A Rant About the Notes

[Ague]

/rant on

So I just finished reading the entire open Beta release notes, and there were a couple of spots that kind of irked me. Now mind you that this has nothing to do with complaining about the deadly nerf-bat coming out or AC gripes, it has to do with the site in my sig that i have been creating in my free time over the last couple of years.

First we have:

Green Steel Altars now use barter-style crafting, with searchable and publicly listed recipes.

Myself and several other people in these forums have spent countless hours, days and possibly even months compiling data, creating user-friendly UI's, mashing logic together to make the recipes come out correctly, reworking various aspects, upgrading the technology used to stay current with new standards. I wrote this part of the site over the course of the 12 months that I spent in Afghanistan in the very minuscule amount of daily free-time that I had (maybe 1 hour a day). In short, this change, while much needed in the game for those that don't know about the fansite tools, pretty much nullifies all the hard work that has been put in to the external tools. It almost feels like a giant slap in the face.

Secondly we have:

Daily Challenge tokens have been streamlined. You now receive Universal tokens from the Daily Challenge NPC. These tokens are valid for 1 use on any Challenge in DDO, regardless of Campaign setting or Challenge variant.

Now while I can't really speak for other developers out there, I have spent the greater part of my free time the past couple of weeks laying down the foundation for an embedable Daily Challenge Ticker (kind of like what you see on CNN at the bottom). Now while it's not a total loss, and I will still publish it for archival purposes, I basically just wasted most of my time on this part of the project. I for one am all for keeping the Daily Challenge System. But instead of giving out the individualized tokens, make them only good for certain challenges per day. For example, you bank up 5 Universal Tokens. Monday they are good for Collassal Crystals, Tuesday they are good for Picture Portals, etc. following the same or similar challenge schedule that is in place now.

I do understand that most people that read this post are not really going to care one way or another how ticked off I am about these 2 changes. You know who the fansite application developers are, Turbine. Maybe a little heads-up (even under a NDA) would have been wonderful. I could have been working on a different aspect of the project had I known that this was in the works.

/rant off

[KillEveryone]

I appreciate your help creating those planners and guides. I've used them a lot.

I'm still happy that I won't have to use them as much. I'll still use them some since I'll want to look up a few things easily and I have a second computer sitting right here so it is nice to have that reference when I want to look on the AH for stuff. Course if I can access the recipes anywhere, then it will depend upon how easy that interface is.

[Don1966]

/rant on

Myself and several other people in these forums have spent countless hours, days and possibly even months compiling data, creating user-friendly UI's, mashing logic together to make the recipes come out correctly, reworking various aspects, upgrading the technology used to stay current with new standards. I wrote this part of the site over the course of the 12 months that I spent in Afghanistan in the very minuscule amount of daily free-time that I had (maybe 1 hour a day). In short, this change, while much needed in the game for those that don't know about the fansite tools, pretty much nullifies all the hard work that has been put in to the external tools. It almost feels like a giant slap in the face.

/rant off

actually i see all the hard work that you and the others put into making the various greensteel planners, (which by the way, thank you very much for, i've referenced them many times) was what the developers needed to see to realize that the old style was way too cumbersome. while it must have been might satisfying when all of you worked out the various combinations so you could craft whatever you wanted, it must have been highly disappointing each time you messed up a recipe, i know it was the one time i screwed one up by putting in the wrong ingredient. look at it this way, you guys saw a need and responded, you made things easier for all of the players for several years, but a change came about that should have been in place from the beginning. now the rest of us get to say:
"in my day we had to look at another site or download a program to make our greensteel, and we liked it like that, you youngsters got it too easy, and we wore an onion on our belts, as that was the style at the time."

btw, the planners will still be very useful to figure out what effects can be added, and listing off the ingredients that need to be gathered. don't think you aren't still needed.

[butcheredspirit]

Myself and several other people in these forums have spent countless hours, days and possibly even months compiling data, creating user-friendly UI's, mashing logic together to make the recipes come out correctly, reworking various aspects, upgrading the technology used to stay current with new standards.

If it weren't for people like you, I would not have been able to make any greensteel at all.

So thank you for all your hard work, it made a huge difference to me.

[CheeseMilk]

I can absolutely understand your frustration, spending so much time on a labour of love only to have parts of it made redundant.

If it helps, I absolutely use your player and guild lookup tools on a daily basis, and recommend to others that they do the same.

[Teraz]

"Hmmm....I need a Lit2 heavy repeater....so I bring up the new interface...ok, LDS, some shrapnel, and here's my...wow, I didn't even think you could make a triple neg shuriken. Umm....bug report?"

[Antheal]

Wait... you're complaining that they made things user-friendly?

It's great that you put so much hard work into helping absolutely EVERYBODY before Turbine took their fingers out and made the new UI system, but what would you rather they do? Leave it obscure so that players have to use an external source to do something in-game?

Because that's NEVER a good idea.

[Don1966]

btw, just took a look at the tier 3 altar, you don't have to worry a whole lot that the planners won't continue to still be used. while the barter interface is nice and should prevent more messed up recipes, it really isn't too intuitive on how to fully make items. for instance, i put lightning into the search box, 6 recipes popped up for weapons and 6 recipes for the dual shards. however, none of the recipes mention the tier 1 starting points. unless they changed things so you can now start with something like unholy or +1 intelligence now for a lit2 weapon. hmm, anyone have enough mats to test that out?

[Meretrix]

I will still be using the planners for several reasons.

I wouldn't worry about having your work made obsolete as these tools are still very very usefull and many of us appreciate them very much.

as for the tokens I have never used them so cannot comment. Are they for people who do not own the pack?

[karl_k0ch]

Thank you for your hard work, I was not done in vain.
Don1966 hit the nail on the head, imho.

[Wickednisse]

If it weren't for people like you, I would not have been able to make any greensteel at all.

So thank you for all your hard work, it made a huge difference to me.

This. I don't think you realize how helpful your programs have been. I will still use them, simply because what you provide is alot better than what the game has. That and not having to be in game (i.e. when I take my laptop to work or something) is a great thing if I'm trying to craft something up instead of taking up my valuable playtime to do so. I work, ALOT, and so when I'm in game... I like to be in the game playing instead of trying to craft.

Again, THANK YOU!

[azmodeus1]

yea the GS crafters have been invaluable to me from when i made my first GS item up until just a few days ago.

the fact that they're listing recipies now, does not change that thousands used your planner in the past.

thank you.

[Karavek]

I will still be using the planners for several reasons.

I wouldn't worry about having your work made obsolete as these tools are still very very usefull and many of us appreciate them very much.

as for the tokens I have never used them so cannot comment. Are they for people who do not own the pack?

yes even now you can every day go pick up a few tokens. The current prob and the reason for the change is simply not every challenge suits every players style. Some really enjoy the creystal cove type ones, others the new island mine operations and some the mansion. Currently it can be a real pain for small groups of RL friends to get enough tokens to test out the various packs.

Pretty much it makes it easier to try them out with friends, see if you like them, and will want to buy the actual house c challenge pack.

[phalaeo]

Honestly, I'll still be using the planners.

[arkonas]

people will still use the planners to plan a greensteel ahead of time. i see no change in this. no reason to make this game user friendly to all. im sure we will still all be using your programs