munchies wrote:Few Calculations

Fraction of information - lets be optimistic and say its 15% of the information. Uthgard staff has gathered 15% of info in 2 years needed for development. In the same pace the rest 85% will be gathered in 17 years. So we will have server with SI latest 2032.

Soo. Relaunch will be without SI?

It doesn't work that way.

Lets say 15% *IS* the number I estimate I have.

about 12% of this supposed 15% was gathered by a single person over about 40 hours play time... it comes down to priorities

munchies wrote:
Soo. Relaunch will be without SI?

I thought this was a given, anyway

None of us are kids anymore but looking at this forum all i can say is a large majority of you need to grow up. I am sure uthgard will return and i will continue with life and other hobbies till it returns and then i will play again.

Coding and rebuilding this shard is their hobby, nothing more, not a full time job, its not their job to reply or give dates or even give progress if they do not feel like it. We are not here at their request, we will play when it restarts with their permission and we should be gracious when that occurs. I always donated when i played and i will donate again once it is running, as it is their hobby and they should not have to foot the bill for my enjoyment, nor listen to keyboard warriors.

Abydos wrote:

munchies wrote:Few Calculations

Fraction of information - lets be optimistic and say its 15% of the information. Uthgard staff has gathered 15% of info in 2 years needed for development. In the same pace the rest 85% will be gathered in 17 years. So we will have server with SI latest 2032.

Soo. Relaunch will be without SI?

It doesn't work that way.

Lets say 15% *IS* the number I estimate I have.

about 12% of this supposed 15% was gathered by a single person over about 40 hours play time... it comes down to priorities

Don't make it sound like no one has offered to help with the SI research, Abydos. I personally offered multiple times to research after the shutdown and was either denied, ignored or not given direction by multiple GMs. Unfortunately, much of the goodwill and initiative people might have had to assist with massive tasks like this has slowly been squandered as time has gone on. This effect is compounded when volunteers are treated like cattle that have no idea what the goals of the tests are, or the skills, intelligence or competency to do anything more than create chars and record chat logs. There were more than enough people who would have helped, but a community leader was needed to lead, direct, train and empower those who wanted to volunteer. Now, there is simply no one left.

If you want change, read the writing on the wall. Blue wants to turn things over after relaunch. That leaves three or four GMs to do it all. You need help with your server and community. Empower people, or face the reality that you will all burn out and Uth will die.

Not all of us are complete idiots.

Alpha

Misguided to the point.

Suppose it takes 40 hours to train someone about all the different intracies of how DAOC works before they can even start work, and they somehow make it through all that...then have them quit and the cycle repeat.

You're not the only one who has ever offered to help, but each comes down to risk vs reward. Because if I have to retrain x new staff members or x new players y number of times, I may as well just do it all.

And, by the way, your post made me add it up -- 26 -- is the number of people I have personally spent teaching about in depth daoc mechanics needed to get data required. Of those 1 remains.

what you mean with "teaching" ? what was or is their job then? just for interest

Abydos wrote: 26 is the number of people I have personally spent teaching about in depth daoc mechanics needed to get data required. Of those 1 remains.

It can vary, but to get certain data we need to know how some things interact. For example, how do you tell what a mob is weak to? Some people may know a mob is weak to, say, cold. So if I say "go find what all mobs are weak to" that's a relatively straight forward task. However where it falls apart is when people don't understand the depth.

You may go attack a mob that is crush weak, and some people stop because they have found the first answer. Then you must validate that their data is in fact good, or it can't be trusted.

Before the data can be accepted it must be validated that the person knew that the task was in fact to go create a char with each damage type to test vs each mob type. From there, there are certain shortcuts that can be taught or example, the combination of resists are known as a "body type", which are a pre-set list of resists that always work in concert together. That's why various types of skeletons have the same resist table.

That's just a small example of a single property of a mob that is important to bring for SI, otherwise mobs are useless, uninteresting, not difficult and generally incorrect.

Some other example properties are below....each of these can take significant time to determine, even when using guesses, and there are hundreds of mob types.

body type
mob type (for charming and whatnot, such as insect, demon etc)
gender(s)
script(s), if any
damage type
ranged? spells? Which spells? spell frequency?
procs? which procs? proc frequency?
Evade/parry/block? what chance for each?
Styles?
formation type
formation leader
formation followers
formation maximum size
aggro range
aggro chance
mob tethered?
dual wield? dual wield hit chance
Does the mob spawn as a scout?
does the mob flee from you?
does the mob kite you?
is the melee attack range larger than standard?
what is the melee attack range?
What faction does the mob belong to?

