[Aphelion]

Mattfarming. Civ Rips. Station Stripping. PvP with no economic stability. Some people consider these exploits, others broken parts of a game that weren't flushed out enough during the idea phase. Things happen and mistakes are made during the development of a game. No matter how much testing and prevention is done, they always make it through. The question is, how do you deal with them?

I'm proposing that if something is discovered to be "wrong" with the game, but that "wrong" thing has been around for 8 months to a full year of availability, that it should stay wrong and not be "fixed."

While in a perfect world, we would all be playing the perfect game and anytime an exploit was found it would be automatically fixed, this doesn't happen in the real world. In the real world, people get used to having options available to them and when you give a child candy for a year, you'd better expect it to cry when you take it away. I've heard many stories from other MMO's about major changes to a game that happened too late and caused more players to quit that their candy was gone then players came back because the broken piece was finally fixed.

Did the change to Matter Converters fix the economy? No, it just caused people to farm Prosthetics and CPU's. Then all the commods were re-written and suddenly, all the people who had made easy-VIDEOGAME-money had to either mine or flux as the two fastest ways of accumulating wealth. No longer was economic pricefixing an option. Nobody had macros that said "DO NOT SELL VANADIUM HERE!! Matt farm cooking!!!" People who's only joy in the game was hauling and making FAKE-VIDEOGAME money quit in frustration. I mistakenly blamed the people themselves saying "They're not progressive enough to see that matt farming was broken in the first place and needed to be reworked." but now I see that human beings will act like human beings.

This is why I'm saying that "broken" things shouldn't be fixed if they've been accepted as the way of life. The economy patches were great, and made a better program, but I believe at the expense of the people that made up the game. I heard this same thing happened at Star Wars Galaxies, a gigantic patch was released that completely changed the way the game was played, pissed off 40% of the users that had been playing for 2 years, and has been going downhill ever since.

So, as much as I love Jumpgate Evolution and want it to be all that it can be, sometimes it may be better for the game (and the cash-flow) to leave long-term mistakes broken.

[daslog]

Well,

I agree with everything you wrote except the last paragragh. Star Wars Galaxies did their NGE, which completely revamped the combat system. And it had very destructive effects on the exisiting playerbase, who didn't want things changed after so long.

The difference with Jumpgate is this: There are so few active players that fundemental changes really won't piss that many people off. I've been checking online numbers for 2 weeks now, and I've see the numbers go over 50 exactly one time. Using the 15% rule (no more than 15% of your active subscribers are every logged in at the same time) that means that at most fundemental changes will piss off 300 or so subscribers.

Is it worth pissing off 300 existing subscribers to attract 2000 new ones?

[Aphelion]

Okay, let me clarify. Fix everything that we know is broken with Jumpgate Classic. If we miss something that turns out to be big later, lets say everyone does this mining trick and it's kind of an exploit but kind of not, and everyone gets rich off it that uses it. If this mining exploit has been around for two years and everyone has gotten used to it, I don't think it should be "fixed."

Screw Jumpgate Classic (no offense). Jumpgate Evolution is going to be a whole new game. I'm not saying we should bring back matter farming, just that future mistakes, should they be made, could hurt our playerbase if they're "fixed" when everyone's gotten used to them already.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Aphelion

... when you give a child candy for a year, you'd better expect it to cry when you take it away.

ahahahahah.. now _here_ is a pilot with his finger on the pulse of the JumpGate community.

I agree with the bulk of the ideas here, except that there is no chance Jumpgate Classic is going to attract 2000 more players. Not unless they make second accounts free

I'd say what you are getting at is a balance issue, of sorts. MattFarming(tm) was removed, but the cash it generated wasn't. So you have pilots with hundreds of billions flying around, and with modern game mechanics, it'd take a few decades for a new pilot to earn that.

In an ironic twist, the disease was cured, but the symptoms remain. Love it.

