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New Producer's Letter for September 2019

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AuthorMessage
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
While making a game too difficult inadvertently is bad, a game being difficult is what makes it fun. Some of the most well known games are very difficult (Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Contra, Super Meat Boy).
When you finally defeat that boss you've spent three days on, the gratification cannot be describe.
Commodore
Feb 12, 2015
970
chiliman05 on Oct 7, 2019 wrote:
While making a game too difficult inadvertently is bad, a game being difficult is what makes it fun. Some of the most well known games are very difficult (Dark Souls series, Sekiro, Contra, Super Meat Boy).
When you finally defeat that boss you've spent three days on, the gratification cannot be describe.
Aye, like the gratification I'll feel when I beat Black Anne Rackham one more time, unlock her, buy her, and have fun wreaking havoc with her! (And don't tell me she's terrible, I see potential here!)
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
Lookit Light on Oct 8, 2019 wrote:
Aye, like the gratification I'll feel when I beat Black Anne Rackham one more time, unlock her, buy her, and have fun wreaking havoc with her! (And don't tell me she's terrible, I see potential here!)
I know right?! I understand a game can be too difficult. There are games where the difficulty DOES make it bad, but there are shining gems like the ones stated above that can make a game truly special.
Commodore
Feb 12, 2015
970
chiliman05 on Oct 10, 2019 wrote:
I know right?! I understand a game can be too difficult. There are games where the difficulty DOES make it bad, but there are shining gems like the ones stated above that can make a game truly special.
I've never played any of the games you mentioned. I just know that this should be included! This game is special!
Ensign
Dec 20, 2012
6
I'm going to say that I really haven't been the most involved Pirate player. This is my first post on the message boards. I am primarily a Wizard101 player, but I think this is dark news for both games. I think that KI is being very kind with responding to some portions of complaints, but isn't responding to the ones about no new adventures on Pirate101. I am concerned that they do not understand our criticism. I posted this on Wizard101's forum and I never saw it come to light.
1. If Pirate isn't going to get an update, why should we expect one on Wizard? The two games are linked, and even though Wizard101 gets more updates, they seem more and more like fluff the longer it goes on.
2. Why should people spend the money on a membership for Pirate (like I am doing) and begin the game knowing that it will end and never get any more updates? I am considering cancelling my membership for Pirate even though I haven't begun the game because I am concerned the game will be shut down before too long.
3. Can anyone guarantee that there will be new content added in the future?
4. Can the team be frank about what caused the 'no-new content rule'? I don't think it's a lack of ideas, particularly with all the ones the community has come up with.

Stormy Cheyenne Poole
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
DreamGalleon21154 on Oct 13, 2019 wrote:
I'm going to say that I really haven't been the most involved Pirate player. This is my first post on the message boards. I am primarily a Wizard101 player, but I think this is dark news for both games. I think that KI is being very kind with responding to some portions of complaints, but isn't responding to the ones about no new adventures on Pirate101. I am concerned that they do not understand our criticism. I posted this on Wizard101's forum and I never saw it come to light.
1. If Pirate isn't going to get an update, why should we expect one on Wizard? The two games are linked, and even though Wizard101 gets more updates, they seem more and more like fluff the longer it goes on.
2. Why should people spend the money on a membership for Pirate (like I am doing) and begin the game knowing that it will end and never get any more updates? I am considering cancelling my membership for Pirate even though I haven't begun the game because I am concerned the game will be shut down before too long.
3. Can anyone guarantee that there will be new content added in the future?
4. Can the team be frank about what caused the 'no-new content rule'? I don't think it's a lack of ideas, particularly with all the ones the community has come up with.

Stormy Cheyenne Poole
It can't be a lack of ideas, people have found that there is a nearly finished world for Polaris, with a new level cap of level 70. And SOMEHOW it got cancelled. I think it's just executives feeding all of the supplies to Wizard101, and then we have like 2 developers working on P101
Admiral
Nov 23, 2011
1407
Dreamgallion: "1. If Pirate isn't going to get an update, why should we expect one on Wizard?"

