Why would the Fishing Contest thread be locked

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Rook Strife, Jul 12, 2022.

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  1. Rook Strife

    Rook Strife Avatar

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    Announce an incoming game change and then lock the thread so people can't provide their feedback

    lol


    Along with the obvious attempt to curtail all the overwhelmingly negative feedback,
    You have now also locked out all the alternative solutions being proposed as well.


    So instead of possibly finding a better alternative in the numerous constructive posts ranging from people offering to take over the contest, providing feedback how it can be run using less resources, and other potentially useful information,

    Let's just plow forward with yet another bone-headed decision and proceed with the game plan.


    Also,

    Idk if it is evident
    But no one reads these forums.
    A remote trail in Antarctica probably sees more traffic
    So censoring that thread does nothing

    The Player run contest excuses repeatedly being touted have always been available
    They in no way replace an Official Event from the game developer

    Working on that new lua mentioned in the livestream is also another obvious waste of time
     
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  2. CICI

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    Maybe the game is going into maintenance mode soon?
     
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  3. Yigg Endimion

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    Sadly I hope not Cici. Honestly thinking it's been heading that direction for some time now. But what do I know? I didn't mean to start a ruckus, or maybe I did. I will play this game, for as long as they keep servers up. I have done so for almost a decade and have had fun the whole time, even with my crazy rants. I know I hit some nerves with my posts from a few days ago. But if I rant, on the forums, should say something. I don't post often and yes, I'm bad at putting what I'm thinking into words, not saying I'm right or how it should be, just my 2c as always.
     
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  4. Adam Crow

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    I stole this from Rook Strife in the other thread to supply context for my message-

    "Get rid of treasure hunt and all sub categories of fishing
    Remove weekly prizes and tracking



    Then this is all the work required



    Choose 1 Good Town for the Catnip Fishing each month
    1 minute of work


    FORUM - Edit a few lines of text in 3 forum posts each month

    Post 1
    change release #
    start / end date
    Town name / water type(s)

    Post 2
    Add zone to list

    Post 3
    Add winners to list

    The bulk of the forum posts remain unchanged month to month
    It's like 5-10 minutes of text editing work per release.


    INGAME
    add +1 to the release number text on the 3 trophies each month
    Pull winners list at end of release
    Send Mails to 3 people

    Another trivial amount of time



    For the amount of work required by a dev vs the people participating

    It would seem worth the effort to hand it off to someone instead of discontinuing the tournament altogether"


    I have enough free time at work, I could easily update and manage all forum related stuff. I can choose locations, and do anything else that can be done outside the game. But I would not be interested in helping at all unless both treasure hunt and fishing contests keep going. I don't think it's too much work if it were just 1 of each contest each month. Unfortunately, I don't have enough game time to do anything in-game like labeling and mailing out trophies. When I'm home I'm already juggling kids, social life, and house work so my playtime is already pretty sketchy right now.

    So if someone wants to volunteer to do all in game stuff like figure out winners, label and mail out trophies etc. let me know. I don't want to see these contests end, so hopefully we can all figure something out.

    I think jumping to the conclusion of "maintenance mode" is a bit extreme, since this is literally just @Winston discontinuing his work on these contests. He and Elgarion laid the ground work, if you're like me and don't want to see these contests end, reply here or shoot me a pm.
     
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  5. Ysold

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    @Adam Crow
    That's a great plan!
    Although, for a developer, there is no such thing as a 1-minute job: clear working memory; check todo-list; load working memory; perform task; check task; makes every job a 20-minute job at best, so don't think too lightly of doing all those little jobs :)
     
  6. Adam Crow

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    That's for sure. I know this is a lot of work, otherwise I would volunteer to do everything ;) The thought of sending out trophies and prizes each month using the mail system makes me cringe.
     
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  7. Rook Strife

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    Can't really comment on the treasure hunt. Never participated and don't know how much interest there is in keepin it going.


    The fishing contest I can comment on because I have done quite a few of them.