[daslog]

Originally Posted by Aphelion

Okay, let me clarify. Fix everything that we know is broken with Jumpgate Classic. If we miss something that turns out to be big later, lets say everyone does this mining trick and it's kind of an exploit but kind of not, and everyone gets rich off it that uses it. If this mining exploit has been around for two years and everyone has gotten used to it, I don't think it should be "fixed."

Screw Jumpgate Classic (no offense). Jumpgate Evolution is going to be a whole new game. I'm not saying we should bring back matter farming, just that future mistakes, should they be made, could hurt our playerbase if they're "fixed" when everyone's gotten used to them already.

Ok, I agree completely then.

[Aphelion]

Originally Posted by daslog

I agree with everything you wrote except the last paragragh. Star Wars Galaxies did their NGE, which completely revamped the combat system. And it had very destructive effects on the exisiting playerbase, who didn't want things changed after so long.

Yeah, the NGE is exactly the thing I was referring to. IIRC, that single-handedly destroyed SWG even though logically, it was the best thing for the evolution of the "game" but turned out to be at the expense of the gamers who had been playing a certain way for several years.

In my mind, the same thing can be said of Jumpgate Classic's decline. I was at my prime during the first Themis driven factional war, the Oct-Quant war with WileE to be specific. It was the best gaming experience I had had at that point in my life. I can't remember dates specifically, but I seem to recall that the moment they fixed the Matter farming "exploit" several hauling squads up and quit. By the time the econ patch hit, almost all the old-school dedicated hauling squads were gone and without the haulers, the PvPer's were soon to find themselves in an equipment bind.

The chronology of Jumpgate, using nightly (friday) online average numbers as a unit, goes in my mind like this:

Release = 200-300
EEA days = 300
EP2 delays = 120
EP2 releases = 180-200
3 months post EP2 = 100
Matt farming fixes = 60
Further econ patch = 40
Aphelion quits 3-6 months later = 20-40
MightyGames closes, WWS = 60
3-6 months later Aphelion-rarely-visits-JOSSH-so-this-number-probably-isn't-accurate = 20-30

So the two biggest pilot losses were caused by patch/expansion delays (false promises? I don't know for truth, because I wasn't there. Heresay.) and the econ fixes? Anyone else have an alternate chronology/large-overreaching-themes as to why player's quit en masse? (and I'm not talking small, like the Aubrey/Trogdor thing... or how big was that anyway?)

[Milkman]

I don't think the econ fixes chased that many players away... i think that many had left by the time they had implemented the fixes. BUT i have been mostly afk for like 2 years. :P

[Sephiroth]

lol daslog I guess you don't check during prime time because we break 50 consistently and even broke 70 or 80 on Sunday

[daslog]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

lol daslog I guess you don't check during prime time because we break 50 consistently and even broke 70 or 80 on Sunday

Everyone's prime time is different. I'm east coast, so my prime time is right now. It's 8:05 PM, and there are 36 pilots logged in.

[Sephiroth]

And frequently we will break 50 pilots on at 8:00, especially on weekends but throughout the week as well. And primetime has to be considered for both sides of the ocean... try an hour or so earlier and I bet you see more than 50 online I wasn't home at the time so I can't say for sure, but considering past nights that was happening I'd say it's safe to say that it was the same tonight.

Either way we frequently break 50 and sometimes better.

[daslog]

I'll do some tracking this week and let you know.

[Lordopic]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

lol daslog I guess you don't check during prime time because we break 50 consistently and even broke 70 or 80 on Sunday

This has only been the case since the news of Jumpgate Evolution came out, for the last year or so it was lucky to hit 50 and this Sunday I logged when numbers where at 77 the first time I have seen this since EU closed what near on 2 years ago.

Still its good to see the numbers on the increase, as I write this its 01:34 GMT so not EU prime time but server has 37, when I log into forums at about 09:00 in the morning it will have about 7-10, so daslog
Is right in saying every ones prime time is different., wouldn’t this now be US central prime time? 37 …..