Questions to the dev team / Open debate

[whitekidney]

Hi - you can scroll down to the bold section for the questions if you can't be arsed to read the intro.

Some of you might know me, some of you might not. I was semi-known in various older communities (ownedcore, mmowned, nogg-aholic) under several different names ( spzatt being one of them ).
I have played WoW since shortly after it was released in Europe ( I also played on the US servers before the game came to Europe ) and vanilla WoW might not be one of the best games I have played, but I can guarantee you that it has given me the best gaming experiences I have ever had and memories for life.

People have different reasons for playing on oldschool servers, some ( like me ) want to relive older memories and take back the fun we lost when TBC/WoTLK was released. I quit wow shortly before WoTLK was released and have never spent more than a few hours ingame since then. Some of you just want the free fun.

I stumbled upon Nostalrius a year ago or so and I didn't see much updates coming out of their YouTube so I thought the project died out - a few months ago I started playing on Emerald Dream and I was told that Nostalrius is close to launch by a friend at ED.

One of the biggest problems with Emerald Dream is the dev teams/GM's hostility towards their players, it takes forever for them to fix bugs, they do not help you with quests that has been game-breaking ( for years!! ) and when you request help, it takes them HOURS to answer tickets and in most cases you are referred to their bug tracker or their forum for "community support" - even when asking for help in situations where only GM's can help you.

My first contribution to the Nostralrius project was the hack session. The session started 1hr 26 minutes late which was not a good first impression ( not a big deal, but I like things being on time ) but after the server opened, I was greeted by gamemasters and instructed on when to start hacking. The session resulted in me giving away previously undetected hacks (on ANY 1.12 private server) which is now detected on Nostalrius due to the excellent work from the dev team ( they patched the server while we were playing and did a reboot, hack was detected and fixed within 20 minutes, impressive work ) - The GM's were friendly and thanked me for my contribution.

After the hack test I tried getting in contact with the dev team for further questions about the hack session - I have compiled a list of 63 offsets for warden to scan on which I think is DOUBLE of what Nostralrius list currently is today - I tried emailing, PMing on the forums and contacting GMs ingame. Email: no response. Forum PM: No response.
In-game: I was told that Maev ( the cool GM from the hack session that seemed to be the guy in charge ) was not available and that I should submit my list via the bug tracker. I did, I also sent it by email and there hasn't been any response yet.

One would assume that this list would be of huge value to the dev team, as it ( probably ) detects 63 cheats versus Nostalrius' 30-something cheats. I'm not asking for gold and glory here - but a simple thank you would be nice.

The point is that Nostalrius claims to have a rather large dev team - I've only been in contact with two of them. They are hard to reach on the forums. They don't answer their emails and when the test sessions ( which I will get back to ) are ongoing - there's very few of them available in-game. I think a larger community presence is needed, especially when you are so close to launch.

I've only been here for a few weeks and trust me I am not complaining - I just want the best for this server. It's the most promising project I have seen so far and the community around it seems great, there's lots of friendly people and the feeling on the test sessions brings back memories, which is a good thing.

To make sure my time ( and others ) time invested in server will not be in vain, I ask the following questions:

1. If the server is quite close to launch ( rumors say 10th, 11th or 12th, which is just a few days from now ) - Why hasn't there been an announcement yet? We need hype for this server to survive. One of the biggest killers of private servers today is not just buggy servers, but activity. A lot of active players is necessary for the servers survival.

2. Why are the test sessions time-limited? This is one of the weirdest things I have come across so far. People are literally complaining that they can't finish the raids because of the time limitations. The timing is also quite bad, especially for European people. Vanilla raids took hours and even days to finish. When the test sessions start at 21:00 you only have a few good hours before most people have to go to bed because they have work the day after.

Limiting the test session makes very little sense to me as it severely limits the amount of testing that can be done.

3. What's the dev teams/GM's policy on helping players once the server launches?
As previously said, Emerald Dreams' policy is a "fuck you" when it comes to helping their players. This question was roughly answered in the hack session when I asked more specifically about quests. I asked "If I find a buggest quest which I cannot complete - what do you do?" and their answer was "Hopefully you won't be having this problem because we fix bugged quests rather quick" - This didn't actually answer my question. If I am doing a speedrun to 60 ( which I plan on ) - a bugged quest will severely disrupt my routine. I'm not asking you to stand by my side while I level and hold my hand - I just want them to elaborate further on this question.

I'll probably update this list once I have gotten some input from other users on this forum.

TL;DR: pls make this server the best

[mike1097]

I can understand your fears but be sure that the developers know what they're doing.

The upcoming 10 year anniversary will be a "gift" for us. I really dont think they will release the server this wednesday. They will use the hype that comes up when they give us a release date. Trust me.. they will.
If im wrong, Im happy because we can start playing then .
Ok back to topic.
Also I can understand your fears regarding the gamemaster support. But I think I speak for many people out here if I say that emerald dream... a project of feenix... a server that nobody can love if you open your eyes... is not comparable to nostalrius.

