I'm a former administrator. Ask me anything.

[pieoffury]

Crenel!!!

Glad to see you're still around ;D Hope my old account, wierdo3, rings a bell.

Onto my question, what do you think is the best improvement in PWO from our time back (2008-2009) and today (2013-2014)?

 

[Jinji]

What will make PWO succeed the most?

This first bit is a side note and not the direct answer to the question, but it's something that's stuck with me: A focus on customer service. I fully disclose that I have not been around to see the way in which the staff has interacted with people over the past year, so I am unable to fairly comment on the way things currently are. However, when I was here the staff was a little bit too eager to find trouble and act on it. The attitude was one of shoot first, ask questions later, and to me that's not really the best way to go about it. I personally feel that, when it comes to customer service relations, generating results is not the same as generating good results.

Hear hear, Crenel! The players are what makes a game; its through their presence and overall satisfaction with the gameplay experience within the walls of the title - and the community and services around it - that a title lives and dies, especially one with a strong multiplayer focus such as an MMO. Sadly, it's also a point many Staff teams at many MMOs seem to be forgetting. This is why I always emphasise good community relations and a focus on friendliness were possible; and strictness without appearing harsh where necessary.

 

[crenel]

Who created this wonderful game and who is responsible for the delayed progress of it?

Kyro and Zammbi, two friends from New Zealand. Kyro moved to Australia in order to attend University, and basically abandoned the project as a result. Zammbi moved out of the spotlight for Xanatus to take over, but then Xan played this game where he would pop in once every few months, make a minor tweak, promise updates, and disappear for many more months.

The lack of a dedicated leader and programmer is what slowed things down for three years, and it was only after Bluerise started rebuilding the Playerdex that we started to see real progress.

Obviously things have changed from 5-6 years ago, lol.

You mentioned something about 2008-2013. That is 5 years. From then till now, has the PWO application surpassed game-play/GUI expectations?

The original GUI was basic and not very intuitive/useful, as is to be expected from an alpha client. Xanatus hacked the server, rebuilt it using a better programming language, and that's how he became a developer here.

From there he brought in Shane to rebuild the client, and the Java client Zammbi had worked on faded away, leaving us with the one we have today.

Shane was a bit overprotective and unreasonable with the source code, and a big reason why many updates couldn't go through is because he left the project and took the source code with him, without passing it to another developer.

Shane did a great job when he was here and was able to make some amazing things happen, but his personal life got in the way. He was facing some really hard circumstances that I'm not going to get into, as they're his to share if he ever wants to.

P.S (Where do I think Shane is too blame??)

It's very popular for some of the older players to blame Shane or Xan for basically every problem under the sun, but the truth of the matter is that the two of them have had the biggest impact on the project and have improved the game the most.

Shane left for deeply personal reasons unrelated to this project. Part of why he acted the way he did towards the end of his stay here has to do with that. He deserves more credit and respect for the vast improvements that he gifted us with.

 

[crenel]

Onto my question, what do you think is the best improvement in PWO from our time back (2008-2009) and today (2013-2014)?

From 2009 it's easily the staff overhaul. I can't stress enough how important that was.

The game was growing at an exponential rate, and needed a better support network to compensate. Bringing in and empowering a new moderation team, combined with Fennikusu's amazing work on the original playerdex, allowed us to adapt to our needs. The creation of the auto-token system occurred during this time, and that has kept the game afloat.


From the end of my tenure here, it was definitely the changes to the Playerdex (noticing a trend?). Bluerise's playerdex made it possible for the players to do a ton of new things, but chief among them was improved account management and improved registration. By closing off registration slots we were able to plug off the outrageous demand for server time, and offer a more controlled, stable, and enjoyable experience for players.


As we were unable, fiscally, to provide a bigger and better server, and as the existing server code wasn't designed to handle 2,000 players at one time, Bluerise's tweaks and updates basically saved the project.

 

[Chocobo7]

This reminds me too much of Reddit, its like I never changed tabs.... Anyway, no question here just wanted to say that its nice to see you checking up on us evern if it is only for a short time

 

[Buggot]

One question: Can you stay?

 

[Stank]

Here's a few short ones, lol.

Zammbi gave me permission to ban him during a staff meeting, so I did. He didn't realize what had happened until later.

Mantis and I were working on a side quest that fell apart, but it involved exploding lemons.

I think it was Tenfold, Bis, Teck and Dovee, but a few of the staff members made NPCs of doom that would put you into an infinite loop of random teleportation when you talked to them. Then they'd trick people into talking to them.

Mangoz spoke English as a secondary language, and during staff meetings would sometimes accidentally say things that were inappropriate out of no where. (example: "my underwear are made of skin")

Let's just say that Xanatus is a huge fan of Jackie Chan and leave it at that.

CheckeredZebra talked about real southern sweet tea so much one week that I ended up addicted to cheap Arizona brand sweet tea for a month.

After the maps had been updated one day, Kestheba found himself lost in an endless black void where the map had used to be. This caused the server to crash until he was moved manually, through the database.

you can't forget the night me, you, mantis, arenya, zebra, arnie i believe and several other staff members got bored and decided to play hide and seek on all the old unreleased maps before they were all deleted lol

 

[Arnie]

Here's a few short ones, lol.

Zammbi gave me permission to ban him during a staff meeting, so I did. He didn't realize what had happened until later.

Mantis and I were working on a side quest that fell apart, but it involved exploding lemons.

I think it was Tenfold, Bis, Teck and Dovee, but a few of the staff members made NPCs of doom that would put you into an infinite loop of random teleportation when you talked to them. Then they'd trick people into talking to them.

Mangoz spoke English as a secondary language, and during staff meetings would sometimes accidentally say things that were inappropriate out of no where. (example: "my underwear are made of skin")

Let's just say that Xanatus is a huge fan of Jackie Chan and leave it at that.

CheckeredZebra talked about real southern sweet tea so much one week that I ended up addicted to cheap Arizona brand sweet tea for a month.

After the maps had been updated one day, Kestheba found himself lost in an endless black void where the map had used to be. This caused the server to crash until he was moved manually, through the database.

you can't forget the night me, you, mantis, arenya, zebra, arnie i believe and several other staff members got bored and decided to play hide and seek on all the old unreleased maps before they were all deleted lol

haha i remember that, then bis shoved me into the rollercoaster of doom (D)

 

[Dovee]

Happy Birthday Crenel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

O0 :

 

[Orean]

Locking the topic, as the OP has requested (more privately) to lay this AMA to rest for now.

Also, on behalf of everyone who would use this topic as a means of wishing crenel a happy birthday, happy birthday crenel!