Chris chatting with Fzol today

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Wilfred, Apr 20, 2020.

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  1. Wilfred

    Wilfred Avatar

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    Fzol had Chris on his Twitch stream today, and they had a really good discussion.

    Chris joined about 0:31:35, and left about 1:55:00

    XPing / Adventuring & Talking SotA, please join us.
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/597598968
     
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  2. majoria70

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    Hi I just watched the stream. Thanks for calling it to my attention.

    OK well one thing I noticed that I did not like was the fairness conversation. I found this to be less based on what is good for the game and based on what past things someone did.

    True sad that it took us more hours than perhaps a revamped system will. The questions to ask are things like, is it an interesting, rewarding, and fun system? Does progression alert and reward you with knowledge, recipes, and perhaps a crafting quest challenge? I don't believe the focus should be on hurt feelings. That has been a huge problem to keep focus and progression on systems from happening. Don't let that stand in the way to improve crafting.

    It has to make sense from a what's best for the game stand point. If adding interesting, satisfying, challenging details to crafting means it takes less time for new crafters then so be it. It can still be a journey but don't decide from a bad place of worrying about hurt feelings. Just make it better.

    Improve cooking to have masterworking skills and include use of alcohol for brewing validity. Make leveling more interesting With alerts, titles with buffs, and whole questlines. Bring basic recipes out of loot and back into crafting recipes. So much can be done to improve crafting but enough with the him against me attitude.
     
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  3. craftymethod

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    What I find evident is the loss of the Sota project being run as one coherent unit with Chris mentioning team day to day interactions are very limited and finding himself needing to learn parts of the project he hasn't really touched before while Richard and Starr who in many years prior were sold to us as being MAJOR important elements of the project have relegated themselves to being casual employees at best? And re Starr, were those other projects worth it?

    At a time where feature programming and programming polish is critically important to get this game competitive against its predecessors, having one of the only guys able to bring sorely needed features to this game stuck rolling back unity upgrades constantly and learning parts of the project he is not familiar with seems a bit risky if not a painfully slow process. Im sure everyone is doing the best they can do considering the circumstances!

    Have we thought about opening programming to modders? Then the game could get back on track with all the features still needed.

    Perhaps the idea should be floated to see if modders can be facilitated with the best mods being sanctioned to global official use... It seems this has been how some popular features have made it into the game already?
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2020
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  4. Gorthyn

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    Actually I think it is basically a one man show these days.
     
  5. Violet Ronso

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    Close. We know that Sannio and List are working, hard at that, because the art is coming, the new lands, the news zones, that takes time, but we do see those pop up from time to time.

    Meanwhile Elgarion & Ravalox are doing their jobs on the forums, that is for sure, and you see wizardsmoke pop up from time to time for a few bugs.

    Past that? I'll agree with you, the remaining members are either VERY quiet, or non-existent. Crafting took so long to progress, and when it did, Chris had to have jumped in first! I think that anything non-art or forum involved, Chris is, yes, the only one left, or the only one who cares enough to do stuff.
     
  6. ephialtes

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    Auto-generated transcript of the beginning of the chat regarding Richard Garriott's involvement with the game:

    Fzol: So, the first question I want to ask you Chris and I get this a lot especially from some newer people that start playing and they see, you know, Richard Garriott its name on there and Starr Long and things like that. Can you talk about it a little bit more in reference to how is Richard in any way still contributing to the project besides you know call it you know coming on a show once in a while and just kind of talking about his life and where is Starr in this or you like just sort of taking the reins and those guys are just history at this point.

    Chris: Well, the stuff we don't really talk about on the stream just because the streams were really for QA and self-promotion type stuff and helping people who don't need to know things, but, so, Richard's involvement has changed a little bit. He's still involved in that he comes in games. Occasionally comes on stream occasionally. He is mostly doing only story stuff for the most part. He stays away from the game side of things, but he is still involved with the story stuff. So, he's working and that's just mainly because that's the stuff he loves the most is working with like Tracy Hickman and trying to get a book out in a story that he feels passionate about. So, that's his primary involvement.

    I think most people know he has an insanely busy life and for those who didn't know he was in New York City. He lives in New York City officially, but he actually moved the family. They managed to get down to Texas and they're actually self quarantining on his property here in Austin. So, he's even more out of touch right now. He barely has Internet and they're doing a 14 days self quarantine while they're down at his Lake property.

    So, he is still involved some. He still checks in with me. I still talk to him, you know, probably weekly about things and give him a heads up on stuff, but he did want to make sure I told everybody that he was safe because few people had mentioned it. So, Richard is still involved mostly for the story side of things.

    Fzol: For the story side of things. Okay, and like if Richard would a call you and say, you know, when those guys with with the Lua scripts allowed everyone to see the virtue scores take that out you would say: No Richard I'm running the game. You can't do that or you would say yes, no problem.

    Chris: Probably for the virtue stuff I would let him do that if he wanted to, but he has not given me that call yet. So, that's not one of those things that people want to ruin it for themselves I'm kind of inclined to let them, but, you know, on many things I would say no. I don't think that's gonna make the game better, but on the virtue stuff that's kind of a between Richard and Sannio or largely two people who are passionate about that stuff. So, probably on that one I would tell Richard to talk to Sannio about it and get Sannio to tell me what he thought about it.
     
  7. Redhammer

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    Keep in mind that if LB wanted he could put this game back on track... The problems I see at this point is the DEVs are working hard to bring the game up to EPS2 while still trying to bring the existing game up to existing players wants and desires...I agree that changes will help the game...Time and personnel are the two key issues that are constantly at war with each other...and with the constant "wish list" items by the existing player base (not a bad thing but...) it is amazing the team is getting as much done as they do...Thanks to all the DEVs for the efforts...I worry though, just how long can they keep it up...That brings me back to my point that Richard could fix some of the issues just by infusing enough capital to get a few more DEVs to work on either fixing issues or working on EPS2... The current DEVs are just spread too thin... I am not a programmer, designer or artist...but I do know that when someone is over worked and spread too thin you get what you pay for...I for one would like to see some basic fixes, maybe a few adjustments and some new content now and again...(this is basically what we are getting now...) New players would be nice also...Thanks for all the efforts!!
     
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  8. evillego6

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    It was made clear long ago by Starr that Richard had invested heavily into Portalarium already and wouldn't be investing any more. That was for a company he owned. Asking him to add even more money, during a time of financial uncertainty, to a company he neither owns nor works for directly. I agree that being overworked is a problem, but the alternative to increasing revenue isn't just asking for more money from a generous soul. Richard had full control over the company until last year, he decided to sell it for a reason. The alternative to increasing revenue to hire more on the development team is shutting the game down because it is unsustainable as is.
     
  9. Beaumaris

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    Good interview, thanks for posting!
     
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