Personally, I haven't been enjoying this game of late. I love the game, it's just recently (I know it is still beta) there has been a very dry lack of content. I appreciate that the devs are adding some new small things for convenience sake and all as well as making guilds and everything more in-depth. However, as I've been playing, the lack of content and a bunch of recurring bugs that have been around for awhile kind of have started to turn me away from the game, because I have absolutely no idea what the devs are currently working on and sometimes it leads me to question how much they're even working. I apologize for that inquiry, as I really do appreciate how well the devs have resurrected this game almost exactly to its former glory as well as adding some, but I would really like a more vocal dev team when it comes to the direction of the game, because currently it feels like your average busy MMO where you don't really hear much from the devs until things are about to release. As such a small but also close-knit community, it makes no sense why we wouldn't be in the know of how the development process is going. I mean, looking back at the old "What's New" or "On The Horizon" pages, it seemed that earlier on in development we had a lot more knowledge as to what was coming up, but recently there has been next to no information on anything mentioned prior and it also seems like they don't recognize some of the major player requests right now especially when it comes to loot (I'm sure they're working or looking into it, but how are we even supposed to know?). Sorry for the rant, and I was to reiterate that I'm not bashing on the devs as I think we might have some of the best around, it's just I think this community deserves more insight into the direction of the project.
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Attention: The forums are in read-only mode
Request Dev-Community Interaction
- Thread starter Alesaris
- Start date
Jack Cannonskull
Pirate Lord
I appreciate you giving your opinion in a respectful way without bashing the devs. I can agree with you on some of this as I too sometimes feel like there is nothing happening.
I think the reality is that they are working very hard on the game but don't really spend a whole lot of time talking about it which is understandable.
MMDR
Pirate Master
The devs once had a thread which they actively interacted with players regarding upcoming releases and content the community wished to be added.
Sadly (but not surprisingly), some players used this thread to communicate their grief and complain that the updates weren't done fast enough, didn't like what was being worked on, etc.
It's already hard enough to work on a game that you're not getting paid for... having to sit and get handed ungratefulness and complaints just takes a huge chunk out of your motivation.
TLDR; They tried it and it just didn't work out.
Another point I'd like to make-
They've got school and work. As soon as they get home, they hop on their PC and work on the game. Their presence is hardly felt in-game and on the forums because there's only a handful of them. We're not World of Warcraft.
They don't even log in to play. Why is this? Because they have no time to actually enjoy it since they're so busy making it.
They do hear your suggestions and thoughts, but through other staff members who in a sense work as a filter and actually have the time to sort through the feedback.
C
Crashalot
I love the devs and appreciate all they do for me and the game. Thank you!
That being said, perhaps there's a need for several more devs to be brought into the fold. Heaven knows there are plenty of coders out there who would love to lend a hand just for the fun and experience.
Maybe we are expecting way too much from our overstretched devs and maybe opening up the doors for additional talent is a good start in moving the game forward at a quicker, more enriched pace.
That being said, perhaps there's a need for several more devs to be brought into the fold. Heaven knows there are plenty of coders out there who would love to lend a hand just for the fun and experience.
Maybe we are expecting way too much from our overstretched devs and maybe opening up the doors for additional talent is a good start in moving the game forward at a quicker, more enriched pace.
Jack Cannonskull
Pirate Lord
OurGangsDarkOath
Pirate Master
The problem with that is some people can't be trusted so it's hard to get more developers.
C
Crashalot
LOL, yes, in life, that's to be expected. But if we follow that logic, we can never trust anyone because some aren't to be trusted. Obviously there's a way around the dilemma you present. That can never be an excuse for not growing, evolving, maturing.
OurGangsDarkOath
Pirate Master
I agree but they're being cautious and so time will tell.
I really think we should do what we can to support this project. If the devs have time to talk I believe they will. I am a huge fan of this 100% free game and look forward to whatever they have time to develop. I'm working on brushing up on object oriented programming using python this summer just in case I could ever be of use to the team.
Stephen Teague
Pirate Lord
It’s a different story when you give the wrong person the “keys” to the game and they can wreck everything you’ve accomplished over the course of 3 years. As you hopefully saw, we had an application open for Developers.
