Is anyone familiar with how hard it is to makes changes to Coding for daoc?

Sepphiroth75 · January 2020

So i see a lot of complaining about how slow Broadsword is to make bug fixes and updates. We know the staff is very small but how hard is it to work with the old daoc code? It has to be a pain in the ass.

With that said I figure there are alot of people that know coding in the daoc community. Why cant BS leverage the community for assistance with helping with writing code?

rocketait · January 2020

Because we would probably go make a free shards with it as we don't like Bs's balance strategy.

But I totally agree they should leverage the community as there dev speed is just so very slow (and the community probably has a lot of people that can help)

Tyrantanic · January 2020

They probably shouldn't have made as many changes if they couldn't keep up with the pace. Considering they won't even outsource a proper template builder or charplanner, I doubt they'll outsource coding for the game. Remember, EA owns this. They're not going to share.

rocketait · January 2020

One argument for keeping it hidden may be that showing it would open up new exploits and vulnerabilities (hacks). But I feel the community could fix them better then bs currently can so it's probably a mute point (most people would want to prevent it then exploit at this point in the games life).

rocketait · January 2020

Oh and it's not there source code might be another problem. It's EA's source code I think, licenced to bs? And I don't know about the tooling for the gamebryo engine that Daoc was built on, but there may be licence complications with that aswell.

When it comes down to it it may be legal restriction that is the most limiting.

Drane · January 2020

I've never heard of any studio asking the community to help code their game, and it seems largely unnecessary. BS has had no problems making extensive changes to the game over time, the issue is how often they put significant time and effort into changes that then need extensive and repeated adjustments made to them, or even need to be straight up reverted further down the road. BS could have all of the free community labor they could ever need, it still won't make much of a difference if they utilize that free labor to push through changes that the community doesn't want.

It would take all of ~30 minutes a day to just make a post on these forums explaining what they're working on that day, what changes they have future plans for (and which aren't yet set in stone), explaining the reasoning they have behind the changes and additions they make, explain why they think the direction they're taking is better than another option offered by the community, ect. So much drama and hand wringing could be avoided, community discussion could be driven into more realistic, constructive directions if we understood BS's thought process behind specific changes and knew what issues BS was taking a hard-line stance on and what issues they were more open to feedback on. BS may not have to feel like they're being driven on a wild goose chase if they would get feedback before they started significant work on an update, rather than just dropping changes unannounced then being shocked when they're poorly received. More people may remain subscribed if they feel that their feedback is actually being read and considered rather than BS going months without any response other than saying that they're still having talks behind closed doors.

Simple but regular communication like this seems like it would be a much more realistic and productive use of their time than trying to figure out what portions of the code they could safely and legally open up to the public (there could very well be third party middle-ware involved that they couldn't release even if they wanted to).

Tyrantanic · January 2020

John himself said they don't need to justify changes because then "that's all they'd ever do". As you said @Drane, it should only take 30 minutes to inform your consumer base of your intentions. I suspect they don't even do these things internally. They likely only have one person making decisions and another person to make it happen. It would explain their lack of transparency and sluggishness.

Shoke · January 2020

@Ciddire did a nice explanation on PC about some code restrictions. The DoL base code (used by shards) is different and more modern than what BS has access to, sadly.

As for communication, I think it's beating on a dead horse. It has been the #1 unanimous complaint for the last 4 years, and their reply was "let's do grab bags again". Grab Bags are cool and all, but generally speaking they answer questions about little details of the game that if that person went on discord they'd have the answer within 15 seconds...

It has been mentionned that the next step is fixing EC (5 months after the original release) and then working on a new server.

As to what they plan on fixing in 1.127 and what their plan is for the server, someone can only hope they'd tell us a bit about it.

Kat · January 2020

Well...they supposedly tell us what they are working on, i.e. EC. But, then big surprise! Not only are we dropping EC, but we are completely changing the aoe, and mos, and sins - changes that impact the entire dynamic of the game

Surprise!

rocketait · January 2020

@Drane there are many companies that do this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games_with_available_source_code and this is even incomplete as it's missing the last game I helped with. And they would not need very much communication to pull this off if they let the community bug fix and submit merge requests (not new content). @Shoke , yes the free shards use the dol engine and sql databases, but no mater how bad the code is the user base could still help (gamebryo is written it's c++ which is probably the most common language most of the Daoc players that can code can code in). With how long EC took most teams could have written a binary patch that did the same thing (with no source code!)

