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Jun-28-2008 08:39

There have been some recent events on this game that warrant some concern. It’s no secret that there has been a lack of interest. Much of this may be attributed to the release of Shades of Mystery. If that is what people want to play, far be it from me to tell them not to play it.

That being said. I am still a paying customer of Sleuth Noir. As a paying customer there are some things that I expect. Ben has done a decent job at keeping the server up and running. We had a slight issue earlier in the week with not being able to travel and Ben did a great job of addressing the issue and getting it corrected. He always has done a great job of taking care of things. He has not however kept the game fresh and interesting. We recently had the expansion of the USS Sleuthetania. There was a buzz before the initial launch of it and we couldn’t wait to see what was in store for us.

Well what did we get? The opportunity to pay $20,000 to get on board of a ship and do nothing more than play cases. Sure there are some new characters and new items along with 2 new “coming soon” links. That’s it! I can’t help but to feel disappointed in the way this has played out. Two weeks later, the links are still coming soon and the interest of the boat has already gone away. I know I have no plans or reason to get on the boat and be cut off from my agency completely. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think a lot of people are disappointed with the boat as well and some may even be irritated and feel cheated by the whole development.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh and we are missing some secret that still needs to be unlocked on the boat, but if people aren’t playing, the secret will not be unlocked. I know that Ben is just one person and can only do so much. He has a lot on his plate right now with running both SOM and Noir. I’m sorry, but SOM means absolutely nothing to me as I don’t play over there.

Jul-1-2008 03:27

Wow! So many suggestions and quite honestly I like them all. ;)

Of course, we could go on and on making suggestions and brainstorming. But ultimately, the admin is the one who will decide whether to implement these or not.

So I guess what I am trying to say is: Paging Sleuth Admin. Please read this thread and tell us what you think of the ideas and suggestions of the sleuth community.

Peace. :D

Jul-1-2008 08:00

Thank you Aknas!
I do agree with you!
We need to some way get Sleuth Admin involved in this. :-)

Oh, I soo wish that he would approve of the development team suggestion from Breitkat, and be willing to tell something about the amount of effort he is willing to put in, and allow the community to organize and prioritize the suggestions.
- well, first we might need to have someone appointed to "contact person" who will be the leader of the development team (and I think that may be some of the active mods/editors that Ben chooses might be the right one?)
And, there need to be some kind of organisation of the team, so that those willing to involve will get oportunity, and suggestions/brainstormings have a channel to go into. And, there need to be a way for the community to impact the different ideas. And if Ben would be willing to give his comments on the different ideas, as to whether it fits HIS game or not, and whether it's much work connected to the idea or not, it would be excellent!
Then perhaps the development team and Ben together could make plans as to how they would like to proceed?

Good questions for the development team (community) to find answers to I think are:
* Are there any new skills that might be introduced to Noir? What are they good for, how do you use them, and how do you get them?
* Would new factions of some kind be interesting?
* Are there new quirks that can be introduced to cases?
* New items that would be nice? A new family of items?
* What kind of goals (personal, inter-agency, agency, short-term, long-term, group-competitions) that might be developed to add to the game?
* What will make the game even more inspiring and fun?

- one thought that have come to my mind are: could a special communication skill/knowledge, like knowing how to use morse, or a code-language(enigma??) be useful for something? May be that can give some extra information about something (what??) that can help in some way(how??)?

Jul-1-2008 08:05

Some times I think that finding some goals that don't require doing most possible cases would be a good thing, as, even if we have the oportunity (in some way) might take more time than we are willing to put into the game. I don't know what kind of goals this should be, because I think it should be harder to get than the ability to solve AI cases, so if somebody got ideas for something we could ask Ben to give us here?

Jul-1-2008 16:23

First of all, great thread here!

First, being someone who will always stand by Ben (until he performs a monstrosity, at least), I think we need to give him some understanding. Hypoware is a small company. It's run by basically a few people, and they have two complete games and communities to attend to and please. We can't expect them to be putting out updates every week or even every month when they only have a few "staff members," if you can even call them that. Hypoware is not a huge game company with hundreds of staff members.

Sure, the easy fix seems to be to say, "Well, hire some more staff members." But therein lies the problem. The company is small and can't afford to just hire full-time staff. For a while, Sleuth went years without profiting.

