consider continuing on with construction, knowing full well that the overall superstructure was in someway faulty?

 

The combat system is the centerpiece of the game, and as such, needs to be the first thing to be 100% complete. And often times the house (or ship) may take shape from what changes in the superstructure. "Then why release it?" so we can stress test it, so that we may find the hidden impurities in the weed not visible on the surface. That's my reasoning of it anyway.

[elite92]

i think we need many more info on the game itself and on the development process...

[eriks]

What do you want? The devs to share their scrum board?

 

This is a pretty big complex piece of software. My understanding is the dev team is quite small. I would also imagine there are ops issues that the players have very little visibility into unless things go horribly wrong. Some feature fixes are easy as tweaking parameters (penetration and such). Architectural features are much harder (revamping crafting) especially if you are trying to simultaneously support an active player base.

 

Honestly I could not care less about the grey/blue port UI. That is the LAST thing they should be worrying about.

[HarryButpain]

I mean, they sure let us know what they're working on..

 

Hello Captains

 

It is our long and valued tradition to give players the opportunity to help us choose the right priorities for the development.  

 

I suggest to look for threads with the attachment 'moderated' like those:

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14356-officer-perks-heavy-moderation/

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/14069-penetration-and-armor-thickness-feedback-moderated/

 

+

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=user_activity&search_app=forums&mid=1&sid=aedfa1a590d0693058bcc862561f6479&search_app_filters[forums][searchInKey]=&userMode=all

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/forum/35-developer-news-and-announcements/

Edited May 31, 2016 by BACk ALLEY ShENANiGANS

[Rosebud]

OMG...its a small staff so they should have no long term plan or schedule? If they don't have a general plan for where they want to be over the next year...than they should.

[Ledinis]

OMG...its a small staff so they should have no long term plan or schedule? If they don't have a general plan for where they want to be over the next year...than they should.

Thing is that after each major patch that they finish working on they create a poll for the players to decide which game aspect they should work on and improve next, after the vote they give pretty realistic time frames in which they plan to implement it. So making and following a long term plan is kinda impossible with this approach. 

[Rosebud]

Thing is that after each major patch that they finish working on they create a poll for the players to decide which game aspect they should work on and improve next, after the vote they give pretty realistic time frames in which they plan to implement it. So making and following a long term plan is kinda impossible with this approach. 

And there-in lies the rough. This game comes across as being clueless as to it's final form. Like a craftsman polishing the Chester drawer to perfection, while he omits to fix the leak in the roof. This game would do better to go the WoT or WoWS (World of tanks / World of War Ships) route and simply be a ship on ship combat game. At least then all this buffing of finished content would be useful. But they have chosen to become a full fledged MMO. They have chosen this route and by virtue of that choice, they need to be fleshing out the other components of a MMO. By not doing so they are dooming their product.

 

The biggest serge a game gets is upon release. Very few play a game, drop it and return. With the new method of releasing games before they are completed comes new hazards for both the developers and the gamers. The developers get the much needed influx of cash to continue the work, but if the game doesn't progress their players will leave. The players are gambling that the game they support, will blossom into a great one for them. As we all know a shady bet at best.

 

At this point I see no direction. I see no plan. I see no content, save that which was here months ago. No new components. No new players. It's the simplest thing in the world to say you'll let your players guide the games direction. They can't, it's stupid on Game Labs part to think that would work long term and counter productive. Swaying this was and that at the whim of a shifting player base isn't productive. In my opinion this method is either silly or a scam.

[Hethwill]

 

This game would do better to go the WoT or WoWS (World of tanks / World of War Ships) route and simply be a ship on ship combat game.

 

 

Sea Trials was pretty much it. Was nice to test and all but it was an arena type match game. I guess it can be a nice type of game for many, but for many it is also a shallow type of game.

 

Maybe a bit more attention to Small/Large battles is needed ?

[KrakkenSmacken]

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much.

 

Been on a hiatus for 2 months.  Boy have things changed dramatically since I was here last.  

 

• Land ho! OMG Land in battles. Trying to squeeze a trader against the coast is a blast.  
• Many new ships, (ooh pirate trader Le Gros Ventre).
• TP has changed from cool down to no cool down but also no cargo on teleport to capital. Yay, now I don't have to miss a days worth of action simply because I had resources to manage somewhere besides the front lines.
• Smuggling flag
• Duel room.
• Epic events.

.......

 

As someone who writes software for a living, development on this project has been progressing at a crazy pace, including all the balance tweaks.  

 

Move along, nothing to see here.

Edited June 6, 2016 by KrakkenSmacken