Intentional hamstringing the creation process announced in podcast.

[Cloudrat]

<p>When asked....</p><p>"<span>Would it be possible to use market board while editing so that would could access decorative items from our sales crates and house vaults since using only our backpacks to bring in items is very limiting and disruptive to the creative process.?"</span></p><p><span>It was pointed out that even with huge backpacks  having to zone in an out to get items to build ambiance is not fun.</span></p><p><span>Garret said  sorry  this is intentional because people might confuse it with what is in the toolbox.</span></p><p><span>I seriously hope someone will help these people rethink this, and in the meantime I guess I need to put in an order for some garret dolls hehe</span></p><p><span>Edit If you build a lego building, you don't leave half your legos in another room and run and get a few at a time.....</span></p>

[Troy]

<p><cite>Cloudrat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When asked....</p><p>"<span>Would it be possible to use market board while editing so that would could access decorative items from our sales crates and house vaults since using only our backpacks to bring in items is very limiting and disruptive to the creative process.?"</span></p><p><span>It was pointed out that even with huge backpacks  having to zone in an out to get items to build ambiance is not fun.</span></p><p><span>Garret said  sorry  this is intentional because people might confuse it with what is in the toolbox.</span></p><p><span>I seriously hope someone will help these people rethink this, and in the meantime I guess I need to put in an order for some garret dolls hehe</span></p><p><span>Edit If you build a lego building, you don't leave half your legos in another room and run and get a few at a time.....</span></p></blockquote><p>Don't the house items you carry in your inventory show up in the dungeon Toolbox, in yellow lettering, when you edit a dungeom?</p>

[Cloudrat]

<p><cite>Troy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cloudrat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When asked....</p><p>"<span>Would it be possible to use market board while editing so that would could access decorative items from our sales crates and house vaults since using only our backpacks to bring in items is very limiting and disruptive to the creative process.?"</span></p><p><span>It was pointed out that even with huge backpacks  having to zone in an out to get items to build ambiance is not fun.</span></p><p><span>Garret said  sorry  this is intentional because people might confuse it with what is in the toolbox.</span></p><p><span>I seriously hope someone will help these people rethink this, and in the meantime I guess I need to put in an order for some garret dolls hehe</span></p><p><span>Edit If you build a lego building, you don't leave half your legos in another room and run and get a few at a time.....</span></p></blockquote><p>Don't the house items you carry in your inventory show up in the dungeon Toolbox, in yellow lettering, when you edit a dungeom?</p></blockquote><p>Umm yes, but what is your point?  I am talking about access to more items. If you are efficient in your storage of items for adding ambiance, then your inventory is limiting.</p>

[Deveryn]

<p>Simpler things in this game have confused people, so maybe it's better this way. -shrug-</p>

[Banditman]

<p>I don't think the Devs have a very high opinion of the players.</p><p>This was the same reasoning given for why a more robust (a la NWN) Dungeon Designer was not implimented.</p><p>I am eagerly awaiting the first MMO designed for grown ups.</p>

[Deveryn]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't think the Devs have a very high opinion of the players.</p><p>This was the same reasoning given for why a more robust (a la NWN) Dungeon Designer was not implimented.</p><p>I am eagerly awaiting the first MMO designed for grown ups.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think they have a low opinion of the playerbase, but many things have to be simplified to an extreme. Just look at the Layout Editor. Half the people that put houses together are very intimidated by the layout editor and it's sparked ridiculous debates over what's real design. I'm pretty sure they took notice of that. They had to make it as simple as possible, otherwise you'd get a ton of people complaining about how they can't use this feature they shelled out 40$ for. More robust tools would be great, but don't expect it in an mmo.</p>

[Darkorn]

<p>Actually what was said in the podcast, was that due to the fact that the items for the dungeon needed to load in the DM interface, they looked for an easy logical cut off point for it to use.  The easiest way to do it initially was to limit it to the items in your inventory.  It was not done to hamstring the players or create a timesink.  It was a good logical starting point.</p><p>They also said that they would consider changing it, but would have to find another logical way to identify the items to load in the interface.</p><p>Hopefully they'll enable a way to pull from the bank or home inventories, but honestly, I'd rather they address things like: enabling more of the flavor text to work if listed; have some way to indicate social and agro ranges to aid with spawner placement; enable the awarding of tokens/exp for the pro-rated amount completed, even if crash or otherwise leave early; etc.....</p>

