ip exemptions no longer exist

[fadetree]

It may be hard to give someone the ability to 'do ip exceptions' without giving them ability to do a lot of other stuff. You are assuming that control is fine grained enough to protect areas; in my experience things usually boil down to editing source or config files or tables directly.

[Atmas]

Originally Posted by Slave [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There are two amazingly insightful posts above mine; everyone do yourselves a big favor and peruse them carefully. Then ask yourselves, can we not do better? This is an amazing game, easily one of the best ever made. It should be overflowing with players right now, but somehow isn't, largely for the reasons outlined above.

The unfortunate thing about those posts is that they compare P99 to a business, which it is not. They actually use the words "business" and "customer support" as well as make comparisons to exisitng businesses. People acknowledge that this server is produced by people with other real world obligations, but they don't really.

First off, though I have no doubt it contributes, I really don't think the IP exemption issue is the major factor in server population decline. I think that can more likely be attributed to the large amount of time between expansion releases. People know more now and were able to level faster but have been given less content over the span of time they have been playing as compared to live. There are also many new games out there and it seems odd that everyone would expect a 13 year old game to be played indefinitely.

Secondly, it doesn't take much to f up the server. IP exemeptions are probably not even in the top 5 issues for server population. I think we have lost more accounts do to MQing and RMT bans and penalties. Which in a round about way that may only make sense to my own non-linear mind is why you really have to be careful to avoid allowing rule breaking to happen. While I think cheaters should be punished I can't help but lament how the server population gets diminshed. I think many of them would still be playing if they were never able to cheat in the first place.

[azxten]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It may be hard to give someone the ability to 'do ip exceptions' without giving them ability to do a lot of other stuff. You are assuming that control is fine grained enough to protect areas; in my experience things usually boil down to editing source or config files or tables directly.

Yes, but this is what I mean about working on a business instead of in it. Instead of continually doing work that will always need to be done you should be working on eliminating or off loading work to free up your time.

It's kind of like imagining the manger of a McDonalds being too busy cooking fries to do anything else because it's "too hard to protect the cash drawer" to trust anyone to cook the fries. No, it's not too hard to protect the cash drawer if you take the time to put a safe in the store and instruct the people cooking fries to put their money in the safe every 2 hours. Then you find that you have the time to work on more important things than cooking fries and the cash drawer safety issue has been eliminated because only you have access to the safe.

[Slave]

I was actually going to post "inb4 this isn't a business" but I thought I'd go the intellectual and positive route instead.

[azxten]

Originally Posted by Atmas [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The unfortunate thing about those posts is that they compare P99 to a business, which it is not. They actually use the words "business" and "customer support" as well as make comparisons to exisitng businesses. People acknowledge that this server is produced by people with other real world obligations, but they don't really.

It is a project that relies heavily upon a community being interested in the project and the same rules apply to this that apply to a business. The whole "real world obligations" thing falls flat when you remember that you have hundreds of volunteers for a community with thousands of members that has a current staff size of 4. It's purely a lack of focusing on allowing those volunteers to contribute instead.

There could easily be a 10 person development team, 20 guides, multiple server technicians to resolve login server down, etc. I'm so sick of hearing about "they have real world obligations so they're too busy to take advantage of all the volunteers offering to reduce that load."

You then go on to claim IP exemptions don't matter, it's the lack of expansion, etc. Well, how much farther would that be along if Rogean/Nilbog/Amelinda never had to do an IP exemption? Lack of focus on the small things, the details, will always kill projects.

There is a reason why this server never grows beyond 1,000 players. It's because there is only so many players a team of 4, with really 2 of them having any power, can support.

Every time the population surges guild disputes explode over raid content, developers stop producing content and start policing the server, the petition queue explodes. Everything reaches critical mass until enough people get sick of it and quit and then finally the population shrinks back to a manageable size for the size of management.

You can use the whole "not a business line" all you want but this is still a project, with users, that requires management and that management refuses to grow with the user base and so the user base will never grow.