Because there are a zillion times more Wizard101 players as there are Pirate101 players. Even when Pirate was at its height, its members were dwarfed by Wizard players. An update to Wizard101 will make KI much more money than an update to Pirate101.

I play Wizard101, but I always loved Pirate101 better from its initial release until now. I hope that KI can slowly build up momentum on the game again - and I think this tactic (releasing a similar card pack for both games, giving us some new top-line companions we have to work for) ire a good ways to get things moving a bit on Pirate.

"The two games are linked, and even though Wizard101 gets more updates, they seem more and more like fluff the longer it goes on."

Wizard101's chapter expansions still pop up pretty regularly. Mirage is certainly not fluff - it is perhaps my favorite world (now, if we could just get past that annoying Shadow jabberwock thingy...).

-Indigo
Ensign
Jun 29, 2012
27
chiliman05 on Oct 18, 2019 wrote:
It can't be a lack of ideas, people have found that there is a nearly finished world for Polaris, with a new level cap of level 70. And SOMEHOW it got cancelled. I think it's just executives feeding all of the supplies to Wizard101, and then we have like 2 developers working on P101
But how true is that? I mean would ki really be so cruel as to work on the one thing that EVERYONE wants and then scrap it when its almost complete? would ki really do that?
Commodore
Feb 12, 2015
970
chiliman05 on Oct 18, 2019 wrote:
It can't be a lack of ideas, people have found that there is a nearly finished world for Polaris, with a new level cap of level 70. And SOMEHOW it got cancelled. I think it's just executives feeding all of the supplies to Wizard101, and then we have like 2 developers working on P101
I'm not sure about the legitimacy of your statement. Is there any way we can know for sure that this is truth?
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
AntonioXavier1773 on Oct 18, 2019 wrote:
But how true is that? I mean would ki really be so cruel as to work on the one thing that EVERYONE wants and then scrap it when its almost complete? would ki really do that?
We'll never really know, but it has been found in the data that a nearly finished Polaris is in the Code. I also meant to put 80, not 70. My bad.
Commodore
Feb 12, 2015
970
chiliman05 on Oct 21, 2019 wrote:
We'll never really know, but it has been found in the data that a nearly finished Polaris is in the Code. I also meant to put 80, not 70. My bad.
I suppose that's legitimate.
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
chiliman05 on Oct 21, 2019 wrote:
We'll never really know, but it has been found in the data that a nearly finished Polaris is in the Code. I also meant to put 80, not 70. My bad.
There is proof of level 75 for a pirate & a promotion for Hawkules, so I'm not surprised that Polaris is in the code. However, there is no proof of work being scrapped, maybe it's still there waiting for the final code.
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
Lookit Light on Oct 19, 2019 wrote:
I'm not sure about the legitimacy of your statement. Is there any way we can know for sure that this is truth?
Like I said, we will never know, but doesn't it seem the slightest bit odd that a nearly finished Polaris as well as a new level cap for level 80 is just sitting in the code. Also this wouldn't be unheard of. It's well known in the community that Kingsisle basically pushes all of it's resources to Wizard101, and then gives 0.0000000001 percent of those resources to pirate101. The executives at kings isle only want to put money into Pirate101 if it will promise quick easy money. Making a new world wouldn't. A new pack would.

So yeah, this would not be an unexpected move if it were to be true. I honestly am tired of the executives not giving Pirate101 a fair and honest chance. Right now this idea is a theory, but it does have a lot of evidence from the past backing it up if it were to be true.
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
Ratbeard on Oct 1, 2019 wrote:
I'm not sure how you translated "reduced health" into "keel over at any attack..."

While I also thought the combat difficulty of P101 was just fine (which is to be expected, as I designed it...), the data simply doesn't bear that out. Inadvertently making the game too difficult is the quintessential "rookie mistake." (And I made it.)

The health change mainly affects the earliest levels of the game, reducing the average number of hits required to defeat an opponent, and then "re-connects" to the prior difficulty somewhere between level 30 and 40.

