Larisa
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Wading through the embarrassing arse kissing and pom pom wavers someone actually put them on the spot about the RMT sellers. Well done.
Just me or do i find half of the questions generally less than useful?
Good to hear a question on the RMT spammers but no real discusison of what they might consider trying to fix it. I posted a number of ideas in the forum but I don't think they read those.
Surprised no one asked why all these drops from these events are shard bound along with rewards. Makes little sense.
Can't believe people care about the palidan sword and animations. How about asking why so many weapons are generally useless due to terrible specials and speeds such that only like 10 out of 90 weapons in the game are EVER used.
Last I can't believe they made it through chat with a character named Golden Showers without forcing a name change. Maybe Messana likes getting peed on. I dunno.
Good to hear a question on the RMT spammers but no real discusison of what they might consider trying to fix it. I posted a number of ideas in the forum but I don't think they read those.
Surprised no one asked why all these drops from these events are shard bound along with rewards. Makes little sense.
Can't believe people care about the palidan sword and animations. How about asking why so many weapons are generally useless due to terrible specials and speeds such that only like 10 out of 90 weapons in the game are EVER used.
Last I can't believe they made it through chat with a character named Golden Showers without forcing a name change. Maybe Messana likes getting peed on. I dunno.
I will save you all the trouble, You can look the questions up yourselves but these are the answers.
Q1 A1 Mesanna: its a possibility for the future
Q2 A2 Mesanna: we would like to keep this art for new artifacts
Q3 A3 Mesanna: we are adding several quests and such but it is designed for all types
Q4 A4 Mesanna: sounds like a good addition........ if ...... we update those rewards
Q5 A5 Mesanna: we have this issue in our database and will review it to see how we can fix it. Mesanna: for a future publish
Q6 A6 Mesanna: not sure the backpack is going to be a easy one to fix. Mesanna: no promises
Q7 A7 Mesanna: probably not
Q8 A8 Mesanna: it is not that easy
Q9 A9 Mesanna: no we have no plans to do that
Q10 A 10 Mesanna: we ban them and ban them. Mesanna: but they just keep coming back. Mesanna: we have talked about that. Mesanna: we will revisit it
Q11 A11 Mesanna: doubt it. Mesanna: but never say never
Q12 A12. Mesanna: That is a known issue that seems to keep popping up its head. Mesanna: but also it helps to close the client after a long period of time. Mesanna: not that its perfect but that does help. Mesanna: yes we are aware of it
Q13 A13 Bleak: It’s not possible at this time. Mesanna: that would all be really high on a wish list for us. Mesanna: some of those are really not possible. Mesanna: summoned pets you can not control period. ...... Mesanna: that we can look into. Mesanna: that part sounds like a bug.
Q14 A14 Kyronix : They will remain
Q15 A15 Mesanna: I think this is written up and can have Bleak look at it
Q16 A16 Bleak: We will look at this for non house usage
Q1 A1 Mesanna: its a possibility for the future
Q2 A2 Mesanna: we would like to keep this art for new artifacts
Q3 A3 Mesanna: we are adding several quests and such but it is designed for all types
Q4 A4 Mesanna: sounds like a good addition........ if ...... we update those rewards
Q5 A5 Mesanna: we have this issue in our database and will review it to see how we can fix it. Mesanna: for a future publish
Q6 A6 Mesanna: not sure the backpack is going to be a easy one to fix. Mesanna: no promises
Q7 A7 Mesanna: probably not
Q8 A8 Mesanna: it is not that easy
Q9 A9 Mesanna: no we have no plans to do that
Q10 A 10 Mesanna: we ban them and ban them. Mesanna: but they just keep coming back. Mesanna: we have talked about that. Mesanna: we will revisit it
Q11 A11 Mesanna: doubt it. Mesanna: but never say never
Q12 A12. Mesanna: That is a known issue that seems to keep popping up its head. Mesanna: but also it helps to close the client after a long period of time. Mesanna: not that its perfect but that does help. Mesanna: yes we are aware of it
Q13 A13 Bleak: It’s not possible at this time. Mesanna: that would all be really high on a wish list for us. Mesanna: some of those are really not possible. Mesanna: summoned pets you can not control period. ...... Mesanna: that we can look into. Mesanna: that part sounds like a bug.
Q14 A14 Kyronix : They will remain
Q15 A15 Mesanna: I think this is written up and can have Bleak look at it
Q16 A16 Bleak: We will look at this for non house usage
What I thought was interesting was in regards to "future content going to TC1" was that Mesanna said "doubt it"... there is literally a server for them to test content before making it live and they don't want to use it, instead they are going to simply drop it in and we get what we get without being able to give feedback. Sad.