[Hitchens]

The problem with looking at it from a business perspective is that a business cannot exist without customers, but an emulated server can continue existing regardless of whether anyone actually plays on it. All that is required is the owner continue paying the bills.

[azxten]

Originally Posted by Hitchens [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The problem with looking at it from a business perspective is that a business cannot exist without customers, but an emulated server can continue existing regardless of whether anyone actually plays on it. All that is required is the owner continue paying the bills.

You would be surprised how many businesses exist with no customers following that same logic. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Of course, they aren't successful if you consider success to be making money and neither would an emulated server with no players on it be a success if you consider success to be having a user base. Hell, maybe Nilbog doesn't want a large project. That's respectable, it's a lot of work to step back and manage a larger project. He may intentionally want to keep this server at a low population to reduce work load. It is still his project.

[Hitchens]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You would be surprised how many businesses exist with no customers following that same logic. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not in the context you provided with the McDonald's example. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There's most likely differing definitions of what defines a successful server and that's why this discussion happens rather frequently.

[Atmas]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It is a project that relies heavily upon a community being interested in the project and the same rules apply to this that apply to a business. The whole "real world obligations" thing falls flat when you remember that you have hundreds of volunteers for a community with thousands of members that has a current staff size of 4. It's purely a lack of focusing on allowing those volunteers to contribute instead.

There could easily be a 10 person development team, 20 guides, multiple server technicians to resolve login server down, etc. I'm so sick of hearing about "they have real world obligations so they're too busy to take advantage of all the volunteers offering to reduce that load."

You then go on to claim IP exemptions don't matter, it's the lack of expansion, etc. Well, how much farther would that be along if Rogean/Nilbog/Amelinda never had to do an IP exemption? Lack of focus on the small things, the details, will always kill projects.

There is a reason why this server never grows beyond 1,000 players. It's because there is only so many players a team of 4, with really 2 of them having any power, can support.

Every time the population surges guild disputes explode over raid content, developers stop producing content and start policing the server, the petition queue explodes. Everything reaches critical mass until enough people get sick of it and quit and then finally the population shrinks back to a manageable size for the size of management.

You can use the whole "not a business line" all you want but this is still a project, with users, that requires management and that management refuses to grow with the user base and so the user base will never grow.

I did not say IP exemptions do not matter. To concatenate what I wrote: I think it contributes but is not one of the top 5 issues influencing server population.

The number of volunteers isn't the only relevant factor. I'm sure if you have been involved in a hiring process you understand that. I can definitely understand after putting hundreds of hours into a project not being overly willing to give access to people who you only have brief online contact with the ability to destroy it.

Also if I am incorrect about population being tied to new content, explain why the biggest surge in numbers came after Kunark was released? Do you really think if IP exemptions were handled and whatever other unnamed issues you have with support were resolved but no new content came out the population would never decrease?

I can use the "not a business line" because their motives aren't financial. If they add more people to the deveopment team, in addition to more coordination being necessary there is a loss of control. If they don't want to lose that control it is their choice.

[fadetree]

Originally Posted by azxten [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes, but this is what I mean about working on a business instead of in it. Instead of continually doing work that will always need to be done you should be working on eliminating or off loading work to free up your time.

It's kind of like imagining the manger of a McDonalds being too busy cooking fries to do anything else because it's "too hard to protect the cash drawer" to trust anyone to cook the fries. No, it's not too hard to protect the cash drawer if you take the time to put a safe in the store and instruct the people cooking fries to put their money in the safe every 2 hours. Then you find that you have the time to work on more important things than cooking fries and the cash drawer safety issue has been eliminated because only you have access to the safe.

True enough, its just that building out a system whereby you can safely farm out certain edits and classes of jobs/tasks is usually not a simple matter. You need a system of permissions, data that describes these permissions, user structures that work with these permissions, web interfaces to allow protected edits to various entities...all wrapped on top of what is essentially a big set of code files and some db tables that have no intrinsic protections. Its often not as simple as just buying a safe and instructing people.