This is in response to a Valg post below, but I felt the tangent deserved its own thread.

I meant to comment on this somewhat earlier, but right now seems especially appropriate.

>I'll state the broader issue more clearly: When I think of
>issues that legitimately threaten CF's longevity, the number
>one issue by a wide margin is staff burnout. The game
>requires a tremendous amount of energy to maintain and
>improve, and I'm absolutely convinced that if all staff were
>hitting on all cylinders all the time, every other problem
>would disappear with a quickness.

This is true beyond words.

CF is meant to be a dynamic game. It's not meant to be chess; the rules to chess don't keep changing.

Some of the best times of CF for me have been when a lot is going on, in terms of new content. I think back to circa late-97 and most of 98 -- let's take a year slice of the game in there. In that time, putting aside new religions/areas, the game saw the introduction of new features including: warrior weapon specs, liches and lich rituals, sylvan, empire, unholy blessing, shapeshifting, the new (current) raiding system, elemental path invokers, a major bard revamp, a protective shield revamp, and the introduction of numerous still-popular skills such as healing sleep, creep, and cheap shot.

Think about that. Holy ####, that's a lot of stuff. Was any of it perfect the first time, no, not even close. In a lot of cases, we made bad choices on balance/mechanics/ideas, and it took years to see why. But really, who had time to crunch out all the numbers on gnome sword warriors? All those players were busy turning their druids into bears and raking #### down, or discovering immolation, singing their first frightful fiend, etc. etc. etc. The changes of that year still shape the game today in powerful ways.

How did we get that? We got it because the staff at the time was firing on all cylinders, or damn near. Not just coders, but lots of great, imaginitive people contributing great ideas and helping however they could.

Will we ever have it again? In a purely statistical sense, maybe not because a lot of great imms of days of yore, while technically still on staff, are mostly busy raising their kids. But, I'll tell you... the last 2-3 weeks or so of the ranger revamp (being, about the last 2-3 weeks before they were introduced to you), people were coming together, great things were happening, and for the first time in years I had the sense that it was possible again.

All that said, I had tonight blocked off to get some heavy-duty coding done on something fairly amazing that will change the face of the game in so many ways, a thing that's part of a bigger project that (like rangers) I have reason to believe a lot of people would be excited about. Instead, I ended up spending the night closing another exploit/loophole relating to hidden containers. Man, the time I could've saved myself if I knew about that one when we fixed the last one. There, you have some sugar poured in the metaphorical gas tank. (The sugar is also metaphorical.)

The game can be great, but it takes the cooperation of the players, too. Every minute I spend fixing dumb ####, busting someone for cheating, rolling my eyes at someone who gets busted for cheating and publically denies their obvious cheating (ok, that one is my fault), turning someone's ass-RP storm warrior or gnome murder shifter evil, or generally putting out fires is a minute I don't spend doing empowerments/immteraction, running memorable quests, coding up the next big thing, helping create areas that expand not only the size but scope of the game, and so on.

So basically, the demand is on us as a staff to try to make something great, but the demand is also on the players to create characters that will make us excited about interacting them, running a cabal/religion for them, coming up with quest abilities for them, and so on. If you can't manage that, then please, just don't be a ####head.

Thank you, and good night.

I'm not currently facing CF burnout, but as someone who's been around the game a long-ass time and who did at one point more or less disappear for 2-3 years, I had some things to say about it that you might or might not have found interesting.

Also: I did find time tonight to work on the project that was pushed off from Monday, and let me tell you that in my modest opinion, it is awesome.

Yes, I am a dirty tease.

Can the dirty tease give us a little tidbit more, yup yup?

Maybe tell us a rough rough estimate of when this morsel will be implemented?

So I can be back from my Honeymoon with something to look forwaerd too. The trouble with weddings and honeymoons is the anti-climax in the weeks after it, or so I am told. Hold your load Nepenthe, save it for 5 weeks time!

-----Abernyte

I'll be in school by then!

Splntrd

I'm going to roll up a shifter, and you'll know my role because it'll start with 'I heart Drokky'.

Thats when you slip me the easy quest, and we both have an evilgasm.

Then we can celebrate by ganging heralds or something fashionable.


Yhorian.

nt

gaw...as someone just coming back from my own 2yr hiatus...knowing something ELSE is going to change get's that funny tingling going up my spine and toes curling up...er...maybe that was just the pron while spamming...ANYHOW...can't wait to see it nep!

That something goes wrong and you hear a giant ####storm six ways from Sunday which never stops. But you do something spectacular and get 2 seconds of praise for it- if you're lucky.

To digress I am in a silent protest here at work (which is why I'm surfing the CF boards) because I just spent 16 hours fixing something which was like numero uno priority- debugging someone else's 5000 line storedp procedure.. not fun- and finally just got it fixed. So, hey guys, problem #54367F is fixed! I get a uhh... so we have this new problem that needs to be done like yesterday...without even so much as a "Cool, man. Thanks". F that I'm goin home early today. I feel ya.

Anyways, on a positive note, I played this game for a bit in 94/95, then came back to check it out maybe a year and a half ago- not even meaning to play, just check it out. Holy crap it came a long way. Needless to say I've been pretty hooked ever since. You guys do a great job up there, keep it up, PLEASE!

To hope and see that I may see those next big thing and that I get to have some great interaction.

Don't even let them know they get to you. We can't really do anything about those guys. I've made a conscientious choice to modify my own behavior, thats the best I can offer homie. I wouldn't get my hopes up, were I you, that you can expect that from the *real* bad apples.