Oh snap.

http://members.byond.com/SilkGames?comm ... post=36455

Well, FFO can be fun. I never have and never will like the idea of the chat system trying to enforce roleplaying but I like the game itself. And hey, chat EXP was finally removed! Kinda funny that it took Niv (level 57 or something?) talking with it before it finally drove the point home about how it was eventually better experience than actually playing the game. I know I was making jokes about it for months before that. It pissed me off that people were claiming he was abusing the system just by TALKING, because he never struck me as the type to intentionally abuse an oversight in the game (although the both of us did in one situation; it just never crossed my mind that it was wrong until well after the game went down).

I'm kinda bummed out to see someone asking for Icebolt to be nerfed, though. It's only real use would be kiting enemies, but when knights can Charge you (ignoring the freeze effect), masters can Kick their way to you and a ninja's dexterity being high enough to ping you with bows, it doesn't seem so effective anymore. I'm confident that Chain Lightning will suck forever unless the spell itself is redesigned (give me the Ultima version, pleeeeaaaase).

Not that they didn't deserve it because of the last version, but I think black mages are boned in the worst possible way for the next update. I've read several comments that people will be rerolling as red mages for the next version to combat the thirst system. Melee seems to have received their needed buff, but the whole thing about wizard armor being comically expensive to use makes me a bit nervous. White and red mages can at least heal themselves, and red mages can (finally) melee as an option too, forsaking cloth armor for something more durable. But black mages not only have the smallest selection of spells in the game (even less if you don't take fire/ice/lit), but most of what they already have is already so generic and doesn't quite have the variety of utility spells that white and red mages can bring. I mean, you have Temper...and Fast (if you pick Air, and Fast isn't terribly useful since it'll just drain your stamina faster as well, so it's more like a sprint). I don't think anybody really knows what the hell Lock and Lock 2 do, and nobody is going to bother proffing Saber any higher than is necessary to get Temper because who the hell melees as a black mage? They're only good at proffing knives (useless) and staves (magical ones not making very good clobbering weapons).

Maybe now that the status spells were (rightly) nerfed, everybody will just flock to red mage as the new flavor of the month class, and people won't be so critical of the black mage's weaknesses, namely the worldwide MP nerf without a reduction in spell cost and their less-than-stellar utility and overdependence on both potions and ethers to survive. It's almost funny how people seem to keep pining for even MORE red and white mage spells when the black mage isn't even balanced with itself, and most people's responses are "You want to give them even MORE SPELLS?"

Edit: Whoops. Not exactly the topic for this, but like hell if I'm going to delete it after typing all of that.

Sarm needs a new hobby.

Woops. Somehow I accidentally hit reply. Oh well. While I'm here I may as well say something.


Apple pie.

That's cool that it will be done.

If only the Game Team didn't have a life, then we would be playing it right now.

Boo for us.

Agreed. There is really nothing about AA that is groundbreaking or all that unique (or any of my games for that matter!). In terms of BYOND, the only that is unique about it is that it is good.

As we all know, most BYOND developers make a game with no singular vision or focus, no consideration for (much less an attempt at) a polished, consistent presentation. A good game is the sum of all of it's parts, and every single detail matters. There can be no random features, or parts of the whole that feel out of place or tacked on. Every single aspect of the game inside and out should be there for a reason.

I've never played FFO for more than 5 minutes, so I can't attest to how enjoyable it is/was... but from reading Sarm's post it seems as if that game has had problem because it didn't adhere to the above philosophy.

If I finally manage to finish AA, not everyone will like it... but everyone who plays it will be experiencing exactly what I want them to experience, laid out for them to take or leave it with no apologies or excuses.

It's not really that, but part way through FFO's development, its design philosophy changed. From what I was told, the game was being worked on as a hack and slash, but for some reason or another, the playerbase took to in-game roleplaying to entertain themselves. I could be wrong (not that it would be a surprise) but my guess is that since FFO was still relatively new and in an alpha phase, the community was using roleplaying to fill in any content gaps. Gakumerasara implemented a domain system that players could manage and conquer for themselves as a pet project. The players loved it. For a while (and occasionally even now) some players push for more and more roleplaying and storytelling while there's already a pretty good PVE combat system in the game that's underappreciated.

For a while there was a conflict of interests among the playerbase, because some people wanted the game to completely focus on roleplaying, and took very hardcore stances regarding it. Other people just like to blow up shit. I admire Gaku's willingness to take people's suggestions and ideas and try to implement it into the game, but the downside to it (which I was stupid enough not to think about until recently) is that everybody is going to have wildly different ideas about how the game should run, and you can only pick from so many suggestions before viewpoints are going to clash. A few weeks ago Gaku wanted to implement a forum rule where anybody who mentions Sajai or his friends would get banned for a month. A couple of people supported it, a few others were apathetic ("what's the problem? If you don't say his name you have nothing to worry about.") but most of the "forum voice" was entirely against it. A few people commented that they were going to quit (including me, which was stupid but I can't rewind time or anything so meh). So Gaku throws his hands up and pulls a complete 180. He changes his mind about the rule, unbans everybody who was ever locked out of the board and then wiped the moderator forum before making it public, even allowing non-mods to make replies in an effort to make everything feel more transparent and open.

A couple of moderators quit in protest, claiming all of their "hard work" had been thrown away. Personally I think they were acting like prissy little bitches, but then again I had been the same way not even 24 hours before.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while it's great to have player input about suggestions, balancing concerns and the like, getting too much at once will cloud up game features. At least I finally understand the saying "too many chefs spoil the broth"!

Who the fuck says that?