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+--- Thread: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions (/showthread.php?tid=123120)
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Vogel - 11-24-2014
(11-24-2014, 11:21 PM)Garrett Jax Wrote: Vogel, no offense bud, but I don't think we could do anything to make you happy. I hate to see unhappy people here and I definitely hate to see them rage on the forums at every perceived wrong they see in the game. You may have to face up to the sad reality that this game will never be a satisfying product for you personally. That being the case, wouldn't it be wiser for you to go find a better product somewhere else that would make you happy, assuming there is one? Banging your head against the wall in frustration seems to me to be a futile waste of one's time.I wouldn't be saying anything at all if I didn't think I was saying the right thing. I wouldn't be offering new ideas and suggestions if I thought they would destroy the game. I'm as jaded as a lot of other people around here but there is rhyme and reason behind my insults and sarcasm. No, you're right, I probably will never be absolutely satisfied with this game, and the chances that I will be more satisfied with it in the future are small.... but does that mean I should be "content" with it, as it is, if there is still a potential for improvement, however small? The same could be said of everyone else: the adherents of the status quo (which has seen the mod both rise and fall) are in the same camp as the ones who want to see it burn. They are both fatalistic.
Ever hear of "rage against the dying of the light?" Maybe I get a kick out of doing so, but my rage is not directionless. Besides, my life doesn't revolve around Freelancer in the slightest bit. I just hate seeing things go to waste.
I'm asking where the design ethos is, what it wants and how it intends to get there, because with that all questions are resolved. This topic is about communities outside RP 24/7. If the design ethos is based on the desires of this community then it is already incompatible with the rest. Even if you don't nationalize their "peasant hovels" the overall design will be in favor of the RP 24/7 community, to their detriment. You hurt them, and the mod, both by stepping on them and by not trying to include them. I suggest a synthesis of RP and PVP mechanics that allow roleplayers and blue-message seekers to rapidly operate in the same environment. By doing so, player count will rise, other communities will have more incentive to join because rules are seen as "lax" (being embedded in the game, they are not necessarily seen), and then this topic will be unnecessary.
It's a question of vision and intentions. Ultimately it's only in the hands of the developers. And if the developers turn to the community, again, be specific in what community, who in the community, and whether what they want is actually what's best.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Thyrzul - 11-24-2014
(11-24-2014, 09:59 PM)Vogel Wrote: "A good combat system"
[...]
"A functional economy" [...] If bases served as crafting hubs for all sorts of commodities, in conjunction with an automated supply/demand system, there might be more merit to it.
[...]
"A roleplaying environment" [...] it should be built into the game itself, from the bottom up. [...] Benefits and punishments should be in-game and automatic, at every conceivable step.
I'm pretty curious what your concepts are in regards of implementing all these into the mod. After all I believe it is only fair to assume that if you know what's wrong and are not afraid to criticize the system to this extent, then you also know the answer to these problems you listed. Don't you? You sound almost as if you could do better. Is that the case?
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Vogel - 11-25-2014
(11-24-2014, 11:36 PM)Thyrzul Wrote:I'm pretty curious what your concepts are in regards of implementing all these into the mod. After all I believe it is only fair to assume that if you know what's wrong and are not afraid to criticize the system to this extent, then you also know the answer to these problems you listed. Don't you? You sound almost as if you could do better. Is that the case?
And This is where the discussion tends to stop. Someone daring to come up with dramatic alternatives or solutions is immediately held suspect, and rightly so. After all, their incompetence could cost the whole works. But on what basis is competence tested? If it's an impossible mixture of coding, modeling, texturing, networking and administrative capabilities, then who could possibly be held up as competent? Once someone is easily cast aside for this lack of, frankly, godliness, everything they say is somehow discredited as well. Why? Answer that for yourself if that is your method.
I have my ideas. I have my opinions. I have my share of visions about where this game could have gone in the past and in the present. Admittedly a lot of resources, i.e players have been lost, and the status quo is very much entrenched here. It's also virtually impossible to impart my vision to people without dumping the whole, completed thing in their laps, which is clearly beyond my capacity. But none of that automatically invalidates what I have to say.
If you look back at my comments you will see both my idealistic and my practical stance. Since the idealistic one draws nothing but ire, mocking, and derision, let me just repeat the practical one and leave it at that:
Test it.
Test Everything.
Establish and publish a very clear cut plan for the whole deal, starting with what the game should be like and for whom. Adapt that to present circumstances. And then test every possible solution you can manage, no matter how divergent from the status quo it may be. It's much easier to do this with PVP concerns on separate servers than it is with economics and politics, but that's all the more reason to start.
