Letter from the Producer, I (1/21/2010)

[Kaelan?]

And if you don't play it nor plan to play it you shouldn't care about World of Warcraft either. No one should. Yet here we are on here and other sites with people up in arms with the EXAMINATION of intention to add a feature that World of Warcraft just happens to have

Just like Lucavi said, people would shit backwards if they came out and said they were going to implement a feature SIMILAR to class speccing just because WoW has it. Even though they've technically done it before in other single player games like 10, 12, and 13.

Why the fuck not? It would be bloody stupid to ignore the most successful game on the market right now in the genre. Looking at the competition, getting ideas from what works and not repeating what doesn't is Game Design 101

And we already have class speccing, it's just not permanent. That's the whole point of 14's subjob system (or whatever it's called).

His timeline is still a bit.. confusing though? What's the difference between "planned", "current tasks" and "future tasks"?

Current tasks come first, planned tasks second and future tasks later?

Or planned means "planned for the next update"?

I think it means:

Planned - What we want to do overall, broadly speaking
Current Tasks - What part of it exactly are we doing right now
Future Tasks - What we'll do about it once the shit in the "right now" column is done

[The Q]

Maybe you should spend more time typing out a correctly structured sentence that communicates that rather than making it sound like that was your opinion and trying to make me seem stupid when I took what you said at face value. The correct form would have been, "They're complaining because they think it is a shitty feature."

ALSO the only reason I asked for the definition of "WoW Jumping" is because I wanted to know why jumping in an MMO period was associated with that game when it exists in nearly every other MMO on the market. If they decided to implement climbing are people going to try to call that "EQ2 climbing?"

[Hyan]

Just like Lucavi said, people would shit backwards if they came out and said they were going to implement a feature SIMILAR to class speccing just because WoW has it.

I would be disappointed to say the least. But in the end, Yoshida can't make this WoW even if he wanted so the bases are covered.

If they decided to implement climbing are people going to try to call that "EQ2 climbing?"

"Nobody" has played that game. So no.

[Lucavi]

It's not, but the game is done with no jumping in mind and as it is does not need a such a function. And I seriously doubt it is an easy task to implement.

It may not need it, but not having it isn't helping at all.

[The Q]

I don't think it's really about whether there are other ways to solve the current problem or not, jumping is one solid and available way to solve the terrain issues. And, after being implemented, could result in future potential utility inside and outside of combat, neither of which could be done without it. It's not just about solving the problem now, but doing it in a way that allows for additional possibilities in the future.

I don't see why anyone considers it a "shitty feature". The only real "drawback" that I ever hear of is people complaining that watching people jump repeatedly looks stupid. Who cares? There's a lot of shit that looks stupid, ignore them and move on, the feature has potential to expand the depth of the world in a way that not having it prevents, and sacrificing potential gameplay function because there are people who think jumping "looks stupid" is retarded.

This right here. Eloquently hit the nail on the head.

[Hyan]

It may not need it, but not having it isn't helping at all.

Nor is it hurting it. What's hurting it are the invisible walls. Jumping function won't make them disappear.

[Elrina]

Nor is it hurting it. What's hurting it are the invisible walls. Jumping function won't make them disappear.

Actually, it's hurting it because (again) it prevents future potential from being realized, and they are actively looking at actually implementing the feature, which means that potential actually has a chance of coming to fruition.

And actually, they'll likely have to adjust or remove a lot of those invisible walls to enable jumping, so in a way it will make them disappear. Doesn't mean it's needed to make them disappear, but it will be part of the process of adding the jumping feature.

[Hyan]

it prevents future potential from being realized

Then implement it when it is actually needed. There is a lot of shit that needs work, if expansions will use the feature to their advantage then they should implement said feature alongside said expansions.

And actually, they'll likely have to adjust or remove a lot of those invisible walls to enable jumping, so in a way it will make them disappear

At which point you can just drop down and/or step up on those locations.

[Lucavi]

And we already have class speccing, it's just not permanent. That's the whole point of 14's subjob system (or whatever it's called).

Just to let you know, this is a pretty shitty version of class speccing. In fact, its not speccing at all. Its taking individual parts of each class and adding them to your main class. That's not a spec at all.

@Hyan: I really don't give a shit what they do first: fix the invisible walls or add a jump. They've shown that in 10 years, they can't fix invisible walls. Time to see what they can do with a jump.

Edit: Also, a step-up animation would take far longer to do correctly than just adding a jump in. You'd have so many clipping issues with trying to step up into terrain that wasn't initially designed to have a foot come anywhere close to the edge. You're asking for far more work for the same result, Hyan, simply because you don't like the idea of seeing 300,000 people in a town jumping in place.

Try to keep your priorities straight. The jump feature isn't for show; its to help alleviate a stupid, shitty problem that SE's struggled with for some 10 years because they never had to worry about it with their console games and they thought that MMOs could simply work as a console add-on.

[Elrina]

There are other potential side effects of it's immediate implementation, however, other than the small terrain blocks and dropping off of cliffs to get around faster now. The process of them implementing a jumping feature may require them to re-assess current character mobility, which will lead into everything from ability delays, animation delays, drawing weapons delay, the entire point of the active/passive system, etc. By doing it now, it could lead to a greater fluidity of character control throughout the entirety of the game, which would be a really good thing.

As well as the fact that if they don't implement the feature, the longer they wait the more reluctant they may be to add it later, meaning less chance that the possibilities it could present for the game in the future are actually realized.

[Lucavi]

^ But then you'd have those damned WoW-tards mussing up my pristine game with their jumping in place and jumping in town! My perfect, lifeless town!

[Hyan]

As well as the fact that if they don't implement the feature, the longer they wait the more reluctant they may be to add it later, meaning less chance that the possibilities it could present for the game with that future utility are actually realized.

And this also works for whatever they are not adding by implementing jumping instead...

they can't fix invisible walls.

Huh? They haven't needed to. This game is full of cliffs and hills and shit like that, but it's not about whether they can or not. It's all about whether its a big priority for them or not. Now it should be.

[Lucavi]

Huh? They haven't needed to. This game is full of cliffs and hills and shit like that, but it's not about whether they can or not. It's all about whether its a big priority for them or not. Now it should be.

How do you know? After 10 years of seeing the same thing, I'm inclined to draw a different conclusion.

[Hyan]

After 10 years of seeing the same thing, I'm inclined to draw a different conclusion.

So because they haven't done something useless, it means they can't do it? Okay bro.

[Lucavi]

Fixing annoying invisible walls that leads to navigation frustration and monster pathing issues is useless? Okay bro.

[Hyan]

Can't say I was never bothered by that in XI, as it was pretty damn rare occurrence. And most of the time when it happened, I wasn't supposed to get there that way anyway.

[Fawkes]

The jump feature isn't for show; its to help alleviate a stupid, shitty problem that SE's struggled with for some 10 years because they never had to worry about it with their console games and they thought that MMOs could simply work as a console add-on.

I'm going to laugh when they just add a jump emote or something that you can only do while standing still.

[Lucavi]

Can't say I was never bothered by that in XI, as it was pretty damn rare occurrence. And most of the time when it happened, I wasn't supposed to get there that way anyway.

So the fact that you weren't bothered means it wasn't a problem. Gotcha. Thank goodness SE has you around, Hyan. They might have had even more work to do on this game had you not been here to tell them that many of these issues aren't issues at all!

[Cichy]

holy fuck, how much can you talk about stupid jump....

[sruon]

practicing for when the official forums are open