Kingdud

Ah, and here I thought Shaddex had been forced out after the whole debacle over the line on the wiki homepage: "A word of caution to E&B Developers; Responding to information being included in the wiki by changing the E&B game content(drop locations, mission chains, etc) solely to make the wiki inaccurate will be treated the same as directly vandalizing the wiki. Do not fear fixing/modifying E&B game content as the wiki is flexible for a reason, but please do not be malicious." Things I do not regret: Being the reason Byakhee quit being a dev. Everyone who hates Agrippa. Who hates how hard the PP is. Those are all Byakhee. You are welcome. Context: Byakhee viewed the Wiki as absolute evil. He wanted everyone to have to read and write down every word of quest text for themselves, figure out recipes/components/etc for themselves, and not have any (centralized) way to share that information. If the game allowed him to have random component requirements for Agrippa, I have little doubt he would have used that. When I put that quote ('a word of caution...') on the front page of the wiki, it was in direct response to him. He had threatened to just change the Agrippa quests randomly and frequently to stymie any attempts to document Agrippa content. Shaddex, Kyp, and others spent weeks or months (I forget which) trying to change/remove that quote, but I kept putting it back. They attempted to threaten legal action against me for 'hacking'. lol. No hacking was needed; they just didn't understand the software they were running. Eventually they let it stay, and I quit being a pain in their asses. It went so far as them threatening to delete the wiki entirely. I had backups and called their bluff. The wiki stands. It was clear to me, at that point, that 'fun' was no longer a central pillar of this community. I did what Kyp so often suggests others do and 'got a life outside of the game'. It took over a year of constant pestering from the player base for them to include a link to the wiki on the main page menu, but eventually, they did. (well done!) That's where I've been for the past 10 years. But now I'm hearing my name get mentioned, so I decided to come take a sniff. This will likely be my only post before I'm banned. Screenshot it, if you see it. Getting the wiki setup* (see 'do regret' section below) Coding the skills that made this emulator fun circa 2009. Shield Inversion? You're welcome. Shield Sap? You're welcome. Negotiate? Pretty sure that was me. And a bunch of others I no longer remember and don't have the SVN (yea, this predated git existing) commit history for. Working on the source code for this emulator.* (see 'do regret' section below) It made me a better programmer and is a foundational reason why I was able to have a successful 10+ year career in IT. Where I am in life today can be attributed to seeing good code back then. The code I refer to is from when the server was open source, largely written by Tienbau (Teinbau? names were never my strength) and one other person whose name escapes me. Things I do regret: Making Shaddex set up the wiki instead of doing it myself (that had more to do with dev/server access roles than actual desire to do the work). You burned social credit with people and shouldn't have had to. In 2014, I was terrified of legal action by EA and didn't come back as a dev. We all grow as people. And this was an area I needed to grow. Being an immature ass. Some of my 'ass' nature comes from an unwavering dedication to wanting to make things better and being driven in that direction to such an extreme that I am now paid 4x what I earned back in 2009. Other parts of that 'ass' nature came from my own sadist tendencies that I spent a lot of years containing. "Who dares wins" / "Just do it": So many times in my career managers have told me "Don't develop <X>" and I went ahead and developed it anyway. Shockingly, everyone loved <X> once it existed. And the few duds that happened (I am, after all, the king of duds) were vastly outweighed by the good work. And, since this is likely the only post I'll get to make, here is some more history: Around 2010, the lead devs were found to be embezzling player donations (this was before Kyp was in charge; he was not involved AFAIK). This caused a pretty big blow up in the community and it is the reason I quit the first time. I wanted no part of that. The server was open source in those days, along with the database, drop tables, dev tools, etc. Once Kyp took over, things went closed source. I do not have an exact date for this because I basically didn't touch the emulator for another, oh, 5 years or so. The embezzlement stopped. Though, how it costs $5000/year to run this place when I was able to run the server for all 150 players on an machine with an i7-920 back in 2009 escapes my comprehension. Maybe they're paying for dedicated server space instead of VMs, and the budget is for replacement hardware. *shrug* My personal head canon says EA got involved, and it went closed source because Kyp became the martyr who signed the deal with the devil in order to keep the game online for everyone else. And his cynicism comes from the NDA he had to sign never allowing him to tell anyone that's the deal he had to make. While that is my head canon, I also don't think it's overly likely. But it is the only theory I've ever come up with that makes any amount of sense beyond "he likes being in power and protects it at all costs" which seems...unlikely? I came back around 2014 but was terrified of being caught in legal action, so I wanted no connection to anything that involved contracts or anything of the sort. I also wanted a wiki to exist, because nobody knew how to find things or where quests were supposed to happen, and in my RL career, I had used mediawiki to great effect (this was before Confluence became the standard) and knew how powerful it could be. After the fight detailed above, I left to 'get a life' for another 10 years. It was clear I was going to be unable to help any further. I keep seeing my name pop up in game, but seeing that Shaddex is still around and involved is weight off my shoulders. 10 years I've lived with regret I didn't need to. Glad you're still here buddy. And Karu, you're a solid dude. Nothing but love for you. You've done more for this community than I ever did. Woody, I still remember your 'voice'. I'm honestly amazed (and happy!) you're still around. <3 As for me? If you want my help, I'm here, but transparency remains my constant that I do not abandon. I see no reason to copy-paste data into the wiki. I have very little doubt that my name is hated to such a degree that my presence would/will cause more harm than good. I'm loving that people like Codemonkey, Winlander, and so many others have made thousands of contributions to the wiki over the years. I love that Doctor is finally documenting all the ore fields. I love seeing those three collaborate on talk pages to get disagreements moved past and make things better. I love that we can all see that. And I can see there are so many more names who added so much content to that wiki over the years. Thank you all for keeping my dream alive. I got it set up, but you all made it worth it. (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ozons-salute)

