Dear KK (Kirk); please, please do something.

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Originally Posted by CoreInsanity

Yeah, that's basically what I mean by my initial post on the last page.

1) The game is outdated, buggy and probably poorly coded by today's standards and was more than likely the code was not designed to be expanded upon.
2) There are a lot of hacks, bugs and technical limitations that seem to be in place for some stuff. For instance, FRE can't be fixed without getting a new engine (From what I remember reading a long time ago). Or the fact that the net code seems to be screwed up. Some of these seem to be caused by poorly planned out code, and some to just logic errors. I can point to a few exploits that honestly look like some one stuck an if statement in the wrong spot, or did an action in the wrong order (Not going to say more detail than that).


Like in my main post, the main issue I see here is the fact that they have no viable way or apparent plan to make the game prosper. As a business, they need money. As a dieing business, they need it more. Thus, neocron appears o be more work than reward so they push it off until later.

Even if you got back all the old players, I don't think they would be making enough to cover the costs of developing a game these days; and the only way to bring in money is to remake neocron.

The fact that every patch something seems to get broken indicates either extreme incompetence on the development staff (Doubting this) or the code is written poorly causing changes to become a problem. The code was probably not written with expansion in mind.

Either way, I would love to see NC survive. Through the company if they want to actually take care of the game, or through the community if the company can't afford it or doesn't want to try. Either way, NC open source is better than it getting shut down for good and us losing the game. We could at least fix it over time if it was open source.

But again, if KK actually has viable plans for the game, I would like to know what they are and what we are waiting on? If we are waiting on BP, how is BP doing? The company too, for that matter?


To quote my questions from the last page, and add one:


(I added the 5th)

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You have nailed quite a lot of things here...But I will respond to it as promised.

Cheers
Kirk

P.S.: DOES THE COUNTER RESTART NOW? ;)

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Originally Posted by Kirk Lenke

You have nailed quite a lot of things here...But I will respond to it as promised.

Cheers
Kirk

P.S.: DOES THE COUNTER RESTART NOW? ;)

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Oh snap, it sure does.

EDIT- I think I will clarify the real purpose of the counters.

We care, we all care, and we are all waiting and watching. The best way to count the days since a response was a counter, and the best way to show we aren't forgetting and haven't forgotten was a counter. Neocron is VERY important to us and we don't want to let it go. Think of it like the first girl we ever had sex with, we don't want to let this girl go, yeah, she has been around the block a few times now, and has a few weird things that don't wash off easily, but a shot of penicillin and we can all be okay again, we just want to know when that shot is coming Kirk :)


Updates are being posted to Neocron.org with links to Kirks posts...

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Originally Posted by Kirk Lenke

You have nailed quite a lot of things here...But I will respond to it as promised.

Cheers
Kirk

P.S.: DOES THE COUNTER RESTART NOW? ;)

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it should but i dont think saying "But i will respond to as promised" will be classified as being a real repond to this post. If you answered his post with a real respond to his question/feedback about the game. then yes thats a real retart.

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Originally Posted by MrTrip

Oh snap, it sure does.

EDIT- I think I will clarify the real purpose of the counters.

We care, we all care, and we are all waiting and watching.

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Quoted for truth (except the wierdness :p). It took me 8 years to realise it, but by god I want NC to floursih again. There has NEVER been another MMO that had/has me like NC did. Planetside came seriously close and was an asssload of fun with the guys I was playing with (The Halibuts) but coming back now and seeing that Kirk (and other devs too hopefully) do still look in on NC gives me some hope, and for that I will likely be staying a wee while longer yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirk Lenke

You have nailed quite a lot of things here...But I will respond to it as promised.

Cheers
Kirk

P.S.: DOES THE COUNTER RESTART NOW? ;)

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That's Mr Trip's counter, his call! :)

However, you now can progress to the next level where the questions get harder! ;)

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Originally Posted by Kirk Lenke

You have nailed quite a lot of things here...But I will respond to it as promised.

Cheers
Kirk

P.S.: DOES THE COUNTER RESTART NOW? ;)

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Look forward to reading your response to our questions :)

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Originally Posted by CoreInsanity

Yeah, that's basically what I mean by my initial post on the last page.

