Dev's, drop everything you are doing.

[Cobal]

Dev's, just drop everything your are doing and concentrate 100% on the Unity situation.

Just stop developing new stuff and stop bug fixing because NOTHING in Horizons is more important then restoring Unity or moving it's characters to order/chaos.

No need to waste more then two sentences on this since it is going to be ignored/deleted anyway.

[Vaz]

I'd guess there's only a couple people working for Virtrium have the expertise to work on the Unity stuff. Modelers, artists, coders who are unfamiliar with whatever database software(s) Unity and the other shards use, etcetera can't help it. There's no reason to have them drop everything and sit on their hands while the few who can help Unity do their thing.

Did you have to add the classic "this is going to be deleted" drama line?

[Velea]

This thread was moved rather than being deleted because there's no violation of forum rules that would require it to have been deleted. I probably should have moved it to rants, because it is more of a rant than a serious request for information, but I'd like to use the thread as a "teaching moment" if I may.

It has been stated on many threads at different times that there are different teams working on various aspects of the game.

I've already implied, though this is the first time I think I've come right out and said, that I did most of the Gnomekindle content. And I believe LO has said he's responsible the majority of the other quests. And, of course, Amon did most of the rest. Our art team did the art work from designing to creating the items. Even the client changes aren't done by the same people who do the database work.

Are you really asking to have those who have no experience what so ever working with your Unity characters, who don't know a thing about databases, know very little about coding, and know even less about how the servers interact with one another to stop everything so that the appearance, at least, is that everyone is working on the Unity transfer? The problems, issues and bugs that would result are not what you, or anyone else, could possibly want.

I realize that how I'm saying what I've said isn't very politic. I'm not mincing my words and trying to be nice here. Blunt, direct... yes, those. But I wanted to make it very clear why this thread was moved off the general forum. As I said, I should probably just move it to rants rather than here on the Unity forum.

And Xoshara is basically correct, there is no reason what so ever to "challenge" the moderators with the "this is going to be ignored/deleted" line. Menkure and I are very consistent and clear in our moderating, and you always have the option of sending a PM to Horizons CS if you are concerned about how we've moderated something in the past. However, challenging the moderators as you did would, on many forums, be considered moderator baiting, and we have very clear rules against that here.

In closing, let me state very clearly for anyone from Unity who does read this thread that I do not know the current status of the Unity database transfer, but I will try to find out. In the mean time, assume that no news means that it is still being worked on. From my own experiences with having done the work for this latest event, I know that every time I had to stop and provide a status update, I lost nearly twice as long as it took to give the status update itself to get back into the right mindset to be being productive again. So I don't like to stop our database experts from working very often just to give an update when they've already said that it will be ready when it's ready. Hopefully anyone who has worked with computers in any fashion will understand the honesty in that statement. Sometimes you really just don't know how long a project will take.

[Cobal]

No.

I am quite done with waiting and shutting up.
I am quite aware of your manpower problems.

It is NOT an excuse!
Get our Unity characters back right now!
It's a bloody SQL database, It can't possiby be simpler.

You know, maybe hire external help or something?

I've already implied, though this is the first time I think I've come right out and said, that I did most of the Gnomekindle content. And I believe LO has said he's responsible the majority of the other quests. And, of course, Amon did most of the rest. Our art team did the art work from designing to creating the items. Even the client changes aren't done by the same people who do the database work.

How is this an excuse for still not having copied the character data?

You know what,maybe if this stuff is soooooo difficult (wich I doubt) maybe you should tell us what is difficult about it.
Give us some details on what exactly is this database issue.
There are lot's of folks with a lot of DB experience here, maybe we can give you some insights in how to handle transact code.
I bet me and Vahrok would be able to plan the conversion in a week, the actual jobs may take some time.

Oh and about your moderation, you (or another mod) deleted the post I made in this thread:
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...t=16412&page=5

And Xoshara is basically correct, there is no reason what so ever to "challenge" the moderators with the "this is going to be ignored/deleted" line. Menkure and I are very consistent and clear in our moderating, and you always have the option of sending a PM to Horizons CS if you are concerned about how we've moderated something in the past. However, challenging the moderators as you did would, on many forums, be considered moderator baiting, and we have very clear rules against that here.

There is, in fact, a very good reason to do so.
Or have you forgotten the past of these boards?
Anyway it happened as I predicted and was moved to the Unity forum so that it can be forgotten and ignored.
Just like Peaches and all the other mod's did.

