696 replies to this topic

[MechFrog1]

Belorion, on 10 October 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

Chrono, even a cynic such as yourself has to admit that the time between when they first started improving their communication (wasn't that your main complaint about a month and a half ago?) and now isn't enough time to implement all of the things of which you speak?

There is only so much forward momentum they can have in such a time period. Obviously early on they overestimated their ability to leap these hurdles. At this point you have to admit it will take a little time. Things are looking up for ui2.0 and dx11. From hear on out expect steady and constant improvements. You can't expect the world on a platter in one day.

He isn't expecting it on a platter in one day, he's expecting it by February 2014. Now apparently you're suggesting that's demanding too much. Who is the cynic again?

Heffay, on 10 October 2013 - 05:01 AM, said:

Some people do expect that. It's not reasonable, of course, but hey, here we are.

I don't expect the world on a platter in a single day, but I do expect people to be professionals and use their time productively on features that were promised rather than features that no one in this community wanted, and now that they're in the game, aren't being used. By their own admission.

Edited by mint frog, 10 October 2013 - 06:47 AM.

[Navid A1]

Belorion, on 10 October 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

You can't expect the world on a platter in one day.

Can i at least expect an empty platter?...
like a game that can actually be played and doesn't freeze hard every time?

[xX_Nero_Xx]

nice info short and sweet, what we all want to know is a date for lobby and private matches so we can actually play league matchs. this is what the community wants to know as a whole

[Strengar]

Macbrea, on 08 October 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

The fastest is RADD (Rapid Application Disposable Development). This is where they put something into game and let the customer tell them if it works. No testing, just go with it.

They have put out a quality product. They are trying to keep up the product in order to keep being able to put out more product.

Macbrea has hit on some good information in 2 posts. I hope everyone reads the post about developement and how it comes about because even though Macbrea made it look simple there is quite a bit that goes into it.

Being a business analyst I cringe at the RADD option. I have had projects pushed to a production server because the business needed things fast and they have turned out to be a disaster. I would rather that developers spend time to develop and test before turning something loose, hence the public test server but one of the worst things a developer can do is be the final word on their own testing............that is where the public server comes into to play (pun intended).

For those people who think that something should be quick and easy to put out please note this.
Something may be "quick and easy", 2 words that normally make most programmers cringe, but the steps provided by Macbrea still have to be applied even if they are all covered in 10 minutes. In that 10 minutes it may be realized that data is in quite a few different places because of the Normalization that was applied to the databases. Also the person making the change has to change their mindset to the new project and when done has to "refind" their location in the previous project. This takes time and time is money.

I'm sure the company has a spreadsheet or internal note system that has so many "simple" ideas that are just not cost effective to put in right now. PGI needs a victory and they are working towards it and from what I see here everyone seems to be on board.

[KableGuy]

mint frog, on 10 October 2013 - 06:45 AM, said:

but I do expect people to be professionals and use their time productively on features that were promised rather than features that no one in this community wanted, and now that they're in the game, aren't being used. By their own admission.

They had 1 guy working on this for a couple of days. Are you really saying that you think it is a BAD THING that people don't use 3PV? You sir are an *****.

[Silent]

Yeah, it's a bad thing that the developers took time to implement a feature that is never used.

Do you think that someone just said, "Hey, I'm gonna put in 3PV!" and did it in a night? Look at the original post in this thread by Bryan Ekman, look at all the red tape a feature has to go through before it even sees the light of day. It didn't take a couple of days on a whim in between bites of pizza.

Edited by Silent, 10 October 2013 - 07:34 AM.

[KableGuy]

Silent, on 10 October 2013 - 07:32 AM, said:

Yeah, it's a bad thing that the developers took time to implement a feature that is never used.

Sure it's never used, by you. I am sure that new player use it for their first 10 matches or so.
Another point is would you purchase a car that did not come with a spare tire? People hardly ever use those. Why do they wast their time with it. It is an unnecessary thing and i am sure they have more than one engineer figure out things like size, and where they will fit it and some way to keep it out of the way since it will almost never be used.

I bet you wonder why the goons are universally loathed,

Edited by BitMonger505, 10 October 2013 - 07:38 AM.

[Screech]

Good info, just wonder how much of it will actually pan out. Most of this could have been written in 2012.

[Hastur Azargo]

I personally don't loathe goons, at least as far Word of Lowtax and the Violent Combat Robot Show go, but I'll have to say that many people (certainly not just goons btw) are a bit too impatient. Sure, 3PV is bad, and its current limping-zombie-of-itself incarnation is even worse, but even so, it's somewhat served its purpose, for reviewers to shoot some out of cockpit footage and maybe for newcomers to get to see their beautiful mech. It probably wasn't worth the development time, but it's practically a thing of the past.

Now we all want MWO to grow to EVE scale (hopefully without the gargantuan time investment requirements), but there's a limited amount of speed at which the tiny PGI can deliver it, so let's be patient. It's not like we can't entertain ourselves with other games in the meantime.

