Growing concern for server population

[Brammers]

One question to those clans with ranks are either offensive or contain profanity. Have you considered the fact that you may be driving players away from playing Neocron because your clan ranks are offensive?

[Divide]

This universe is a point-in-case example of vulgarity. This is not the most liberal game/community by any means.

In my mind, the only 'censoring' that should be enforced should relate to harassment. Beyond that, the surly side of dystopian society would allow whatever to be whatever.

[Drachenpaladin]

One question to those clans with ranks are either offensive or contain profanity. Have you considered the fact that you may be driving players away from playing Neocron because your clan ranks are offensive?

Inb4 "If they can't take at least that then they are not cuz out for NC in the first place anyway"-yadda yadda bullshit blah...

[Faid]

One question to those clans with ranks are either offensive or contain profanity. Have you considered the fact that you may be driving players away from playing Neocron because your clan ranks are offensive?

Last I checked Neocron was completely immersed in gritty hardcore edgy profanity. I hardly think someone is going to be ok with the hookers, pimps, murderers, and every-other sort of unsavory NPC in the game but have a problem with the word "fuck" in someone's clanrank. If anything, the fact that the dev's are taking a hypocritical stance on this, is the contributing factor to people leaving. I don't know of anyone who has left because there was profanity in a clan rank but I do know of more than a few who have left because of the unfounded censorship. But whatever the fuck ever I guess.

[Alduin]

I don't know of anyone who has left because there was profanity in a clan rank but I do know of more than a few who have left because of the unfounded censorship. But whatever the fuck ever I guess.

The following is my opinion only and may not represent the opinion of the team as a whole!

Sure, if this would be the case games like the one not to mention on these forums, Age of Conan, Rift, Deviance and many others would be completely empty. People are mainly leaving because we are now 4 months behind schedule in terms of Sparta. On top of that, the passive spell casting bug has not been fixed in R#183, a very annoying bug to hunt because it is very hard to reproduce. Same by the way holds for the beam weapons bug. Apart from that there were some patches on Vedeena which introduced some new bugs instead of fixing erratic behaviour, but well, it is a testserver and except the rare part construction bug all of the newly introduced bugs have been fixed by now.

The problem with setting up rules is quite easy to explain: either you are very explicit and explicitly tell people what is forbidden, which often forbids more than is really needed to be forbidden or you define a rule in a way which leaves quite a lot of room for interpretation. However, leaving room for interpretation will always lead to disaggreements between the GM team and players, because they feel like they have been treated differently than other players. So as you can see, there will [b]never]/b] be a "correct" way to define rules, however, rules have to be made. After all, we are a community and judging by common sense, players should respect each other which also includes any kind of name, as well as the chat.

[Dribble Joy]

In my mind, the only 'censoring' that should be enforced should relate to harassment. Beyond that, the surly side of dystopian society would allow whatever to be whatever.

IIRC, RP insult/offense is entirely permissible. The problem arises when it bleeds into a non-RP context. A further problem arises when people disagree on where that distinction falls.

[Arzon]

I agree 100% with Brammers, this is a post apocalyptic, Shooter, MMO. This game contains all the quality stuff of other similar games, such as peaceful leveling areas, Pretty scenery, Butterflies projecting rainbows out of their posterior, hookers, drugs, violence, npc's that tell me to fuck off, ect.

Not only should NAUGHTY NO NO WORDS not be used, at any time, what so ever. But I feel that we should remove the weapons from the game, and sit around a campfire, debating who would be the more productive controller of the outpost. Maybe turn the medicare into a drug rehab, and while we are at it, maybe make the job center do something, ie making sure those hookers have a real job, so they don't have to work the streets. We could probably then influence some gms and dev team from hello kitty online to do events and the likes.

Also, please remove the sex emote, kthx. I have been sexed numerous times by your staff, and I feel that sexual emotes are more offensive then saying "fuck".

Long story short, it's a game about drugs, violence, and the likes. If a clan rank called, "I fucked your uncles dog with a frying pan" offends you, you have no reason to be playing it in the first place.

[Arzon]

The population is decreasing because of promises made that have not been kept, not much has changed. On project Earth (the private server that was up for a while, when kk decided to give everyone the server files back in patch 16X) , there was about triple the work done to improve performance, and the quality of the game, in about a week or so. Yes, they are trying, but obviously if some outsider can do more work in a week then they can do in what a year? Maybe there is something to consider with who you let work on it..

Long story short, stuff has been promised to people, it is not being done, and that is why populations are dropping back to terra numbers.

