Defiance Store Update...and I'm really trying not to swear!!!

[dominad]

I have a question for you...Your sig says 'programmer', so speaking as a programmer, how hard is it to create these outfits/skins. I mean, is it a big thing to create something new and we're all asking for too much or is it a simple thing and the devs are just suffering from a lack of imagination.

If you wouldn't mind???

Game development is a different world. I work in security areas (business analyst cross over). To give an educated response with what I imagine in a good working environment there is a well rounded development team split in to various areas, graphics, code, story.. (I did have a friend who worked at a game studio and he was focused on one area and the other team would come in to brief them on what was needed). It should function as a well oiled machine with management and support taking in input and feeding that back to a business analyst type who will then communicate to the coders what is required to keep management happy. Management by default is happy when customers are happy and profit is pouring in. That would involve the head of departments it should be pbvious which department is responsible for the task they take it back divide up the work and give a date for completion, it is tested, debugged, and ready to go on that date. There is usually cyclic and programming standards in place that if there is going to be a delay especially a significant one the standards catch it early on and then adjustments are made in time given to project or feedback goes back the other way so management can adapt to a change. Something like a skin when you have a basic humanoid model charachter created means that someone has already got the exact dimensions and code written for it. Reskinning would be very very simple especially if they have built a gui interface which allows for hex adjustments on the click and drag of a mouse. Actually making a new itemfor an experienced graphic designer should not take long at all and should be fun then since the character aready exists the only changes might be writing some code that adds in widths heights and depths for a different style. I have never considered it but with a good team and if it is going to bring in money I cant imagine it taking more than a day or two but I also have no clue how the mulitplatform implementation and such may work but you would like to assume that should be sorted for any character but then I think of the broken PVP outfits and wonder if the code is suc a mess that the reason they are not doing the basic things is because they know from current products it will reproduce bugs, create new bugs, or flat out not work. Then you wasted the peoples time who made it when they could be better spent fixing inherent problems.

Just a guess and probably not overly accurate. Now if you ave a question about data security or malware let me know :P

[Valethar]

The community managers are SUPPOSE to be taking things from the forums to the meetings for discussion. They are SUPPOSE to be liaisons between the community and the decision makers.

Sure Devs have posted on the forums, but it is all a stunt to make players think the devs are listening...and as you can see some have fallen for it.

It is just part of the carrot system that Trion employs. Trion performs minor actions, like getting a dev to make a thread, to make players THINK that something is in the works so they chase that carrot just a bit more in hopes that player spends just a little more in the Store.

You didn't address anything I wrote. The OP is bashing the Dev team for closing threads, when it's not the Dev team doing so. I said absolutely nothing about Devs reading the forums, taking things to their meetings, or anything else. I simply pointed out that the folks closing the threads are the Forum Moderators, who are not part of the Dev team.

I should also point out that the Forum Moderators are also not the Community Managers, though I think I've seen a few threads here and there closed by Lance or Matt in the past.

The Moderators have absolutely nothing to do with taking things to the Dev team. Their sole purpose is akin to being a traffic cop. They simply keep things orderly, ensure everyone is playing by the rules (the forum ToS), and when something violates those rules, they take whatever steps are necessary to deal with the situation, from closing threads, editing/deleting posts and handing out infractions.

[Worldviewsinc]

Game development is a different world. I work in security areas (business analyst cross over). To give an educated response with what I imagine in a good working environment there is a well rounded development team split in to various areas, graphics, code, story.. (I did have a friend who worked at a game studio and he was focused on one area and the other team would come in to brief them on what was needed). It should function as a well oiled machine with management and support taking in input and feeding that back to a business analyst type who will then communicate to the coders what is required to keep management happy. Management by default is happy when customers are happy and profit is pouring in. That would involve the head of departments it should be pbvious which department is responsible for the task they take it back divide up the work and give a date for completion, it is tested, debugged, and ready to go on that date. There is usually cyclic and programming standards in place that if there is going to be a delay especially a significant one the standards catch it early on and then adjustments are made in time given to project or feedback goes back the other way so management can adapt to a change. Something like a skin when you have a basic humanoid model charachter created means that someone has already got the exact dimensions and code written for it. Reskinning would be very very simple especially if they have built a gui interface which allows for hex adjustments on the click and drag of a mouse. Actually making a new itemfor an experienced graphic designer should not take long at all and should be fun then since the character aready exists the only changes might be writing some code that adds in widths heights and depths for a different style. I have never considered it but with a good team and if it is going to bring in money I cant imagine it taking more than a day or two but I also have no clue how the mulitplatform implementation and such may work but you would like to assume that should be sorted for any character but then I think of the broken PVP outfits and wonder if the code is suc a mess that the reason they are not doing the basic things is because they know from current products it will reproduce bugs, create new bugs, or flat out not work. Then you wasted the peoples time who made it when they could be better spent fixing inherent problems.

