TLOPO and our attitude

Cheysa Finn

Cheysa Finn

Pirate Lord
I touched on some of this last night in a different thread, and today am going to elaborate some more. This is to the POTCO/TLOPO community as a whole; however if you are feeling personally attacked by this, then maybe there is something you need to change.

POTCO ended on September 19th, 2013. Thru a series of events, the POTCO community has been given TLOPO. After asking some friends a few questions and doing some research on my own about two weeks ago, I have found TLOPO to be purely amazing. Let me tell you why:

  1. We are getting our beloved POTCO back. For many of us, that was our childhood. OH, THE MEMORIES!
  2. It's not just POTCO, it's TLOPO. Better than before.
  3. It's run by those just like us - the players. Players who care. Players who personally knew what it felt like to have POTCO close. Players who disliked how Disney handled most things and are willing to do it right this time.
  4. We won't have to pay for it! Full access to the game anytime you want (after it's fully released).
  5. The privilege to participate in the Alpha and Beta stages of the game. WOW!
  6. Access to live streams if you have not had the chance to participate in the game just yet.

For those of us that are interested in playing TLOPO one day and are not on the TLOPO staff, we have a responsibility. We should be an encouragement to those who are giving us back this game that we thought was gone forever. When we ask questions, they should be said with gratefulness, respect, patience, and humility. Prior to asking those questions, we should be doing some research first to see of those questions have already been asked and answered elsewhere. For example:

  • These forums
  • The TLOPO website
  • The TLOPO pages created on Facebook
  • Multiple Youtube channels, both by TLOPO staff and by fans
  • The TLOPO wiki
  • Numerous Developer streams, plus streams made by fans.
  • The IRC live chat

The TLOPO staff put those in place so we would have something to go by as they work. Contained in them is everything they want us to know at the current time. If you want them to roll out the game and its updates as soon as possible, then I suggest utilizing those resources.

Here is where I go from talking to meddling. Some seem to have the attitude that the TLOPO staff owes the community more information, more updates, specific dates, and full public access to the game. Bluntly, they don't. They owe us nothing. They are creating this. They are putting hours upon hours of unpaid time into the game when they still have their own lives to run on top of it. They are in charge. They make the decisions. They choose what to release and what to hold back for a surprise.

We owe them everything. Our thankfulness, support, encouragement, praise, bug reports, and possibly even some new ideas for the game. We should NOT be complaining, repeatedly asking questions they have already said they are not going to answer, nagging, making demands, attacking, demeaning, maliciously speculating, or logging onto TLOPO Alpha and telling everyone in local chat, "Let's start a riot! The devs gave us clothes instead of sailing and enemies. HOW DARE THEY!!" Yes, that happened. And I happily reported the person.

Here's what happens when we do those inappropriate things in the above paragraph: The staff becomes weary of the very people they are making this game for, the enjoyment is sucked right out of it, they roll their eyes more than smiling, they become reluctant to answer any questions, and they start wondering of this whole thing is even worth the trouble. Do you want that?

In the beginning of this, I mentioned that the TLOPO staff are players of POTCO just like us. They want to loot, quest, sail, be plugged into a guild, and find old friends just like we do. When a Game Master logs in, they are offering us a chance to hang with them and just have fun. They are not logging in to be our personal answer givers or to be genies who give us any item we ask for. It is a selfish attitude to only approach a GM with the intent of asking something of them instead of just enjoying them and goofing off as you do with all of your other friends. They have already given POTCO back to us - what right have we to be ungrateful and say that isn't good enough?

This has been long-winded, but something I felt was necessary. I encourage you to take a step back, shut up, and just enjoy this opportunity to play POTCO again. Personally, I'd give anything to loot even a Bright Yellow Cap right now. The cool thing is - very soon, I know I will be able to. (When that day comes, I feel sorry for my family because they will need earplugs.)

Let's change our attitude and have some fun, shall we?