1) The game is outdated, buggy and probably poorly coded by today's standards and was more than likely the code was not designed to be expanded upon.
2) There are a lot of hacks, bugs and technical limitations that seem to be in place for some stuff. For instance, FRE can't be fixed without getting a new engine (From what I remember reading a long time ago). Or the fact that the net code seems to be screwed up. Some of these seem to be caused by poorly planned out code, and some to just logic errors. I can point to a few exploits that honestly look like some one stuck an if statement in the wrong spot, or did an action in the wrong order (Not going to say more detail than that).


Like in my main post, the main issue I see here is the fact that they have no viable way or apparent plan to make the game prosper. As a business, they need money. As a dieing business, they need it more. Thus, neocron appears o be more work than reward so they push it off until later.

Even if you got back all the old players, I don't think they would be making enough to cover the costs of developing a game these days; and the only way to bring in money is to remake neocron.

The fact that every patch something seems to get broken indicates either extreme incompetence on the development staff (Doubting this) or the code is written poorly causing changes to become a problem. The code was probably not written with expansion in mind.

Either way, I would love to see NC survive. Through the company if they want to actually take care of the game, or through the community if the company can't afford it or doesn't want to try. Either way, NC open source is better than it getting shut down for good and us losing the game. We could at least fix it over time if it was open source.

But again, if KK actually has viable plans for the game, I would like to know what they are and what we are waiting on? If we are waiting on BP, how is BP doing? The company too, for that matter?


To quote my questions from the last page, and add one:


(I added the 5th)

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I think Neocron going F2P open source could be the best thing to ever happen to it. Anyone with code or modding experience could help improve the game and enhance it. Hell, I'd rather just get a F2P rollback into NC1 days just to mess around with.

No way KK has the money or the manpower to actually remake Neocron in a timely fashion or in a way that's worth their time and effort.

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Originally Posted by Vid Gamer

I think Neocron going F2P open source could be the best thing to ever happen to it. Anyone with code or modding experience could help improve the game and enhance it. Hell, I'd rather just get a F2P rollback into NC1 days just to mess around with.

No way KK has the money or the manpower to actually remake Neocron in a timely fashion or in a way that's worth their time and effort.

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I think that'd be a really good idea provided there was a group of people willing to spend their time developing the game. However, I'm not sure what state the game is in right now. It's possible that the engine might be too broken to be saved.

It'd be cool if someone could make it happen though. While I never got too far in the game, I've spent countless hours just wondering around the city.

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Originally Posted by MrDomino

I think that'd be a really good idea provided there was a group of people willing to spend their time developing the game. However, I'm not sure what state the game is in right now. It's possible that the engine might be too broken to be saved.

It'd be cool if someone could make it happen though. While I never got too far in the game, I've spent countless hours just wondering around the city.

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I think the code in general is broken, but I don't think it's too broken. I think it's just poorly written/designed. I think a group of people could fix it. The game isn't that big, the art is made, the database of items/mob locations/loot/etc is already there. It won't be like making a new game for people to fix it. Heck, I might learn C++ (I am assuming that's what it's written in) to help. Not like redoing WoW or EVE.

It wouldn't get fixed instantly, it would probably take a while. But it could be fixed, I'm sure.

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Originally Posted by CoreInsanity

I think the code in general is broken, but I don't think it's too broken. I think it's just poorly written/designed. I think a group of people could fix it. The game isn't that big, the art is made, the database of items/mob locations/loot/etc is already there. It won't be like making a new game for people to fix it. Heck, I might learn C++ (I am assuming that's what it's written in) to help. Not like redoing WoW or EVE.

It wouldn't get fixed instantly, it would probably take a while. But it could be fixed, I'm sure.

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Your, sir, have stated a lot of true issues about the current state of neocron and its possible future.

The most important of your points in my opinion is the idea to have the community work for the game, especially the coders.

However, I have to disagree with you regarding one of your main points. While it is surely important to have the best graphics possible today for any game it must not be the priority for making Neocron interesting again for a bigger audience.

