The State of the Game, December 2009

[Sven Niscadae]

Originally Posted by Basil Dreadflint

... <too much to quote> ...

The island and cave makeovers were fine for me. Some things were annoying such as access to the back beach, while it made some other things easier (such
as the back and forth between June and Greer i.e. shorter distance to run). The
caves look like caves now, twists and all. The minimap helps me not get lost but honestly, there are a lot of dead-ends in the caves where there's nothing of note.

Invasions? Fun every once in a while, I suppose. I think I've done at the most six invasions. I've got to agree with ex8404 on this one. There's only so much Defend the Castle I can take before it becomes a bit monotonous.

The GM events were eh to me. I've said that some good role playing in a MMO can be a good thing, but I also said it's better when people are actually involved in it. I don't believe the players are involved in the evolution of the story as they think they are. The GM events I've read about seem more of a one-sided show (where the GMs know the story and will act it out, while the players are the audience). Sure, the GMs will get player input and responses but they have the playbook. Sure, I do appreciate that they're spending their off-time to get "involved" with the community but there's got to be a better way to do this without it seeming like a puppet show.

Notoriety and Weapons increases? Why? What's the point? There are no new quests to gain rep from. Sure, from weapon grinding but I don't level my weapons that way. I don't plan on getting to notoriety 50 and weapons 30 for a long time as I don't see a point in it. There aren't even new weapon skills to unlock after level 20. How about a new skill or a new weapon? People want these sorts of things as an incentive. Actually, if you think about it, getting a more powerful weapon is counter-productive. The way POTCO's reputation system works is that you get less rep for more powerful attacks. Getting new weapons would mean that you have to grind longer to level them up. This still baffles me as this is the only game I've found that punishes the player for accomplishing a quest.

Sailing... I was having a great time until this last bigger update. I wish they'd stop fixing what isn't broken. I'll keep sending them reports but they've fixed the best part of the game.

They've done some across the board graphical adjustments to help lower-end machines play the game. Why? If there are settings for Low, Medium, and High, then please keep the High end of the spectrum looking pretty. Are they really pulling in metrics that show the majority of their player-base is using sub-standard equipment? If they want to fix performance issues, they need to address the memory and processor consumption issues that the Panda3D engine has had since they've been developing ToonTown Online. There's really no reason a game like this needs to be using 50-75% of my CPU and half of my memory. Honestly, it's not even that graphically intense. I also play another MMO that's lightyears ahead of POTCO in the graphics department. Currently, it's sitting in the background just taking 25-30% of my CPU while I'm typing this.

Originally Posted by Captain Whale

The fact is anyone can write a thread like this and they would all be different. I wouldn't even attempt to do so here because I know better (LOL).

Why not? The beauty of this forum is that we all have different views and enjoy a good quality discussion. In the end, we're all players of the same game which is why we're here.

Originally Posted by Eliza Creststeel

I'm not a programmer but I work with them. Once you have a model you're working within, it sets up boundaries or limitations and if you didn't PLAN on major changes or growth - you're likely restricted.

I do happen to be a programmer and I can agree with what you're saying. This past year I had to totally rewrite an entire application so it met our demands and was scalable for future growth. I think one problem Disney is going to face with deliverying new content is that they aren't going to know where to put it. They can put in a new story chapter but where will we go for the quests? Who will we fight? The same old places we've been? The same old enemies we've fought before? Is this the entire Caribbean that we know? Will they be able to expand our "universe"? Lack of planning? That might just be the case. Goodness knows I've seen plenty of it the past few years from upper management where I work.

Originally Posted by Eliza Creststeel

Disney is NOT putting a ton of money into this game, so things will take longer.

That is understandable as well. Moral of our story could be, "You get what you pay for."

Overall, I guess they're doing okay. I've defended Disney earlier this year in regards to "how long they're taking" but they really need to throw something out there in 2010, and it better not be another notoriety/weapon increase. I'm also hoping it's not the mini-game-ish ideas they alluded to from that LA child focus group we heard about.

Oh well, until we see what they've got up their sleeves, all we can do is enjoy what we got and give them feedback where they'll hear it.