-Chey
 
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I agree. They have a monumental task before them, and they are losing money with no hope of financial gain. It's LITERALLY a labor of love. I've done some basic programming and it is nothing compared to their job at hand (and I hated basic programming lol.) I just have to put my faith in the team, and I do believe they've done a darn good job thus far! They even added choices for the old sky and loading screen, when that was never even expected!
 
Cheysa Finn said:
I touched on some of this last night in a different thread, and today am going to elaborate some more. This is to the POTCO/TLOPO community as a whole; however if you are feeling personally attacked by this, then maybe there is something you need to change.

POTCO ended on September 19th, 2013. Thru a series of events, the POTCO community has been given TLOPO. After asking some friends a few questions and doing some research on my own about two weeks ago, I have found TLOPO to be purely amazing. Let me tell you why:

  1. We are getting our beloved POTCO back. For many of us, that was our childhood. OH, THE MEMORIES!
  2. It's not just POTCO, it's TLOPO. Better than before.
  3. It's run by those just like us - the players. Players who care. Players who personally knew what it felt like to have POTCO close. Players who disliked how Disney handled most things and are willing to do it right this time.
  4. We won't have to pay for it! Full access to the game anytime you want (after it's fully released).
  5. The privilege to participate in the Alpha and Beta stages of the game. WOW!
  6. Access to live streams if you have not had the chance to participate in the game just yet.

For those of us that are interested in playing TLOPO one day and are not on the TLOPO staff, we have a responsibility. We should be an encouragement to those who are giving us back this game that we thought was gone forever. When we ask questions, they should be said with gratefulness, respect, patience, and humility. Prior to asking those questions, we should be doing some research first to see of those questions have already been asked and answered elsewhere. For example:

  • These forums
  • The TLOPO website
  • The TLOPO pages created on Facebook
  • Multiple Youtube channels, both by TLOPO staff and by fans
  • The TLOPO wiki
  • Numerous Developer streams, plus streams made by fans.
  • The IRC live chat

The TLOPO staff put those in place so we would have something to go by as they work. Contained in them is everything they want us to know at the current time. If you want them to roll out the game and its updates as soon as possible, then I suggest utilizing those resources.

Here is where I go from talking to meddling. Some seem to have the attitude that the TLOPO staff owes the community more information, more updates, specific dates, and full public access to the game. Bluntly, they don't. They owe us nothing. They are creating this. They are putting hours upon hours of unpaid time into the game when they still have their own lives to run on top of it. They are in charge. They make the decisions. They choose what to release and what to hold back for a surprise.

We owe them everything. Our thankfulness, support, encouragement, praise, bug reports, and possibly even some new ideas for the game. We should NOT be complaining, repeatedly asking questions they have already said they are not going to answer, nagging, making demands, attacking, demeaning, maliciously speculating, or logging onto TLOPO Alpha and telling everyone in local chat, "Let's start a riot! The devs gave us clothes instead of sailing and enemies. HOW DARE THEY!!" Yes, that happened. And I happily reported the person.

Here's what happens when we do those inappropriate things in the above paragraph: The staff becomes weary of the very people they are making this game for, the enjoyment is sucked right out of it, they roll their eyes more than smiling, they become reluctant to answer any questions, and they start wondering of this whole thing is even worth the trouble. Do you want that?

In the beginning of this, I mentioned that the TLOPO staff are players of POTCO just like us. They want to loot, quest, sail, be plugged into a guild, and find old friends just like we do. When a Game Master logs in, they are offering us a chance to hang with them and just have fun. They are not logging in to be our personal answer givers or to be genies who give us any item we ask for. It is a selfish attitude to only approach a GM with the intent of asking something of them instead of just enjoying them and goofing off as you do with all of your other friends. They have already given POTCO back to us - what right have we to be ungrateful and say that isn't good enough?

This has been long-winded, but something I felt was necessary. I encourage you to take a step back, shut up, and just enjoy this opportunity to play POTCO again. Personally, I'd give anything to loot even a Bright Yellow Cap right now. The cool thing is - very soon, I know I will be able to. (When that day comes, I feel sorry for my family because they will need earplugs.)