[Deveryn]

<p>Nice. So, this was just another case of telling the story vs. what really happened. I missed the podcast, so I couldn't call any bluffs. :p</p>

[Darkorn]

<p>Zam's got the links to the two halves of it here:  <a href="http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=28781">http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=28781</a></p><p>The first half is where the main info is.  The second is where Brasse walks ya through her dungeons and gives some tips...</p>

[Sharakari]

<p>Heck... right now I would take them just greying out spawners on the market if they exist in my toolkit!  I hate it when I buy one I already have!</p>

[Cloudrat]

<p><cite>Darkorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually what was said in the podcast, was that due to the fact that the items for the dungeon needed to load in the DM interface, they looked for an easy logical cut off point for it to use.  The easiest way to do it initially was to limit it to the items in your inventory.  It was not done to hamstring the players or create a timesink.  It was a good logical starting point.</p><p>They also said that they would consider changing it, but would have to find another logical way to identify the items to load in the interface.</p><p>Hopefully they'll enable a way to pull from the bank or home inventories, but honestly, I'd rather they address things like: enabling more of the flavor text to work if listed; have some way to indicate social and agro ranges to aid with spawner placement; enable the awarding of tokens/exp for the pro-rated amount completed, even if crash or otherwise leave early; etc.....</p></blockquote><p>Allowing access to house vaults and sales crates via marketboard while editing could require items to be transferred to inventory prior to placing just like lore and legend items must be moved to inventory from shared bank to be used.</p><p>Seriously, access to all the items for decorating without have to zone out of dungeon and zone into house and zone out of house and zone back into dungeon is called efficiency.</p>

[Deveryn]

<p>Thanks. I didn't know they had the video up that fast. Good podcast.</p>

[msgnomer]

<p>I was watching the podcast too, and the response to the question that stuck with me was that it was a clean demarcation of items associated with a player.  I took that to mean it was a convenient place to break for programming. </p><p>Then again, maybe I just have a short attention span!  More power to someone who can edit their dungeon and place more than a couple hundred items in one session.</p><p>I am working on a dungeon with hundreds of imported objects and I don't have the patience to place them all in one trip anyway.  If you park your character near a bank and store items in the bank, the only travel involved is zoning in and out of the dungeon, assuming you can just swap out bags or strong boxes.  That may not be quite as clean as some want, but it may be a decent solution until there's a change.</p><p>EDIT- oops, I see Darkorn posted something similar, not sure how I missed it, but there you have it.</p>

[Cloudrat]

<p><cite>msgnomer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I was watching the podcast too, and the response to the question that stuck with me was that it was a clean demarcation of items associated with a player.  I took that to mean it was a convenient place to break for programming. </p><p>Then again, maybe I just have a short attention span!  More power to someone who can edit their dungeon and place more than a couple hundred items in one session.</p><p>I am working on a dungeon with hundreds of imported objects and I don't have the patience to place them all in one trip anyway.  If you park your character near a bank and store items in the bank, the only travel involved is zoning in and out of the dungeon, assuming you can just swap out bags or strong boxes.  That may not be quite as clean as some want, but it may be a decent solution until there's a change.</p><p>EDIT- oops, I see Darkorn posted something similar, not sure how I missed it, but there you have it.</p></blockquote><p>Well, nice spin and glad you like zoning in and out and have room in your bank for hundreds of tiles and plants among other things.  Like a painting, you start with the foundation, which could be hundreds of tiles and columns and blocks etc. the toolbox items are the the strategy you add after you have created an environment.</p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't think the Devs have a very high opinion of the players.</p><p>This was the same reasoning given for why a more robust (a la NWN) Dungeon Designer was not implimented.</p><p>I am eagerly awaiting the first MMO designed for grown ups.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think they have a low opinion of the playerbase, but many things have to be simplified to an extreme. Just look at the Layout Editor. Half the people that put houses together are very intimidated by the layout editor and it's sparked ridiculous debates over what's real design. I'm pretty sure they took notice of that. They had to make it as simple as possible, otherwise you'd get a ton of people complaining about how they can't use this feature they shelled out 40$ for. More robust tools would be great, but don't expect it in an mmo.</p></blockquote><p>The fact that people are willing to use Layout Editor shows that SOE could have added some kind of scripting and people would learn it. The problem with going Lowest Common Denominator, is that none of us can create any dungeon with any of the complexity of existing dungeons in EQ2. The best we can do is fill rooms full of mobs, furniture, and a few buff items that affect the whole room (can't be limited to one mob or encounter). We can't link encounters, we can't add triggers or events, we can't add the simplest of quests or zone updates, we can't even add doors, keys, or elevators. It's just unbelievably restrictive.</p>

