1555 replies to this topic

[Vassago Rain]

stjobe, on 14 October 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

To all the SC hopeful out there, let me just give you a bit of a history lesson. Anyone remember Battlecruiser 3000 AD?

Derek Smart was dreaming the same dream Chris Roberts is dreaming, and look where it got that game. It had more cancelled releases than actual releases - and those releases it had were buggy to the point of unplayability. Still, a lot of people rooted him on (I know I did), wanted the game to be all that he envisioned it to be, but it never happened.

So by all means, hope that Roberts can do what Smart couldn't, but please, please don't get your hopes up too high. Anyone can talk, and even if Roberts has a good name and a good history, the game is still three years away from release and anything can happen.

The difference is that Derek doesn't so much have an ego, as he's the physical manifestation of ego itself. He didn't have a team, didn't know what he was doing, and still to this day doesn't.

[stjobe]

Vassago Rain, on 14 October 2013 - 02:30 PM, said:

The difference is that Derek doesn't so much have an ego, as he's the physical manifestation of ego itself. He didn't have a team, didn't know what he was doing, and still to this day doesn't.

I have no contention with that, the man seemed to be rather crazy on his good days

I'm just saying it's been dreamt of before, never been successfully done, and it's still a long way off.

[NocturnalBeast]

DirePhoenix, on 14 October 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

The Saber 'Mechs (Wolverine and Griffin) will be added on Dec. 17, as described on the Project Phoenix page.

You do not work for PGI and that is the delivery date, which I am well aware of, but it does not indicate if the saber addon will still be able to be added after tomorrow.

[POWR]

Ed Steele, on 14 October 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

You do not work for PGI and that is the delivery date, which I am well aware of, but it does not indicate if the saber addon will still be able to be added after tomorrow.

I think you're well able to answer the question yourself. Indeed, what makes you think that Project Phoenix will go off sale tomorrow? That's just when the people who preordered will get it, and when people who didn't can buy it and get it instantly.

Edited by POWR, 14 October 2013 - 02:38 PM.

[MechFrog1]

I think the metacritic score is fair considering how close the "pro" reviews were. The public reviews were bombed by both sides, and what resulted was a fairly accurate appraisal of the game as it stands. Just remember, you review the game you have, not the game you hope you have in six months.

POWR, on 14 October 2013 - 02:30 PM, said:

Seeing as how one of your major points was that the community is being treated as noise, then I don't think you can complain about the toxicity of the community being to blame for any failure or success

You seem to be confused. I do not think this or any other game's community is toxic. We're all gamers. When you go to a major gaming convention like PAX, you get to see just how awesome gamers are to each other. They're a mathematical constant in this equation. It's the other variables that determine how supportive we can be for a game.

Edited by mint frog, 14 October 2013 - 02:41 PM.

[POWR]

mint frog, on 14 October 2013 - 02:39 PM, said:

I think the metacritic score is fair considering how close the "pro" reviews were. The public reviews were bombed by both sides, and what resulted was a fairly accurate appraisal of the game as it stands. Just remember, you review the game you have, not the game you hope you have in six months.

Which makes metacritic completely useless as the game we have in 6 months will likely be quite different

I am, however, amazed that people actually read metacritic and put anything into it.

Edited by POWR, 14 October 2013 - 02:41 PM.

[MechFrog1]

POWR, on 14 October 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

Which makes metacritic completely useless as the game we have in 6 months will likely be quite different

I am, however, amazed that people actually read metacritic and put anything into it.

In order to have a game in six months, we need a steady stream of new players to replace the ones that burn out, or otherwise leave. If the reviews are less than stellar, and the new player experience is as hostile as ours is at the moment, those new players leave, or they don't ever download the game in the first place.

I was playing this morning and after dying to pack of invincible spiders I had the opportunity to spectate a new player. He was in a trial mech, in third person, and clearly having troubles. After firing into the hillside in front of his mech, and failing to keep his targeting circle on his intended target, he decided he needed to stomp up over the hill to get a better shot. Upon reaching the top of the hill he was cut down by enemies. I was halfway through a helpful explanation on how to get out of 3PV when he disconnected.

If this is what a new player has to experience, can you blame them for leaving? If you were an impartial (hurr) reviewer, how could you possibly say that the game is awesome and anyone who expresses concern is just a hater? Do you expect these new players to stick around for 6-12+ months waiting for the game to be at a place where you think a review would put it at a 9/10?

Edited by mint frog, 14 October 2013 - 03:55 PM.

[DisasterMedic]

mint frog, on 14 October 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

In order to have a game in six months, we need a steady stream of new players to replace the ones that burn out, or otherwise leave. If the reviews are less than stellar, and the new player experience is as hostile as ours is at the moment, those new players leave, or they don't ever download the game in the first place.

I was playing this morning and after dying to pack of invincible spiders I had the opportunity to spectate a new player. He was in a trial mech, in third person, and clearly having troubles. After firing into the hillside in front of his mech, and failing to keep his targeting circle on his intended target, he decided he needed to stomp up over the hill to get a better shot. Upon reaching the top of the hill he was cut down by enemies. I was halfway through a helpful explanation on how to get out of 3PV when he disconnected.