Just a guess and probably not overly accurate. Now if you ave a question about data security or malware let me know :P

Thanks for that, very informative and I apologise for putting you on the spot there, what with it not being your specific field and such but what you said makes good sense.

Regarding the malware issues you mentioned, you sound like you would be a valuable friend to know if you wouldn't mind me sending you a friend request?

I'm truly terrified of malware/virus issues and obsessive about personal information getting into the wrong hands...

[dominad]

You didn't address anything I wrote. The OP is bashing the Dev team for closing threads, when it's not the Dev team doing so. I said absolutely nothing about Devs reading the forums, taking things to their meetings, or anything else. I simply pointed out that the folks closing the threads are the Forum Moderators, who are not part of the Dev team.

I should also point out that the Forum Moderators are also not the Community Managers, though I think I've seen a few threads here and there closed by Lance or Matt in the past.

The Moderators have absolutely nothing to do with taking things to the Dev team. Their sole purpose is akin to being a traffic cop. They simply keep things orderly, ensure everyone is playing by the rules (the forum ToS), and when something violates those rules, they take whatever steps are necessary to deal with the situation, from closing threads, editing/deleting posts and handing out infractions.

Everythign they do is strictly dictated by management at Trion.
I know because I was messaged by one before asking me to write to Trion to say what I did in the post because they were not allowed to do anything. I would say they have a list of tasks login do and do not do anything else. I imagine management and or dev team to read here or have someone to do so but the communication lines are broken or something.

[Pipes]

The problem is, people DO buy the overpriced stuff.
I have seen plenty wearing/driving the most expensive store bought items.
Some people have openly admitted to me to have having spent upwards of £500 overal since the game started on boosts/lockboxes/oufits. That sounds silly right? Its not.

Thats the problem with games like this, its like a gambling or alchohol addiction. In knew a guy who spent almost a grand on Mass Effect 3 multiplayer unlocks. Some people dont realise how quickly the cost builds up. You spend on a randomized item, dont get what you want but still have bits or mspoints left over and think.. one more try..

Then you run out, or you see someone else with a cool set up and think, I want that, it repeats.. just spend these last few..

It is a vicious cycle, in this game its mostly on boosts. Theres a reason they wont fix Sutro farming or the San Quentin hulker, because they know with those kinds of areas, people will buy the loot or skill boosts. While the pricing is disgusting, we have no one to blame but our own laziness and lack of self control.

I do agree however completely that the store lacks imagination and some bizzare choices..

600 odd bits for a basic runner recolour when you would never use the begginner runner again after gaining the free one in the story? Huh?

[dominad]

Thanks for that, very informative and I apologise for putting you on the spot there, what with it not being your specific field and such but what you said makes good sense.

Regarding the malware issues you mentioned, you sound like you would be a valuable friend to know if you wouldn't mind me sending you a friend request?

I'm truly terrified of malware/virus issues and obsessive about personal information getting into the wrong hands...

Not a problem reading back I missed a few things basically the characters exist - code esixts for the characters to have an appearance and therefor containers for items etc to be used for that appearance. I have no idea if they class a char as an object or how it is handled but it exists, so perhaps you may have to add in something like add.tshirtBlack and a tshirt class for example (oversimplifying majorly) but the basics should actually be there. So I can not see why it is a huge thing but it could be a massive gap in knowledge because as I said game development is another world and I was the only female student who did not go the multimedia way in studies lol.

Just think you create the main character - a body so that code is there
You also have code for applying the graphics to the simulation of the char think the AI and stuff as well as when its static.
So applying something new should only be a few tweaks and some creative designing. Unless that basic code is found to be bugged and can not be used because it is known to cause errors. Then you are pretty screwed any programmer will tell you working on other peoples code sucks. With the lay offs they had ther will be a lot of people pouring through other peoples code and while we hope people use uniform standards and notations in code lots do not and it can be a piece of work going through something someone else has written.

And sure add me as a friend but I probably won't make you feel more secure just more paranoid :P

[dominad]

The problem is, people DO buy the overpriced stuff.
I have seen plenty wearing/driving the most expensive store bought items.
Some people have openly admitted to me to have having spent upwards of £500 overal since the game started on boosts/lockboxes/oufits. That sounds silly right? Its not.