Abydos wrote:It can vary, but to get certain data we need to know how some things interact. For example, how do you tell what a mob is weak to? Some people may know a mob is weak to, say, cold. So if I say "go find what all mobs are weak to" that's a relatively straight forward task. However where it falls apart is when people don't understand the depth.

You may go attack a mob that is crush weak, and some people stop because they have found the first answer. Then you must validate that their data is in fact good, or it can't be trusted.

Before the data can be accepted it must be validated that the person knew that the task was in fact to go create a char with each damage type to test vs each mob type. From there, there are certain shortcuts that can be taught or example, the combination of resists are known as a "body type", which are a pre-set list of resists that always work in concert together. That's why various types of skeletons have the same resist table.

That's just a small example of a single property of a mob that is important to bring for SI, otherwise mobs are useless, uninteresting, not difficult and generally incorrect.

Some other example properties are below....each of these can take significant time to determine, even when using guesses, and there are hundreds of mob types.

body type
mob type (for charming and whatnot, such as insect, demon etc)
gender(s)
script(s), if any
damage type
ranged? spells? Which spells? spell frequency?
procs? which procs? proc frequency?
Evade/parry/block? what chance for each?
Styles?
formation type
formation leader
formation followers
formation maximum size
aggro range
aggro chance
mob tethered?
dual wield? dual wield hit chance
Does the mob spawn as a scout?
does the mob flee from you?
does the mob kite you?
is the melee attack range larger than standard?
what is the melee attack range?
What faction does the mob belong to?

Looking at that almost *insane* precision about implementing a MOB, i wonder if that same precision will go for class abilities and old realm abilities... with one big difference, that OLD RAs & Classes aren't out anymore, therefore there are no playgrounds to test them accurately. (Not to mention that testing mobs today != testing mobs during 1.6x ... lots of changes have probably been done on damage/resistance calculations of mobs due to ToA+ expansions/patchs on players effectivness..)

I mean, I admire (and im probably not the only one) the fact that you guys put lot of precision on testing/researching things, it has always been one of the "Pro" things of this freeshard, but on the other hand you have to compare PrecisionLevel Vs RequiredTime/ManPower.. and here is *probably* (since i can't see how the flow of work is organized) where this revamp is failing the most.

For example, in your list about testing mobs you forgot to add:
- Does this mob yell/say some phrases when aggroing someone?
- Does this mob says something when he die?
- Does this mob can discover stealthers more than others around? And from how far he does it?
- How faster/slower this mob regen his life?
- How long it takes to respawn? Does it vary? Does it spawn in the same exact location everytime?
- Does it spawn always with the same equip/resist/abilities/level?

Now, i'm pretty sure that all those things are part of the correct implementation of the game, BUT all of those *questions* should have a level of detail, which can be set to a rightful amount based on what you guys can deliver in a certain amount of time.
And the beutiful thing is that this "level of detail" can be raised later on development, therefore you can improve the testing in successive testing sessions, or by entirely different people...

Never heard of "Dividi et Impera" latin phrase? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_an ... algorithms)
Well, dividing the problem, it should be easier to teach *a guy* to perform only 3-4 of those questions/testing purposes efficently than *teach* him to perform all 30 togheter, am I right?
Not to mention that you could serialize the efforts of different people without much trouble.. instead of make one guy do all "A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,L,M,....." tests by himself.

But once again, since some of those things/tests (the less impactful) can be done on the fly (meaning: later in development), it would be wise enough to leave them into the TBD list, and addressed them later.. because: Divide and conquer[*].
Also because some of those tests are really basic/easy but really time-consuming, they could be addressed to the less expert/trusted testers.. in the other hand the more "sophisticated" tests might be addressed only to the most expert testers, etc.

I guess/hope you understand the difference of approaching the *problem*.
Cheers

Abydos, how can you guys not already have most of this information about mobs from Uthgard 1.0? Were you guys attacked by Anonymous ? Was everything destroyed on the day of Genesis launch? Without SI the mob work should be all but finished. Please don't forget to delete tajendi.

