CB2 forgotten, phasing out? (in General)

I noticed for a while now, CB2 has been kinda forgotten. We don't get many updates to the game anymore. Like UC hasn't been address amongst other issue in game as of yet which is usually around this time when we have a great re-scale.

Also anyone been to the "Character Atrributes" Section, Protection has been moved out of the game a LONG TIME ago yet it is still there, before everything was tidy but now everything is all over the place and the game is kinda dying and being phased out. SG was added to the game but thats not in the attribute section either as if it doesn't even exist. How long can it take to simple update the layout, i mean i think making the spell was the difficult part no? But everything seems to be minimal updates to game and rushed. Anyone get a similar feeling? Is there a CB3 coming out or is there a tombstone coming up soon for CB2?

seems like its just on autopilot

sky falling
rinse
repeat
repost

--

A lot harder to kill CB than some cosmetic cleanup issues...

All beware the newest change month change.... non-change!

But seriously, things are alright. I don't see any reason to worry unless Jon says worry.

Jon probably has real-life issues to attend to, so this game is on the back-burner. That's what it seems like to me.

Besides, making changes can't be easy. He'd need a great deal of time available, and that time may just have not been available lately.

I dunno, I don't worry about it too much. As for your final question, though...I'm pretty sure CB2's tombstone would rise before Jon put in the amount of effort necessary for a CB3.

Jon probably has real-life issues to attend to,

Notice the keyword there "probally" jon doesnt really update us enough. So we dont even know for sure if has real life issues going on, and even if he did. One would think he'd try to increase the bus-factor if he can not do the work himself. The way he's handling this situation is kind of selfish.

he makes the game for us to play
its entertainment for us
for us

not selfish

he makes the game for us to play
its entertainment for us
for us

That has nothing to do with it.

Then I misinterpreted something very obscure to me I suppose. My apologies.

Jonathan has several (very young) kids, a career, a wife, and a social life to deal with outside of this game.

He doesn't owe us an update on how busy his life has been, and I don't think it is selfish of him to have his priorities properly placed.

With the increased bus factor its only time until some huge change will happen. (VA will be a skill, SS will be a skill again)
Some new items get introduced, new classes will be introduced, the vampire class with VA as a skill would rock, NS and Jon take all the little problems and work them out in a week. Minor cosmetic changes left and right, updating the character attributes, etc

There's really no point in playing a dead game.

Jonathan has several (very young) kids, a career, a wife, and a social life to deal with outside of this game.

he then should place another person(s) in charge to help the game develop or grow then? Non-biased/fair people... if such a thing exists in this game... outside, Jon.

Well I think we can all agree that if Jon more aggressively updated CB, he could make a lot more money out of it. Which would turn it into more of a job and less of a hobby.

I don't care either way, but that's what I'd do at least. Wasn't that the reasoning behind buying all past supporter items for 11 bucks?

"There's really no point in playing a dead game."
-Kefeck

"Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya"
-Violent J

NS, can you implement changes? Or is that still wholly Jon's domain?

since jon is away a lot maybe someone can figure out a way to create free money in the game say $5 million and put it onto everyone's character in the game. perhaps 10 M for supporters =) lol

>jon doesnt really update us enough

as far as i can tell, jon doesn't owe anyone an update on anything, the man has a life, cut him a little slack.

i would have to agree on this, cb1 lasted 5 years, now cb2 is 4 years old. if there are no regular change of the month everything begins to slide downwards. i cannot wait for cb3 so that the cb2 doors will be closed to new players ^_^

and if jon cant keep to a once a month change then it shouldnt be called that anymore, or atleast stop expecting it.

Relax, Jon is busy making CB3.

off topic: if CB3 comes I'm out, its just silly how many people invested a good amount of time, money and effort into this game.

CB1 was gone because of some inherent problems that couldn't be resolved. CB2 is imho better then CB1 was if you look at balance and damage.

On topic: maybe jon and NS are busy and don't have the time, then they should imo appoint someone who can.

I think people need to remember that this is a FREE game. Supporterships don't make Jon much money, neither I expect do the past supporter items being for sale. From what I understand NS is involved because he invested in the game, but to get anybody else involved might involve paying them a wage. Unless anybody here is willing to volunteer and do the job for nothing AND can guarantee their time for the forseeable future.

Anybody?

