No, no. You don't understand.
Ok, so....tonight in "na" servers...which are supposed to be the "east coast".....pings are now averaging 108....more aggravating every time i sit down to play this game. I think at this point I'll give it a couple days more...but I'm close to giving up on this game.
Couple of questions:
1) Why can't we at least have private servers available for the northeast?
Because Private servers are hosted on the same VMs as public servers, and, for whatever reason (probably cost), there are currently none in the Northeast.
2) Why in god's name can't we see relative server pings in the server list?...like what has been the norm for like....forever?....instead of this vague "na"....or city name? You have to actually jin the server and play for a few minutes before your ping registers...and then...quit mid game if your ping is to high to play....
Because the game components are distributed, this is asking for server-level and client-side changes. Both are in code.
I'll speculate (somewhat educated speculation): You'd need to change the current client-gameserver implementation and make a system service. Continuing the speculation, this requires architecture, design, implementation, and testing. It'll take a sprint team three weeks, most likely (they'll do other stuff in the sprint, too), but what Josh has been telling you about understanding the build environment - the toolchain, CI/DevOps - is as important as understanding the architecture (where and how in the distributed elements to make changes like this).
Ash, Josh, I think there is a centralized service (AWS? my Process Explorer says Hawken has connections to three machines in EC2) for all of Hawken, and there are game serverhosts by region, correct? If so, this is THREE places needing modification: the central registration server, the game servers, and the client IF.
That is a lot of change, Compliance. How much value - in terms of business revenue - does that bring?
Kanban and Agile Scrum have the Product Owner order the backlog (PrioritiesTM) by weighted-shortest-job-first (WSJF), aka 'Net Present Value' (NPV); work To Do list items are sorted, and the ones with the most contribution (value) are done first. If it costs a lot to do for a little return, don't do it first.
It's entirely possible that Reloaded doesn't use Scrum, btw; this is just one way to run a project.
Now, for you, Compliance: I am a Program Manager (I have a nicer title in the org chart, but this is what it amounts to), and I've been running Application, Embedded, and HW (including FPGA) projects and programs for about 24 years; I will freely admit the last time I personally coded anything for production was December, 1998.
3) Why is the server access filtered by skill or experience?.....I mean wth?...the better you get...the less chance you have of ever playing again?...is that what we want?....I mean...i'm not that great a player and I have like 1 choice of east (supposedly) or midwest server to choose from...sometimes...what is this vague filter of "game enjoyability"?....if you don't play against skilled players...you'll never get better....if you try to make everybody happy in that they are always winning or "having close games"....its just not possible...and it makes for a really messed up and unenjoyable system...
Well, I feel it'd be better to list the MMR ranges, and make everyone's MMR visible (i.e. on the killscreen). Higher-MMR players would theoretically be ashamed to stomp, and if there were guides (not a tutorial, but visual indications for new players) to indicate fitness, that would be better than locking.
The real problem is low player count. We've been over this about 1e6 times.
4)....and while we're at it....lets bring back the player ability to switch teams so that we can manually balance out team skills when things get out of whack during the game....yes...this can be abused...but the majority of players will utilize this properly....like they always have....and bring back the vote kick if needed...why try to reinvent the wheel?....it's not working....
I joined Hawken 1/9/13. I don't EVER recall a votekick. I concur with the switch button, but go back to my answer for #2. There are other things to fix, this one would need to be evaluated (how much more money would the game bring if we didn't lose x-many players to not letting players self-balance/switch teams, versus how much would be lost if we let gamers abuse the feature and stack teams).
I've said this before too many times...I've been here since early on.....the whole package has gotten to the point where I'm within a session or two of throwing in the towel...
I think I remember you joining circa Steam release, but could be mistaken. Your tone here is petulant, and it's what drew my response.
Your feedback to Reloaded has to be summed with everyone else's, and then, when the actual development team is fully hired and able to produce demo'ed code and orchestrate releases, what the team will work on needs to be determined between the various roles in Reloaded's organization. Your input may be drowned by business need.
If you don't see that after this explanation, I don't know what to tell you. You seem young; I don't know if you're out of HS or in college; I will say it's someone with a lot of experience who'll make the decisions. Threatening to throw in the towel as a user if they don't accede to your priorities is childish and suggests a lack of experience.
Nice hat, btw, it really reflects the inner You.