I'm glad you finally figured out what the beauacrat role is for. As for anyone who is worried that the wiki might get deleted, I have backups. And now you have backups too:   http://pastebin.com/xheGeCz4 http://pastebin.com/Hx3TKnNw   Join the two halfs together, and on any wiki go to Special:Import (you'll need admin rights to do this, or whatever group right allows page import), give it the combined XML file (the result of putting the two halves together) and *poof* all the wiki content will be restored for you. Cheers m8s.   By all means, delete this thing you didn't want (for clarity, Shaddex supported it, no one else did). Show us all you don't want us to be able to work together to have fun. :) Personally, I recomend migrating away from the n7 wiki. To each their own.

Ah, good, you *did* notice the bump I gave you. :) I eagerly await to see what happens, as I'm the only one who can actually create administrators in the wiki, or else Shaddex, or one of the other dev/GM types with access to the wiki database will have to flip some bits outside of the wiki controls. But, if they do that, they'll prove Doctor right, that they are more than willing to tweak the wiki and leave no traces of it, which presents its own set of moral problems. *grabs popcorn* oh, and Doctor, I'll reinstate your admin rights, as you are correct, those who work hard to not screw up the wiki should have the power to fix it when someone tries to. i'm sure you noticed when you checked the Active contributors list that I already reinstated Croddam's admin rights, and am guessing you omitted it from your post to try and keep ~someone~ from revoking them again.   Democracy doesn't exist in this emulator. Don't think for a second it does.

Vista should use a disk layout similar to Windows 7. You'll need to go to: Enable/show hidden files and folders. In Win7, this is Organize -> Folder and Search Options -> View tab -> Show hidden files, folders, and drives. C:\ProgramData\WestwoodStudios\Earth & Beyond\Character and Starship Creator\ The Avatar files should be in there, assuming you made the avatar with the Character & Starship creator.

It's still growing, but http://net-7.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page there is drop info in there. Pages are ordered by item. So if you're looking for the lvl 9 SuperNova reactor, search for that, and what mobs drop it will be listed (if the page exists). For the past two weeks or so, new item pages have been created every day. The login is your forum login.   But also, http://enb.gearlist.co.uk/index.php?d=&race=1&class=0&category=6&level=Any&keywords=&ob=eps_100&od=desc&page=12 is useful for what the wiki doesn't have. Do help out the wiki though, as that gearlist website has been wrong for me before.

