>>This needs to be addressed and not swept under the rug like it has been every single time. Remove the mechanic or fix it to not drop items. It shouldn't be this hard to get something done about this.

Where do you get the idea that it's been swept under the rug every single time? Disarm is a massive system intertwined with plethora of combat systems that would require each system that touches it to be updated. On top of that, it needs a core game design revamp that offers both challenging game play and less frustrations. Even just turning it off isn't a small project at all.

It's actually as hard as it comes when it we're talking about game updates.

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Wyrom, PM

It's not that. But development on some of these systems takes months and months, so if I'm willing to mention it, that means a lot of work has already been done.

~Wyrom, APM

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Discussions%20with%20Simutronics/The%20Bad,%20and%20the%20Ugly%20(general%20complaints)/view/13156

>>What purpose does making someone lose valuable items actually serve?

Item attrition is something that does date back to the start of GemStone. We've changed a large amount of it to either be nonexistent or more tolerable. Item attrition also served as a hopeful stepping stone to introduce new items into the game, but keeping their value. Potential item loss while hunting also offers an immediate risk and added difficulty. The idea behind it had a lot of merit, but when breakage never happened, other forms of item attrition should have been phased out. That didn't happen though, and a lot of core systems are built around disarming mechanics.

Without going into any details, item loss in manners like you posted is something in discussion.

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Discussions%20with%20Simutronics/The%20Bad,%20and%20the%20Ugly%20(general%20complaints)/view/13017

These are the last mentions I could find in a short period of time with the limited search functions of this board, posts are dated 10/7/2016 & 10/13/2016. This was close to 2 years ago now. With "a lot of work already done and something is in discussion". If something is really in the works can we get an update? Timeline? Or can we get a band-aid fix if it isn't on the horizon and really is a supremely large project.

Thanks for the update....

Hopefully, after having been beaten soundly about the head neck and shoulders for a quarter century, they've learned their lesson and will never again timetables such as your fourth paragraph asks for. That way lies madness.

And it has been answered: there's work being done on it. It's not ready yet.

.

Go ask Microsoft how that really neat change you requested is coming, with the Windows 11 development. See how long it takes to get an answer.
I'll wait....

So just to clarify, simutronics feels no need whatsoever to put forth any sort of plan or timetable to their customers on this or any other issue? Is that correct? If it is correct, why do you feel unable to provide the community / your customers, with any kind of meaningful information on progress towards goals?

I'm not asking random white knights from the forum community who pop up anytime anyone says something they might perceive as negative about simu, I'm asking simutronics what their policy is and why it is that way.

This isn't some multi-national corporation hiding development from competitors, and the community has an average age of mid 30's. Most of these people work and understand that unforseen problems pop up, so they aren't about to throw a temper tantrum over a timetable not being met if some level of communication happened beyond 'working on it', especially considering how acclimated they are to decade long waits on features.

I'm writing this because I do care about the game and simutronics and would like to see better communication. If there is something that has been brought up over and over and over again by your customers over several years, it's probably important, and worth at the very least some sort of developer diary type update.

Also, asking for this kind of information is not absurd, and providing it is something many other game developers do. We can look at Star Citizen for example, which works because RSI also run decades over deadlines, yet still attempt to provide timelines on projects for their customers.

http://massivelyop.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/starcitizen.png

>>If registered items lost to this mechanic are returned by staff anyway, isn't not addressing this in a timely way just wasting time for many staff members and causing backlog in the assist queue? I would think at least several assist requests per day are directly dealing with returning peoples items.

We get about 1 or 2 related disarm assists a month. That's an average looking at an entire year and not counting duplicate assists on the same matter.

>>I realise that it's higher priority for your staff to be working on DR like events that make you a lot of money, but at some point you do need to actually address the game itself. Disarm being implemented in a way that doesn't cause item loss, doesn't waste everyone's time, is definitely years overdue.

We have 60 GMs. Roughly 6 of them work on events.

>>Brushing this off once again in the way you have is extremely disrespectful to your customers who are asking genuine questions about the progress on this. You answered his query Wyrom, so it's on you to find out what progress whatever gm who is working on this has made. If you don't know, find out. Why is it some random un-named GM's job to do customer service instead of working on his project?

Who is brushing anything off? It isn't being ignored, nor did the post stay unanswered. Just because we're not going into which phase of development the project is in or what sort of timeline we have on this, doesn't mean we're being disrespectful. The project is being worked on by our developers. We do not pigeonhole ourselves into one project for the entire team anymore, as that led to stagnant overall game development. This means many of our GMs pick up different projects to keep the wheels moving. Some also switch gears and work on pet projects so that they do not burn out.

I really won't touch on the rest of your post, as it delves into demands and areas that aren't something we're ready to discuss. As I've mentioned before, when we have more details that we can share, we will. The projects has a considerable amount of hours invested into it, and the idea behind this project isn't to remove disarm, but to solve the item attrition aspect of it in a way that doesn't compromise the original idea behind the mechanics. This is a prioritized project.

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Wyrom, PM

>>Would you state what the original idea behind the mechanic is, just for clarification purposes?

>>I assume the original idea is to prevent attacks, and possibly cause a DS loss. Is that correct?

Disabling in a manner to require teamwork or multiple weapons.

The item loss aspect is what we're solving.

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Wyrom, PM

yes more gm's for events. don't make haliste quit over no sleep ebon gate this year. :)

>>We have some GM just finishing training, so they'll start moving to their teams soon.

Whoo, whoo! Class of 2018 represent!

(Not too rah-rah, was it?)

Doug

Somehow the conversation turned into event participation when in fact I think it involved division of labor to game systems vs. player facing features/systems. Honestly this is a topic of conversation that has been going on near 30 years (all the way back go GS2). There is no good answer here, I hate to say. How Wyrom divides his labor is up to him, like it or not. If you don't like it, there is no amount of suggestion you can make, other than "yah we need more effort over here". In the end, he's going to adjust or not based on a macro of factors, not the micro of a single issue. Would I love to not ever have to worry about losing my legendary bow? Yes absolutely, but until then I simply won't use it in an area where there could be item loss, plain and simple.

Now, to EVENTS in general, I have to say that this team is doing more with their personnel than we were able to do with twice the amount of staff in the late 90s. I am wanting to say our Event team was around 13 people. Now recall, any GM could and did (and probably does) pitch in with events in some fashion. Example: We didn't see Mikos or Kaikala on that 6 person Event team list, but they busted ass (as did many others I am not mentioning) during EG last October.

I had actually been wanting to post about the quality, quantity, and overall amount of fun the events have been since I came back almost 1 year ago. It's truly been phenomenal, and I know just how many hours need to go into these. Are they all perfect? No, but they ARE designed to fulfill different purposes each time, and have enough variety that they appeal to a wide audience over the long haul. We were able to muster 6 events per year with our team, and I can't imagine having to alternate between a paid event and a "free" event each month, ON TOP of also supporting player run events and not trying to step on their schedules. There's truly a LOT going on here. Sure, we had different problems to solve back then (a quickly growing player base being one of them), but I don't think anyone can say that when they log on to GS4 now that they have nothing to do. There is always something on or coming up on the calendar, and given the ravenous appetites of the player base that's an amazing feat.

>>Do non-Event team members earn anything for completed projects?

Yes.

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Wyrom, PM