A: Anti-cheat patch
More than a year ago, chenoa said that the developers knew what went wrong with the patch, and how to fix it. There were a few posts explaining that you were actively working on it.
1. If the developers are working on it (even in their free time), why is it taking so long?
Fixing an MMO or better parts of it which consist of code produced by programmers who aren’t inhouse anymore is a huge task.
2. How far along are you, have you fixed the problems and are just waiting for a time to patch, or are you still stumped as to why the patch didn't work last time?
Yes stumped! We need to have more time for testing and finding a proper solution. Currently we are more or less paralyzed and do not see the problem. On our testing server all worked fine but as soon as we went live all went fubar!
3. How many people are working on it in their free time?
1. Does KK lend all its developers to gamigo on a project basis, or does gamigo pay KK for work on BP. In the last case I just don't get why part of KK's capital isn't used to actually pay the developers to work on neocron. If gamigo wants KK only to work on BP, why not just buy the whole company?
You have to take in regard what Reakktor has went through in the past years. There was 10tacle, then the insolvency, then we came out of it and went on producing only BP with the Fund behind us funding Black Prophecy. The Fund had no interest in funding Neocron at all. With the Black Prophecy deal signed we had to deliver on time and on budget, so no people could be assigned to Neocron as well. When BP went live we were either working on BP or on Black Prophecy Add Ons. We had no chance to put any developer on it. Which is a shame.
4. Why can't these people be compensated in either overtime or subcontracting?
1. If these developers are really working on neocron, is there some way for us to donate to them personally or to buy them a beer?
Currently we are evaluating options regarding donations. But they have to be official regarding tax law etc.
5. (By CoreInsanity: ) What is your plan as far as cheaters go? Specifically:
1. Will the exploit specific bugs be fixed before taking any action?
2. Will the fact that the community is really small be taken into account?
3. Will there be a wipe to counter the fact that a lot of trading is restrictive due to how much cheating has gone on? (Biglines: Please don't )
WE HAVE TO FIX IT!
B: Payment and accounts
About 3 years ago now, 10tacle went insolvent, causing paypal subscriptions to stop functioning, to which you said that payment would be reinstated very soon.
1. How is KK doing now financially? Are you stable?
As you can see now, we are far away from being stable. We have no debts regarding certain credits or bails. The only thing which brought us down is the salary which could not be paid.
For me reinstating a payment is only doable when the bugs are fixed or at least something has happened regarding the current situation of Neocron. Because I do not want to spoil a paying customer even if we may did in the past.
2. Why can't there be another payment provider reinstated now that KK is no longer insolvent, so that click2pay isn't the only one still working?
Same as above. Click2pay has been terminated as well.
3. Why can't you let paypal make accounts like click2pay can?
Paypal is a bank and within the last insolvency Paypal shut everything down within minutes. So we have to think about another option.
4. What do you plan on changing in neocron before the monthly fee will start again? (As obviously hardly anyone will pay for the game in it current state, both support and content wise)
Getting the patch working and maybe some other improvements as well. But without money it’s gonna be a huge task to be honest.
C: Communication
Communication with the community at least in the last 5 years has been abysmal, almost no messages were written concerning what was happening, the moderators on the forum were either not informed or were not allowed to comment, and most of the messages that came were mostly filled with promises that were almost never kept, or were made by moderators/employees who had to spend their own time helping/informing us. Having no time is not really an excuse when it takes over a year to communicate. Not being able to write something for a week or two is possible due to some deadline looming, but during an entire year, it is impossible for there to have been no time for a message that in the worst case scenario takes an hour or two to research and write.
Look, back in 2007 the struggle began inside Reakktor, Holger left the company in the mid of 2007 and I took the job at the end of 2007 officially in the meantime nobody at KK could do anything without the permission of 10tacle management. Due to the fact that BP was a funded project we had milestones to achieve and the fund also had bonders whom really had hands on the team. In 2008 10tacle went down and so did Reakktor.
The only action I could take was putting the payments off and keeping Neocron alive somehow without causing any costs for Reakktor, the fund or Gamigo. The servers in the past years have been paid by me and I mean by me.
I was never so involved in Neocron or better its community even though I was with Reakktor from 1999 on with a small break. But by the time I had the chance to take care of it properly there was either the option to shut it down or to keep it alive somehow. I chose the latest. Because I think Neocron is unique and it always will be, this is also the reason we have made the NC3 picture and started writing a unique story heading towards New Tokyo. With Neocron we did things many other developers copied (mainly without knowing that we have invented those things).
So Neocron became a heritage I am proud of. But every day has 24 hours and having a company, a family and kids… well I have tried my best so far.
1. What are your plans on improving communication with the community?
I would like to involve the community more in what is going on. Because we will need your support and you as a player to make neocron interesting to a potential partner/publisher regarding a Neocron3.
2. Why do we only get answers after posting in the BP forums? Is it simply because you don't read this forum?
Honestly, I am also not that present in the BP forum. I sometimes get the remark to take a look at some posts but as soon as I want to state something a flamewar is already up and running. So we made the decision with BP in the beginning that no devs should make any comments in the forum. This has also been the wrong approach from my point of view.
3. Can you in the future, when it appears you will not be able to keep the promises you made, at least let us know as soon as possible that you won't be able to make it?
Best would be not to make any promises to a community, no matter which community it is. Presenting facts is the way to go. That’s what I have learned so far.