In closing, let me state very clearly for anyone from Unity who does read this thread that I do not know the current status of the Unity database transfer, but I will try to find out.

Any good reason why this is not common knowledge within vitrium?

In the mean time, assume that no news means that it is still being worked on.

No, wrong.
No news means "crap we can't do it but want to keep the carrot out there in hopes that those suckers subscribe anyway, then after a year we will tell them it is not possible and by that time they are invested in their new characters so much that they STILL won't leave!"

From my own experiences with having done the work for this latest event, I know that every time I had to stop and provide a status update, I lost nearly twice as long as it took to give the status update itself to get back into the right mindset to be being productive again. So I don't like to stop our database experts from working very often just to give an update when they've already said that it will be ready when it's ready. Hopefully anyone who has worked with computers in any fashion will understand the honesty in that statement. Sometimes you really just don't know how long a project will take.

The statement "it's ready when it's ready" is not good enough.

If the DB people need time to get in the right frame of mind for db work after having done a report then they are unfit to be DBA's.
I sincerely do NOT understand the honesty in that statement as there is none!
I have been working with computers for ages and ages and in all that time I have never heard about having to switch gears from "normal" to "IT-worker" mode.
Real IT folk don't have to switch gears, they work on intuition and experience.
those that can't do IT on intuition never grow further then the helpdesk.
Who are you trying to kid here?

[edit]
Hey dev's here's a cookie:
If you give us our characters back before the end of the year I'll subscribe for a year.
[/edit]

[Sibbe]

i also offered help with the unity db (by email) but havent heard anything back yet...

[Kepesk]

Um, Cobal, I might be getting into a bit of trouble for saying this, but you're being kind of a jerk. I mean, I know you're upset about the unity characters and all, and I would be too. However, working in IT myself, I see nothing but truth in Velea's statement. There isn't any way you can get a graphics person or a server person to just drop everything and become a database person.

Heck, I was asked to do that once here at my work. I was asked to drop all of the FTP management I do and instead do the task distribution work for the guy next to me who was out for the day. I screwed things up horribly all day! Everyone forgave me because they knew it wasn't my normal job, but I don't think that really work in a sensitive database situation like this.

Even the comment about losing twice as much time getting back into the right frame of mind to be productive is nothing but truth. I know that every time I'm interrupted to do a task somewhere else, or give a status update, or because some system goes down, etc., it takes me forever to get all set up and in the flow to do good work once again. Every time.

Frankly, I have a little more respect for Velea and Vitrium after reading this. I can definitely relate to the situation they're in, and it sounds like they're handling it admirably, despite hardships.

So cut 'em a little slack, would ya?

[Tryagain]

heh I'm going to say this. I have quite a bit of experience with databases.... access to some people who are what I call ultra guru's in both oracle and SQL ( which is what HZ uses).

The task of pulling out unity characters from another database is a task not for the weak of heart. Its not an easy task and its a time intensive task. It depends on how far behind Unity was with the NA patch time lime and more important what database changes were made in those patches. Since we know that Horizons lives and dies on its database well....

Quite frankly I will be shocked if this gets done within the next few months. Nah not shocked but I won't be surprised if there isn't a lot of issues they are going to have to contend with.

One thing I was surprised with on the developer update on this was the "Legal hold ups" do they mean legal issues with the european based owner ? Or the former owners of Horizons ? Did not Luca say that the DB is freely ready to be handed over to whoever wants it from Horizons developers ?

Another point here. This transfer is just going to entail characters and Vault contents correct ? There is NO way of restoring your plot and or lair. The reasons are obvious...

Then why don't you just make new characters ? Unless you are saying that the level 1 to 100 game sucks so bad that you can't stomach creating another character ?

[Takora Drakan]

Then why don't you just make new characters ? Unless you are saying that the level 1 to 100 game sucks so bad that you can't stomach creating another character ?

Search the Unity forum. The players and me have said it 1209786 times why some won't start over from scratch.

Because I personally don't give a company MY money that killed my character where I invested more than 3 years of playing.

[Mairynn Nalnair]

Search the Unity forum. The players and me have said it 1209786 times why some won't start over from scratch.

Because I personally don't give a company MY money that killed my character where I invested more than 3 years of playing.

Virt havent killed your chars, after all you have never been their customer-

[Gorek]

Dev's, just drop everything your are doing and concentrate 100% on the Unity situation.