Carol_Broadsword · January 2020

I'm sorry but no, the DAoC code won't be shared or opened up for community collaboration. I understand this works for some people/companies, but not every and not ours.

Shoke, yes, people might have the answer in Discord, but not everyone uses Discord and we can't act like they do. Questions in the Grab Bag are questions people enter, genuine questions genuine players ask (outside of the special edition Grab Bags). Also EC has been out (live) 2 months, not 5, and we said changes based on feedback would follow EC, which it is.

Between these forums, Facebook, Twitter, discord, and ingame, we communicate with players on literally a daily basis. The Herald and newsletter reaches more people with game and community updates. Just because we may not talk with you today, doesn't mean we're not talking to anyone, this isn't the case. The type of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible.

Dale_Perf · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Between these forums, Facebook, Twitter, discord, and ingame, we communicate with players on literally a daily basis. The Herald and newsletter reaches more people with game and community updates. Just because we may not talk with you today, doesn't mean we're not talking to anyone, this isn't the case. The type of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible.

There has been 0 communication pertaining to the state of the game. All we hear is you guys are working, listening to feedback, while most of the community has already given the feedback that new PBAE is terrible for action, it took many weeks just to bring back population bonuses people have been screaming for since they were taken away.

Sure, you guys, or just you, are communicating with players on a daily basis. Helping players with a bug or tech problem with one of the discord admins or yourself. DAoC is on so many different platforms, I imagine it's making it hard to send streamlined communication. I think the community would like to see regular bug fixes (even the smallest ones) posted to hot fixes on the website, @John_Broadsword plans this year for DAoC, and communication on the state of the game.

If this god-awful PBAE is what @John_Broadsword intended he should come out and say it. Many, many paying customers have complained about this and there has been silence on the issue. @Carol_Broadsword herself started a discussion in discord on why we think certain realms PBAE setup is better, which is great, but leads us to believe BS doesn't understand their own game. If you're going to remove it, just remove it. There was a knee-jerk reaction to the Warlock PBAE, then we suddenly returned population bonuses as well, so just saying changes take time and be patient is compounding the issue.

Radio silence on the true issues plaguing this game. Even coming out and just saying we understand there is huge population disparity since EC launch, we are working to help alleviate this. Have any suggestions? Submit feedback! Admitting the issues with the game instead of seemingly ignoring them would go a long way with one of the most loyal playerbases in MMO's. Instead the interaction with @John_Broadsword that sticks with me is him telling us he doesn't need to explain the changes he makes to his paying customers.

Carol_Broadsword · January 2020

You're taking yesterday's Discord discussion wrong, Perf. That was an open discussion to gather feedback and thoughts not push for an answer to 1 question with just a yes or no. It was a discussion I pushed along to gather thoughts, input, and feedback, and to keep the discussion flowing and on topic. Just because I asked what people think on alb/mid bomb groups, for example, doesn't mean we don't know our game, it means we want to know what people think, feel, and why.

It wasn't the first or only time or place, either.

Also don't forget you can keep an eye on bugs reported, updated, and addressed on the bug tracker here: https://trello.com/b/4AHyZxVl/dark-age-of-camelot-bug-tracker

Tyrantanic · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

You're taking yesterday's Discord discussion wrong, Perf. That was an open discussion to gather feedback and thoughts not push for an answer to 1 question with just a yes or no.

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Shoke, yes, people might have the answer in Discord, but not everyone uses Discord and we can't act like they do. Questions in the Grab Bag are questions people enter, genuine questions genuine players ask (outside of the special edition Grab Bags).

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Between these forums, Facebook, Twitter, discord, and ingame, we communicate with players on literally a daily basis. The Herald and newsletter reaches more people with game and community updates. Just because we may not talk with you today, doesn't mean we're not talking to anyone, this isn't the case.

You should probably decide on a primary mode of communication for your players instead of spreading yourself out all over the place. A monthly podcast discussing state of the game and future direction would be a step in the right direction....oh wait.

https://darkageofcamelot.com/content/knight-podcasts

Dale_Perf · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

You're taking yesterday's Discord discussion wrong, Perf. That was an open discussion to gather feedback and thoughts not push for an answer to 1 question with just a yes or no. It was a discussion I pushed along to gather thoughts, input, and feedback, and to keep the discussion flowing and on topic. Just because I asked what people think on alb/mid bomb groups, for example, doesn't mean we don't know our game, it means we want to know what people think, feel, and why.

It wasn't the first or only time or place, either.