4. (Brammers: ) What is Reakktor's view on the current state of communication to the community, and what plans do they have to change it? (If any).
Of course it is far away from being optimal, but the current state of the game is also frustrating the people who are still working on Neocron. So we have to take care of the game somehow, get some funding and then re-etablish a solid communication.
5. (Brammers: ) What is Reakktor's view on the current state of in-game and out-of-game support, and what plans do they have to change it? (If any).
Get funding, re-instate proper support. There cannot be a good or even moderate support without having any money available.
6. Is there an official community manager? if so, where is he/she and what is his/her job? Because we have not seen anything in the past year.
Working on it.
7. Why did you not tell us (or have someone else tell us) that you couldn't respond because you were on a business trip?
Because I do not lie and I will simply do not ask anybody to lie for me or do you mean when we went to the US last year when I have promised my answers? Well I simply forgot about it…. Sorry.
You don't even have to say why if that's something private to the company, but at least let us know that you won't be keeping your promises, instead of just waiting years and then doing something drastic. Three years ago you promised us an anti-cheat patch in 3 months, after a year of no communication, suddenly you patched the game without prior notice, and without much communication that patch was then rolled back because it simply didn't work.
Well to be honest I wanted to surprise you and come back with a BANG! I am sorry that the patch failed and so are the people who have invested lot of work into it.
We understand if you are having troubles financially that you can't keep your promises, but at least let us know immediately when you realize this will happen.
Understood.
D: Development
Some community members expresses their wishes for neocron to be made open source, or to hire/include some community members as sources for development, content and artwork.
1. How many of the original neocron developers are still around?
By counting now round about 10 who have been more or less involved from the beginning of Neocron. This is not to bad when you take into regard, that the Neocron team wasn’t that big at all.
2. What is the state of the code for neocron, can you give us a few details about how neocron is built up?
Nobody wants to know what the state of the code is, trust me…
1. Can you tell us if it is at all possible for you to fix the huge amount of memory leaks and conflicts between the gfx engines?
I will answer this later when I have the needed infos.
3. Could you explain why the game won't be made open source?
I have to think about this and evaluate it properly. Until now I simply haven’t had the time to do this. And beside this I still have plans with Neocron.
4. Could you explain why you don't use the huge potential of some of the community members to work on neocron? We have some very talented developers here.
I know that there are really good people around in the forums. I will setup an email address where they can apply to, but before we can hire them or even take them as volunteers we have to think it through legally and technically.
5. Is returning to the NC1 version of neocron an option? A lot of the community seems to think everything was better back then?
I my ideal world, I would like to take the good things from and NC1 and NC2 and setup a new version. We have evaluated this option as well and have presented it to potential partners.
For example we have made tests with Unity and Neocron assets. And it worked pretty well! But making a revamped version of Neocron is also a question of money.
Setting up this basic version would cost above one million and would take probably round about one year with the current team we have.
6. why is the interpolation, which worked in nc1 not working anymore since i think nc2.2, in nc1 the z coordinate was calculated correctly, but since nc 2.2 it isn't anymore
I will answer this later when I have the needed infos
7. (CoreInsanity: ) Can you actually market the game good enough in its current (Fixed) state to bring in enough people to make money off it?
As pointed out at 5. I only see the option to revamp Neocron. This could be done within one year and bring back life and fun to the game.
Within the last 2 years we have thought about taking Neocron to Kickstarter or better doing something equal in Germany. But due to taxes this isn’t that easy here.
Now that Double Fine made this on Kickstarter there are plans to do this as well again. But the questions is: Shall we go for a revamped version of the old Neocron or shall we try to fund Neocron 3 right away. I think there is only one shot I think tbh.
The “problem” with Neocron3 is that 1st Neocron is a niche product in the SciFi genre so it isn’t that attractive to a publisher as an elvish fantasy MMO. 2nd doing a Neocron3 nowadays means taking state of the art graphics today and delivering an AAA title in the meaning of quality etc. This brings up the million dollar question again. Who shall fund it!?
We believe in it and we know that there are people who would love and play this game. But asking in Germany for example for 10 Mio for an MMO of such quality is nearly impossible. Asking internationally is irritating as well because partners/publishers think that we cannot do it for this amount in comparison to other titles out there.
So funding is the real deal.
Currently I have the plan to set up a structure to make it possible to make donations to the NC dev team or the game in general to keep the servers and the forums alive. But this has to be legally and taxwise 100% solid.
Beside this I take into regard to try crowdfunding a new Neocron3 or a revamped version of the old one.
And by saying this we have to take into consideration how the business model shall work as well. I am still a huge fan of a subscription based model but more money is currently made in the free to play market which makes the latter also more attractive to publishers. I know that you guys do not like the free to play option!
8. (CoreInsanity: ) Can you fix the game enough to expand on it without breaking it?
I think we can only try fixing the current state. Making an AddOn is no option. But we still have plenty of assets which haven’t been implemented yet. It was also planned to release them with the patch…
9. (CoreInsanity: ) Can the game in it's current (Fixed) state even handle an increased number of players (hundreds)?
Yupp.
10. Do you have the staff resources to get and pay a good, experienced and committed team of 1 coder, 1 gfx man and 1 dev team organizer ?
Staff is not the problem at the moment. Payment is the key.
11. Can you change your rules to allow voluntary devs getting documentations and coding game code ?
Hmmm. Have to think about it.