In summary this is only my opinion.

[cyklon]

I can understand your fears but be sure that the developers know what they're doing.

The upcoming 10 year anniversary will be a "gift" for us. I really dont think they will release the server this wednesday. They will use the hype that comes up when they give us a release date. Trust me.. they will.
If im wrong, Im happy because we can start playing then .
Ok back to topic.
Also I can understand your fears regarding the gamemaster support. But I think I speak for many people out here if I say that emerald dream... a project of feenix... a server that nobody can love if you open your eyes... is not comparable to nostalrius.

In summary this is only my opinion.

My 5 cents, open beta starts.

[Dessel]

Aren't these guys available on irc?

[whitekidney]

I can understand your fears but be sure that the developers know what they're doing.

The upcoming 10 year anniversary will be a "gift" for us. I really dont think they will release the server this wednesday. They will use the hype that comes up when they give us a release date. Trust me.. they will.
If im wrong, Im happy because we can start playing then .
Ok back to topic.
Also I can understand your fears regarding the gamemaster support. But I think I speak for many people out here if I say that emerald dream... a project of feenix... a server that nobody can love if you open your eyes... is not comparable to nostalrius.

In summary this is only my opinion.

This is not a question of the developers competency

Aren't these guys available on irc?

They are? I've been looking for any contact info.

[ozzky]

1. If the server is quite close to launch ( rumors say 10th, 11th or 12th, which is just a few days from now ) - Why hasn't there been an announcement yet? We need hype for this server to survive. One of the biggest killers of private servers today is not just buggy servers, but activity. A lot of active players is necessary for the servers survival.

It's not confirmed, only rumors. However the devs said on the latest video that there was a "gift" coming soon.
So it could've been the hint, but before they confirmed they wanted to have another stress test. ~

We all know that the perfect timing for a release would be the anniversary so hey, it can't be that big of a surprise

2. Why are the test sessions time-limited? This is one of the weirdest things I have come across so far. People are literally complaining that they can't finish the raids because of the time limitations. The timing is also quite bad, especially for European people. Vanilla raids took hours and even days to finish. When the test sessions start at 21:00 you only have a few good hours before most people have to go to bed because they have work the day after.

I can't say anything about the times since I do agree they're not optimal.
But the reason (I guess) for having time limitations is so that they can fix the bugs that occured in phase 1 and try them in phase 2.

3. What's the dev teams/GM's policy on helping players once the server launches?
As previously said, Emerald Dreams' policy is a "fuck you" when it comes to helping their players. This question was roughly answered in the hack session when I asked more specifically about quests. I asked "If I find a buggest quest which I cannot complete - what do you do?" and their answer was "Hopefully you won't be having this problem because we fix bugged quests rather quick" - This didn't actually answer my question. If I am doing a speedrun to 60 ( which I plan on ) - a bugged quest will severely disrupt my routine. I'm not asking you to stand by my side while I level and hold my hand - I just want them to elaborate further on this question.

They sort of did. Plus, if I recall there were some questions regarding quests from other users here on the forums and I think the reason for it not being tested during the sessions is because it's already fixed since the earlier Nostalrius.

[Netherfrost]

Individual GM assistance is tricky as fuck tho, even if you help 90% of the players with a given quest, the last 10% is still without the "advantage" the rest has. ED doesn't say "fuck you", they simply realize that you cant help some only. Imo you shouldnt assist with anything besides unique bugs, focus on fixing the adressed issues.

They said a gift would be given the 11th, this means a gift, it doesnt mean a release date, a test or anything else. I dont get why so many keep assuming so? Sure it can rumour around, but its nothing more than that.

[Dessel]

You know, I think I was mixing up the irc part with another project, sorrry.

I'm also curious as to why the tests are so limited, especially when people are literally asking to spend their time helping.

[Viper]

Hello Whitekidney,

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

That's why you couldn't chat with these experts regarding the additional data you sent during the session.
We also would like to highlight the fact during the last Session, 2 Games Masters were online to help / answer people regarding their requests.

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

2. Sessions have to be limited in time so that testers can be online at the same time, to test some content that require a lot of players (Raid 40, Raid 20, World Boss, Alterac, etc.). The Stress Session allowed us to enhance the server stability, but, due to the large opening time, we did not have a large amount of players online h24.

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.

Saying that you could get a quest fixed in the minute you found an issue would be a lie, but telling you that it will never be fixed would also be one. We would like to highlight the fact that the whole Staff is dedicated to polishing the server: no one ever received any money for the time we are spending on this project.

You'll get in touch with our security experts as soon as they wake up, since they didn't slept tonight for an obvious reason

Best Regards,
Nostalrius

[Moebius]

Thanks Viper. These insights are very much appreciated.