/thread

[Divide]

From the perspective of older players, I'd have to agree with Arzon to some extent. The game has bugs that have been alive and well for 10 years or longer, and the legacy of KK overshadows the accomplishments of the volunteer team. This keeps old fans from returning, which is a catch-22... People would play the game if more people played the game. I keep in touch with a group of players that outright refuse to spend time in game because they know the population is so small.

I wasn't around during the Project Earth days, but it sounds like I missed quite an interesting time. What is the status of availability for those 16X server files?

[Zoltan]

The population is decreasing because of promises made that have not been kept, not much has changed. On project Earth (the private server that was up for a while, when kk decided to give everyone the server files back in patch 16X) , there was about triple the work done to improve performance, and the quality of the game, in about a week or so. Yes, they are trying, but obviously if some outsider can do more work in a week then they can do in what a year? Maybe there is something to consider with who you let work on it..

Long story short, stuff has been promised to people, it is not being done, and that is why populations are dropping back to terra numbers.

/thread

Summarized: Bullshit.

btw. The "Project Earth" server files were illegally leaked by the project owner and this server was based on the buggy / exploitable Neocron Version #174. The simple DEF changes they made didn't solve the real problems.

To the promised stuff: As we already said we took a break from the current process around Neocron. Remember we are not a paid team and you don't pay us in any relation @ Neocron. This is why we are not commited to let your special dreams come true. There is much more work to do around Neocron and we are just a little team. In short: We have to priorize everything we do.

Please don't smash the argument to increase the team. I am tired about reading about useless uber-coder statements.

[Torg]

The game has bugs that have been alive and well for 10 years or longer, and the legacy of KK overshadows the accomplishments of the volunteer team.

yes, but. the game is running smoother than ever before. ages-old bugs have been removed. tiny improvements have been added. and the best part: there is hope. NC is more alive than any time since 2005. i'm quite confident population will grow to 30% and more before the end of 13.

[Divide]

Tell 'em how you really feel, Zoltan!

I have to sympathize. Any group of volunteers that gives more than just their time is truly doing so as a labor of love.
The process of development is typically a protracted one, with different directions being mandated and dropped every step of the way. To fully appreciate the process from a project standpoint really does demand someone that has played a part with it.

There are plenty of posts where people offer advice relating to coding/release schedules/priorities that in the end most likely have a conflict of interest that really should disqualify them from contributing. Taking a player and turning them into a dev is a great way to bring someone in that understands the ins and outs, but it's potentially detrimental due to their special/unique interests. The level of dissatisfaction with the current state, or over-confidence of 'knowing the fix' could lead to any number of problems that I'm not even going to bother mentioning.

The root of the problem that Zoltan touches on, which from what I understand there is no current potential to fix, is the volunteer structure. It really behooves us as a community to find a way to support the volunteers with more than kind words -- there is only so much you can ask of someone that is not only offering their time for free, but also contributing their own money to keep the dream alive.

[Divide]

yes, but. the game is running smoother than ever before. ages-old bugs have been removed. tiny improvements have been added. and the best part: there is hope.

I absolutely agree. Little bugs like 1% SI, being unable to select 'trade' in the right-click menu periodically, and others still exist but are small. I wasn't attempting to make a jab, just wanted to make a small point in that 'old frustrations' are still valid in some respects.

[Arzon]

I am sorry, but there were more then just def fixes involved..

Also how were they illegally leaked by the person running project earth?

They were in plain view in everyones neocron folder, since iirc patch 167..


I am not trying to hound you about not updating anything, I am just answering the question of why the populations are going down.

Also, if project earth was such a horrible thing, why is your current anticheat system based off the work that was done on project earth?

[Ivan Eres]

This universe is a point-in-case example of vulgarity. This is not the most liberal game/community by any means.

In my mind, the only 'censoring' that should be enforced should relate to harassment. Beyond that, the surly side of dystopian society would allow whatever to be whatever.

So if the clan STD has "AIDS" in their clan ranks, would you call that harassment?

Do they even know how much people suffer from a disease like that?

Is that what people want in a computer game, for entertainment, in Neocron?

There must be a line, and a rule. Because, as it looks, common sense is too hard to understand, and there must still be 90% 12 year olds playing like in the start of NC. Or maybe some people simply never grew up.

I know McDuck. I gave him weapons and helped him out. I don't find it offensive if his clan rank is "Don't fuck with McDuck", cause that's just fun. Nobody takes that serious.

However, in regard to STD, which is the abbrevation for Sexually Transmitted Diseases as everyone knows, and clan ranks that consist of these diseases I have no understanding for it. And it's a shame that this must even be discussed.