An alternate to just walking away.

[GrfxGawd]

Trying to absorb everything that's happened, and happening.

Some people are really upset and rightfully so. Some are past the point of being upset, and again, with good reason. I have a proposed idea, one that doesn't involve just pulling all of your work and closing the door on ZOS.

Organized protest. I know, to some it might seem silly, others impractical. But stop and consider for a moment. If the third party development community, organized, were to completely pull support for say a month, it would send a very loud message, and one that would be spread industry wide.

If Zenimax pulls it's same "trick" of trashing the API without depreciation, providing the API well in advance, in general acting with utter and complete disregard and contempt for the efforts of the addon community - shut it down, for a full month. I myself would personally go so far as to suspend my account for said period of time too.

Now, what do I hope to accomplish.

1. Send a very clear and definite message to Zenimax that you can't do this to your community.
You can't do this to the gamers, you can't do this to your addon development community. It's terribly disruptive and completely unacceptable business practice.

2. It would garner sizeable media attention from those outlets that cover gaming industry news.
As a former reviewer and reporter on gaming events, this is the stuff of headlines.

3. Force Zenimax into action: Even if that action is lack of action.
Whatever and however they choose to react it will tell us precisely where we stand with Zenimax as a community. Both third party devs and even Gamer Joe. Any action taken by, or not taken by Zenimax would clarify what path is most likely best taken by those of us who freely donate our intellectual properties and time to further line their pockets.

I wanted to put this idea forward as an alternative to just walking away from all of your time and effort. I'd much rather do something like this than see everything we have currently lost. Maybe I'm just playing the part of Pollyanna here, but I hope that it could lead to better, more reliable relationship. One that would significantly increase value to all involved parties.

I could already list at least half a dozen detractors who are going to come in here, and I don't know that anyone will support the idea, but it's got to be better than just dumping everything into the bin and setting it afire.

[SinusPi]

There's just one problem with that: addon authors are irrelevant. We give Zenimax no extra revenue, we bring in no (significant numbers of) new players. We're just there because it's easy to write your OWN interface through some sort of API, and afterwards it's just more convenient to make it open rather than be the black sheep who said a big, loud "NO" to the developers community.

We'd have to organize a PLAYERS' protest, "hey Zenimax, we're playing just because addons allow us to, if you keep crippling them we're leaving".

And good luck with that.

[GrfxGawd]

Originally Posted by SinusPi There's just one problem with that: addon authors are irrelevant. We give Zenimax no extra revenue, we bring in no (significant numbers of) new players. We're just there because it's easy to write your OWN interface through some sort of API, and afterwards it's just more convenient to make it open rather than be the black sheep who said a big, loud "NO" to the developers community. We'd have to organize a PLAYERS' protest, "hey Zenimax, we're playing just because addons allow us to, if you keep crippling them we're leaving". And good luck with that.

I don't think they're irrelevant, I never have. Every game where they've been and I've played they've added to my experience and enjoyment. Just like here.

I get what you're saying. It would make gaming industry news though...

I'm out of ideas at the moment. Good ones or poor ones.

At one point in my life I had the hubris to believe there was no problem without a solution. And for a long time, even if I had no clue at what I was doing (and that wasn't infrequent) I found those solutions, either alone or sometimes with them help of others better educated, more knowledgable.

So I guess you could say I was really lucky or just had a phenomenal run but eventually life caught up with me and bit me in the ass so hard the world for me, stopped turning. I finally found a problem that no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much i poked and prodded or lifted, I couldn't find a solution. And I'm still stuck there today. But I guess someplace inside me I'm still wired, driven to find that solution. To bridge however wide that gap may be. To create the solution that isn't even possible if by no other means than shear tenacity, will, and determination.

But I know now for fact, there are problems that do not have viable solutions.

Maybe this is one I just have to let go.

[SinusPi]

To me, it's not a matter of "no solution" vs "perfect solution". It's a matter of baby steps.

Should we make demands and organize protests? Maybe it would work, or maybe it could have adverse effects, giving addon developers a bad name of rabble-rousers and drama queens. Pros and cons to weigh.

Should we contact Zenimax and ask for some better API, more docs, more obsoletion, more attention in general? Definitely, but they might (and probably will) not have the time and motivation to devote work-hours to us. But we already do that, in multiple feature/improvement/bug reports.