Also don't forget you can keep an eye on bugs reported, updated, and addressed on the bug tracker here: https://trello.com/b/4AHyZxVl/dark-age-of-camelot-bug-tracker

Whether or not I took it wrong does not change the perception of the conversation. And it's not the best point to make, that you often have discussions about how the player base feels, thinks, and why they do so, considering the changes that the majority of the community hate that are still in game. If you're having these discussions and making progress why are we still on the downslope of population? It's been this way for years after all these discussions.

Solicfear1 · January 2020

Tyrantanic wrote: »

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

You're taking yesterday's Discord discussion wrong, Perf. That was an open discussion to gather feedback and thoughts not push for an answer to 1 question with just a yes or no.

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Shoke, yes, people might have the answer in Discord, but not everyone uses Discord and we can't act like they do. Questions in the Grab Bag are questions people enter, genuine questions genuine players ask (outside of the special edition Grab Bags).

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Between these forums, Facebook, Twitter, discord, and ingame, we communicate with players on literally a daily basis. The Herald and newsletter reaches more people with game and community updates. Just because we may not talk with you today, doesn't mean we're not talking to anyone, this isn't the case.

You should probably decide on a primary mode of communication for your players instead of spreading yourself out all over the place. A monthly podcast discussing state of the game and future direction would be a step in the right direction....oh wait.

https://darkageofcamelot.com/content/knight-podcasts

I agree, a dev monthly podcast would be amazing with certain subjects of the game. So for example, discuss class balance, discuss content (PvE/RvR), discuss classic server, discuss future plans and idea's etc.

Right now, all we know is there is a few fixes to EC and a couple of changes here and there and that's it. There just doesn't seem to be a plan in place on what the future is for DAoC but short term solutions.

Shoke · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Shoke, yes, people might have the answer in Discord, but not everyone uses Discord and we can't act like they do. Questions in the Grab Bag are questions people enter, genuine questions genuine players ask (outside of the special edition Grab Bags). Also EC has been out (live) 2 months, not 5, and we said changes based on feedback would follow EC, which it is.

What I meant is that the 1.127 patch is scheduled for March, so let's assume a March 30 patch day. Considering EC launched Nov-22, it would be 4 months (sorry I calculated that wrong). You made some quick fixes in the following days of 1.126 launch, but it feels like the remaining changes will happen in 1.127. So yeah, that's what I meant with my 5 months (should have said 4).

About the Grab Bags, I think they serve a purpose, for exactly the reason you mentionned. But aside from daily communications in discord, where you take our questions/comments and everything and communicate them back to the dev side of things, the communication isn't necessarily coming the other way. You are extremely available and helpful, don't get me wrong, but larger vision topics are usually dropped at the same time as a patch, whereas a little poking to the playerbase would be great.

Again, the herald posts are usually basically patch notes. The decision has been taken when you post them. Newsletter offer a very high level idea of what's coming up, but again I never saw in any newsletter a topic about PBAE changes and why you think it's important to bring DAoC back to essentially only keep/siege fights.

Kroko · January 2020

@Carol_Broadsword
I would find it helpful if you gave some reasons for major changes you do.
For example pbae, underpop bonus, assassin changes, ....
You could write 1 line in patch notes for example.
Otherwise no one knows sometimes why you did it.

Shoke · January 2020

I do want the SM Thane bomb group @Carol_Broadsword !

rocketait · January 2020

@Kroko something like how blizzard there patches would be nice https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/starcraft2/23159844/starcraft-ii-balance-update-2019 ?. There is some information on the why if the changes (ya not everyone agrees but it help people understand and not feel lost or like they don't have a voice). Also they then try it and rapidly dial in an appropriate balance, based mostly on statistics. Yes they have more data, so it would take a bit longer; but at least with the rapid fallow up patches, that slowly adjusts the changes made, they give the sense of being active with their development.

Drane · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

Between these forums, Facebook, Twitter, discord, and ingame, we communicate with players on literally a daily basis. The Herald and newsletter reaches more people with game and community updates. Just because we may not talk with you today, doesn't mean we're not talking to anyone, this isn't the case. The type of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible.

You say it's not feasible, but I feel your recent discussion prompt about PBAOE on discord shows just how easy and constructive this sort of communication could be. Put it somewhere more visible and conductive to extended discussion than a quickly buried discord conversation (such as your official forums) and get the team to make that sort of discussion prompt before the change is pushed to live (in addition to offering a short explanation on why the change is being considered in the first place). That's all that's being asked for. Next day post a similar 1-3 sentence prompt relating to the the assassin changes planned. Over the next few days do the same about some about the various EC restrictions and why you feel those particular policies are required/beneficial. And so on and so forth.