The worst thing you can do is Nothing: If PVP balance and experience are both held suspect, then step outside of the box and begin testing alternatives. A lot of alternatives. Why not? What do you have to lose? The main server isn't going anywhere, and if you ever needed extra bandwidth an average of 50 players is the best time to do it. Go back to the original game, look at it as what it is: an Incomplete Vision. And then Flesh It Out as the "successor to the storyline" is supposed to. Look at other space combat games. Look at contemporary air and sea combat. Use all of these wonderful FLHook tools and modding tweaks developed over the years. If it takes a complete overhaul to the point where the game plays differently then do it, so long as it's fun.
But you'll never even approach any potential if you never try it somewhere, sometime. I can only pontificate about ideas, but there are others around here who can do more than that. The choice between doing Nothing and trying Everything is not much of a choice anymore, is it? The past and present design ethos, if there was any, has proven deficient. It rode on hype but that wave has passed. If you really want to just put it into the dirt and bury it with honors then that's out of my hands, but if you want to keep it going then you gotta do something, and that something can't be more of the same.
So again, for the devs: Boil it down to absolute basics. You have two options: Let it die, whether by shutting it down or by doing the same motions, or recreate the product. Treat it as a product, with customers and everything. It must have value. You must decide what that value is, where it comes from. You must decide who that value is for, and then let people know in no uncertain terms. And then you must decide how to generate that value for them, and go well beyond the present box to find it. It doesn't have to look like it does today. It doesn't have to place emphasis in the same areas. Try new things. Test them like mad.
So long as the current server exists and ships/money/faction prestige are not lost, then there is also nothing to be lost in testing outside of it, or in limited areas within it. So go for it. Finish off 4.88 and then begin exploring new avenues.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Mephistoles - 11-25-2014
Vogel
![[Image: EzVI16D.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/EzVI16D.jpg)
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - WesternPeregrine - 11-25-2014
(11-24-2014, 09:37 AM)sindroms Wrote: Hey.
I will keep my personal opinion out of this one, but here's the thing.
Disco as a mod is not dead. Though the playerbase is scattered over a huge amount of 5player servers. Please pull the plug on being able to make custom servers from future mod versions, so that the only place you can play future Disco versions would be the Official server.
I know this is a bit anti-consumer and such, but usually when activity drops, server clusters are merged. I suggest doing the same.
Players Online - 12 09:50 AM GMT
Quote:After talking over with Alley over skype, I think I need to reword the initial post.
I am not talking about DELETING servers. I am talking about MERGING them, existing progress included.
Removing spare servers and instead having two. A RP server and a PVP sandbox server.
After reading the initial proposal, my thought on it was that it is a very distasteful measure.
I question the assumption that there are dozens of 5 people servers out there, when you at most see one server holding 5 to 7 people, for a single hour or so, during the day.
Not only this measure would not increase the player count in any reasonable measure, it would definitely increase the percentage of people annoyed about such unilateral decision.
If small servers decide to merge with the Disco community, it would be because they accepted the rules and customs of the main server. Which is probably the main reason why they are over there and not here at the moment.
Annexing their servers by cutting server support make no one happy.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Vogel - 11-25-2014
(11-25-2014, 12:08 AM)Mephistoles Wrote: Vogel
It's my way of reminding people what game they're playing. Freelancer was a grand vision that was incomplete on delivery. People bought into it for that vision, and were disappointed when it was not delivered. Mods in general, but especially Discovery with the mantle that it has, were the avenue to fulfill that promise. It is not attained by bloating existing mechanics, but by creating new ones, or at least modifying the existing ones into that vision whenever possible. Whether it's fleshing out combat mechanics so that there are multiple avenues to victory, or elaborating on the universe, not by adding new systems but by expanding the planets and stations that exist (perhaps even to the point of having navigable planetscapes for the most important locations), the possibilities were, and still are, truly endless. Read the news. Read the signs. Flesh them out. Build upon them. Engineer the game to become that greater universe. When you stay away from Discovery for years, and then go back and play the original game, maybe then you'll see what I'm talking about. It's a feeling of awe and wonder, how you're just a small speck in a vast universe which is moving on its own, barely noticing you, and in the middle of all that you must eke out a living using whatever tools at your disposal. "Freelancer." The very name, and role, speak to a personalized experience dumped into a huge, open-world, with its own backstory, cultures, religions, technologies, organizations and so on. The impact you had, if you had any, was based on your own work. You couldn't spawn in-RP armies out of thin air, nor could you bend space and time to suit whatever random, divergent import you fancied. It was just you, a ship, and a fistful of credits. That mystique has been Lost; I dare you to find it again.