MrSteel
Buccaneer
As one of those players who are normally find with grinding I do find it frustrating that I went almost 20 hours of in game time at the gold room in tormenta without even getting a famed cursed. I have been told that the skull chest have been fixed and regular enemies drop rates are fine yet I screenshotted the majority of the rare skull chest that dropped during the period and all of which contained mostly trash with the occasional terrible rare cursed. It is frustrating that players can go 20 hours without even a famed being dropped yet alone a LC even if it is silver trash or el patrons garbage. I do appreciate what the developers have been doing for the game and the community but sometimes one "fix" is not enough and just cause you "fixed" it doesn't mean the community thinks it is fixed (this regarding skull chest continents). With all the gold I've looted instead of cursed weapons if weapons were purchasable (not suggesting that they should be that would ruin looting) then i could buy 2 LC's
S
Shamus The Brute
@Insidium - Perhaps you are concerned about communication/developer engagement as a whole but, if you are not, perhaps too you are concerned about communication pertinent to "how" the developers are doing as actually individuals in lieu of such a project requiring a whole lot of their own personal time. (Correct me if I am wrong, please).
*This forums used to see "Exclusive Interviews" written for the purpose of clearer understanding. The hope was to capture the engagement of everyone (via not only the interview itself but also, comments left by others to the thread itself). It is of my opinion that if pirates lose the art of total engagement, the community itself could suffer or become stagnant. Given how just about everyone, thus far, supports TLOPO...the question then turns to what creative ways could pirates better communicate to assure the survival of what ultimately drives a community; people.
*This forums used to see "Exclusive Interviews" written for the purpose of clearer understanding. The hope was to capture the engagement of everyone (via not only the interview itself but also, comments left by others to the thread itself). It is of my opinion that if pirates lose the art of total engagement, the community itself could suffer or become stagnant. Given how just about everyone, thus far, supports TLOPO...the question then turns to what creative ways could pirates better communicate to assure the survival of what ultimately drives a community; people.
As @River demonstrated, they do communicate. They have made many changes in response to feedback from in the game and here at the forums.
However, I don't believe that they should reveal every detail of what they are doing. Why spoil the surprise? How many of you were expecting the thrilling updates made on 6/11/2018? I doubt the update would have been as enjoyable if you had known every detail of what was coming. This is common practice in the industry.
If you find a new bug with the update, please let the developers know by clicking the feedback button. It's not possible to make everyone happy, as the community itself does not agree with the direction the game should go ( trading/no trading just to name one issue).
However, I don't believe that they should reveal every detail of what they are doing. Why spoil the surprise? How many of you were expecting the thrilling updates made on 6/11/2018? I doubt the update would have been as enjoyable if you had known every detail of what was coming. This is common practice in the industry.
If you find a new bug with the update, please let the developers know by clicking the feedback button. It's not possible to make everyone happy, as the community itself does not agree with the direction the game should go ( trading/no trading just to name one issue).
Jim Hexskull
Wiki Staff
I don't so much have an issue with communication so much as priorities. Although I do love the recent update, it always blows my mind that bugs that nobody even knew existed get fixed, yet things like blunder killing all 4 ghosts and giving loot for all of them, still has yet to be fixed. Even though the playerbase has been vocal about it. Or perhaps the constant server resets that keep you from being on one server more than about 20 minutes. I appreciate the work that is being done, but I believe the priorities may be backwards here.
I appreciate every little thing the devs and you accomplish this whole journey.
That said, people are touchy feely folks on the most part, and like and need some sort of fairly immediate feed back to feel they are heard and maybe even appreciated. It's not like we're expecting a dev to personally contact us on every whinny post we make or whatever, but maybe would like some sort of sign we have been acknowledged. Maybe I'm not looking at the right places. Is the facebook the best place for current interaction?
I don't know how many in game or forum posts I have made, but perhaps a little more involved auto response of some type for in game reports. I think it says, thanks for submitting. I'd like to see another response further along that tells me it moved up the ladder or que and was actually viewed. If that's even doable.
yet things like blunder killing all 4 ghosts and giving loot for all of them, still has yet to be fixed.
What, wait. We're not supposed to get loot from each enemy if we kill more than one at a time?