If this is what a new player has to experience, can you blame them for leaving? If you were an impartial (hurr) reviewer, how could you possibly say that the game is awesome and anyone who expresses concern is just a hater? Do you expect these new players to stick around for 6-12+ months waiting for the game to be at a place where you think a review would put it at a 9/10?

I think he expects this game to have the Dwarf Fortress appeal, in that the learning curve is an expected part of the game and often times the fun of the game. The problem is that Dwarf Fortress has emergent gameplay and narrative for the people that decide to do things like the amazing LPs and round robin fortresses, whereas MWO has nothing of the sort.

Also, obligatory Paul/Russ are taking the Dwarf Fortress approach to UI design (We'll do it if and only if we are forced to because people completely stop funding us) comment.

[Marchant Consadine]

dangerzone, on 14 October 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

The forums....not so much because of the natural toxicity that so many of these 40yo dudes QQ and such on the forums and turn into raging 12yo's like as if they just got shot on CoD or something.

Didn't bother to read all of the ranting on previous pages, but this is a very valid point. When I was playing EVE I quickly made the personal desicion of never reading the official forums. With time I've come to expect that the official forums of a game are full of people who are way too consentrated on their own conserns. Nowadays I only browse the announcements and such for official news. Then when I'm bored I browse the other sections and I'm generally very entertained by them.

Right now I'm on the latter stage and I just have to say that the game is infinitely better for me than it was when I paid for founders (couldn't even play back then) and even then I didn't regret it. If I could've actually played back then I would've paid more. Now I got the overlord to show my appreciation. Now I'm not saying the game is perfect or anything, but it has been moving forward most of the time. I understand that they screwed up with UI 1 and it's been a huge dump of resources to do UI 2.0. They have had a lot of difficulties adapting cryengine to their needs and that has taken a lot of resources. And more...

All in all they have had maybe a bit more difficulties than the average MMO and thus the new features haven't been as frequent as they and we hoped. I won't claim to know where all these difficulties came from or what all of them were, but the ones I know of I realize were necessary. Point is all companies have these problems to some extent (I've worked in a company where one mans mistakes ultimately lead to the company being backrupt several years after the guy responsible was fired). Anyways I'm confident the features will come with time. They seem to be very close to UI 2.0 and after that I believe they'll concentrate on the core features like CW.

The biggest (and only ones that really matter) mistakes they did were going to open beta too soon and even worse they launched too soon. Launch is very bad since that is when the reviews come in to the picture. They should've just announced that they launch when UI 2.0 and the core features and CV are in. In other words they shouldn't launch unless it's feature complete (in essence; I know MMOs are never feature complete).

I'm rambling again. Point being mistakes have been made, but the game is better than a year ago and I firmly believe it will be even better a year from now. Beats the {Scrap} out of tanks already IMO (sadly most my friends playing tanks disagree, but after we get CV in I'm sure I can turn their heads).

Edited some typos. Not a native so forgive the rest.

Edited by Marchant Consadine, 14 October 2013 - 04:47 PM.

[Chronojam]

POWR, on 14 October 2013 - 02:40 PM, said:

Which makes metacritic completely useless as the game we have in 6 months will likely be quite different

I am, however, amazed that people actually read metacritic and put anything into it.

Why would you be amazed that people read Metacritic? Steam -- an incredibly popular distribution platform -- places Metacritic scores in a prominent place on every product's page, and considers it important enough to include along with architecture, price, and release date whenever you conduct a search.



I'm not sure if you're trying to be hipster here, or otherwise betraying an ignorance of the industry, but Metacritic's "Metascore" is actually written into publisher-developer contracts as actionable criteria for all sorts of clauses.

For example, the incredibly successful "Fallout: New Vegas" (a follow-up to Fallout 3 and direct sequel to Fallout 1&2) by Obsidian had language in its agreement that stipulated a mandatory 85-or-better Metascore in order for Bethesda to provide a cash bonus. Unfortunately, due to several launch-day issues, New Vegas was stuck with an 84 and Obsidian lost out on quite a chunk of change despite the long-standing commercial success of the title. This is not fan speculation, this is industry fact:

Chris Avellone said:

[Fallout: New Vegas] was a straight payment, no royalties, only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn't.

[Nekki Basara]

POWR, on 14 October 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

Ohhh so showing random renders and stuff counts as actual progress to you? I have a bunch of other projects I know where that just gets the devs hate and derision. Not to mention that the current situation is that they're continuing to pile on promises and stuff, using an engine that was never meant to do this if they release anything in the next 2 years that's not just some decoupled, nonsensical standalone, then wow... amazing. Till then, it's just a game that's been in development for what, 2 years now with nothing but a poorly optimized hangar to show for it. And yes, I'm one of the idiots who bought into it. Do I ever even bother reading their forums or newsletters? Not really, no. No point. We're 3 years away from release, nothing interesting is going on now.