Abydos wrote:It can vary, but to get certain data we need to know how some things interact. For example, how do you tell what a mob is weak to? Some people may know a mob is weak to, say, cold. So if I say "go find what all mobs are weak to" that's a relatively straight forward task. However where it falls apart is when people don't understand the depth.

You may go attack a mob that is crush weak, and some people stop because they have found the first answer. Then you must validate that their data is in fact good, or it can't be trusted.

Before the data can be accepted it must be validated that the person knew that the task was in fact to go create a char with each damage type to test vs each mob type. From there, there are certain shortcuts that can be taught or example, the combination of resists are known as a "body type", which are a pre-set list of resists that always work in concert together. That's why various types of skeletons have the same resist table.

That's just a small example of a single property of a mob that is important to bring for SI, otherwise mobs are useless, uninteresting, not difficult and generally incorrect.

Some other example properties are below....each of these can take significant time to determine, even when using guesses, and there are hundreds of mob types.

body type
mob type (for charming and whatnot, such as insect, demon etc)
gender(s)
script(s), if any
damage type
ranged? spells? Which spells? spell frequency?
procs? which procs? proc frequency?
Evade/parry/block? what chance for each?
Styles?
formation type
formation leader
formation followers
formation maximum size
aggro range
aggro chance
mob tethered?
dual wield? dual wield hit chance
Does the mob spawn as a scout?
does the mob flee from you?
does the mob kite you?
is the melee attack range larger than standard?
what is the melee attack range?
What faction does the mob belong to?

Nobody cares about mob stats. They care about playing daoc.

Caemma wrote:

Abydos wrote:It can vary, but to get certain data we need to know how some things interact. For example, how do you tell what a mob is weak to? Some people may know a mob is weak to, say, cold. So if I say "go find what all mobs are weak to" that's a relatively straight forward task. However where it falls apart is when people don't understand the depth.

You may go attack a mob that is crush weak, and some people stop because they have found the first answer. Then you must validate that their data is in fact good, or it can't be trusted.

Before the data can be accepted it must be validated that the person knew that the task was in fact to go create a char with each damage type to test vs each mob type. From there, there are certain shortcuts that can be taught or example, the combination of resists are known as a "body type", which are a pre-set list of resists that always work in concert together. That's why various types of skeletons have the same resist table.

That's just a small example of a single property of a mob that is important to bring for SI, otherwise mobs are useless, uninteresting, not difficult and generally incorrect.

Some other example properties are below....each of these can take significant time to determine, even when using guesses, and there are hundreds of mob types.

body type
mob type (for charming and whatnot, such as insect, demon etc)
gender(s)
script(s), if any
damage type
ranged? spells? Which spells? spell frequency?
procs? which procs? proc frequency?
Evade/parry/block? what chance for each?
Styles?
formation type
formation leader
formation followers
formation maximum size
aggro range
aggro chance
mob tethered?
dual wield? dual wield hit chance
Does the mob spawn as a scout?
does the mob flee from you?
does the mob kite you?
is the melee attack range larger than standard?
what is the melee attack range?
What faction does the mob belong to?

Looking at that almost *insane* precision about implementing a MOB, i wonder if that same precision will go for class abilities and old realm abilities... with one big difference, that OLD RAs & Classes aren't out anymore, therefore there are no playgrounds to test them accurately. (Not to mention that testing mobs today != testing mobs during 1.6x ... lots of changes have probably been done on damage/resistance calculations of mobs due to ToA+ expansions/patchs on players effectivness..)

I mean, I admire (and im probably not the only one) the fact that you guys put lot of precision on testing/researching things, it has always been one of the "Pro" things of this freeshard, but on the other hand you have to compare PrecisionLevel Vs RequiredTime/ManPower.. and here is *probably* (since i can't see how the flow of work is organized) where this revamp is failing the most.

For example, in your list about testing mobs you forgot to add:
- Does this mob yell/say some phrases when aggroing someone?
- Does this mob says something when he die?
- Does this mob can discover stealthers more than others around? And from how far he does it?
- How faster/slower this mob regen his life?
- How long it takes to respawn? Does it vary? Does it spawn in the same exact location everytime?
- Does it spawn always with the same equip/resist/abilities/level?