Unless there are bugs that actually stop the game from working, most of the things that 'need' a fix can wait. I think the best thing any of us can do for the game is keep playing. If at some point in the future CB grinds to a halt then that happens doesn't it? Jon owes nobody any favours. And unless we start paying a proper fee I don't think we can expect anything other than what Jon has time to do.

i would never claim an investment in a game, i look at it more as entertainment value per dollar. with that view, my time here has been entertaining and cheap.

with that being said, bi-directional communication from developer to community is not required, but it sure goes a long way to making the community feel a part of the process rather than just being buffeted on the winds of fate.

i do believe he was looking for a new job recently? hope3fully he found a great one!

as for nightstrike, after his hiatus, is he even still a co-developer? inquiring minds really don't need to know but we want to. honestly though, as long as one of them are logging in regularly i do not feel too abandoned.

its not about what jon does or does not owe anyone, this is a game, a game that people pay him to run. So when those people expect the game to be updated then it should be a possibility. Rather then well maybe if we wait 2 more months 1 skill might change..

But that's the thing, we DON'T pay him to run it. We pay for supporter privileges. That is, a favourites list, the current supporter item and that our profile won't be deleted if we don't log on for a long time.

It's a complete misconception that we're paying Jon for his time that's for sure.

"Some items do not spawn normally in the game; to support Carnage Blender development, these items are available for purchase by credit card for $11.00 USD. "

I would say we pay him.

But that is just my point of view.

and along with paying 11usd for items i can name a guild I created that still exists over a year later that i left and they are all players who are not supporters yet they were never purged...

If the community failed to buy a certain number of past supporter items would CB just stop working?

No. (caveat... if nobody ever spent any money at all I don't envision Jon going purely out of pocket to keep things running)

If I were to have sent Jon no funds whatsoever between becoming a supporter in 2005 and now would I still be able to play?

Yes.

Ergo I am not paying to play CB and neither is anyone else (since these situations are not unique to me).

I'm kinda getting the impression that this thread reflects the sense of entitlement that is deplorably rampant in society these days.

Now I don't mean to be dismissive of the folks who have invested USD in their time here (heck I have myself) but the fact that you have chosen to spend money doesn't necessarily entitle you to any guarantees.
Years ago I could have bought Nortel stock at $125 per share and now it is $0.12 per share and the company is bankrupt. It's life, ya pays your money and takes your chances.

I come here because I enjoy my time on CB, not because I expect to someday reap a reward for my hours. And as this is free entertainment I'm thinking I am pretty damn happy with Jon's work so far. At very least a past supporter item is a better entertainment investment than going to see Saw VI in my opinion.

Bah.... why do I get into these rants....

Kids, remember, keep your stick on the ice.

GL - I can implement changes, yes.

Regarding payments, "pay to play", the cost of CB, and CB3....

CB3: No

CB is a free game. You can do more without paying money for this game than you can in MANY other games. Most games are setup such that you can join for free and check it out for free, but if you ever want to play it "for real", you have to pay, and you have to pay a lot.

To give you an idea of finances, look at GameForge. They are a gaming company that produces and runs online games. They measure the cost of their games in units of $250k. That's not CBD, that's USD. Their programmers bill at $50 / hour (starting), and they can only afford to do updates usually semi-annually. The regular users of their games number in the 1k to 10k range, and the average paying user sends about $50 to $75 a month directly to the owners of the game.

That is not the reality of CB. In the land of CB, developers (Fex, et. al.) work for free, and when Jon or I spend 10 hours on the game to do a cleanup, that doesn't transate into $500 in our pocket. The average paying user sends FAR less than $50 a month (remember that USD spenders mainly buy CBD, supporterships are for life, etc etc)

Sometimes people here think something similar to, "I thought of it, so it should be simple, and why can't you do it?" Complexity of game changes are not based on the complexity of the thought, and just because YOU have free time, does not mean that other people do. Sometimes, the things that we do to put food on the table need to take priority. I, for instance, have been working 75-85 horus a week since Thanksgiving, 7 days a week. I get home sometime around 2-4am, and I leave by 8am. Now, this won't last forever. I'm trying to find some balance in my life, but it won't happen immediately. I'm trying to get things back under control. As an example, some of you know that I take kung fu. Well, I had my first lesson in months yesterday, and it was fantastic. That's another step closer to having a life that I can manage. It is my goal to be able to do a good 20-40 hours of work on CB this month. Will I hit it? I'm sure going to try.

In the meantime, however, I don't see anyone offering to pony up the several thousand dollars it would cost to buy time from a tcl developer. So until then, please understand that while suggestions are always appreciated, "demands" just make things all the much harder mentally.

If you want to help, if anyone wants to help, compile a list of things that need to be cleaned up around the site, and I'll get to it this month. Not things like "Add this feature", but things like "Remove Protection from this list". That would be a big help, actually, and would be a lot more effective than just complaining that people aren't giving you more of the time they don't have for free.