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So why can't they make the bags look bigger? Free shards mostly have a slider for bag sizing and also one to scale up the bag contents, it can't be as hard as they are making it out to be. The classic backpack jumble of tiny items is one thing I really could not go back to, my eyesight is bad enough without straining it further. 
Ya that is not a good thing. The one question they had an answer that will be implemented now.
So when they are not going to implement a question/suggestion immediately, would y'all be happier if they just say no, we will not do that? Instead of the answers above?
Free shard programmers are more likely to care about player quality of life, are better programmers, and to be fair, not constrained as much as this Dev team is.So why can't they make the bags look bigger? Free shards mostly have a slider for bag sizing and also one to scale up the bag contents, it can't be as hard as they are making it out to be. The classic backpack jumble of tiny items is one thing I really could not go back to, my eyesight is bad enough without straining it further.
They run these meet and greets like this on purpose.
They know theyre only going to get softball questions or ones they can deflect. It gives the illusion of a communication but actually isn’t. The role play question is a prime example - “such as?” No, it’s not up to me to play guess the feature so you can say if it’s in the works or not. You give me a list of what you’re working in at the moment. Where is the development road map? This is 101 level stuff, team.
They know theyre only going to get softball questions or ones they can deflect. It gives the illusion of a communication but actually isn’t. The role play question is a prime example - “such as?” No, it’s not up to me to play guess the feature so you can say if it’s in the works or not. You give me a list of what you’re working in at the moment. Where is the development road map? This is 101 level stuff, team.
What's frustrating about that is Kyronix was/is a roleplayer! He even used to be an EM. He should know how to answer that question even if it's a PR deflection.
"Roleplayer communities are at the heart of game and we are constantly thinking of ways to keep them engaged! Keep an eye out for some new quests, cosmetics, and immersion deepining items soon!"
I have large containers on and I carry a box in my pack and put most the stuff in the box. Then I can see it. Why the same art can't be used for the pack is beyond me but I ready most of these as 'We didn't code it and we are deathly afraid of touching it so it won't change'.So why can't they make the bags look bigger? Free shards mostly have a slider for bag sizing and also one to scale up the bag contents, it can't be as hard as they are making it out to be. The classic backpack jumble of tiny items is one thing I really could not go back to, my eyesight is bad enough without straining it further.
At least that would be an honest answer.
I agree. All this deflecting makes it look like either they can't be bothered to tell us or they don't care. I don't sense even an ounce of passion from the dev team for the game. They are person at a toll booth collecting change. Counting the minutes until the clock hits 5pm.
I'd prefer an honest actual answer.
Perhaps : 'We don't want to put this content on TC for two reasons - number one it delays the release schedule and number two it gives test players an advantage when the content drops on regular shards. We would prefer the entire playerbase got to figure out the content at the same time'.
Its the same answer but it feels better when you understand the reason. Explanations would go along way to communicating.
Thx for posting it once again.
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I agree with @Theo_GL that we would all respect them more if they were honest, too many times Mesanna has said one thing and done another, or promised something that she then couldn't deliver and refused to even discuss afterwards. It's very unprofessional and it doesn't exactly create an atmosphere of trust. If something is beyond them they should just say so, not pretend that they will consider it.
While I wish there was a little more open discussion about a road maps (technically they gave us the events for the next 4 months which is more than we got this time last year), but I can't really blame them for keeping things hush hush.
They have a team of like 6 people (maybe only half are worth a damn) so they might have an idea to fix XYZ or change ABC but when they look into it, maybe it's too much for their team to fix OR it becomes the only thing they fix....and once they fix it people are going to complain anyways.
Perfect examples from the past 2 years.
"We want IDOCs fixed!!" --> Devs focus on IDOCs for 3 months --> "IDOCs are still broken, these new changes suck"
"We want a new pet!!" --> Devs create a Triton & spend months trying to keep it balanced --> "We can't ride this pet and it looks like a green poop, this pet sucks"
"We want Tmap loot bumped" --> Devs rework Tmaps over several months --> "You ruined Tmaps! I only get a third of the loot we used to...Tmaps now suck"
"We want more events with rewards" --> Dynamic tool created over 6 months --> "These dungeon items are shard bound and paragons are too hard to kill and the champ spawn is too hard and it's stupid that we only get 1 drop... these changes suck"
If I were a Dev at this point I'd be hush hush too because whatever I'm trying to work on is going to be met with hostility and negativity by half the population.
They have a team of like 6 people (maybe only half are worth a damn) so they might have an idea to fix XYZ or change ABC but when they look into it, maybe it's too much for their team to fix OR it becomes the only thing they fix....and once they fix it people are going to complain anyways.
