01-01-2012, 02:23 PM
A year and a half ago I left disco for about 9-10 months. I returned several months ago at the request of several order players who wanted me to help get things in the order moving again. With all the rumors of the impending release of 4.86 "soon™", I decided I'd stick around, finish working on the OSD and the loose ends for my order character. All of us had been waiting for 4.86 for three years, and it was the one thing that kept me interested to this point.
Needless to say, it didnt turn out like I'd hoped. After more than three years of waiting, what have we gotten?
-A few new "shiny" new ship models, along with more than a few terrible ones to counter. Many of them were not hardpointed correctly, causing turrets to clip with the ship model.
-An FLhook "feature" that prevents anyone from using any ships or equipment even slightly unrelated to their faction, regardless of any prior RP or justification - no matter how solid. Factions that have been the closest of allies before now, freely exchanging tech, are finding themselves unable to fend off even the attacks of NPCs due to power core "incompatibilities".
-The capital ship weapon 'split', like every other capship balance change in this mod, has made battleships even more of a one man army while hindering cruisers even futher.
-The jumpdrive system... which nobody can use due to the cargo space and fuel requirements.
-A cloaking device that will only benefit transports due to cargo and fuel requirements.
-Docking modules that benefit battleships more than dedicated carriers due to cargo space requirements.
-An unstable crackwhore of a server that nobody can play on.
What is the point of adding new features to this mod when they are so heavily limited that people are literally incapable of using them? At this point, all the supposed "work" that went into developing jump drives, player docking, and cloaking devices might as well have not been done in the first place. Better to leave features out entirely than give players false hope that this mod might actually do something interesting.
Beyond that, why promote this as a "role-playing" server when it has become abundantly clear that the developers and admins have no interest in roleplay at all? The FLhook auto-tech system literally defecates on every single bit of cross-faction RP that has ever been done on this server, and the only real justification for its "we're tired of dealing with sanction reports so we're finding a lazier way to do things." Roleplay died here long ago, and it's been used as nothing more than an excuse for pvp ever since - dont delude yourselves otherwise.
I came back hoping that 4.86 would make this community better, and as someone on skype so simply put it: 4.86 is making more people leave than come back. We have talented developers here, and I respect them for the work they're trying to do to improve this mod, but the politics interfere too much. It doesnt matter how good a ship model is, or how detailed a system is, or how cool a weapon or effect looks - if all the petty disputes between admins and players get involved, the end product will end up failing.
I've already given away my ships to the factions they belonged to, so dont ask for my stuff, you wont get it. I dont know what will become of the OSD, and as callous as it sounds I dont really care, only two members of the faction other than myself ever tried to put any effort into it or make it work, and I dont see it lasting long after my departure. I dont think it will come as a surprise to anyone here that a faction dedicated to -real- roleplay fails while dozens of factions based on nothing but pure pvp prosper.
Needless to say, it didnt turn out like I'd hoped. After more than three years of waiting, what have we gotten?
-A few new "shiny" new ship models, along with more than a few terrible ones to counter. Many of them were not hardpointed correctly, causing turrets to clip with the ship model.
-An FLhook "feature" that prevents anyone from using any ships or equipment even slightly unrelated to their faction, regardless of any prior RP or justification - no matter how solid. Factions that have been the closest of allies before now, freely exchanging tech, are finding themselves unable to fend off even the attacks of NPCs due to power core "incompatibilities".
-The capital ship weapon 'split', like every other capship balance change in this mod, has made battleships even more of a one man army while hindering cruisers even futher.
-The jumpdrive system... which nobody can use due to the cargo space and fuel requirements.
-A cloaking device that will only benefit transports due to cargo and fuel requirements.
-Docking modules that benefit battleships more than dedicated carriers due to cargo space requirements.
-An unstable crackwhore of a server that nobody can play on.
What is the point of adding new features to this mod when they are so heavily limited that people are literally incapable of using them? At this point, all the supposed "work" that went into developing jump drives, player docking, and cloaking devices might as well have not been done in the first place. Better to leave features out entirely than give players false hope that this mod might actually do something interesting.
Beyond that, why promote this as a "role-playing" server when it has become abundantly clear that the developers and admins have no interest in roleplay at all? The FLhook auto-tech system literally defecates on every single bit of cross-faction RP that has ever been done on this server, and the only real justification for its "we're tired of dealing with sanction reports so we're finding a lazier way to do things." Roleplay died here long ago, and it's been used as nothing more than an excuse for pvp ever since - dont delude yourselves otherwise.
I came back hoping that 4.86 would make this community better, and as someone on skype so simply put it: 4.86 is making more people leave than come back. We have talented developers here, and I respect them for the work they're trying to do to improve this mod, but the politics interfere too much. It doesnt matter how good a ship model is, or how detailed a system is, or how cool a weapon or effect looks - if all the petty disputes between admins and players get involved, the end product will end up failing.
I've already given away my ships to the factions they belonged to, so dont ask for my stuff, you wont get it. I dont know what will become of the OSD, and as callous as it sounds I dont really care, only two members of the faction other than myself ever tried to put any effort into it or make it work, and I dont see it lasting long after my departure. I dont think it will come as a surprise to anyone here that a faction dedicated to -real- roleplay fails while dozens of factions based on nothing but pure pvp prosper.