I think it's fair to say that the chief complexity of P101 lies, not in raw health and damage numbers, but in the combat talents and their interactions, and that hasn't changed. There is still plenty of room to develop combat skills that will serve players at levels 40 and above, and I'd like to see more players reach those ranks.
Making a game too hard is not even in the slightest a rookie move, even inadvertently. Some of the most famous and popular games are well known for difficulty. Difficulty is very important. In fact I would say, from experience as a developer, that the rookie move is making a game too easy. No one wants to play a game broken from difficulty, but no one wants to play a game so easy they could beat it blindfolded.
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
anecorbie on Oct 21, 2019 wrote:
There is proof of level 75 for a pirate & a promotion for Hawkules, so I'm not surprised that Polaris is in the code. However, there is no proof of work being scrapped, maybe it's still there waiting for the final code.
Well this has been in the code for 3 years. Is it not the slightest bit suspicious that it never has been released?
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
chiliman05 on Oct 22, 2019 wrote:
Making a game too hard is not even in the slightest a rookie move, even inadvertently. Some of the most famous and popular games are well known for difficulty. Difficulty is very important. In fact I would say, from experience as a developer, that the rookie move is making a game too easy. No one wants to play a game broken from difficulty, but no one wants to play a game so easy they could beat it blindfolded.
An example of this is I worked on Fallout 4 (rated M). We tried making the game very hard and very easy as a test, wanna know what happened? Only a few of the game testers complained about the gameplay for hard difficulty, but not for very easy. ALL of our testers hated a very easy fallout 4. Just goes to show, people like a challenge, not a cake walk.
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
anecorbie on Oct 21, 2019 wrote:
There is proof of level 75 for a pirate & a promotion for Hawkules, so I'm not surprised that Polaris is in the code. However, there is no proof of work being scrapped, maybe it's still there waiting for the final code.
Also seemingly none of it has been edited in the three years since all of this has been found. Not one thing was changed in Polaris or Hawkules or anything. It seems to have been abandoned. It was never touched again.
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
chiliman05 on Oct 24, 2019 wrote:
Also seemingly none of it has been edited in the three years since all of this has been found. Not one thing was changed in Polaris or Hawkules or anything. It seems to have been abandoned. It was never touched again.
Abandoned doesn't necessarily mean scrapped. Come on, do you destroy years worth of work on the off chance that it'll never be used? Or do you keep it and wait for the time it may be used?
Bosun
Aug 10, 2011
304
anecorbie on Oct 24, 2019 wrote:
Abandoned doesn't necessarily mean scrapped. Come on, do you destroy years worth of work on the off chance that it'll never be used? Or do you keep it and wait for the time it may be used?
The time has long come and gone for the release of it. Think about it: they've had this for the last three years. And people complain about it. They've had plenty of good times for it to be used, it seems to add up to it being abandoned.
Ensign
Jul 09, 2010
22
Ratbeard wrote:
The early game changes were extremely low-hanging fruit for us-- just change a few stat curves and kill counts. Those tweaks change a lot of levels of content, but do it in a very efficient and sweeping way. This is just a ball-park guess, but I'd say 90% of the effort we put into this milestone was aimed at you high level/end game players. New art, new bosses, voice over, the encounters, etc.

Our strategy is to focus our efforts on things that can positively affect new players, while also providing content for end game players.

From CdeWinter: "What doesn't make sense, to me at least, is abandoning the experienced higher level players in the process. I know many of us would be perfectly happy with smaller more frequent updates that would give us a reason to keep playing, as KI bolsters the early game. But, it doesn't look like we'll be getting that."

As I stated above, that's exactly what we intend to do-- unless, obviously, your definition of update only includes "new books."

We'll update as often as we can, as ambitiously as we can.

We also love this game!
I know this post is old, but it tipped my deliberations. I'm going to go ahead and get my year sub, start a new character from scratch and play through doing everything available at level. I'm going to see how long it takes to finish the game while living real life too - and see how it feels.

I have been really sad to hear about the new books. If ever Ratbeard sees this:

What do you and the other Pirate101 team members believe is to attract new players --if there are to be no large scale stories and new worlds to look forward to? I'll revisit and see how it feels, but I just don't get it.

Please let us know your view on this. (New players ... and Books really. Exactly why is KI moving away from Books?)

Thanks again for talking to us.
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