Politician Archive

First, a disclaimer... this will be a rant... you've been warned...

Disappointment... thats about all I can say about Player Cities... why you ask? not for the reasons you'd expect... griefing? nah... poor zone implementation? nah... caps? nah...these things are unnecessary but thats for another rant... I'm disappointed in the developers for an entirely different reason... amateurism... a brief summary:

Player cities were announced a long time before they arrived, many players and groups of players took a lot of time to research what they'd need to make their city, location, initial funds, buildings, etc. Knowing the patch was approaching they purchase deeds to meet these needs.

Problem #1: the developers did not have the courtesy to notify anyone that these deeds would not work... this means assuming as is likely at least half of the player cities on a server had planned ahead, and that most cities that planned ahead had reasonable numbers as they were likely aiming for a shuttleport... you're looking at 50 homes, perhaps a PA hall as initial buildings... all unusuable... according to standard rates for these things... you're looking at flat out at least 50 million credits of the server being spent needlessly... can some of it begotten back? sure... but thats not the point... it was a needless waste of our time...and that doesn't include all the cities that hit caps and couldn't get a city period... a simple statement of courtesy would have prevented this issue... but you know what... thats not even my chief reason for complaint...

Problem #2: player cities go through and we compensate for the above problem... but wait... some buildings weren't corrected so that you can't make PA halls for advanced planets... or medium gardens correctly... they insist at the last stage of crafting that you create it for the wrong planet... more credits and time wasted... but AGAIN this isn't why i'm disappointed... things get overlooked it happens...

Problem #3: we are now about to go into the third week since player cities were introduced... problem #2 has not been corrected... problem #1 has not even been addressed... yep they've fixed problems like mounts interfering with seeing some terminals for a few players??? how bout addressing the problems that affect your entire major upgrade from functioning properly at the most basic level... very irritating... but still not my gripe...

Here is the reason for my discontent:

not knowing the code for this game of course I can't be 100% sure of this, but logically lets work through this... as a coder what is the first thing one should do before they "upgrade" the software... one makes sure that the older code will function cleanly... its called backward compatibility... and any college level programmer knows and should take it to heart... the second is to find the simplist solution to the problem and implement it... then proceed to more advanced implementations... this is just common sense...

we've been waiting several weeks to get this fixed and its the most basic of fixes... probably would take only 1 person and very little time... what is the most basic fix? not working your butt off to implement new deeds and "fix the database" as these developers insist on doing everything through... rather change the code on the algorithm that checks if a building can be placed on a planet... to read something to the effect of... usin Lok as an example: IF building is Tatooine OR Generic Continue... simple as that... old deeds work... new deeds work... admittedly maybe the problem isn't quite that basic... but the point is the logic of the solution is...

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with creating new deeds that can be placeable on several planets... its a good idea... but the point is there seems to me to be something wrong with the process of implementation of a solution to a problem within a productin which the developers desert the most common method of approaching a problem... again I haven't seen the code, so maybe they don't have access to the algorithm... but again... that in itselfwould bea problem of lack of foresight... anyway you cut it... i'm disappointed...

.. end rant