Well, what happened?

[Suno_Regin]

For those of us who missed the supposed dev meeting yesterday, can anyone give any details as to what was discussed and what was decided?

[LigH]

The logs of the meeting should be posted after a while in the Development Team Blog; I am not sure if everyone can read there, but the variety of posters made me think so...

In the meantime: http://paste.frubar.net/13863 (thanks to Rheos for recording)

[Mordaan]

Thanks for the link, LigH.  (and of course for Rheos for posting).  I remembered it about 90 minutes too late.

[Sarva]

Yes the Dev Q&A meeting happened. The meetings happen on the first and third Sunday of each month.

The Devs present were Weltall, Tuux and Drjack.

The meetings are to decide things the meetings give players a chance to ask questions related to the development ( like process or progress) of different aspects of the game.

The Devs seem to keep getting the same questions over and over each time. Yeah we should probably put a FAQ up some place but to address some of the frequest quests asked at the Dev Q&A meetings.

No news or progress related to models for races that don't currently have models - The main issue is having 3D animators to work on this or the ones we have not having a lot of time. Remember this is a project made up of unpaid volunteers who work on things when they have the time to do so.

No date has been set for the next guild house auction.

No new job skills are expected in game soon, but the Skunk Works people are working on leather crafting. The Skunk Works project is a group of players and devs working together to push development of different things in the game. search the forum for more Info about the skunk works project if you are interested.

Yes some of the circle quest mention spells that are not implemented in the game yet. THere wasn't the best coordination between settings and engine. In some cases the engine doesn't support what the spell is suppose to do ( an example would be magic sleep) IN other cases there is no art or animation to go with the spell in question.

The loot drop rates are still being looked at for possible adjustment

The issue of practice points for skills progression has come up a few times ie everything that gives you practice in a skill gives you the same amount of practice. Currently the rules team is busy with other things, like NPC movement, so they can't look into this at this time.

I think that covers most of the frequently  asked questions over the past few meetings. Note I'm not a Dev and not speaking for them, just relaying the answers as I remember them.

We especially need more people for the art and settings teams. DrJack is trying to recruit some people who have been involved with PS in the past and who know the game for the settings team. If you have skills that might be useful in helping the progress of the game's development then please consider applying to be part of the team.

[Aramara Meibi]

nice summary Sarva, although you missed a couple of things. I think one major issue that concerns a lot of people is the quest chains. There is absolutely no transparency in game or out as to which quests are linked to which. Many many players are just stabbing in the dark trying to find the perfect combination of quests in order to achieve one small goal. DrJack said that there will be a forum thread or something opened up for players to discuss this issue with the dev team.

there was also brief discussion on the marriage function ingame, but apparently that's a horse that's been frozen in carbonite for a long, long time.

one piece of good news to come out of the meeting is that the pvp area in the dlayo pit has been fixed.

that was my first dev meeting to attend, and I found it very informative. I hope to attend more in the future. A FAQ list would be very helpful, but I think that if the devs really are being bombarded with the same questions and requests, then those are the areas that should be given the most focus when it comes to development.

[drJack]

DrJack said that there will be a forum thread or something opened up for players to discuss this issue with the dev team.

drJack said that we need your feed back, and I suggested (to the people who want to give it) to focus all the opinions in one unique thread.

I see 2 type of reports.
- Current quest bugs, or missing IN-QUEST guide. -> this has to be reported on flyspray.
- Opinion on pros and cons of chain quest, are they good? are they bad? you've suggestion? -> Since I think to see some current issues you can talk about those on the forum (or also somewhere else, if you think that fits, just let me know). I want only to check if we had something specific, and what we could do to solve it.
These feedbacks will help us in any discussion we could have in the setting team.

[Mordaan]

I for one like the chained quests concept.  But I think the main issue right now it players are flying too blindly with little or no direction of where to go next.  I think we need to avoid the "go around right clicking all the NPCs you see to find the one your looking for" scenarios.

We need more hints dropped by NPCs in their dialog about who to see next.  It doesn't even have to be specific in all cases...maybe a list of 2 or 3 NPCs related to whichever chain is being done with one of those being the NPC next in the chain.  Then even if in a subsequent quest there is no mention, at least there was as some point in the chain.  Then that doesn't make it TOO easy and we have a case like "oh, this NPC mentioned 3 names, maybe I should check out the other two."

It didn't make sense to have this dialog when the quests were standalone, but now that many are chained, the dialog needs to be adjusted a little to provide some flow.