Just stop developing new stuff and stop bug fixing because NOTHING in Horizons is more important then restoring Unity or moving it's characters to order/chaos.

No need to waste more then two sentences on this since it is going to be ignored/deleted anyway.

Hi Cobal,

I agree with you 100%.

Customers/players keep Horizons going and fund it's delevopment.

I personally am amazed that there have been no plot auctions either manual or automatic.

Just glad I don't run an online game

I used to play on Ice just after beta and am really glad that I didn't return to the euro servers, don't get me wrong, great bunch of people but as time has told no support and now no characters.

[Justa Mirage]

Here's how I look at it:
It's like this: You have a bowl of problems, fixes, and "Things you can do" with the game.

Things like "getting it to work on Vista" and "Moving Unity Characters." to "Plot reclamation" are really high on their priority list, but are also probably the most difficult to implement. They probably ARE being worked on but it's not an easy process. Those won't solve themselves overnight, and I personally hope they are making progress for the unity players, as well as the Vista users.

however...

Those of us who ARE playing the game with XP or 2000 (or linux) and are patiently waiting for content, are getting what they can do right now, add content. Adding content is easier than the 3 above. It keeps the game from being stagnant while they work on the "big 3"

So instead of making the game another year of EI nothingness, they are attempting a mix and balance of what needs to be done. Content and quests in the game are needed to retain the existing customers while they hammer out the bigger problems that take more time.

And because we don't know just how big a task it is to recover a database from a foreign server and decipher the mess so that no one loses anything except their plot or lair (because if you import their character, you have to give them a plot token for their lost plot, and since Chaos has no plots to buy, no unity player would want to play on Chaos because there are no lairs to purchase. They would have to convert all of their properties to novians, and make sure that there were no missing items.)

I see that Plot reclamation will happen either at the same time as unity is moved over, to give the unity players a chance at recovering a lair / plot when / if they are migrated. For a small company, working volunteer, that's a lot of manhours (and yes, I am an IT tier 3 technician) and I watch database people bash their brains out trying to fix things.

[Cobal]

working volunteer,

Altough you probably already guessed this I feel the need to point out that I am aiming this at those at vitrium that get paid for their work and not at the volunteers.

[Shirewood]

I understand his frustration. He wants to play the game. If he's not happy with the "service" I suggest moving on with your life and find a new hobby/game to play. Sometimes the hardest part is making that leap. Such as it is when someone is quitting smoking. If I was a Unity player and felt as he does.. I would probably not approach it the same way. It's his post.. and he said what was on his mind and did stay within the rules of posting for the most part. If you leave the game and stop paying.. you hit them where it counts.. in their wallets. If a lot start to feel and respond as he has.. and leave.. then, less money for them.

As far as their updates to let you know how it's going.. I think they have been doing a terrible job thus far. If I was a Unity player.. yup.. They'd never see another penny from me. Is see absolutely no reason they can't take 5 minutes to say.. "Yes.. we have the database and we have done this and that.. we have successfully been able to recreate a character.. etc." Just hearing "we are working on it" as all they have to say is not enough in my mind. I see NO reason why they can't write 3 more sentences saying a little more about the progress.. and yes.. without "promising" anything.


So.. my grading would go as follows:

Reason to be upset by player: "A"
How it was posted:"D"
How VI has kept you informed: "D"

Again.. I think a post reiterating what was said 2 months ago is a bunch of crap to me. No reason a small post that takes 5 minutes to write.. wow.. 5 minutes.. and yes.. 5 more minutes to figure out where you left off at.. and go a little more in depth as to where you are and what you have been able to accomplish so far is not too much to ask for.

[Aamer Khan]

What if they have not been able to gain access to the DB yet due to legal issues, and are thus barred from stating anything publicly about it...

What should they do then Cobal?

What if they HAVE the DB, but due to lack of maintenance and updates it now needs a years worth of hand editing to make it work with the current Db structure?

Would you rather wait a year, or just create a new toon and keep playing on order or chaos?

It seems to me that they are doing the best they can, and now YOU have to decide if it's good enough for YOU. But please don't try to make ME feel the same way as you since I am not you.

Should you have more info to make better choices... Yes and I agree with Shirewood there. But YOU need to decide what you should do, but should not try and decide for others.

[Velea]

If you leave the game and stop paying.. you hit them where it counts.. in their wallets.