Also, Trent was an individual with less than stellar attitude. who still did the right thing. That's called role model material.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Treewyrm - 11-25-2014
Who is that fella anyway? A little familiar tones of that crazy rambling.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - SMGSterlin - 11-25-2014
Most people here are going to agree with this for the simple fact that they play pretty much only on the official server, so this wouldn't affect them.
If you really want to start a discussion about this, start it on the forums of the other Disco servers out there.
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Jtan911 - 11-25-2014
Perhaps, rather than aggressive assimilation, when should try a more gentle approach to this delicate manner.
Assign the Angels to if they see another player on a non-official server, they log a ship, and try invite that player to the official server. I would recommend angels (though anyone with enough experience would be fine) simply because if the player agreed to shift, then ingame help can be given immediately on the official server, to help them to learn the ropes and hopefully make good keen new community members. I dare say that it would sit better with such players from other servers as they have a choice in the matter, not being forced which in most cases will make them run away from disco entirely, not run to the official server
RE: Disco Tough Love: Remove Non-Official server compatibility from future versions - Thyrzul - 11-25-2014
(11-25-2014, 12:00 AM)Vogel Wrote:(11-24-2014, 11:36 PM)Thyrzul Wrote:I'm pretty curious what your concepts are in regards of implementing all these into the mod. After all I believe it is only fair to assume that if you know what's wrong and are not afraid to criticize the system to this extent, then you also know the answer to these problems you listed. Don't you? You sound almost as if you could do better. Is that the case?
And This is where the discussion tends to stop. Someone daring to come up with dramatic alternatives or solutions is immediately held suspect, and rightly so. After all, their incompetence could cost the whole works. But on what basis is competence tested? If it's an impossible mixture of coding, modeling, texturing, networking and administrative capabilities, then who could possibly be held up as competent? Once someone is easily cast aside for this lack of, frankly, godliness, everything they say is somehow discredited as well. Why? Answer that for yourself if that is your method.
I have my ideas. I have my opinions. I have my share of visions about where this game could have gone in the past and in the present. Admittedly a lot of resources, i.e players have been lost, and the status quo is very much entrenched here. It's also virtually impossible to impart my vision to people without dumping the whole, completed thing in their laps, which is clearly beyond my capacity. But none of that automatically invalidates what I have to say.
[...]
So you have ideas. Cool. I have ideas too. And I think many of us have ideas just as well. But then if only ideas we have, but no way to know how to realize them, we can either stick them where the sun doesn't shine, or, you know, submit them as proposals, and then wait for the response of experts (read: Devs) about whether it is possible to be done or not. In this community they know the best what can and what cannot be done within the limits of this game, within the limits of FLHook, etc. Your words are not discredited, nor invalidated, they are just as useless as the word of any of us mortals who cannot proceed further from the point of simply "having ideas".
The rest of your post sounds like coming from some businessman having no insight into the work of experts, only experiencing the lack of result, and then questions them why they don't do anything without making sure they really don't.
Especially because some of the things you've proposed are things I recall been subject to discussion in the past several times, a dynamic economy for example has been told us numerous time to be technically impossible without the source code of the game*, which none of us have access to. Hardcoding rules into FLHook, seriously? Like, with what code did you intend to check if the player really roleplayed before bluing someone and didn't just spew out some useless lines to fool it? All your posts are full of what should be done without anything about what could be done (apart from the overly specific ideas, such as "try" and "test"). And you know well that the two won't yield results without eachother.
*EDIT: Actually, we didn't have quickpatching system in the past, and while neither do we have now yet, I'm curious whether the idea which just popped up in my mind is possible with it or not.
The rest of your post sounds like coming from some businessman having no insight into the work of experts, only experiencing the lack of result, and then questions them why they don't do anything without making sure they really don't.
Especially because some of the things you've proposed are things I recall been subject to discussion in the past several times, a dynamic economy for example has been told us numerous time to be technically impossible without the source code of the game*, which none of us have access to. Hardcoding rules into FLHook, seriously? Like, with what code did you intend to check if the player really roleplayed before bluing someone and didn't just spew out some useless lines to fool it? All your posts are full of what should be done without anything about what could be done (apart from the overly specific ideas, such as "try" and "test"). And you know well that the two won't yield results without eachother.
*EDIT: Actually, we didn't have quickpatching system in the past, and while neither do we have now yet, I'm curious whether the idea which just popped up in my mind is possible with it or not.