Virilneus’ GS4 Idea Book

Hide the truth… do not give your opinion that Simutronics is not the best software company evar! You could be flaming!

Dear ASPEN,

Your message has been removed from the GemStone IV Forum for being disruptive and encouraging other people to flame Simutronics.  I understand that the game can be frustrating at times and we do encourage constructive criticisms that will benefit everyone.

However, posting text such as:

>>IMO Simutronics is one of the most poorly run companies I’ve ever seen.

 is both off-topic (it has nothing to do with 2009 Sorcerer Dev Goals) as well as inflammatory to the Company.  If you have CONSTRUCTIVE criticism to offer to the Company, you can do so on the Simutronics Forums or via Feedback.

To date, this is your second post removed for flaming Simutronics.

If you have any questions about my action in removing your message, please don’t hesitate to email me at GS4-EMERADAN@play.net so we can clarify the issue to your satisfaction.

Sincerely,

~
GM Emeradan
GS4-EMERADAN@PLAY.NET
GemStone IV Forums
~
GemStone IV:  One MMORPG to Rule Them All.
“Master of the Black Helicopters.” — BROWNA94
==== BEGIN COPY OF POST ====
Forum:    GemStone IV
Category: Sorcerers
Topic:    Developer’s Corner - Sorcerers
Msg#:     5876
Subject:  Re: 2009 Sorcerer Development Goals

>How many years has it been since sorcerers had something specific to our spell list on the Dev goals? 3 years?

Longer than that. You can actually trace the lack of sorcery development as a pattern going back to Hot Summer Nights in the late days of GS3.

I still have the saved post somewhere where Melissa apologizes to our profession as a whole for leaving us entirely out of two consecutive release events. One of them was more like “Ranger Summer Nights” where they had like 3 spells released and companions and everything else.

Then the only thing we got in the switch to GS4 was 712, which we HAD to have as otherwise we’d be 100 DS below any other pure. Meaning they did the bare minimum.

Then AD was supposed to be released… and it was… 2 years late, and still buggy.

Meanwhile the next big project after EN was major demons… err no…

Its a pattern, its just how it is.

The worst thing is, I think that we have some of the smartest players in the game playing this profession, and the most creative, and as much as I tend to dislike say, your ideas Jesse, the fact is, we post ideas, we debate things, we are full of players who have ideas for our profession. A GM could post a request for a new sorcerer spell at X level and get 10 really well thought out, complete, and unique ideas within a short time (not to mention countless of less thought out ones). All we lack is the coding.

IMO Simutronics is one of the most poorly run companies I’ve ever seen. In addition to them needing to increase the trial length, lower the base price, and engage in better referral marketing, they need to make the game open source, allowing any player with the idea and the time to add to the game. They could even toss out a base empty test enviroment for us to play in with our creations. Then, rather than having GMs do coding, many of them could simply QC and the implement things players do.

SO SO SO many software companies are run like this now. There is a core software package, and then there are hacks/contributions/mods that extend it. When the mod becomes popular enough (and or is good enough, or useful enough, or genius enough), it is integrated into the core.

Look at what players have done with the tools available to us. Shaelun made Lich, Jamus made PSInet, Tsoran did his maps (Which is a time commitment, if not a technical commitment). Lots of players have coded scripts and extenders. I combined a bunch aggregated data into a frontend to make RoomData. Then, we can’t forget Xygon, who has scriptbot players that run around scanning all of our playershops, which is a far more complicated way of accomplishing something than if GS was opensource (and Simu cooperative) he could have just done a direct data transfer.

I bet if all players had the tools to contribute to the game engine (and I don’t mean the joke of an intentional timesink that is Alae) I bet sorcerers would be one of the most fleshed out professions.

Virilneus