Shirewood, if you, or anyone else thinks that ANYONE working on Horizons is doing it for the money, you are sadly and sorely mistaken. You aren't going to "hit us where it counts" by stopping paying. Calling me a liar, and other things that have been said about me on this thread... that's uncalled for. And I'd like you to think for a moment about who you would rather put forth effort for. The person who calls you a liar and trashes you every single time you reach out and try to help, or the person who treats you with respect and shows appreciation for your efforts.

Kepesk, I thank you for understanding. I don't need, or even want, people to always agree with me. Cobal, you were not ignored, in your initial post or any further ones. However, your posts and others in this thread are in direct and clear violation of forum rules. I will not allow anyone, be it myself or others, to be called liars, or to be trashed the way people are trashing the developers in this thread. This is being moved to rants, and will be monitored VERY closely by Menkure and I over the next few days. If the posts in this thread cannot change their tone signifigantly and quickly, then the thread will be removed. No, not lock. No, not just moved. But totally deleted.

If, however, you are legitimately and truly asking "Please, could we have an update on what is happening with Unity?", I will be happy to continue to try and find out an answer. The choice is yours (plural yours being anyone who posts on this thread).

[Pharcellus]

Dev's, just drop everything your are doing and concentrate 100% on the Unity situation.

Not gonna happen, in ANY game ANYwhere. Unless you are gonna say it in terms like these: "Is everyone who CAN do something about it ACTUALLY doing something about it? If not, why not?".

Just stop developing new stuff and stop bug fixing because NOTHING in Horizons is more important then restoring Unity or moving it's characters to order/chaos.

That's DEFINITELY *NOT* gonna happen. You *know* better than that, Cobal. So, you want to come back to a buggy, content-less game, when the people who CAN do something about getting Unity characters back, actually DO it? Meanwhile, the rest who CAN'T do ANYTHING about the situation just sit around on their thumbs? That's, in a word, crazy.

No need to waste more then two sentences on this since it is going to be ignored/deleted anyway.

Well, I guess THAT expectation didn't pan out.

Has it occurred to anyone here that the most likely explanation for the delay may be the legal issues? I recall that there was some issue discussed during EI's reign (not related to Unity transfer, but privacy of EU players), where the point was brought up that EU has very strict privacy protection laws. Is it possible that the hold up is related to the fact that some of the data includes YOUR private information, and that GN can't release that information, but some part of it is still needed for the transfer to work? I mean, if the system is designed to key everything on a player database (not the character or item databases), as I would expect a game system to be (I have wrote several now, and that's how I do it), but there is private personally-identifiable customer infomation in it, is it possible that THAT is the sticking point?

If so, blame your country's privacy laws for the problem. Sure, I suppose you could say "just delete out the PII bits", but how will they know which game assets belong to whom, if there is nothing left to tie YOU in RL to your HZ assets.

It could get very sticky for everyone involved. Maybe you will have to sign a release and send it to GN so they will release YOUR record out of the database. That is assuming they want to go to that level of hassle. I'm not sure I would.

Anyway, point being, there MAY be problems that are far outside the control of Vi or anyone at Vi. Everyone assumes it is Vi that is holding up the process because they are too busy goofing off and making content and fixing bugs for the rest of us. But, maybe, just this once, considering that there IS a known external third party involved, and there HAVE been questions raised about this issue before, it really is out of their hands.

================================================== =====

I realize that how I'm saying what I've said isn't very politic. I'm not mincing my words and trying to be nice here. Blunt, direct... yes, those. But I wanted to make it very clear why this thread was moved off the general forum. As I said, I should probably just move it to rants rather than here on the Unity forum.

Personally, I prefer frankness and bluntness, but it has to be righteous.

And Xoshara is basically correct, there is no reason what so ever to "challenge" the moderators with the "this is going to be ignored/deleted" line. Menkure and I are very consistent and clear in our moderating, and you always have the option of sending a PM to Horizons CS if you are concerned about how we've moderated something in the past. However, challenging the moderators as you did would, on many forums, be considered moderator baiting, and we have very clear rules against that here.

No, that's not righteous, that's self-righteous. Close, but no cigar.

Velea, if you are going to play the role of CM, you need a little bit of chutzpah. Don't respond to the words of the message, respond to the spirit of the message. You have to stop for a minute and ask yourself "WHY is he saying that?" The whole reason for what Cobal said in that sentence is because the "leaders" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of this GAME community have a long and sordid history of mishandling customers and their communications. When you understand that, there's no moderator baiting involved; it's just simply built up frustration from being squelched over and over again for so long. Thus, the best response to it is to avoid it coming into being by not ignoring it (which you didn't), not locking/deleting it (which you didn't), and NOT grousing about the expectation being expressed and threatening it otherwise (*sigh* which you did do), which is only baiting the players anger that much more, as you can see.

