Hello everyone!
Finally, a DEV DIARY!
So many things have happened since the last Genisaurus post in March; so let's get to it.
.FRUSTRATION
Spoiler:
Since T4 release (+ the big shutdown), I have the feeling that many people (some players, some RoR team members) experience a lot of frustration/angriness, creating a lot of non-productive situations and locked posts on this forum. The main reasons for all this (as far as I have understood)are: cross-realming, bad focusing from RoR team to fix some parts of the game and modify some others that weren't in the original, the not so incentive ORvR, difficulty to gain rewards and some specific stuff, locks and bans/exiles, order/destro biasing, lack of class balance, DDOS, Massive DCs, RoR team/player relationship, etcetcetc... The list is too long. I'll try, in this DEV DIARY to talk about the most important points and try to explain and elaborate as clearly as possible what I personally think about it all.
Spoiler:
All of you are aware that we have experienced massive DDOS attacks during July-August, forcing us to deploy new hardware and shut down the server for some weeks. This situation has created a lot of frustration for you as it did for us, slowing us a bit in dev, and causing some disorganization inside the team. The biggest part of this challenging period is behind us but we still have some issues to fix behind the curtain for your enjoyment and ours. The hardware and software deployment isn't finished yet, many tests will be done in the future to security-capacity-stability.
Note that we are still (almost) daily DDOSed. Error 525, account validations are the consequences of that. Fact is DDOS is smoothed and as said, we have some issues fixing to reinforce all this. I don't understand the purpose of attacking this project, because the most punished people in this story are eventually the players. RoR is a nonprofit project, so we (RoR team) don't lose money or anything. If the goal is to kill our motivation, well, we are all humans, some might take a break, some leave, some others join us, so this story won't end...we will not give up.
Note that we are still (almost) daily DDOSed. Error 525, account validations are the consequences of that. Fact is DDOS is smoothed and as said, we have some issues fixing to reinforce all this. I don't understand the purpose of attacking this project, because the most punished people in this story are eventually the players. RoR is a nonprofit project, so we (RoR team) don't lose money or anything. If the goal is to kill our motivation, well, we are all humans, some might take a break, some leave, some others join us, so this story won't end...we will not give up.
Spoiler:
This is the most important point of all this diary. I think i must do an image to explain clearly what is RoR. Many of you probably don't know or have forget.
WAREMU/ROR is a project made from scratch. No original sources from the old official one. To work on this we have nothing, nichts, rien, nada. Working on this project is like trying to translate Hyeroglyph without the rosatta stone. Or Voynish manuscript. Try guys, you'll see thats funny as hell.
If you were thinking ROR project was based on original server sources (we obviously don't have, plus this would have been completely illegal unless the owner gave it to us), well you were completely wrong.
-warning 4 years old attempt to explain something complex- Game Client has his rules and we have to guess how to communicate with it. We actually can't decrytp the game client to find/or modify this Rosatta stone ( it wou'd have been too easy
). So the RoR team have to deal with that since the begining. And the RoR team is small. And ppl in the RoR Team who are able to decrypt (most of the time) blindly the mecanics is even smaller. Most of WB disconnections you experience for exemple is caused by some unknown packets your game client send to the server ( why? what it is supposed to do? we don't know...). The day someone understand what the aim of these packets, this issue will be solved in the hour (best exemple : partial PQ loot system + PQ phase system -> PQ deployment). Now considering for one simple thing like a party there are tons of packets (group leader, give leadership, exclude, invite, join, leave, main target, loot distribution, map displaying, localisation, Sc inscription, buff debuff management, etcetcetcetc...) imagine all things that still don't work correctly in game. And cry.
If you have understood this, you will probalby understand now, why some things aren't ingame, why the RoR team doesn't fix some very important things and why sometimes, we take decisions to mod the original game* (there are other reasons I'll talk about later).
For the 100th time, I want to remind EVERYONE : this project is still in Alpha phase ( I know, it is easy to forget in the heart of the battle). Which means nothing is engraved, everything can change, a lot ( A LOT !) of content will come in the future.
WAREMU/ROR is a project made from scratch. No original sources from the old official one. To work on this we have nothing, nichts, rien, nada. Working on this project is like trying to translate Hyeroglyph without the rosatta stone. Or Voynish manuscript. Try guys, you'll see thats funny as hell.