Let's change our attitude and have some fun, shall we?

-Chey
Click to expand...
:iagree::iagree::iagree::good post::good post::good post:
 
This is one of the things that's wrong with society today; certain people have the mindset that they are entitled to everything.

I'm completely on board with you. You've brought up some valid points, and it's just interesting to see how my own perspective has changed. Two years ago, when we had Pirates of the High Seas and Pirates Online Rewritten, I was one of the people who complained a lot and thought that I was brilliant in doing so because they "totally owe us more" and I was standing up for some amazing cause. Then, you know, I grew up. I changed. I looked at things from a larger perspective.
It's kind of amazing how different we become over the course of a few years, isn't it?
 
I'm not saying I disagree with everything you say, I just want to mention that there is a reason why people have lost faith in this project. I'm not trying to take a side, I just want both sides of the argument to be put out. Simply put, some believe that this project is irresponsibly managed. People want to know why clothing is being released when it is clearly shown that things like sailing and combat could be implemented. When a boss was accidentally added to the game, it was removed. The devs don't want to add features to the game that aren't perfect, but then what is the point of having an alpha stage of the game? Alpha is designed for testing, and for players to find what is wrong with the game. If the devs intend on releasing features when they are perfect, then closed alpha should be skipped. People shouldn't be banned for discussing their opinion on this project, which has happened in the past. While it is completely within the TLOPO's staff power to do this, it is still unfair to people who wish to speak their mind. Some believe that the community is punished for trying to promote TLOPO. Users in the IRC have been banned for sharing links to TLOPO streams and community forums, community members have been chastised for sharing alpha keys, even when they were given specific permission to do so from devs. Some believe that the TLOPO staff treat TLOPO as their own little kingdom, where if anyone disagrees with their opinion or doesn't work exclusively under their guidance they will be banned or punished. To close this off, I want to say that I don't necessarily agree with all the viewpoints I have presented, and I don't necessarily disagree with any of the opinions to the main post. I just want people to know why some feel like this project is corruptly run. People should be grateful that the devs are making this game for free, but some don't view this as an excuse for them to treat the community as bad as some people think they do.
 
SeaWalker7567 said:
I'm not saying I disagree with everything you say, I just want to mention that there is a reason why people have lost faith in this project. I'm not trying to take a side, I just want both sides of the argument to be put out. Simply put, some believe that this project is irresponsibly managed. People want to know why clothing is being released when it is clearly shown that things like sailing and combat could be implemented. When a boss was accidentally added to the game, it was removed. The devs don't want to add features to the game that aren't perfect, but then what is the point of having an alpha stage of the game? Alpha is designed for testing, and for players to find what is wrong with the game. If the devs intend on releasing features when they are perfect, then closed alpha should be skipped.
Click to expand...
I'm only replying to the first half of your post here, but:
Alpha is for testing to make sure that what the devs think is perfect doesn't actually have flaws to it. It's not a place for them to slap in half complete game elements, because this causes huge issues and instability in the game. Also, if they can see obvious flaws themselves, why not fix it before releasing it? An alpha tester's job is to find issues that the devs didn't find themselves.

As for the boss, I heard Mike himself (I think it was Mike) say that there were exploits and game-breaking issues with the bosses, and that's why they pulled it.

Personally I like the way they're doing it. Start small and slowly build it bigger. If they released something big and it had problems, they wouldn't know where to begin to try fixing them. Plus when they add things to the game, it can cause other things that were already added to have problems. For example:

When they first added clothes to alpha, this was an issue that I would have after changing my clothes and then running into the water immediately after:
clothes swimming.png

The character model would freak out. Now this is just an issue with clothes being added. Imagine if something much larger scale were to be added and have problems like this?


I'll end my rant for now. If y'all want I could post the video of that pic, it's just a screenshot from the video :P
 
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