(Large quantities of money are also appreciated :)

Animated character pictures have been broken for at least 2 years.

s/broken/fixed

I would really like avatar comments back... but maybe we should make a seperate thread for this?

if we really want changes, we as the community are responsible for making CB grow. What does that mean?

More referrals, and get your friends to join.

But NS, I think a great change would actually be for the FB side of CB. Create a system where it'll be easy to invite your friends. There are much lamer games than CB on FB that spread like a disease, I can see some massive income if we get it right.

you guys also have to remember that jon asks for money in order to do any cosmetic change, how many people have donated for that cause? if thats not paying to keep the game running i dont know what is, i know hes not around that much, by no means is this a shot at jon, he has after all created this great game thats been around for the better part of a decade.


what needs to be realized is that this is a ADD/ADHD generation and things get stale fast, in order to keep up everyones interest there needs to be at least minor tweaks here and there to keep the crowd pleased

>what needs to be realized is that this is a ADD/ADHD generation and things get stale fast,

please speak only for yourself when using lines like that....

/me agrees with three.

agreed. A Huge upgrade to the game from a perspective of growth would be to fix the Facebook bugs and allow it to run smoothly on the FB system. As 3/4ths commented FB games grow exceptionally fast and putting CB in that arena only makes sense

"In the meantime, however, I don't see anyone offering to pony up the several thousand dollars it would cost to buy time from a tcl developer."

Soon as I win the lottery mate! ;)

Putting CB on FB would definitely increase the player base! But it will also bring in a lot of new players who would be spamminig forums and chat as such... Rules will need to be clearly stated early on! And with lots of new players coming in, the new players chat room may become the fun room again! If so th00p will come back! YAYA!

Why did CB not work on FB in the first place?

I think it's because CB hasn't taken advantage of the FB friend invitation system. If you look at games like warbook and my hero's ability, you can invite all your friends to the game which will give you some benefit and if they accept and play more you'll gain an additional benefit.

In other words are referral system needs to be adjusted to the face book system.

I think some of you are looking at CB as a job that needs to be payed for, sure some expenses need to be satisfied at the least such as cost of servers and running them and the supportership probably surely covers that. CB was never intended to be a business or for Jon to make heaps of money from this to get paid $50 for work. CB was a project for him like a hobby he does to enjoy. Like some people play games for money but most of us play them for free right? So should we expect to play and get paid now? no. We play out of passion or other things we do for free we do out of passion. You might play basketball for free for fun and recreationally, while others get paid millions to play for a team to make money for other people. This is similar CB is not a business it is a hobby/project of Jon's so please stop asking for thousands of dollars, for programming work. To a person who does it as a fun hobby its not work its a hobby and passion and fun. And tweaking things and making the game grow and evolve makes Jon happy. our money we have contributed do help him enjoy the hobby/project for free rather than out of pocket. For example if you love to swim or skii, and that is ur hobby chances are you have to pay out of pocket to enojoy that. Do you see it as work? should you be paid to skii, or swim? No you do it cause its your hobby and you enjoy it. its not work for you and you will pay out of pocket for that lift ticket or to go to a swimming pool club of sort. So people with their analogies of being work and payng $50, please don't speak unless you know what you are talking about. And Steve and a few others were right. Also if there are real life issues, could have at least had some sort of a log notifying everyone that for example no changes for a certain amount of time. Its a simple courtesy that keeps players in the loop of what to expect or not to expect you know? That takes like what a min or less to make the message? Not hours and hours of tireless work.

Am I wrong or does it make sense what I said?

You're misunderstanding things Viper...

The people talking about money are the people trying to make the game better. $50 an hour is what it would cost if we had to pay someone to improve the game. CB is a hobby, and an expensive one to have. The monthly charges alone are more than some folks hobbies. Time for people with programming as a skill set is very valuable, I'm very grateful that the volunteer code staff here at CB has given us their time.

I second QBnovice's comment!

What ever Jon has been doing for the most part i feel is more than fine and was pretty awesome. I don't think it needs more work than what Jon has been giving it in the past. Right now seems to be missing but before there was a perfect balance.

You guys are insane...

i personally am going to see what i can do to save this game!! but sadly i gotta go to work for now so stew on that :P NS for prez!!

At Steve's request, I deleted his flurry of crack-induced messages :)

I look forward to seeing your ideas come to fruition, Steve :)

I humbly thanks Jon and NS for what they put into CB2 so far, and awaits future surprises (please no Robot Monkey Ninjas hunting me down. :P).

I think the supporter items etc only covers running the server and the power and stuff (probably not even those), but I might be wrong. :P