Perfect examples from the past 2 years.
"We want IDOCs fixed!!" --> Devs focus on IDOCs for 3 months --> "IDOCs are still broken, these new changes suck"
"We want a new pet!!" --> Devs create a Triton & spend months trying to keep it balanced --> "We can't ride this pet and it looks like a green poop, this pet sucks"
"We want Tmap loot bumped" --> Devs rework Tmaps over several months --> "You ruined Tmaps! I only get a third of the loot we used to...Tmaps now suck"
"We want more events with rewards" --> Dynamic tool created over 6 months --> "These dungeon items are shard bound and paragons are too hard to kill and the champ spawn is too hard and it's stupid that we only get 1 drop... these changes suck"
If I were a Dev at this point I'd be hush hush too because whatever I'm trying to work on is going to be met with hostility and negativity by half the population.
I agree its a bit of an angry mob mentality but it could be solved with two things :
1 - Create some focus groups with honest feedback. There are casual players and there are Hardcore players (10%). Find some of the hardcore willing to spend time with you discussing the design plans and you will get good feedback. You will need about 5 focus groups (PVP, PVM/Tamers, Crafters, EM/Events, Homes & Deco). Work with the focus groups on the upcoming plans. You will save alot of time by getting good feedback.
2- FINISH content. And what I mean is actually finish off what you are working on until its solid and playable. Most of the stuff on the list above is a good start but it wasn't finished.
IDOCs? The house placement is borked. That's the main issue people are mad about. I think the shouting out of the idocs and the barrel distribution have made the content sharing more fair. The deletion of all vet rewards and resources is what irks people. Maybe instead there is a happy medium here. House add ons are left but rideables are wiped. Resources are deeded but reduced by 80%. So a 100 pile of ingots becomes a 20 ingot deed. This is the problem with most of the content is its never finished to a happy end but rather left in a poor state.
Event rewards - Idea and content is good but the implementation is lacking. People hate shard bound items cause it forces ATL to be overloaded while rest of servers are ghost towns. Allow the playerbase to spread out by allowing transfers. Also the rewards oscillate between useful and super lame. Deceit was one spellbook with limited use and a bunch of deco items. Hell just add one doom arty to it and its immediately more interesting.
Community collections - good idea - horrible implementation and STILL not fixed! Better rewards and more reasonable turn ins for points. No one is hunting 80,000 shields for mace and shield glasses. That's a 3 year full time job. Let me turn in some things I can reasonably obtain for reasonable points and after a few weeks of gameplay get some mace and shields. Look at the zoo. I started turning in polar bears as i tamed them for skill. 45 points each. The first level reward is 100,000 points. Thats over 2,200 polar bears. It takes me about 3 minutes to tame 5 of them and 2 more to get to the zoo and donate them for 225 points. That translates to 37 hours of work for the FIRST level reward. Lets get real here. Yes there are other pets to get more points but they take more effort to tame so the point speed is about the same. Lowest rewards 37 hours and highest rewards 8x37 hours. That's just a complete ridiculous grind. SIMPLE change is change the point value of turn ins and done- it becomes some reasonable rewards. For about 2-3 hours of game play I'd like to get a reward. Not 37. Again - good system - terrible implementation so almost no one does it.
But the devs will literally never listen to feedback to fix some of these old outdated systems and instead waste mountains of hours on 'new' content that is negligible at times in value. I could name some stuff like coffee making, beer making, fish tanks, etc. Cute and a mild distraction for a hot minute but rarely done now. Was the dev effort to make beer making really worth it? A new dungeon or story arc or new monster encounter would have much more lasting effects. A dungeon mini champ that the boss dropped resources (leather/ingots) would get done over and over because its way more fun to PVM than mine ingots.
I just have an issue with time management. Are they really spending their limited time wisely? I think not.
I wrote too much...thx for reading if you made it this far.
I agree with this. I think their attention could be focused differently but everybody will differ on what they think it should be spent on. It would be the same thing with focus groups where the people that actually wanted to be a part of testing would be heard and those that couldn't or didn't want to participate would be at their mercy which is scary if you just read some of the suggestions people make on the official forum for things they want to see.
I think that's one thing we ALL can get behind... it WILL DEFINITELY be a problem whenever there is not a finish to a happy end(ing) !!
who is mesanna boss?, who deos she report to? who can I complain to about her absolute incompetence and **** customer service? also want to report that uninterested stoned partner if hers who is supposed to be quality control
I forget their name, but they don't care. They're only interested in DAOC, UO came as part of the package.