In the mean time, assume that no news means that it is still being worked on.

That's not anywhere close to good enough. Sorry, but there it is. ESPECIALLY when you said YOU would do something about it in the past, and didn't follow through. (Yes, I am posting ex post facto your apology for this, but it needs to be pointed out for the next part).

From my own experiences with having done the work for this latest event, I know that every time I had to stop and provide a status update, I lost nearly twice as long as it took to give the status update itself to get back into the right mindset to be being productive again. So I don't like to stop our database experts from working very often just to give an update when they've already said that it will be ready when it's ready. Hopefully anyone who has worked with computers in any fashion will understand the honesty in that statement. Sometimes you really just don't know how long a project will take.

That's why you (Virtrium) need to do two things, YESTERDAY: 1) Hire someone whose job it is to devote themselves FULLY to being an effective Community Manager. I have harped on this for more than FOUR years, through THREE companies (I was not here for EI, thank the gods). 2) Set up regular meeting times in one form or another so that person can do their jobs and communicate to the rest of the team, to get from as well as give to the team what each other needs to do their effin' jobs.

Everyone knows, by default, that it will be "ready when it is ready". Durrrr. You don't take a cake out of the oven while it is still a rising pool of goo. It doesn't take a PhD in computer science to understand that fact. However, you will notice that there is a window and a light in just about EVERY oven in the world. You know why? So people can look in and see what the status of the baking cake is. Virtrium NEEDS this window; Horizons has NEVER had it, and, for the most part, doesn't seem like it ever will. That's sad, because a window is a very important business tool; in the case of a company it allows information, knowledge, and understanding to go both ways.

I have worked with computers ALL MY LIFE. I will be found dead in my chair with 10 computer screens around me, the most central one showing a compilation window for some product I am writing called "The Holy Grail of Software", and one fatal compilation error left to fix. That said, I understand INTIMATELY what software and computer projects take, and I understand and appreciate the mentality of taking the time to do it right. It is the reason I spent more than a year telling Tulga repeatedly in the forums "Take your time and do ARoP and Lairs right, or you're gonna blow it". Well, for me, they rushed both at the end, and I hung it up for two years as a result.

Shirewood, if you, or anyone else thinks that ANYONE working on Horizons is doing it for the money, you are sadly and sorely mistaken. You aren't going to "hit us where it counts" by stopping paying.

Not everyone works for money, but without money, no one works. So, while you may be doing it for the fun, or the opportunity, for those who ARE doing it for the money (because they can't afford not to), if we hit them in the wallet, it will end up hitting YOU where it hurts: the opportunity. Think about that before you dimiss the importance of keeping happy, PAYING customers again.

And I'd like you to think for a moment about who you would rather put forth effort for. The person who calls you a liar and trashes you every single time you reach out and try to help, or the person who treats you with respect and shows appreciation for your efforts.

You're in a customer service position. You have to do what you do the best you can do it, no matter what anyone "calls" you. You have to have a VERY thick skin, especially when you "work" for a troubled company, but you have to have INCREDIBLY sensitive ears. You can't worry about whether anyone treats you with respect or shows appreciation in a way you'd like it to be shown. It's a bonus if they do, but you should NEVER change your approach just because they don't. Remember why you are doing this, assuming you are doing it for the right reasons, and not the wrong ones. In the latter case, you won't last very long, because CS is a CRAP job. Always has been, always will be.

You'll get a LOT farther sympathizing with the worst trolls than you will by ostracizing them. However, it has to go far beyond sympathy. You have to help them focus their angst, and then become their champion. If you can't do that, you're not really of much use, much like flowers in a war zone. We've had more than enough of DMZ beautification here, thanks.

I don't see anyone ignoring the Unity issue or the Unity players.

Then you have contracted "developer blindness", because (up until yesterday), no one has said a peep of significance about Unity for quite a while, even though it has been asked regularly.

Anyway, I am hoping that this new Amarie person is the long-awaited and fabled Community Manager that will fix the communications problems once and for all. While the update post was nice, if that's the only one we ever see (and it needed to be a lot more detailed and frank, IMO), I supposed I will have to classify the effort as YAF (Yet Another Fail).