Thats the problem with games like this, its like a gambling or alchohol addiction. In knew a guy who spent almost a grand on Mass Effect 3 multiplayer unlocks. Some people dont realise how quickly the cost builds up. You spend on a randomized item, dont get what you want but still have bits or mspoints left over and think.. one more try..

Then you run out, or you see someone else with a cool set up and think, I want that, it repeats.. just spend these last few..

It is a vicious cycle, in this game its mostly on boosts. Theres a reason they wont fix Sutro farming or the San Quentin hulker, because they know with those kinds of areas, people will buy the loot or skill boosts. While the pricing is disgusting, we have no one to blame but our own laziness and lack of self control.

I do agree however completely that the store lacks imagination and some bizzare choices..

600 odd bits for a basic runner recolour when you would never use the begginner runner again after gaining the free one in the story? Huh?

Spot on I posted something the other day about gaming having a focus on gambling models. Using an addiction strategy to keep people in. It is probably why I bored fast I have never been a gambler.

[Worldviewsinc]

The problem is, people DO buy the overpriced stuff.
I have seen plenty wearing/driving the most expensive store bought items.
Some people have openly admitted to me to have having spent upwards of £500 overal since the game started on boosts/lockboxes/oufits. That sounds silly right? Its not.

Thats the problem with games like this, its like a gambling or alchohol addiction. In knew a guy who spent almost a grand on Mass Effect 3 multiplayer unlocks. Some people dont realise how quickly the cost builds up. You spend on a randomized item, dont get what you want but still have bits or mspoints left over and think.. one more try..

Then you run out, or you see someone else with a cool set up and think, I want that, it repeats.. just spend these last few..

It is a vicious cycle, in this game its mostly on boosts. Theres a reason they wont fix Sutro farming or the San Quentin hulker, because they know with those kinds of areas, people will buy the loot or skill boosts. While the pricing is disgusting, we have no one to blame but our own laziness and lack of self control.

I do agree however completely that the store lacks imagination and some bizzare choices..

600 odd bits for a basic runner recolour when you would never use the begginner runner again after gaining the free one in the story? Huh?

Agreed and I'm happy to admit I've purchased things from the store myself. My issue is there's nothing new and every request for anything seems to fall on deaf ears in this area and in my opinion, is one of the many reasons why people are losing interest.

It just seems like the devs are cutting their noses off to spite their face and if the game fails they will have nobody to blame but themselves and the knock on effect will be that other developers will be more reluctant to try more MMO games on a console.

[Soren]

It'd probably help if you listed new ideas for shop store items rather than post several paragraphs basically coming down to "Why isn't Trion adding stuff to the cash shop that we want to buy on there" with only vague hints at what you'd actually like to see. Or at least redirected to other threads that had good ideas rather than vaguely say that there have been a bunch of threads.

Just my two cents though.

IMO rather than just sell recolors they should sell color dyes for existing gear or color-customizable gear where you can choose the colors yourself. That would probably make them a lot more money and make a lot more people happy to buy that stuff IMO, even if you only had like 5-10 colors to choose from. Just have a primary/secondary color attribute akin to RIFT, assuming it would be doable, and wah-lah. And only sell reskins if they are special/unique skins, like reskins with weird patterns (*cough* you could take a page from End of Nations here and add in a bacon skinned powersuit for giggles) or stuff with more varied colors (ie: a Red/White/Blue suit to celebrate Independence Day/'Murica).

[Worldviewsinc]

Not a problem reading back I missed a few things basically the characters exist - code esixts for the characters to have an appearance and therefor containers for items etc to be used for that appearance. I have no idea if they class a char as an object or how it is handled but it exists, so perhaps you may have to add in something like add.tshirtBlack and a tshirt class for example (oversimplifying majorly) but the basics should actually be there. So I can not see why it is a huge thing but it could be a massive gap in knowledge because as I said game development is another world and I was the only female student who did not go the multimedia way in studies lol.

Just think you create the main character - a body so that code is there
You also have code for applying the graphics to the simulation of the char think the AI and stuff as well as when its static.
So applying something new should only be a few tweaks and some creative designing. Unless that basic code is found to be bugged and can not be used because it is known to cause errors. Then you are pretty screwed any programmer will tell you working on other peoples code sucks. With the lay offs they had ther will be a lot of people pouring through other peoples code and while we hope people use uniform standards and notations in code lots do not and it can be a piece of work going through something someone else has written.

And sure add me as a friend but I probably won't make you feel more secure just more paranoid :P

Again, thank you and I'll try not to become too paranoid...Your input, so far, to this thread has been most welcome.