Now, i'm pretty sure that all those things are part of the correct implementation of the game, BUT all of those *questions* should have a level of detail, which can be set to a rightful amount based on what you guys can deliver in a certain amount of time.
And the beutiful thing is that this "level of detail" can be raised later on development, therefore you can improve the testing in successive testing sessions, or by entirely different people...

Never heard of "Dividi et Impera" latin phrase? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_an ... algorithms)
Well, dividing the problem, it should be easier to teach *a guy* to perform only 3-4 of those questions/testing purposes efficently than *teach* him to perform all 30 togheter, am I right?
Not to mention that you could serialize the efforts of different people without much trouble.. instead of make one guy do all "A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,L,M,....." tests by himself.

But once again, since some of those things/tests (the less impactful) can be done on the fly (meaning: later in development), it would be wise enough to leave them into the TBD list, and addressed them later.. because: Divide and conquer[*].
Also because some of those tests are really basic/easy but really time-consuming, they could be addressed to the less expert/trusted testers.. in the other hand the more "sophisticated" tests might be addressed only to the most expert testers, etc.

I guess/hope you understand the difference of approaching the *problem*.
Cheers

TLDR - Mobs were fine on Uthgard 1.0, quit screwing around and start the show.

drezt10 wrote:Abydos, how can you guys not already have most of this information about mobs from Uthgard 1.0? Were you guys attacked by Anonymous ? Was everything destroyed on the day of Genesis launch? Without SI the mob work should be all but finished. Please don't forget to delete tajendi.

Hibernianman1 wrote:[..] *flame* [..]

Mobs on Uthgard v1 were empty, generic shells. All they had was a number (level); everything else was pretty much the same for every monster in the game world. We could have literally removed the mob name, given them all the same model, and you wouldn't have noticed a difference in behavior.

^ While initially this was how things were implemented because it was just simpler to do, it's a crappy game experience. What is the point of even thinking about where to level if all mobs are the same anyway?

tl;dr: Our goal is to not provide a crappy experience.

drezt10 wrote:Abydos, how can you guys not already have most of this information about mobs from Uthgard 1.0? Were you guys attacked by Anonymous ? Was everything destroyed on the day of Genesis launch? Without SI the mob work should be all but finished. Please don't forget to delete tajendi.

@drezt10 - SI was not implemented on Uth 1.0, and original DAOC worldbuild was being continually updated even at the end of Uth 1.0. Hence, there was a lot of detail information that was just not available/researched yet and certainly not implemented.

To Caemma's point, yes it would be better to divide and conquer. However, I can see, Abydos that you have put significant amounts of effort trying to train people and that has not panned out. While this is extremely unfortunate, this should not stop you from continuing to seek out help, because frankly, if you don't get said help you will most likely never reach the goal of adding SI. TBH, this SI matters little to me one way or another, because I never played it (stopped just before its release). However, I do actually care about yours and the greater community's goals because honestly, it is fun for me to help and be a part of recreating the past. You will never get help though (guaranteed) if you don't ask, and if you don't have help you will most likely never achieve your goals.

Also to note, I recognize that SI is not part of the short list for relaunch. I was speaking of a broader topic in which I believe you all could seriously use another couple of people to add to your team in anticipation for relaunch (whenever that is). They don't necessarily have to be DAOC experts, or even super awesome coders....instead they but need to be willing to learn and invest time, and most of all ethical and trustworthy. (Disclaimer: This is not me requesting to be considered at all, I just recognize that even running a server takes a lot of effort, let alone developing and researching it.) I don't know how to cultivate these people for you, but somehow, someway, it has to happen. And maybe I am wrong on all of this, but deciding to shut out the community, even after a lot of failed attempts to train people up is just asinine.

For what its worth, it is great to see the activity again on the server development, but it would be a shame to let it all go to waste by not engaging with your stakeholders. Someone to manage this type of work would go a long long way to engendering a bright future for Uth 2.0.

Now let the criticism and rebuttals rain down.

Alpha

PS - You did find one person, Abydos...so all was not lost on those efforts.

Empty shells of mobs in DAoC? No way! I guess I did not realize how many of us were dying to play Uthgard 2.0 in hopes of cutting edge, flavorful PvE. I mean we did want SI but thats already cut ROFL. Extremely excited to analyze which bears are weak to slash on launch day. Keep up the meaningful work I guess.