If you were thinking ROR project was based on original server sources (we obviously don't have, plus this would have been completely illegal unless the owner gave it to us), well you were completely wrong.
-warning 4 years old attempt to explain something complex- Game Client has his rules and we have to guess how to communicate with it. We actually can't decrytp the game client to find/or modify this Rosatta stone ( it wou'd have been too easy
). So the RoR team have to deal with that since the begining. And the RoR team is small. And ppl in the RoR Team who are able to decrypt (most of the time) blindly the mecanics is even smaller. Most of WB disconnections you experience for exemple is caused by some unknown packets your game client send to the server ( why? what it is supposed to do? we don't know...). The day someone understand what the aim of these packets, this issue will be solved in the hour (best exemple : partial PQ loot system + PQ phase system -> PQ deployment). Now considering for one simple thing like a party there are tons of packets (group leader, give leadership, exclude, invite, join, leave, main target, loot distribution, map displaying, localisation, Sc inscription, buff debuff management, etcetcetcetc...) imagine all things that still don't work correctly in game. And cry.If you have understood this, you will probalby understand now, why some things aren't ingame, why the RoR team doesn't fix some very important things and why sometimes, we take decisions to mod the original game* (there are other reasons I'll talk about later).
For the 100th time, I want to remind EVERYONE : this project is still in Alpha phase ( I know, it is easy to forget in the heart of the battle). Which means nothing is engraved, everything can change, a lot ( A LOT !) of content will come in the future.
Spoiler:
We are small 20-30, including everyone, team more or less involved in the project. All of us have a job, studies, families to care about, and are not paid for working on this project. Most of us are just passionate and haven't any knowledge, some have very specific abilites, some can give an hour per week, and some 10 or more. We are doing this because just like you, we love this game. We are trying our best - sometimes Awkwardly- to make it live. I know I always ask you to be patient and I know that long to wait and wait and wait.
Now, I hope you have a better understanding of all the project mechanics and why sometimes it seems to be long/weird/frustrating.
Now, I hope you have a better understanding of all the project mechanics and why sometimes it seems to be long/weird/frustrating.
Spoiler:
About this, we must do our mea culpa. We are probably the worst to communicate with you. For our defense, the team size and our personal disponibility don't help a lot. Inside Team, all of us have different time zone (all around the world), doesn't help for internal communication, and in extenso to have quick concertations before announce you things. Same thing to answer questions on forum. We will try to make some effort on this.
Btw, if some of you can help new comers who encounter difficulties in joining us (downloading, installation, connection), it would be very nice. Most (all?) solutions are known and I'm pretty sure most of you know them. So sometime a nice answer, a link could help a lot, create better relationship, and give us more time to focus on other problems.
Sometimes, the relationship between players and staff members seems to be nervous. It is hard to hear some reproaches when you give all you can to make things as good as possible. I apologize in the name of all if sometimes we give this feeling we don't care about your concerns, or if we give you this impression to be upercilious. Pressure is hard for us, and sometime, nerves are speaking faster than the mind.
Btw, if some of you can help new comers who encounter difficulties in joining us (downloading, installation, connection), it would be very nice. Most (all?) solutions are known and I'm pretty sure most of you know them. So sometime a nice answer, a link could help a lot, create better relationship, and give us more time to focus on other problems.
Sometimes, the relationship between players and staff members seems to be nervous. It is hard to hear some reproaches when you give all you can to make things as good as possible. I apologize in the name of all if sometimes we give this feeling we don't care about your concerns, or if we give you this impression to be upercilious. Pressure is hard for us, and sometime, nerves are speaking faster than the mind.
Spoiler:
Considering there are more than 3000 accounts connected every days, and less than 10 BAN/EXILE every weeks, if we consider the % of players punished, I don't think we deserve to be considered as "nazis". After all, we are human and we can do mistakes. Motives can be appealed and they are. Justice is blind. Sorry. Or not.
Spoiler:
Guys. Seriously??.
Spoiler:
Many of you criticize content, changes and non official modifications, arguing thats not like on Official server. I won't write again here the ".ROR PROJECT - YOUR EXPERIENCE", so i will focus on ROR specific modifications.