Now to the topic of SOM. Yes, it took over. It's a much larger community because the game is more attractive to most players. It has graphic game play, and that's appealing to more. So, Noir feels like it has been forgotten. However, we have to remember, SOM isn't even close to being completed in its release. There is still LOTS to release over there. It's a wonder Ben even found the time to create the Sleuthetania for us.

That said, the Sleuthetania is a bit of a let-down, yes. But we did get something! And we still have yet to know what will be going on there. Remember when Cairo was released? - It was just an extra city. A place to play cases. But now we have catacombs and other things for which to travel there. Give Ben some time; he'll make the Sleuthetania great: he just needs the time to do so.

There are some great ideas here. And we should never stop pumping them out. The Sleuthetania was a completely player-driven project. And it became a reality!

Jul-1-2008 16:25

However, we have to remember that Ben has ideas and projects that are yet to be finished at both Noir and SOM. Give him some time. I'm positive that he'll be finishing the Sleuthetania, pumping out more content at SOM, and he'll have many more updates for Noirs in the future.

Let's just make sure that we understand that Hypoware is small, it has two complete games to attend to, and we still have yet to see all of the fruits of the Sleuthetania and other updates. Give it some time. The flowers have to blossom.

Jul-1-2008 20:58

All good points Jojo, and believe me this is not to bash Ben, it never was. I do understand that hypoware is a small company. I understand that it is running two games. But, I am only paying to play one of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going anywhere. But the fact that he also has Shades means nothing to me. Just like the people who only play Shades, Noir means nothing to them. Try and look at it from this perspective. If I had something going in in RL and I was not able to play for a month or so, would I get an extension on my subscription. That answer is probably a no.

I don't think anyone expects there to updates every week or even month as far as new stuff, but maybe a progress report.

I don't think the problem was so much of Sleuthetania being a letdown, then the way things were presented to us. Like miss snopes pointed out in an earlier post, Ben posted that there would be more on the 2nd voyage, nothing more has surfaced at all other than fixing the SM. I think that may have turned some people off.

Having been a big part of another online community, as I posted earlier, its not so much the game that keeps me as it is the community. But if the game does not move forward, the game and the communuity will die.

Now I agree with the small compnay maybe not being able to hire people to help out, thats where Breits idea of a development team comes into play. That decision is solely Bens if he wants to implement that.

Jul-1-2008 20:58

One thing to keep in mind is lets not try and reinvent the wheel here. Start slowly. How many of the editors and mods have went inactive. Of course IMO I really don't think they need to be replaced, but removal would be a good start, possibly replace them if he sees fit. Then maybe start working on a development team. The problem there is to find the individuals that could fit the mold of what hes looking for. Once in place, it would take a big load off of his shoulders.

Many of you would be surprised at what could be accomplished as a community if we all stick together.

Jul-1-2008 21:59

Good thread. :) I'm on hols so I don't have much time to respond but am pleased to see some positive thoughts on the issues raised. :)

Jul-2-2008 02:50

Jojo: we all know that Hypoware is a small company. I guess it's about Ben in person in size. It's a great company, if you see the great games he have been able to produce. Many companies with much more people have NOT managed to do what Ben have done. That's true. And if I have read the threads correctly, Ben not only have 2 great games to take care of, but he also have a little baby sleuth as well.
On the other hand, I do think that he might take advantage of getting the community involved. - and I don't think any of us have ever dreamed about getting paid for the job. Except for may be a couple of days or hours extension on (one of) the subscription, if much work is put in?
I know that if I had some support from Ben, I would be able to develop some small things, (for free of course, I already have an ordinary job), releasing Ben to concentrate on the bigger things. Also I do think that a development team could easen the work, as there are many things with getting an application working that's not programming. I know in the company where I work, we calculate that the core programming is less than 25% of the complete work of getting the job done. So it's easy to imagine the potential for what the community can do if allowed to be put in a position where we can cooperate with Ben.

Jul-2-2008 02:54

Oh, I see that I have used some different doubles of me, when responding on this thread.
Huglover, Ija and LoveHugs share the same brain (when it's availiable), even if they also borrow someones others to control them some times. They are created to play with, and are happy when someone takes the time to play with them. :-)