Questions to the dev team / Open debate

[whitekidney]

Hi Viper.

Thanks for the answer, it explains why I didn't get any feedback on my reportings.

I can only assume that there will be no launch on the 10/11/12th due to the lack of new announcement ( or maybe a new announcement is imminent ? )

As other players have requested, a summary write up of the hack test and the two last tests would be nice, so we know whats up.

[Viper]

Stay tuned for the news

[ozzky]

Stay tuned for the news

OMG OMG OMG OMG

[Zetox]

Will do

[Critorris]

Stay tuned for the news

Yes...?

[Wraith§Reaver]

During this last session, we have been constantly attacked by multiples hackers, and they managed to crash the server a few times. We won't give any further details, but the hackers needed some NPCs/creatures/objects in Kalimdor and Azeroth to process. That is why we assigned our security experts (not all the developers of our team have these kind of skills) to this session in order to:
* analyse errors in real-time, and make further tests
* fix detected exploits

Seriously..... .-.

[Noxx]

Stay tuned for the news

Im so excited

[Hyped]

I'm still tuned......

[Kill]

3. Our team internal organization is the same as a professional IT project team (based on our professional's experience in project management).
Our team structure :
* Game Masters and Forum Moderators are on the front line with players, helping them and eventually forwarding information to the IsVV Team (Level 2) if they can't answer to the problem.
* IsVV Team is the bridge between Game Masters and Dev Team. They analyse the problem and find how things should work. If there is a bug, it is validated in the BugTracker with the corresponding proofs/explanation so that Dev Team (Level 3) can easily work on the subject. If it's not a problem, it is closed with the corresponding explanation so that Game Master can answer back to the corresponding player.

With this organisation, the Dev Team don't lose any time and keeps focused on coding and debugging. They're not communicating with the players directly. Some exception can be done for specific tasks like hacking because GM nor Testers got the knowledge to answer this kind of issue.

Let's talk a little bit more about your disposition of forces. From the efforts I am seeing, I think we all agree, that the devs are doing an amazing job in fixing issues with the game. This is what makes this server unmatched to others and the reason why most of us are here. The devs practice is to look at small things and develop good and well though solutions, no "Quick and Dirty" stuff. Nostalrius is about quality and the devs actually show great effort to achieve this. At least this is my personal impression. Furthermore I would argue, that this not only applies to the game development but also to hardening security. It actually feels like the devs are professionals and not only some young folks doing a project for their fun.

This is also shown in the team structure with their three respective levels (GM/Mods, IsVV, Devs) which greatly impacts development progression. Compare this to Kronos for example. The single (?) dev they have also writes the news, comments on the forum, is on IRC, does AMAs (and I guess he also cuts the promo videos). No wonder that development progressed only 2% in the last 1 1/2 months.

However regarding the disposition of forces, I think Nost needs ALLOT more work on the GM/Mods side. This is also the primary position of the thread starter. It's not about having a direct private link to the devs in general, but to have the opportunity to relay information to them and get feedback from there in an acceptable time frame. Of cause direct connection sometimes might be best.

You already started recruiting GMs but I think you need one or maybe two more Community Managers NOW. Before Launch! So people who will come to this forum (especially after tomorrows announcement) will be greeted by friendly, competed and well informed / connected (!) mods. Also it would be the Community Managers tasks to fight for a better forum software/configuration. This forum is seriously crap for multiple reasons. There are categories missing everywhere and no stickies or spoilers are supported. Furthermore we actually need an official and clean "WoW-Download" from a Nost server with pre-set realmlist. All this is stuff that becomes important the closer you get to the launch. Furthermore the web page looks very cool, but it is only a stub for the time during development. You know that, we know that. But it's about time to change that or at least have the solution already in your pocket, depending on ETA. We need official twitter, we need official IRC, we need AMAs etc.
Why you think people are writing guides and creating their own hype videos? Because you don't! (Little over-dramatic of cause ) They Hype is real and you need to channel this into your structures, so people stay (not with only a forum, where you have to wait for your first message to be allowed)

TL;DR: It's time to pay more attention to community work (including various web 2.0 stuff), when ETA is closing in. This should not mean any devs should start community work, but that you have to increase staff.

P.S.:

1. Please check our latest videos. Our [...] facebook have never been so active than now !

Going from nothing to a little bit is an increase, but doesn't mean it's good or enough.

[kovenant]

a whole bunch of blabla

awesome,
wanted to make a post like this myself, only after i know of the news that is to come.
since the news itself might shed some light on things for example the possibility of a release or release date.
a

i do agree now that with the alot larger community active there is also a need for more "modded control"
and/or a list of GM's or possible GM's (i also applied:P)