*chuckles to self* Be careful what you wish for.  Hey Byakhee, want to do this quest and make it as hard, or harder, than Agrippa? I'll make sure it stays out of the wiki so long as it is known the end reward is 'A single skill point'. :p

Technically, you are wrong. In reality, you aren't. The mobs have much better defenses (raw shield HP and resists) than they did in live. That is why it seems like your weapons are weaker. Why are mobs stronger? Because the dev team, around 2009/2010, when lots of content was being added, decided that all mobs should be scaled to deal with an equal level player with all 200% gear. So if you have anything that isn't 200%, the fights become much harder. No, I don't have some official dev post or knowledge to back up my claim, beyond the fact that I was sorta there, coding skills like Combat Trance, back around that time, and I sorta knew the formula for how shield HP was computed. They *have* changed it since then, and toned it down from what it was. It *is* more balanced than it used to be, but, in the end, you are correct. Weapons are effectively less powerful than they used to be. But not because of the weapon stats themselves.   That said, combat is far from un-winnable. Just two-box with a healer and combat becomes *so* much easier.

http://net-7.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mob_Farming_Spots <--I put good spots in as I find them. "good" meaning "I could easily solo here with a single char." Mostly, I haven't found good spots later (cl 25+) in the game, but leveling with 2 characters (one that can recharge shields, the other that can DPS or tank or...well, anything basically) helps a lot. Mob swarming is a big issue unless you fight with super low sig engines, or can cloak.   edit: That link won't work directly. You'll need to sign into the wiki with your forum login, then try it a second time. Forgot to mention that.

I had written a lot of words to this, but that annoying [dev] thing in my name means I can't post them. Grr. Long story short, there are two reasons, in my view, why the game's numbers are suffering:   1. Development of new and fresh ideas is stiffled by internal dev beaucratics. People who want to contribute are not allowed to. Sometimes, rightly, because their ideas are just plain broken. Mostly, because their ideas need an inertia shift (https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/9682-a-set-of-new-weapons-idea/?p=83524), but it's easier to say no than wonder "how could I make this work..."   2. There is nothing to do. The game can be 'won'. Think about these hugely popular games: -Counter-Strike -Starcraft/starcraft 2 -Leage of Legends -EVE online -The Battlefield and Call of Duty games   What do these have in common? They don't have an endgame. You 'win' EVE by unsubscribing. You cannot 'win' LoL, you can only win that game, but there is always another. The same is true for Starcraft. You may be the best today, but tomorrow? Counter-strike? Same deal, there's always that next game.   WoW and Diablo both suffer from the reality that it is entirely possible to max out your character and 'win'. Once you have the best gear, there's no point to playing. You've won. EnB suffers from this same problem. Once you have the best stuff, you've won. There's no point in getting anything else.

"Then make the new lvl 8 weapons the equivalent damage to the normal lvl 9 weapons"   *facepalm* No. That completely defeats the purpose of level 9 weapons. However, your idea does have merit. Here are my thoughts:   1. The weapons are all unique. You can only have one. They can be PM though. They don't have to be, but they can be.   2. The weapon, through a combination of its own damage and buffs, 'fills in the hole' of an equivilant level 9 weapon. (So, take a 200% Archos off, you lose 161 DPS (more if you count buffs, but in theory you'd have more than one archos, and the buffs don't stack, so no loss there). The launcher would not do 161 DPS, but it would cause, through some magic (turbo, ~weapon~ energy conservation, bonus dmg, etc) the other 2-5 weapon systems to cause 161-~missile's DPS~ DPS than they would normally. In this way, you don't lose anything by equipping the non-9 system, which is what you lose now.   3. 2. Might be easiest acomplished by a new buff 'enhance remaining weapon systems'. :p At least from a programming standpoint, that's a hell of a lot less scary of a nightmare.