The main issue with neocron in my opinion are the bugs, especially the Fatal Errors and the synching problems, and the myriad of other exploits and netcode issues.

If I had to priorize the main issues that should be fixed first I would see them as follows:

1.) Fatal Errors
2.) Synch Problems
3.) Exploits, Hacks

The first two points are what every new player experiences instantly, and it destroys the whole experience that is Neocron. The vets put up with it but every new player won't.

The third point however is what puts the Vets off especially because they can't PVP properly.

In my opinion it has always been a big mistake to add new content to Neocron while not fixing these bugs because this approach makes the situation worse.

New graphics are new content again and this is not needed at the moment in my opinion.

Think about players with older computers, and players from other countries, like Russia, that maybe do not care about the graphics as much as a computer geek from England or Germany who is playing the newest games like Crysis 2 on his newest mega computer rig or on a alienware laptop.

How about focussing on fixing what we have this time, instead of adding new stuff again.

Thank you very much.

Regards
Ivan

The UI as stands is not good enough for a modern game. I can't see many truly new players, even if the game has a decent population, is more stable and cheater free, standing the clunky, outdated 10 year old UI.

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Originally Posted by Mr_Snow

The UI as stands is not good enough for a modern game. I can't see many truly new players, even if the game has a decent population, is more stable and cheater free, standing the clunky, outdated 10 year old UI.

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while it is not as flashy and ridiculously "3d" as some modern games, in essence the HUD is quite well designed. The only thing it's not good at is scaling to current widescreen and huge resolutions.

try getting some of the more modern hud skins that are made by the community, and imagine a properly scaled ui ;)


and @Ivan Eres, putting fixing cheating behind the other two points is simply wrong. I suppose you haven't played recently, but the only reason the game is toxic is cheating and an inactive GM team. While the netcode could get an upgrade and clipping be fixed, cheating is and always has to be the number one priority. While pve is a huge part of the game, the vast majority will play this game to pvp at least part of the time, and as such will run into cheaters which will ruin the game for them.

It will also fix the toxicity of the game by removing the basis of most of the cheat accusations, as people will get shushed again for spouting bullshit, instead of currently most people just thinking (oh well, there's probably some truth in that).

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

Your, sir, have stated a lot of true issues about the current state of neocron and its possible future.

The most important of your points in my opinion is the idea to have the community work for the game, especially the coders.

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I think the best course for NC, unless Kirk says something pretty interesting regarding NC and their plans, is to have the community work on it.

This would, of course, give us the ability to run our own servers however. While I think this is a good thing, it does pose the problem of splitting the community. However, I have a feeling neocron.org or the techhaven network would pool the developers and become a more central server. Where as people like me would run one for fun, for myself and a few friends to mess around with the code. I would also play on that other server, though.

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

However, I have to disagree with you regarding one of your main points. While it is surely important to have the best graphics possible today for any game it must not be the priority for making Neocron interesting again for a bigger audience.

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Well, don't get me wrong. Graphics is a big thing, but it's not everything. Graphics is merely the "fresh paint job" on the game to give it a good look in marketing. It doesn't need to best and amazing graphics around, just look at WoW.

What WoW has is a reputation that draws people in. People like community interaction; Good guild(clan in this case) options, good group activities (PVP and PVE), etc. Though I think WoW has died off in it's skill uniqueness. The setups have become cookie cutter and I think this is very bad.

Neocron has no real reputation. We have a few vets that say it's good (Including me). And despite the bugs, we continue playing. Neocron lacks something to draw people in at a glance (I don't consider a wall of features a glance. That's something they read after they are interested).

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

The main issue with neocron in my opinion are the bugs, especially the Fatal Errors and the synching problems, and the myriad of other exploits and netcode issues.

If I had to priorize the main issues that should be fixed first I would see them as follows:

1.) Fatal Errors
2.) Synch Problems
3.) Exploits, Hacks

The first two points are what every new player experiences instantly, and it destroys the whole experience that is Neocron. The vets put up with it but every new player won't.

The third point however is what puts the Vets off especially because they can't PVP properly.

In my opinion it has always been a big mistake to add new content to Neocron while not fixing these bugs because this approach makes the situation worse.

