underhill

I still have concerns that this whole mission line will be un-maintainable by anyone other than Byakhee and introduces unnecessary complexity, impacts the amount of people wanting to embark on the Agrippa line (one aim surely is to maximise the number of people experiencing content whilst maintaining an appropriate level of challenge) and makes on-going support/bug-fixing a nightmare.

Hopefully you were just being sarcastic - but if not, I think your toys fell out of your pram?   Why make a pointless post, criticising without any meaningful suggestions for improvement.  How can this help anyone?    If things need tweaking they will be tweaked - but more empirical evidence from 4 raid groups is needed before making changes.  I hardly think the Dev's are clueless but it's an easy name to throw around carelessly.

Finally figured out a solution for me:    Problem - the net7 launcher check for updates was taking 2-3 mins to complete.  Made crashing very annoying as getting into the game (or multi-boxing) was extremely slow.  Also I noticed that there were multiple server hosts in the little drop down box (all duplicates).   Solution: Complete re-install (I tried this first but this didn't solve the issue until the 2nd bit of deleting 'other net7 files'...) but MUST ensure any net7 or enb temp files or *.ini or relevant folders (e.g. the net7 folder in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local were also deleted completely.   I suspect the problem would have been solved by uninstalling the net7 launcher as well as deleting the net7 folder in the 'user' folder, then re-installing net7.  Would be helpful if the net7 uninstaller also removed these files automatically - but this fix worked for me.

ok thanks.  The net7 tool gets hung on 'checking server for updates' - takes about 50secs from 'checking server for updates' to 'please select a server and play'.  If you try to do anything with the launcher - it states 'not responding' until it completes after 40secs to 'play'.  Doesn't seem to be any logs stating what it's doing in that 40secs though!...

Hi - minor issue, but the net7 launcher launches fine, the game play is ok also...just that I seem to need to wait a few mins for the launcher to check for updates.  The launcher was much faster last year - wondering if there's anything to be aware of re changes to the launcher or something that needs to be reconfigured.  Just irritating to wait rather than a game-changer.    Many thanks.  

Having mega complex design of Agrippa (in my view) has a number of positives (e.g. challenge, 'the you've earned it' feeling etc.) but also several negatives - complexity means it's not easy to maintain or amend, it's also locking in one designer (from a v small team) into bug fixing and lengthy maintenance which can mean less content for other classes, problems down the line when mission rewards are more efficiently replaced (e.g. raid drops making the 2 months of completing Agrippa having less value) and of course there's a key person dependency on B being around...doesn't seem to make much sense in my mind to be wholly dependent on B - what if he wants to leave the team/gets bored/frustrated at negative comments/others want to take over?   Please keep the mission design simple (note: it doesn't have to be "easy content" - challenging missions can have a simple design but still offer a unique challenge for the reward!).  My overall feeling is that we are perhaps tying ourselves into knots when particularly now (with the rebuild) it's an ideal time to reconsider whether we can make the mission and design content simpler to maintain, less dependant on key persons to fix/develop and perhaps more effectively support the player base. 

Stress - I'm trying not to make a fuss - I love the game and you guys are all doing a great job. Toys are safely in my pram. I do feel sometimes decisions being taken in 'live' are not being fully considered (this is live, not beta - there is a massive difference and you have to expect resistance to change or to things that make playing overly complicated...it's part of life). It's not to say 'don't change' - just think about the consequences as it can be frustrating for us all (i.e. for you also).