    The amount of work required is being greatly exaggerated. For a low maintenance contest, it is literally as simple as that example I gave.

    And there are many better variations / other formats that could be used that require a similar amount of effort.

    Literally 1 or 2 hours of work each month.


    The work Ysold is mentioning is being exaggerated as well

    The tasks are performed once a month, it is the same task each month, and they know well in advance what needs to be done before they even show up for work.
    The amount of checks and verification mentioned are trivial.
    A few lines in a forum post need to be edited and checked for spelling/accuracy, ensuring a list has the correct winners, the mail is going to the right person
    The work on the in-game trophies has already been done. They are copying an existing item and changing a numerical digit in a text description.
    The work is trivial for a developer.


    As far as the mailing, if you have a lot to mail I agree it can be tedious.

    But to mail a handful of items 1 day out of the month is a joke. Type Player 1 name, drag 3 items, hit mail, Repeat x2

    1 or 2 minutes of work




    Go through any release patch note in the last 5 years.

    Every release there are 1 or 2 things that have a chance to make a tangible improvement to the game, bring in more players, etc

    Some of it is necessary maintenance, important bug fixes etc

    But the vast majority of time and effort is just wasted on inconsequential nonsense that practically no one cares about, and will do very little for the game.


    I honestly have no idea how they can look at this game, and then set the priorities they do.


    This is an online multiplayer game with practically no public group content

    Hit the LFG key and half the time there is absolutely nothing! Not even 1 public group.

    The LAST thing they should be thinking about is cancelling a reasonable popular public event now.

    Especially when it requires very little effort.



    The fishing contest thread is 46 pages long with 80,000 views and according to the new leaderboards is averaging approx 85 participants a month.

    Obviously those numbers are inflated with alts, but still, for this game's population and given the amount of activities available, it might as well be the Superbowl.




    As far as Adam and others volunteering to divvy up the work, it shouldn't even be necessary.

    This is a small task for 1 person in Catnip. Bring a community member on or reassign one of the existing developers.
     
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  8. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Well said, @Rook Strife .... Would you be willing/able to undertake the task or even part of it yourself ?
     
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  9. jrs99

    jrs99 Bug Hunter

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    I cancelled my 3 subscriptions yesterday.
    I'm not quitting but I think I'll sit back and see where things go before investing anything more in SotA.

    Killing the monthly Catnip Fishing Contest is a huge mistake.
     
  10. Adam Crow

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    After talking to them a little, you need to be a dev or at least have access to the search the devs can do to pull the list of winners each month. So nothing we can do as player volunteers unfortunately.
     
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  11. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    @Adam Crow - Who is the "them" you talked to a little ?
     
  12. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    @jrs99 There's little question in my mind that killing the Catnip monthly fishing contest has only managed to dishearten many of the folks we have left - but cancelling your monthly subs seems hardly helpful at best - don't you think ?
    Please reconsider :)
     
  13. Adam Crow

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    Winston
     
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  14. Rook Strife

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    I would like to offer an apology

    After taking some time to reconsider what Catnip has offered as an explanation to the sudden cancellation
    of the Fishing Tournament

    I can see now that I have been mistaken

    There are legitimate reasons why the contest should not be continued


    1, Winston does not have the time to run the contest
    Completely understandable.
    When 1 employee can no longer perform his/her duties, it is best to completely scrap those duties, rather than waste time trying to find someone to replace them.
    This is how successful companies conduct their business. Catnip is no different.



    2. No other devs are able to take on the responsibility. The Team is focused on Unity 2021.


    Upon inspection of this releases patch notes, or practically any other release for that matter.
    It becomes clear for all players how essential the work of each developer is each release.
    There really is little time for anyone to spare on these silly popular community events.

    Release 103

    Build 1543
    Added a milling station to the silver and copper ore mine - Elysium Mines
    Changed the loading screens for Tanglemire and Lord British's Castle
    Added a loading tip about placing recall scrolls on your bar
    Moved a floating tree to the ground in Norgard Fens
    Set Bottle of Wine to be stackable

    Obviously, all of this work is essential for the health and well-being of the game.

