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• • The devs think the players don't matter.

  • Originally posted by Gyrus
    

     

    Yes.  This is the strangest thing of all really.

    Isildur seemed to understand MMO gamer psychology quite well at times?

    But the game shows none of that insight?

     

    So, either he was over-ruled, or he got cold feet or he never really understood at all?

    
     

    Without digging out all the posts Isildur has often referred to the limitations of design by committee where he has his hands tied to what he wanted to do. Rusty has also referred to liking the kind of unrestricted PvP game that only he & 50 others players like; DrewC has been taken off the committee onto the new project as it has been generally acknowledged that his vision of playing unfairly was doing Potbs more harm than good.

    Mistakes have been made but FLS does not have a clear vision of how to change it & appear to have lost their way. They are searching for an answer but nobody in FLS is leading the way, they have no expert in design or project manager with the vision needed or the dev resourses to put things right. Rusty is actively looking to recruit a superdev that will change it all but that is a longshot imo.

  • Posted: 11/05/08 1:30 AM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • The devs think the players don't matter.

  • Originally posted by Gyrus
    

    Unusually frustrated post there GB?  What in particular prompted this?

     

    
     

    Only the fact that there are so many little things & tons of good practical suggestions that FLS have chosen to ignor that could make a huge difference to the overall game.

    Potbs should be doing better not only for itself but for its subscribers & it's very sad to see that such a potentially great game to come to be at the low populated state it is in today with no hope a sudden turn around of fortunes until FLS recruits more devs to meet its commitments by adding more content & improving the balance of ingame systems.

    We are only left to wonder if FLS are committed enough to put it right as they have already embarked on a new project by taking Dev's off Potbs.

  • Posted: 11/04/08 3:08 AM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • The devs think the players don't matter.

  • i have to admit that for a company that claims to listen a tremendous amount goes in one ear & immediately out of the other!

    Listening appears to have little effect on what the FLS devs eventually end up doing which is more often than not unrelated to the current issues players are experiencing in-game.Even when they do decide to put down an outcry it is all too little too late with inadequate solutions that have all too many bad side effects which lead to population losses.

    Despite having a great refreshing idea & creating some good ship combat FLS have only themselves to blame for setting the standards of how not to create an mmorpg & without any major organizational changes Rusty is likely to waste another load of his money catering for a game that may never make a profit.

  • Posted: 11/04/08 12:30 AM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • Knowing your target market: Potbs is an economic game

  • Those that hang on in the game are indeed aware of the issues the same as what FLS are but have managed to convince themselves that they enjoy the atmosphere or have enough friends to continue to play. On the other hand there is post after post almost on a daily basis from respected society leaders that they are struggling to hold on to its members that indicates that there is something wrong with the game mechanics.

    Those that do remain have somehow come to terms with these facts by accepting that PvP & the economic dependancies require a very flexible approach that requires an economic. combination of PvE, & PvP. These players are not mainstream mmo where you generally cater for PvP & PvE types in separate areas of the map.

    FLS has yet to face up to the real mmorpg world as they are warm & happy in their embryonic environment dreaming about creating a budget hollywood movie type mmo that will one day hit the mainstream & be successful like CCPs Eve. Despite all the known problems with Potbs they go ahead with new projects & only develop what they consider is the most important to themselves by putting all their limited dev resourses into the current avcom re-vamp.

    From this article: Isildur speaks out on the state of the economy

     Isildur states, "PvP is not sustainable without doing other non-PvP activities." The economy has fallen into the hands of the care-bear. That's not a bad thing, of course, since money is being made and doubloons are being generated. The problem lies in those warehouses so many folks in PotBS like to store things in. There are a lot of doubloons being generated into the hands of a few people and those coins aren't going anywhere. This leads to inflation which means PvPers, who don't necessarily make too much from PvP, are forced to partake in economic activities in order to stay afloat.

    Isildur continues to explain that this may have something to do with PotBS only containing around one third of the economic package that was originally designed. This one third provides for a few ways to make money but only one way to get rid of it. The way to get rid of it is ship loss. If you spend all of your time crafting, trading, and the sort, you may never have to leave port. Since the money sitting in coffers isn't going anywhere, we are met not only with inflation but also depreciation. Depreciation sets in because that money that players are making isn't doing anything, making the value of the doubloon decline. Sounds like pirates need a stimulus package too!
    

    So we now have FLS now putting all its dev resource's into avcom which is only one third of what is primarily a ship combat game with the other stated two thirds of the economy still missing.

    It's not at all surprising that they are losing their subcribers or populations, do they care? Dunno you would have to ask them or Rusty who is financing their trip into cyberspace.

     

  • Posted: 10/31/08 4:17 AM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea
• • Knowing your target market: Potbs is an economic game

  • Originally posted by iceman00
    

     What we do have are several people who are serious about eco.  This complements our people who are serious about PvP.  (Some of us big eco guys are also big pvpers, we know our market lol.)

     

    
     

    Just to prove my point about Potbs being mainly economic i dug out a quote from Isildur - The Lead Designer.

    "The problem with the economy is that it's great. And you couldn't say "no" to it. You couldn't play the game unless you played the economy. You would have a terribly time if you didn't play with the economy. "

    This implies that players that come to Potbs for PVP only would have a terrible time.

    To promote Potbs as being mainly PVP & players that buy the game solely for PVP combat will likely find that it falls well short of their expectations;  "you can't play the game without investing a lot of time in the great economy" Isildur

  • Posted: 10/30/08 9:06 PM
    Pirates of the Burning Sea