Like any of them cares about anything but keeping you subscribed with as little effort as possible.
Denton... All he cares about is DAOC he has said that on numerous occasions... as well as saying Mesanna is the LAST Producer that UO will ever have... In other words when she flies the coop or is no longer breathing .... UO will die.
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@jack flash uk Someone actually asked her that, I think at a M&G a while back and she refused to give any details, she just wouldn't answer them, very unprofessional as always. She relies on Denton wanting nothing to do with UO and EA having forgotten it exists.
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She won't leave, honestly. Unless it's to retire. Be honest here, with the turnover, subscription losses, bugs, failed systems...UO is NOT a resume item LOL.
Nobody will want her to lead their product downthe same path
Nobody will want her to lead their product downthe same path
Even after retirement, she has all the possibilities to do a clops for her and her husband. She couldn't find all his accounts, who should find hers? As sad as loosing my house was for a day or two, as satisfying it feels to not even pay them every 3 months now
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@petemage I'm glad you are finding something positive about your mishap, but you must have felt gutted when it happened, now you can make a clean break and save yourself all that stress.
I'd like to know just how many subs UO has at this point, I don't think her New Legacy shard will be the great success she imagines it to be, since they never advertise, I don't know how she thinks it will get new players in!
I'd like to know just how many subs UO has at this point, I don't think her New Legacy shard will be the great success she imagines it to be, since they never advertise, I don't know how she thinks it will get new players in!
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I'm really bad at quitting things that I should have quit long ago. There is this old saying over here along the lines of "better a painful end than an endless pain". I bet there's an English equivalent, just I don't know.
This would be funnier if it wasn't so true. They clearly don't play much of the game other than getting anny gifts and I'm certain neither one has ever crafted anything.
I completely understand and you always need to filter your feedback but thats why you find a GOOD focus group that gives realistic system thought out ideas. I work for a billion dollar software company and we have thousands of customers and many ask for stupid things - but there are a handful of smart cutting edge companies we work with that drive our main product direction. Find the right FOCUS group so you can ignore the nonsense. There are always outliers but if you can please 80% of the people thats your target - forget 100%. They are running around 20% now.
I wouldn't expect any developer to spent his freetime on the game they are already working on all day. But when there are a dozen of players/customers telling them a central game feature is broken, they could at least look into it instead of completely ignoring the issue *cough* VS *cough*
Or maybe they have used up all their ideas on how to fix it.
Yea, that's for sure one possibility. Yet it would be pretty disappointing. And more so the lack of communicating it IMO. Where I work I'm responsible for answering customer emails every day. They ask for a lot of things, and as much as I hate to tell them, I often need to tell them that we simply can't provide the feature they are asking for.
I worked at the War Collage back in the 80s and we had a data base with every known weapon in the world from the simple hand gun to the most powerful aircraft carrier with a full compliment of an air wing and every military base, ours and theirs and yes we could simulate thermal nuclear warfare, both sides. The data base took up 2 main frames and the 3rd ran the game. We had ZERO problem maintaining/sorting/searching/updating anything so I really do not see why they can not maintain VS esp with the power CPUs have now and the storage at ones finger tip.
I can almost bet it is timing out due to load because the exact term/words work on all the other shards.
They actually have done focus groups for TOL and EJ. The forums are still up. It went something like this:
BS: OK give us your ideas on how to do this.
Focus group: Tons of ideas.
BS: Here's how we are going to do it - 10% of provided ideas, 90% of jumbled overcomplicated mess.
Focus group: Wait, wait, this is not what we wanted. This is not going to work well.
BS: Yeah, so the publish will be out on test in a month. Thank you for the ideas. Your input is very valuable to us.
Focus group: But, but, this is a bad design. You gotta change it.
BS: Let's talk about what you want in the publish after this one.
They stopped doing the Focus groups because why bother?
Pretty much. And only listen to the few pets they have most of which barely play and when they do play on shards like Siege... for the most part...
They disbanded the focus groups bc then they would have to test it on TC1 and Misk would actually need to do something and would catch flak when he didn't actually do his job. Solution? Remove focus groups so nothing needs to be put on TC1 and they can say "that is working as intended". Misk goes back to whatever it is that he's paid to do... I'm guessing something like double dipping and being paid to be a Walmart greeter while also collecting a check from Broadsword.
Larisa
Publishing Manager, Stratics Leadership
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I'm working on the transcript now but they WILL be doing the livestream this week.
Misk is Mesanna's second income...
The 10% are probably the ideas Mesanna and her click of friends liked, the other 90% they didn't.
Having Mesanna as producer was the worst decision for UO.