Doesn't even have to be every day, as long as it's regular, reliable communication about the team's plans for the game that go beyond vague statements like "tweaks are still under discussion" after 2 months of no communication about the issue. If they're unsure of specifics then they can just just tell us what options are being considered so we at least know what they're thinking. I honestly don't see why it wouldn't be feasible to get the rest of the team to, once a day, every two days, or whatever time period you think is reasonable, make a short thread saying "we're considering change X. We feel X will solve problem Y. Post your feedback about both perceived problem Y and planned solution X in this thread and we'll respond to the more important concerns/points raised over the next few days."

Dale_Perf · January 2020

/clap

Sepphiroth75 · January 2020

Like Solic said i think a quarterly not a monthly webex login discussion would be excellent. Just give updates and a Q&A session and thats it. I think the issue is engineers like to be seen and
not heard but they should do something. Its practically free outside of the hosting platform to do this and yes maybe its Not in the job description but guess what..maybe that is what is needed to move this great game along.

Atscheron · January 2020

why do some people think programming is like snapping with the fingers and all is nice and shiny :P ?

Dale_Perf · January 2020

Atscheron wrote: »

why do some people think programming is like snapping with the fingers and all is nice and shiny :P ?

If you read through this thread that is not the issue.

AlaskaMike · January 2020

I recommend reading some Friday posts on factorio's website.
This is literally what everyone's talking about I feel. They've been doing it weekly forever and have some frankly amazing communication coming from it. And more importantly community goodwill.

We don't care if things get changed, we just want to "feel" involved and invested in the game. Heck, I'd break my own vow of not subscribing until the new server comes out if a weekly blog (good AND bad weekly event discussion, where the player base can comment/give ideas/rant) came out on the forum. (not discord where it's buried)

Is it necessarily fair for you guys to have to listen to angry rants every time you talk about anything? Hell no, but I guarantee it'll make you more money. Hire some pour soul to moderate it if you have to, some guy from India can probably do it for $5/week lol. My personal subscription can be earmarked for this

Post the blog Friday, moderate it Sunday night, read some comments Monday morning. Percolate ideas all week, new post Friday ect.

Koe · January 2020

Tyrantanic wrote: »

John himself said they don't need to justify changes because then "that's all they'd ever do". As you said @Drane, it should only take 30 minutes to inform your consumer base of your intentions. I suspect they don't even do these things internally. They likely only have one person making decisions and another person to make it happen. It would explain their lack of transparency and sluggishness.

I suspect over time they've had a lot of complaints from very vocal people, over and over, with lots of accusations, and it just gets old and no matter what they say/do the complaints are still there. Have personally watched people complain loudly about something over and over, get it, and without so much as an awesome! or whoot! or thanks! just move on to the next complaint about how their realm is still so much worse off. Taking feedback as they can get it and trying to use it to make an informed decision is really what's most important.

Tyrantanic · January 2020

Koe wrote: »

Tyrantanic wrote: »

John himself said they don't need to justify changes because then "that's all they'd ever do". As you said @Drane, it should only take 30 minutes to inform your consumer base of your intentions. I suspect they don't even do these things internally. They likely only have one person making decisions and another person to make it happen. It would explain their lack of transparency and sluggishness.

I suspect over time they've had a lot of complaints from very vocal people, over and over, with lots of accusations, and it just gets old and no matter what they say/do the complaints are still there. Have personally watched people complain loudly about something over and over, get it, and without so much as an awesome! or whoot! or thanks! just move on to the next complaint about how their realm is still so much worse off. Taking feedback as they can get it and trying to use it to make an informed decision is really what's most important.

Small community and no transparency from the developers is a bad combination for, what used to be, an established MMO. Catering to a few players on the internal boards was a bad strategy. They need to involve the playerbase as a whole, not a few selected individuals. If that's not feasible at this point, then they're bound to keep making the same mistakes that led to the current situation. But hey, asking why some changes were implemented is rhetorical (lol).

Carol_Broadsword · January 2020

The internal boards are gone and have been gone for a long time, as have Knights. Feedback and thoughts are taken from the whole community through the various ways I mentioned above, and feedback form.

Tyrantanic · January 2020

Carol_Broadsword wrote: »

The internal boards are gone and have been gone for a long time, as have Knights. Feedback and thoughts are taken from the whole community through the various ways I mentioned above, and feedback form.