[Raknid]

<p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The fact that people are willing to use Layout Editor shows that SOE could have added some kind of scripting and people would learn it. The problem with going Lowest Common Denominator, is that none of us can create any dungeon with any of the complexity of existing dungeons in EQ2. The best we can do is fill rooms full of mobs, furniture, and a few buff items that affect the whole room (can't be limited to one mob or encounter). We can't link encounters, we can't add triggers or events, we can't add the simplest of quests or zone updates, we can't even add doors, keys, or elevators. It's just unbelievably restrictive.</p></blockquote><p>But it is serving their purpose of getting people to spend RL money on station cash. The "too complicated" argument by SOE is really just a smokescreen for them in order to be able to put the absolute minimal effort into required in order to extract cash from peoples wallets.</p><p>If they were <strong>truly</strong> interested in simply making players happy they would GIVE us all the tools needed to create dungeons. We would have overflowing pallets of decorations, and layouts, and objects, and spawnwers, and buffers, etc...</p><p>I mean come on...SOE can't design and implement content creation tools that are on par with those in other games? Really? SOE? The professed leader in the industry? They think that the demgraphic of THIS game is less able than the demographic of first person shooters to handle the tools?</p><p>Incremental imporvements in the DM are only going to be seen if they can generate the amount of SC sales that the same time spent on something new can generate. Once you get to the point of diminishing returns you will the dungeon maker abandonded just like everything else.</p>

[Finora]

<p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The fact that people are willing to use Layout Editor shows that SOE could have added some kind of scripting and people would learn it. The problem with going Lowest Common Denominator, is that none of us can create any dungeon with any of the complexity of existing dungeons in EQ2. The best we can do is fill rooms full of mobs, furniture, and a few buff items that affect the whole room (can't be limited to one mob or encounter). We can't link encounters, we can't add triggers or events, we can't add the simplest of quests or zone updates, we can't even add doors, keys, or elevators. <span style="color: #800000;"><strong>It's just unbelievably restrictive.</strong></span></p></blockquote><p>Took the words right out of my mouth. I had hopes of something more like the TES editor & was a bit disappointed with what we got.</p>

[Hamervelder]

<p><cite>Raknid wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The fact that people are willing to use Layout Editor shows that SOE could have added some kind of scripting and people would learn it. The problem with going Lowest Common Denominator, is that none of us can create any dungeon with any of the complexity of existing dungeons in EQ2. The best we can do is fill rooms full of mobs, furniture, and a few buff items that affect the whole room (can't be limited to one mob or encounter). We can't link encounters, we can't add triggers or events, we can't add the simplest of quests or zone updates, we can't even add doors, keys, or elevators. It's just unbelievably restrictive.</p></blockquote><p>But it is serving their purpose of getting people to spend RL money on station cash. The "too complicated" argument by SOE is really just a smokescreen for them in order to be able to put the absolute minimal effort into required in order to extract cash from peoples wallets.</p><p>If they were <strong>truly</strong> interested in simply making players happy they would GIVE us all the tools needed to create dungeons. We would have overflowing pallets of decorations, and layouts, and objects, and spawnwers, and buffers, etc...</p><p>I mean come on...SOE can't design and implement content creation tools that are on par with those in other games? Really? SOE? The professed leader in the industry? They think that the demgraphic of THIS game is less able than the demographic of first person shooters to handle the tools?</p><p>Incremental imporvements in the DM are only going to be seen if they can generate the amount of SC sales that the same time spent on something new can generate. Once you get to the point of diminishing returns you will the dungeon maker abandonded just like everything else.</p></blockquote><p>You've hit the nail on the head.  SOE is interested in getting the maximum amount of money out of their "customers", for the minimum amount of effort.  Be careful about posting such truthful things when you post, though.  Smokejumper might take offense, and label you a troll.</p>