Never not Necro threads. I don't like that ~person's~ stigma has turned this into a game of "He who shall not be named!", for now, on these forums, I will continue this stigma of not calling ~person~ out by name.   If ~person~ changes Agrippa because someone posts a guide for how to do Agrippa in the wiki the following things will happen:   1. ~person~ will be banned from the wiki on any known accounts. Reason: Page Vandalism. 2. The one account that ~person~ could possibly use, ~redacted before posting because i'm not a mongaloid retard~, has had its password changed by someone. So I stripped the account of admin and beauacrat roles. It's now a read-only account, and if we suspect someone of using that to spy on Agrippa pages, I will block that account as well.. 3. A new guide will be posted until we burn him out. There are a lot more of us than there are of him, and all the tears in the world won't sustain him.   ~person~ is the one who threatened to change Agrippa because it's ~person's~ baby. The items it gives are extremely powerful *because* they are hard to get. The supply of items is limited *because* they are powerful. However, stifling community cooperation for any reason is unacceptable behavior from anyone.   Modifying E&B content is at a dev's discretion, and the wiki is flexable for this reason. Modifying E&B content *because* of wiki content is unacceptable and effectively page vandalism. Trying to say it isn't because of wiki content just because it isn't in the offical wiki won't fly either, as it goes against the spirit of the rule. That is the line, it is reasonable, the community should enforce it.   edit: Bah. Literally missed a single gender reference. The "he" in the quote is from a book...gah!

You are a hero sir. I am glad you are finding use in the wiki :)

This idea is silly. An item drop can be farmed and still provides a large group of players more opportunity to activate than a smaller group. The issue your going to have to convince the debs of is how do you allow smaller guilds to run the same content as big guilds without all the ubers going to everyone (they believe users should be very rare for a years) and without big guilds being the only ones with uber gear (the latter isn't actually a concern of most of them, but its worth considering) At the end of the day, that is the issue. How to keep rare items rare while letting everyone experience the content. Either figure out a solution that intelligently attacks that problem or convince the dev team that über items shouldn't be rare. This will get you a million times more traction than simply being a squeaky wheel. My phone autocorrects devs to debs. Stupid phone.

Matt gets it. It's the same reason North Korea wants a nuke. /eats his popcorn while watching this play out (and still looking for an apartment. Yay hotel wifi)

net-7.org/wiki would be a good place to keep this information. It'd be a lot easier to keep up to date than the forum post it, at any rate.

<3

I don't suppose if I ask nicely you'd mirror this to http://net-7.org/wiki/index.php?title=Leeroy_Junkbins ?

My phone autocorrects devs to debs.

I will speak personally. The most important thing to me is making the game (more?) fun. Since I am not a programmer or content dev I can't fiddle with mobs or anything, but I am trying to get an offline market stood up. The current challenge is do we (as decs/server admins) want to take the risk of setting one up (enterprises have tools we do not to make these sorts of things safer). But that's internal discussion. I like the concept though. Obviously there are some things we cannot change because we'd need the client code or to modify the client, two things we cannot do. But you are right. E&b was a commercial failure. It was poorly managed and too little was done too late. The Internet spaceship game I think of as being successful is eve online. Hence why my idea for an offline market follows the logic of the eve market window. Down the road I think it would be cool to go to an only-playermade/drop society where vendors would either sell only blueprints for items or would sell only items sold to them. Or, if we were really baller, tie the living market into the vendors themselves and have the vendors have level restrictions... Sorry. I rabbit trailed. The ideas in the last paragraph are purely my own. I haven't brought them up to the other debs because without the offline market none of them work. Tl;dr, the ideas above I think might be fun. They give a mechanic for both traders and miners and builders. Combat is more or less fine IMO. Mobs are plentiful and easy to find. I can't speak to raiding as I do not have a dev toon nor a 150. I guess...in my head, the mechanics if the game drive the ability to have fun in it. Number tweaking is for fine detail balance. Mechanic changes are for long-lasting processes and methods of having fun. ~words~

Amen!