Except there's no transparency (echo, echo, echo.......). Feedback is sent into the abyss and we have to wait for a patch (which takes months) to see what was considered. Streamline a feedback forum and make it public so we can have an active discussion between players and developers. Right now, we have a one way street where all the drivers are hidden from one another and the other road is closed.

Koe · January 2020

Even when the internals were active Broadsword was hosting public forums and podcast/panels and was very engaged in player feedback. They've done many producers letters, a return of the grab bag, now have two Community Devs (DAOC never had that before), and transitioned real time discussions to here and real time conversations on Discord.

I've seen very few games over the years where the dev team was as directly involved with the playerbase in having actual discussions with real people as Broadsword has done, rather than a closed off wall that players usually get.

I also think that sometimes they like to let the discussions here and on discord continue without them, because as a Dev if you say something people react to it and you don't get as open of a conversation that you'd otherwise get.

Tyrantanic · January 2020

Koe wrote: »

Even when the internals were active Broadsword was hosting public forums and podcast/panels and was very engaged in player feedback. They've done many producers letters, a return of the grab bag, now have two Community Devs (DAOC never had that before), and transitioned real time discussions to here and real time conversations on Discord.

The last podcast was in 2016 which is when, I assume, the Knights program ended. Why stop the communication with it? The quality of their involvement with the playerbase has only decreased since and, unsurprisingly, the active player population has decreased with it.

Koe wrote: »

I've seen very few games over the years where the dev team was as directly involved with the playerbase in having actual discussions with real people as Broadsword has done, rather than a closed off wall that players usually get.

Not being the worst dev team shouldn't be the goal here.

Koe wrote: »

I also think that sometimes they like to let the discussions here and on discord continue without them, because as a Dev if you say something people react to it and you don't get as open of a conversation that you'd otherwise get.

All they need to do is start a topic and ask for feedback specific to said topic. Let the players discuss from there. This forum is a great place for this type of thing since everyone with an account can login and contribute. However, there is zero direction or indication of what feedback is welcomed or needed that is applicable for what they're working on. There's loads of feedback on here for EC, but we have literally NO idea what's on the table regarding it. For all we know, working on EC means adding another 425 delve PBAOE.

Sepphiroth75 · January 2020

i just don’t understand why this is so hard to have a live call. Is it a legal issue? I live out of hotels for 90+ nights a year and that doesn’t count my onsite visits at client locations, events, trade shows plus driving and flying all the time. I still have a 30 minute call every week with my team to go over everything. Even an hour once a month would be awesome. I have already offered to pay for a open bar tab in reston, virginia to have a daoc round table at a restaurant close to the office and we could live stream from there!

rocketait · January 2020

I filled out the feed back form when I unsubscribe, hopefully it's helpfully but the questions felt forced and I don't thy they will understand the "main" problem with communication and random patches that break game and then lack of activity from devs while game is in broken state (current balance I feel make the rvr part of the game unplayable at times but maybe I'm crazy)

That is the feedback they are looking for right? Because I've tried every other medium..

BumblesZERG · January 2020

I didn't even bother to fill out the form when I unsubbed. It's like those radio ads that say text 4242 to some random number and you could win $1000. Nobody ever wins and now some creep has your contact info. I don't want Beibs to have my email address.

Dale_Perf · January 2020

The exit survey upon unsubscribing is super outdated, it asked me about DAoC Origins.

Daelin · January 2020

BumblesZERG wrote: »

I didn't even bother to fill out the form when I unsubbed. It's like those radio ads that say text 4242 to some random number and you could win $1000. Nobody ever wins and now some creep has your contact info. I don't want Beibs to have my email address.

I try to give my email address away and she won't take it

Carol_Broadsword · January 2020

I'm not that much of a stalker

(or am I)

We're taking all responses here on board all, and thank you for all feedback.

Cartoan · January 2020

I hear jaws music.

Menos · January 2020

It is never hard to make changes to code, it just takes time. Rule of thumb for coding: the time it takes to change something is usually at least twice as much as you had expected. And that's the big issue: just fixing this sounds easy, and can be usually done easily, but it takes the dev a week of work nevertheless. So with that dev working on issue A for a week, issue B cannot be worked on, because the dev is busy. And that's where you start to prioritize. Is Issue B really so important that it justifies not fixing issue C for the next 3 weeks? Or should we consider B to be so minor, that C goes first? And maybe D, E and F as well?

So the problem is probably not coding but having enough people to do it.

Is anyone familiar with how hard it is to makes changes to Coding for daoc?

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