One would suspect that "stuff" does indeed count as actual progress.

stjobe, on 14 October 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

To all the SC hopeful out there, let me just give you a bit of a history lesson. Anyone remember Battlecruiser 3000 AD?

Derek Smart

I hilighted the problem with Battlecruiser 3000 AD for you.

[The Boneshaman]

tomarrow is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong day. get up at 6:00 am get ready for work than get off at 3:00pm.
i just know the clock is going to fo 2 min. forward than 5 min back.this whole week seamed to lag on. maybe ill have a tone of work to do so the day will go by faster. damn its going to be hard to sleep tonight

[Cmdr Rad]

Nekki Basara, on 14 October 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

Derek Smart


I hilighted the problem with Battlecruiser 3000 AD for you.

True Story: My friend did some contract 3D modelling for Derek Smart, and said that the guy is actually pretty decent, and was not what he was expecting from the infamous tales of Smart's Word Wars in Cyberspace. Also taught my friend various 3D modelling techniques. Think this happened post-BC3000 though.

[Johnny Reb]

stjobe, on 14 October 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

To all the SC hopeful out there, let me just give you a bit of a history lesson. Anyone remember Battlecruiser 3000 AD?

Derek Smart was dreaming the same dream Chris Roberts is dreaming, and look where it got that game. It had more cancelled releases than actual releases - and those releases it had were buggy to the point of unplayability. Still, a lot of people rooted him on (I know I did), wanted the game to be all that he envisioned it to be, but it never happened.

So by all means, hope that Roberts can do what Smart couldn't, but please, please don't get your hopes up too high. Anyone can talk, and even if Roberts has a good name and a good history, the game is still three years away from release and anything can happen.

Well, I have supported both, this game and star citizen. Hope they both succeed!

edit: can add steam OS to that mix!

Edited by Johnny Reb, 14 October 2013 - 10:38 PM.

[POWR]

Chronojam, on 14 October 2013 - 05:38 PM, said:

Why would you be amazed that people read Metacritic? Steam -- an incredibly popular distribution platform -- places Metacritic scores in a prominent place on every product's page, and considers it important enough to include along with architecture, price, and release date whenever you conduct a search.

I'm not sure if you're trying to be hipster here, or otherwise betraying an ignorance of the industry, but Metacritic's "Metascore" is actually written into publisher-developer contracts as actionable criteria for all sorts of clauses.

For example, the incredibly successful "Fallout: New Vegas" (a follow-up to Fallout 3 and direct sequel to Fallout 1&2) by Obsidian had language in its agreement that stipulated a mandatory 85-or-better Metascore in order for Bethesda to provide a cash bonus. Unfortunately, due to several launch-day issues, New Vegas was stuck with an 84 and Obsidian lost out on quite a chunk of change despite the long-standing commercial success of the title. This is not fan speculation, this is industry fact:

They don't use the "User score" as far as I can tell from the screenshot. I don't look at it anyway and I wouldn't recommend anyone looking at it because it doesn't make any sense and because of your second comment:
That publishers have ridiculous concepts such as requiring a developer to meet a certain score there is just ridiculous and yet again highlights the problem with giving "scores" to products when it in general is highly subjective. I knew that these clauses exist and I find it just another indicator of the sad state of this industry and yet another very good reason to not visit metacritic.

Edited by POWR, 15 October 2013 - 04:18 AM.

[hagak]

CAn we still order Project Phoneix? I just tried but it accepted my CC but never gave me any confirmation.

[DragonsFire]

hagak, on 15 October 2013 - 05:22 AM, said:

CAn we still order Project Phoneix? I just tried but it accepted my CC but never gave me any confirmation.

You can still order PP but you may want to wait another hour or two (PGI will start arriving at their offices then) as I know a few other folks had had some issues with ordering as well and it's possible you're hitting the same problem. The package itself should still be on sale for a bit.

[Nekki Basara]

Cmdr Rad, on 14 October 2013 - 10:32 PM, said:

True Story: My friend did some contract 3D modelling for Derek Smart, and said that the guy is actually pretty decent, and was not what he was expecting from the infamous tales of Smart's Word Wars in Cyberspace. Also taught my friend various 3D modelling techniques. Think this happened post-BC3000 though.

He might finally have learned his lesson. The main problem with him, IIRC, was he'd get called on something online and then not only would he double-down, he'd wade into flamewars off his turf just to defend himself by making even wilder claims. If someone would sit there with a wooden spoon and smack his fingers every time he tried to post I'm sure Battlecruiser 3000AD would be one of those games that I never uninstall, but he spent too much time forumwarrioring.

[Chronojam]

I guess Derek wasn't so very smart after all :haw: An excellent example of how to derail your own development efforts and overpromise, for sure. Chef Roberts luckily seems to have adequate funding and solid technical expertise for his team, though. Guy knows he risks being another Derek Smart if he drops the ball.

[Ahasver]

Hotrod is not free in my account, do I need to do something to get it?

I purchased Overlord Package quite a while ago.

Edited by Ahasver, 15 October 2013 - 02:02 PM.