It's not your fault Stannig - several Dev's and others noted that hull requirements were no longer in game (I've even pointed out a lower level HU requirement which Devs said they'd be removing). I am really struggling to understand whether it's worthwhile (HU100) starting Aggrippa given that I was under the assumption you could start it at any time. Sure - the lower level requirements will be a breeze - but who cares? Most people are mostly worried about end-game so understanding the design idea behind this may help us all understand? The explanations by Byakhee are confusing (sorry Byakhee) but why not just streamline and make your lives (at the very least) easier. Maintaining very complex mission requirements and logic is bound to be limiting your time to enjoy your life. Keep things simple please. Adding explanatory text to help explain a complex questline is like dealing with the symptoms, not the cause. Not sure this is the right way forward - I recognise nobody likes to re-work what they've done, but there must be a simpler way to manage this important questline (yeah - needs to be complex to meet the quest rewards but keep it balanced). My main issue with following the mission in beta was collecting ores or asking others to do the same (as a PW) - I don't want to start a toon just to help me with a quest, and without an auction house, I don't have time (in the few hours online that I have) to spend time in market channel pleading for things that I need for the quests. Having no HU requirements at least gave me the option of waiting until the market was more mature (ie more miners, ore sellers or whatever) whilst enjoying the game whilst I levelled. It's won't stop me playing or anything - but if I've passed the line of no return for HU's then it's a quest-line I'm not going to address in live. Can't we input into whether we want to go down the complex Aggrippa mission route?

In my mind, it's likely some people are probably fixed on '200% or nothing' as that's what they've been used to (not just in this game - but many of the other crafting systems in other games are binary - ie either craft something with a fixed stat (i.e. 100%) or don't craft it at all. EnB now gives crafters something else to aim for - i.e. quality percentage. The argument of 'casual' vs 'hardcore' rages in every game and it's impossible to solve. People that invest more time in anything achieve better results. Making it a level playing field for someone that has 2 hours vs someone with a whole day of playing is extremely hard to do. It's not to say 'ignore the casuals' or 'make it harder for the hardcore' - it's a challenge that all Devs rise to but we need to all recognise that it's a really difficult objective to succeed in delivering. Let's not jump to conclusions that one / other person or class of persons is being ignored? I think it's great that there's now something for builders to aim for rather than crafting being pretty much a perfect 200% all the time. The tweaking, no doubt, is to work out how much 'learning/practice' needs to be performed to make a casual builder into a master craftsman. In the same way that 'not everyone can heal well, or DPS or tank' - now we have the opportunity for builders to specialise and differentiate themselves. I think this gives another dimension to the game that was lacking...in beta there was no game economy, there was no differerence between chars in beta as everyone had more than enough credits and everyone had pretty much the best gear. Does it need tweaking - yes, most likely it does but that's part of the design challenge and we will need to give the Devs enough space to tinker with the game. They don't have the resources of a large game design team which is able to roll out beta tests or public forums and discussion groups at will. In my view, the last thing we want to do is create a fear culture in our Devs that every little change (bug fix or not) will have the ''public'' up in arms. I sometimes think if we all had a little more patience (we've all been waiting since 2004!) it would really help to keep things cheerful and proportionate.

I think at this early stage of discussions, dropping 'not acceptable' into the posts isn't very helpful. We can find a compromise to fit most of everyone's needs, but all need to be open minded. This is an early discussion of what could work for the server as a whole. A couple of points come to mind: [list=1] [*]If there are server resets and such like - any changes may not be the solution (as the boss may not spawn due to reset etc.). [*]If there's a problem with 'non guild tagged peeps killing at will' - then again, guilds or FFa may miss their spawn [whether this occurs or not who knows] [/list] This leads me to the open discussion for the devs who (I seem to remember) briefly talked about boss/raid triggers rather than timed encounter respawns. So possible solutions to be discussed/considered (hopefully with Devs or someone from the dev community):[list] [*]Swap of guild days as in Magoo's post (in my mind this needs to be all guilds agreeing otherwise it'll be a shambles with guilds wanting to return to their original date if the spawn doesn't show). Seems sensible as it deals with 'server restart' and 'longer spawn timers due to prior kill being late'. [*]Implement a dynamic guild schedule (perhaps post each month in advance) to deal with system related non-boss spawns [but I don't think this is very efficient!] [*]Possibility of Devs increasing spawn rate or at least ensuring that a spawn occurs on raid days [*]dev's implementing a trigger mechanism for spawns so that raids can be held when needed [*]Keep the current fixed schedule [*]Do we need to go by a calendar week for the rotation?- if there's so much variation in boss timer then maybe a 2 or 3 day window for each guild would help? I agree that everyone wants a particular day to camp/raid - but if you've got 2/3 days then perhaps that makes easier to schedule. [/list] Other ideas [other than sharding the boss spawns so you can get multiple spawns!]?