Quote:
Originally Posted by jkool666
No, if you know anything about business (I'm not sure if you do, doesn't seem like it though...) you'd know, yes you do need to meet the customers needs, but you need to do so while making money. If you aren't making money you have to sacrifice a few things of the customers. And I wouldn't even say what graal is doing is "sacrifice" since they've provided more for the players with more updates this year then ever before.
Can't answer the question you quoted? Because its extremely bias eh?
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I was only making a joke.
Anyway, the updates you mentioned earlier are no more than rushed, unprofessional attempts to try and satisfy the players whining for something decent. It's ridiculous, don't you notice how when players complain about a lack of updates they then just complain
about the updates themselves when they are eventually released?
If the management took the time to actually properly test weapons and such before their release, then perhaps things would go smoother. I know what a shambles it is when a new weapon is released. It's not seen as a major thing (Especially by Stefan). Take the metallic rifle for instance, I told Stefan all the specifications it needed and he said to me "Yes, will do soon". Then I have to remind him constantly about it and eventually he goes and does something. He asks me to come onto client to help him test it as he scripts it there,
on the spot. First he set the ammo and gave it to me so that I could equip it. He then used the chaingun script! The thing fired like crazy and did about 40 damage a bullet. All he did then was slow it down considerably and lower the damage somewhat. That's why when you use the metallic rifle it has that exceedingly large variance that only an automatic weapon should possess. Goes to show how lazy staff can be.
Now, take the assault pistols for instance, this has got a lot of stick for being overpowered. What would any normal professional management do? They would quickly try to amend their mistakes so as not to upset the players, but this is not the case with Zone's management. They don't do anything at all! It's kind of sad that the players have actually had to adjust their fighting style so that they can actually take someone down who uses the assault pistols.
Stefan should either pay real developers, and not some 16 year old Dutch kid who never set foot on the server. With real developers they would actually be motivated because they are getting payed, and will end up doing a decent job. If real developers are out of the question, get someone who is passionate about Zone and developing games.
However, this can backfire. I was passionate about Zone and developing/managing online games. Heck, look at all those threads on the forums I made containing various information! I wasn't asked to do those, I did them because I enjoyed contributing to the community and helping out new players so that perhaps Stefan could make a bit of extra cash.
I had a good relationship with the players and they would PM my RC suggesting improvements and reporting bugs. I would then form a list of all of these, and check them out to make sure they were worth doing. For example if someone complained about a certain weapon being overpowered, I would ask multiple people just to see if it wasn't that one guy. I then would give the list to Stefan and he'd take notice of it once then never look at it again! This felt awful, since I was doing this all in my free time and my hard work never got noticed (Cue violins playing in the background)!
Then after 4 years of hard work that was underappreciated my computer broke down and it was 4 weeks until I got a new one. I guess most people thought I died or whatever, but upon returning some Dutch kid had taken my place. I introduced myself, saying I helped out with Zone and various other things, I asked if my rights could be re-instated so that I could get straight back to work, but Daniel was unsure of this and told me to talk to Stefan. I said fine, I'll see Stefan. I talked to him and then I only got back a fraction of what my previous rights were. You'd think after 4 years slaving away over a hot monitor he would have at least had the decency to give me all my rights back! I talked to Dan about this and he said that he only gave me rights that let me upload stuff to my folder on debug.
Anyway, this may seem like me trying to gain sympathy (Albeit I think I went on a bit long
), but I mentioned this because the staff are so terribly disorganised and unprofessional. The only professional staff other than myself (;P) were Gambet and Vulcan, and all of you can agree with me on that because they took their work seriously.
09-23-2008, 12:26 AM
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