New graphics are new content again and this is not needed at the moment in my opinion.

Think about players with older computers, and players from other countries, like Russia, that maybe do not care about the graphics as much as a computer geek from England or Germany who is playing the newest games like Crysis 2 on his newest mega computer rig or on a alienware laptop.

How about focussing on fixing what we have this time, instead of adding new stuff again.

Thank you very much.

Regards
Ivan

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If this game was to really turn into a viable source of income for the company, I think they would have to remake it.

Sure, we could prioritize a list and start fixing it. It would bring back some people, but I don't think it could get fixed and developed enough to become a viable source of income for the company. We are already talking about a niche game, which limits your audience from the start.


Really, the only way to answer the question/debate "Which is better? Building it from the ground up or fixing what we have" is research on KKs part. In marketing cost, development and potential audience size.

• Can they actually market the game good enough in it's current (Fixed) state to bring in enough people to make money off it?
• Can they fix the game enough to expand on it without breaking it?
• Can the game in it's current (Fixed) state even handle an increased number of players (hundreds).
• *What exactly will it take to fix the current state of Neocron?
• How much will it cost them to fix NC compared to how much it will cost for them to make an NC3.

* This one is special. Neocron in it's current state is very rigid; It's code is static and unbending. Whoever made it initially did not have expansion in mind, they had "How can we make it do *this* and only this?" in mind. Thus, we have all these problems now.

This is one of Neocron's biggest flaws. This is probably why when they made NC2.2 the game started to break rapidly. For instance, they went from having static apartments to having players place furniture in them. Or they went from having just skills to having WoC skills and weapons. They updated some of the graphics, etc. All of this was "bending" the code. All of this bending caused small cracks; combine that with lack of testing, development and the initially poorly designed code that was there to begin with and you have all the bugs and exploits we have today.

Fixing this isn't going to be a simple "Jump in and move some code around". It may even take a redesign of the core of the game. Some hacks work because the server is stupid and takes information it shouldn't from the client when it should be the other way around. Some stuff works because it removes an item from the players inventory AFTER it does whatever said item should do. I could go into a detailed list of exploits that work because the game does stuff stupid because of how it was designed, but I have a feeling KK wouldn't like that and it might make the current situation in game worse.



Edit: Yeah, a new HUD would be useful. Though, honestly, I miss the old NC1 UI. Personally I love what WoW has, I love being able to make addons or use addons for that game to completely customize my UI. I have spent a lot of time tweaking it, and it looks nothing like the default UI; everything is where I can easily see it and it's functional for every class I play.

Also, please never make the NC inventory system work like fallout/oblivion. I hate that list crap.

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Originally Posted by CoreInsanity

I think the best course for NC, unless Kirk says something pretty interesting regarding NC and their plans, is to have the community work on it.

This would, of course, give us the ability to run our own servers however. While I think this is a good thing, it does pose the problem of splitting the community. However, I have a feeling neocron.org or the techhaven network would pool the developers and become a more central server. Where as people like me would run one for fun, for myself and a few friends to mess around with the code. I would also play on that other server, though.

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I'm not sure how neocron.org is run, I'll let MrTrip speak for himself.

Got to ask, how would the techhaven network pool the developers and become a more central server? I'm not quite following what you are trying to say here. (Also out of the THN admin team, I'll point out there are only 2-3 devs)

Also until I know what direction KK is going to do with Neocron, I can't say what direction the THN is going to take. I've got quite a few plans which have been sitting on the shelf for the last few years as KK haven't been able to tell us (as in the community) what they are going to do with Neocron.

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Originally Posted by Biglines

while it is not as flashy and ridiculously "3d" as some modern games, in essence the HUD is quite well designed. The only thing it's not good at is scaling to current widescreen and huge resolutions.

try getting some of the more modern hud skins that are made by the community, and imagine a properly scaled ui ;)

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There's more to a GUI than how it looks. Regardless of looks(and neocron 1 had a prettier and slightly more usable HUD), the actual user interface in Neocron is terrible and a real pain in the arse to use.

It wasn't great 9 years ago (but it was acceptable), it definitely isn't acceptable anymore.