Xpo: if ou have a computer that can run e&b you have a computer that can run the dev tools. As for a lack of knowledge, you can either be taught or teach yourself. Just ask a dev to learn. What I hear when someone complains and uses these as excuses for not working to fix it when presented the tools and options is someone whose opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Prove me wrong. I do agree. The game is only marginally fun at the moment. The big problem for me (from ol 50 to 90 so far) is explore xp. All the level 4-6 mining fields I have found either deplete quickly or have so many guardians that my pp alt/hauler/fighter gets us both more combat xp than I earn us explore xp. He also gets more trade xp than me from he mob loot. Believe me. My fun-meter says there needs to be some fixing. But until people want to work on fixing it. It will stay broken. That said. Why is it that combat mobs are allowed to respawn like jack rabbits but mining fields deplete in 5-15 minutes and don't respawn for an hour? No risk? That is what the combat bar is for. Too much reward? Credits and trade xp only take you so far. I don't care about the leveling rate as much as the imbalance of effort for a given leveling rate. What do I mean? Go earn one clvl, then try to earn one elvl. The elvl takes much more work waiting for reactor. Flying around. Looking for roids. Combat you get a high sig engine, sit in the middle of a spawn, poosh butan, turn ship to fire, collect loot, wash, rinse, repeat. Much less work. The xp and loot, quite literally, comes to you. This seems...odd to me. How about discussing (sane) ways to fix it? *then* fixing it one time? Sound reasonable?

Yea. It takes a while for technical people (most of the development team, if not all) to learn to see the constructive idea in the ball of whining. It's like...are you married by chance? What if you got home remodeling the kitchen for your wife and she complained incessently about how the granite countertop leaked Radon and was going to kill everyone and cause deformations and birth defects in your children. All your hard work would feel wasted, would it not?   But the skill that takes a while to hear is that the complaint is about a gas leaking from a rock. Simple solution: Seal the rock. Another simple solution, find a friend who needs a new kitchen, sell them your pre-built stuff, and do it again with marble. Or maybe install a vacuum hood over the granite to suck the radon outside before it can migrate anywhere. All of these are ideas, just like the playerbase gives after a nerf.   So then you replace the countertops with marble and your wife complains about how expensive it was. lol. Can't win. But now the counter is done, and she can enjoy her new kitchen. This analogy to a wife is very much how it feels to be a dev after a patch day. It really feels like you can't please anyone. That is why I don't tell anyone to shut up. I tell them to start helping. If you think 4-5 devs are ruining the game, offer to join the dev team. When its those 4-5 devs vs you and 20 others, you will win by simple numbers. Of course, it is also possible to sit back and realize that maybe you are the 1%, and you are alone in your opinion.   Understand I am not talking down to you. I am commenting on the issue of whining as a whole from everyone, and explaining why I issue 'calls to action' in the face of unhappy players. It really is the best solution. Thanks for donating btw.

Mates, if you don't like something, ask to be trained on the relevant tool. Don't like the ore fields? Offer to learn how to use the sector editor. Don't like mob balance, the mob editor. By God you actually might have to not have some fun so you can fix what you deem broken, but then the game will be 'fun' because you made it so, and everyone will either flame you for being an idiot or being the savior. You will not know until you join the dev team, do some work, and listen to the feedback.   Whining is easy. Sitting behind a keyboard and saying you're mad is quick and painless. Actually working the change the problem? Oh man, that's the biggest nerf of them all! I know! It's so unfair! I appreciate the fact that you are all unhappy. Please *do* something about it. /continues to fiddle with offline-market web pages {don't hold your breath. I'm learning as I go. I don't even know if the other devs would accept my work. But it's fun to learn anyway. :p}

Yea. I remain neutral as I don't have the hard numbers on things. But more people involved in the project is not a bad thing, as long as their useful. :)

So far I've seen comments against turbo and EXP on jobs being lowered and giving more credits instead. Mining remains a constant complaint, as does the complexity of many quests.