The fact that we DO have an API available and we DO have the ability to enhance the game is an additional benefit that's not in the official features and only a thin margin of user base makes any use of. I'm thinking we should make the best of it, as we always do - but keeping a reasonably low profile, not to antagonize people who in fact owe us nothing except the game as it is.

[Kentarii]

I've already decided before this patch that I wasn't going to continue my sub.

Haven't played the game the last 3 weeks (blame it on summer, football and what not) and only noticed that a patch came out when somebody posted a message that one of my addons weren't working anymore.

Just checked and saw that 2 of 4 addons worked without any code change and two of them will require some fixes.

Why should I spend time fixing addons for a game I don't play anymore? Only motivation is to make the users of my addons happy, so I will fix them for this release.

Perhaps I should add my own disclaimer:
"This addon might or might not break after each time ZO releases a new patch due to lack of regard to the addons community by changing the API without thinking about the consequences."

Will I spend time fixing addons once my sub runs out? No.

[katkat42]

Originally Posted by GrfxGawd I don't think they're irrelevant, I never have. Every game where they've been and I've played they've added to my experience and enjoyment. Just like here. I get what you're saying. It would make gaming industry news though...

There are actually a lot of regular players out there who would be severely annoyed, were their add-ons to stop working. If you could get enough of the right add-on authors to, say, wait a month to release updates to their add-ons, come the next API version, and state why, the uproar would be pretty big, I think.

But I guess someplace inside me I'm still wired, driven to find that solution. To bridge however wide that gap may be. To create the solution that isn't even possible if by no other means than shear tenacity, will, and determination.

This tenacity is why I started writing add-ons, actually. Something about the UI annoyed me so badly that I had to fix it. And nobody else had fixed it yet, so I figured out how to do it myself. As far as fixing the communications gap, I'm still stuck in "searching for solutions within the system" mode, so I don't think we need to resort to my above idea yet. Of course, I have been known to stay in that mode long after I should have gotten angry, so...

The way I see it, ZO has had only three major API releases so far. The first time, going from beta to live, I didn't see much of any documentation released at all. The second one, Craglorn, I saw a detailed description of changes, but it was on pastebin, not anywhere official. This time, they did post an official API patch notes, but it was incomplete, and as you said, "too little, way too late." As long as they keep improving, I'm willing to stay with them. So next time, I expect either: 1. Detailed patch notes posted a day or two after the patch, or 2. another partial description, but posted with or slightly before the patch release.

TL;DR: I'm not near the walking-away point, yet. I am frustrated and annoyed. But as long as ZO improves, I won't get too close to walking away.

Maybe this is one I just have to let go.

::insert obnoxious Disney song here::

(Sorry, couldn't resist )

[blackcom90]

You are all in the right and the sense of frustration is palpable. I don't know the agenda of zenimax online and the priorities assigned to the other problem in the game, but obviously the develop of a good api and the support to the third party developer is the last voice in the list for them.
Probably they have greater problem that can be worsened to a greater use of a more deep api.
If you want to catch their attention and prove to them that the a large number of the developer program add-ons keeping in mind the limit of the server and try to work in the more oculate way possible a huge protest would be not proficuous.

Something has to be done, but there are steps to follow.
Watching the patch history is obvious that the zenimax online is trying to give the developer more... but these "baby steps" are really slowing the growth of the game. The main role of the addon is to give the players an environment more flexible and personal. Something like turning a public place in a "home sweet home".

This lack is reflecting to the relative low number of player on eso, a game with great potential.

If you want to show to them that supporting you could be a great way to increase their incomes you have to use a moderate and constructive approach.

The first step is raising a good number of firms and let the player know of the problems that afflict the developers.
Not pointing at zenimax as the evil one, but giving them the possibility to let the zenimax know that we can bear with some stupid bug but we can't bear to play in a standard environment without flexibility.

The second step is presenting these firms to zenimax with a document that shows the passions of the developers and how their work would increase and improve their incomes and notoriety in the mmos.

Third the developers must request someone with an high profile in the zenimax online that can represent the zos and follow the work of the developers. It's frustrating don't receiving answer to really important questions and don't have someone to talk to.

After these steps the work of the developer should be easier and more proficuous for the zos.

Obviously the developers have to act as one to realize all of this.

Maybe i'm saying impossible things, but if you move following short and easy to achieve steps i don't think all of this would be too impossible.

I think this game is really good and can give a lot in a new concept. But waiting the zenimax to realize our hopes and the peoples to understand this is frustrating.

We should at least help the developers community in raise the stake with the addons and their efforts.