    Sure, the time spent accomplishing important tasks such as these could, theoretically, be diverted into running the Fishing Contest for a month to satisfy a fairly significant portion of the current playerbase,
    But then where would we be.
    Having to cart all of that wood and timber acquired from mining Elysium to who knows what godforsaken outpost
    Nobody wants that.

    Build 1543 - Continued
    Salt will now show as Salt Deposit in scene information pop-ups
    Fixed a typo in the virtue balloon’s store listing
    Created new kobold banners and added them to the major kobold communities
    Grusk Factory: Removed “Factory Steward” title from enemy mushrooms
    Lamech’s Bazaar and South Midmaer Way: Moved lanterns

    Finally! The eternal question has been put to rest
    Is there Salt in the zone? Or is it merely a Salt Deposit

    Either way, rather than waste time running some stupid public event
    All players will now benefit from knowing exactly what type of Salt is in a zone,
    with the added bonus of looking at the new load screens while they wait

    Build 1543 - Continued
    Added instructions in the descriptions of Recall and Teleport scrolls
    Northwood: Smoothed the material transition to remove a visible line
    Grusk: The sign above the entrance to Grusk Factory now simple says “Grusk Factory
    Removed extra Altar Lockbox recipe from merchants
    Aerie: Fixed typos in responses of Oakie Lawrence

    Personally, I could never figure out exactly what all the scrolls do
    And at the exorbitant price of 70 gold per scroll
    I think it's always been a little bit out of reach for most avatars to conduct any true research
    Glad to see this information has been clarified

    Build 1550 -
    Correcting spelling of Indestructible Lava Fishing Rod in store.

    When they decided to introduce this rod to the Crown Shop
    I'm sure everyone on the team was more concerned with more important matters like
    Is this rod necessary?
    Does it provide a unique or in any way attractive alternative to the rods already available?
    Does it even serve any kind of purpose whatsoever?
    So while the item no doubt went through the same rigorous quality control process all items undergo
    Mistakes do happen.
    I'm glad to see that after taking all that time to fix a typo, they didn't just go ahead and make the same mistake twice.

    Obviously, this list is incomplete.
    I'm sure everyone playing the game or participating in the fishing contest could probably write one. two
    Or maybe 27 thousand pages or so describing in detail how well dev time and resources are allocated each release

    These are exactly the kind of improvements players want to see devs working on.
    Quality additions that will continue to make this game a success.


    3. These contests have always been intended to be driven by the community

    This is mostly the players fault for believing otherwise.
    Over the years, I guess we have grown accustomed to people like Elgarion and Winston just chipping in with the contest from time to time.
    While it may have introduced and conducted in it's entirety by Catnip for the past couple of years
    As the title clearly states, it's the "Catnip Games Monthly Fishing Tourney"
    Not some official tournament from the games' developer


    4. There are Potions players can use in their contests
    I'll admit. I completely forgot about the potions.
    Probably because they are rarely given any air time on the livestreams.
    Obviously these well-crafted potions are able to replace and contribute just as much as any live developer


    5. There will be future Catnip Events and Contests
    Given the track record of this company, I trust this completely.
    I have no doubt they will do their utmost to ensure nothing deters them from fulfilling any of their promises.



    As far as I have been able to discern, this is a complete list of the explanations provided for the discontinuation of the tournament.

    Every single reason they have given seems to be well thought-out and completely justified.

    There is no way they are mistaken, or that the playerbase can offer better insight.

    As players, I think we need to be silent and trust the judgement of the devs and their plans going forward.
    They have proven they know what's right for the game.
     
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  15. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Brb......
     
  16. Fiero Steele

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    Sorry guys and gal's, it's all my fault! It seems that all the dev's are working hard on my Kobold steam wheelchair! and also the crocodile spawners for my POT Dark Bayou!

    Thinking about asking for alligators as well but then everything would come to a halt. I wont even mention the piranha's, darn I just did.
     
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