Lets talk about Official Warhammer Online to begin. When someone reproaches us to take liberties with the original version, my first thought is : " Which original version exactly?". Have played Age of Reckoning since the beginning and its ORvR has changed a lot during its too short life. Every slice of it had its batch of good and terrible modifications, and when 1.4.8 came, the last version with skavens and 5 empty capital siege a day + RR100 stuff (5 siege a day?? is that normal??), you can admit things were still "a bit" wrong. So yes, we are doing some modifications, within the limits of our finite abilities to make changes we think are important or clever.
You will all agree that the new system to obtain Ruin set is better than playing lotery and earn 1000 time the same set piece for example; that the SC reward system is more equitable, than the original one etcetc... Ofc, some other things are actually not very incentive (RvR), we are aware about and this bring me to the next point.
Lets talk about Official Warhammer Online to begin. When someone reproaches us to take liberties with the original version, my first thought is : " Which original version exactly?". Have played Age of Reckoning since the beginning and its ORvR has changed a lot during its too short life. Every slice of it had its batch of good and terrible modifications, and when 1.4.8 came, the last version with skavens and 5 empty capital siege a day + RR100 stuff (5 siege a day?? is that normal??), you can admit things were still "a bit" wrong. So yes, we are doing some modifications, within the limits of our finite abilities to make changes we think are important or clever.
You will all agree that the new system to obtain Ruin set is better than playing lotery and earn 1000 time the same set piece for example; that the SC reward system is more equitable, than the original one etcetc... Ofc, some other things are actually not very incentive (RvR), we are aware about and this bring me to the next point.
Spoiler:
Well. ORvR, the most important piece of cake of War. Right now, we all (ROR TEAM included) admit that actual situation is boring, without interest, that there is a big lack of reward and is not funny. We can't fully hide behind crossrealming to justify this. crossrealing is a part/consequence of this of course, but many things have to be done to enhance the RvR experience. And they will be. Maybe you already have experienced some changes when this news pop. Fact is ORvR is your biggest expectation and most of us in RoR team are worried about your reactions, so rather than make changes quickly, we have slowed this part of the game, focusing where we were able to bring really functional and several solutions. A big part of RvR mechanic are actually unknown and doesn't help to fix it like "it should be".
After long internal discussions, we finally decided to move on and take the risk to make it worst than it is. Please note that each and every changes are for testing in the first place, so please, don't whine about, test it, deeply, give us feedbacks (calmy, objectively, without animosity), and we will considerate them all. Just give a chance to any change. We will bring mods and fix as frequently as we can. All this work will concern in a first time the T4 area. T2 and T3 won't be impacted for this long period of tests. Obviously they can't be used for testing due to lack of population and faction total unbalance. So we will focus on T1-T3 later.
More détails will come very soon about new RvR system and functionalities.
After long internal discussions, we finally decided to move on and take the risk to make it worst than it is
. Please note that each and every changes are for testing in the first place, so please, don't whine about, test it, deeply, give us feedbacks (calmy, objectively, without animosity), and we will considerate them all. Just give a chance to any change. We will bring mods and fix as frequently as we can. All this work will concern in a first time the T4 area. T2 and T3 won't be impacted for this long period of tests. Obviously they can't be used for testing due to lack of population and faction total unbalance. So we will focus on T1-T3 later.More détails will come very soon about new RvR system and functionalities.
.CROSS REALMING
Spoiler:
We know... it's one of the biggest issues and it's partially killing the fun to fight for a zone. Sadly, due to the lack of technical abilities we deal with atm, there is nothing we can do about it YET. Our hands are tied, for now. Too many constraints are present to bring a severe solution to this.
Spoiler:
Tools must be finalized before working on it severely, then we will be able to create instances and deploy them. There is a chance they make their apparition in the first month of next year.
Spoiler:
A new launcher is under development. This one will be able to patch your client. This mean we will be able to add modification in the game, new content (stuff in a first time), bypass the client rules (the famous Rosatta Stone), and probably work more easily on the project.
Spoiler:
Many passionate discussion about NB have popped few weeks ago. We all agree that conditional is a big advantage for those who know how to use it. We actually can't do anything to "break" this part of NB without breaking many other ADDONS. For NB users, an alternative will be suggested when we will "break" it safely.
Other news, We are trying to make State of Realm working to bring you a better lisibility of RvR state. This may take some time, but we have good hope.
Other news, We are trying to make State of Realm working to bring you a better lisibility of RvR state. This may take some time, but we have good hope
.Now if some of you have questions, I'll try my best to answer (it may take some time got a life IRL).
Yali for the RoR Team.