[MechFrog1]

BitMonger505, on 10 October 2013 - 07:30 AM, said:

They had 1 guy working on this for a couple of days. Are you really saying that you think it is a BAD THING that people don't use 3PV? You sir are an *****.

It's a bad thing to spend any amount of time on a feature that isn't wanted and isn't used. The whole thing was a fool's errand from the start and had PGI listened to the community from the start, that time wouldn't have been wasted.

Azargo, on 10 October 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

It's not like we can't entertain ourselves with other games in the meantime.

The last thing MWO needs is for people to go play something else. When that happens, people tend not to come back.

Edited by mint frog, 10 October 2013 - 07:53 AM.

[Hastur Azargo]

Well, I keep coming back, even though I also play WT and GW2, not to mention offline titles, if only because this is BT and this is giant stompy robots. I do understand that any game wants to take in as many players as possible, but frankly, I think MW is a niche game, and it's questionable whether its at all possible to permanently make a gamer that doesn't have a thing for giant robots fall in love with MWO, and I personally would also question the necessity of it.

I mean, weren't we admonishing PGI for not paying enough attention to core audience, while trying to appease newbies just a month ago? If someone would rather go play Hawken or Titanfall or Star Citizen or Sims instead of MWO, then can PGI really sway them? And should they really want to?

Edited by Azargo, 10 October 2013 - 08:07 AM.

[Grendel408]

Why isn't today next Tuesday?

mint frog, on 10 October 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

The last thing MWO needs is for people to go play something else. When that happens, people tend not to come back.

I play other games too... can't just play MWO exclusively. That'd drive me @$%!ing nutz (no offense, Devs LOL!)... I like playing Civ5+exp, War Thunder, DoW2 titles, and others...

Edited by Grendel408, 10 October 2013 - 08:12 AM.

[Jakob Knight]

fccolhitman, on 10 October 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

nice info short and sweet, what we all want to know is a date for lobby and private matches so we can actually play league matchs. this is what the community wants to know as a whole

A chat lobby has long been one of the things I have wondered at not having in this game, as it is a basic requirement for any kind of organized team generation and match organization. It's something I thought would be one of my higher priorities to see in this game.

Then, a few days ago, I logged into Age of Conan after they merged their servers. What I have encountered there has given me pause to consider this. When you have global chat, it in inevitable that players will use that chat not for the game, but to gain attention for their politics, request spam, 'gold seller' spam scams, drama generation, and to push agendas from outside the game. It can get so bad you cannot actually spot a person asking a question or trying to answer one. That doesn't even mention the use by chat to grief people by spamming messages in people's faces (which we have already seen happen in the limited chat channels used in matches right now).

This makes me wonder if having a chat system in MWO would really be an improvement for the game, or if silence might not be the better way to go. It's counter-intuitive, but the simple fact is that people do not use things as intended, and any tool will be abused (especially by video gamers).

I wish I knew which way would be better for the way forwards.

[Grendel408]

I don't know about an active chat system... but a built-in voice comms system would be nice

[Tannhauser Gate]

I think a chat lobby is absolutely needed for MWO but with spam filters and content filtering to prevent what you are describing.Btw, Bryan said that "lobby" in MWO means a prelaunch ready room mode and not a general chat area. The general chat area will be part of the community interaction pillar of the game - the exact name escapes me atm.

Anyway, a chat area is important for recruiting, training, helping new players, sharing information, for units to show their numbers and colors in force, roleplay and talk trash, to bark announcements, etc. It would finally give all the players a venue to gel as a community and rally behind this game or serve as a place for people to vent their frustrations. It will also be the first direct way to experience the numbers of players at any given time. And it will also give the forums a break from all the noise and bring it back more toward user feedback and accouncements.

A chat area is vital for this game and the community. I agree that spam and trolling will be an issue but that can be mitigated with filtering. Personally, I cant wait. The out-of-game community activities (another metagame essentially) represents the culture around the people and the game which is huge part of the total experience.

Edited by LakeDaemon, 10 October 2013 - 09:12 AM.

[rubberhead]

cant wait for the new game modes, But i still wait for more Information about Loyality Points and whats possible whit them

[Chronojam]

Belorion, on 10 October 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

Chrono, even a cynic such as yourself has to admit that the time between when they first started improving their communication (wasn't that your main complaint about a month and a half ago?) and now isn't enough time to implement all of the things of which you speak?

There is only so much forward momentum they can have in such a time period. Obviously early on they overestimated their ability to leap these hurdles. At this point you have to admit it will take a little time. Things are looking up for ui2.0 and dx11. From hear on out expect steady and constant improvements. You can't expect the world on a platter in one day.

This is very true. Personally, I think that bad communication (a poor understanding of what the existing community and most probable audience wanted) caused them to drift into producing a game for a somewhat-imaginary new "target demographic" at the direct expense of the actual players. It's cool to reach out towards new players and expand your audience, but it's important to not alienate older fans and compromise (no pun intended) your product.

This director update, while a lot of the "news" might give us deja vu, was a huge step in the right direction and it's really great to know where things are in the development pipeline. "It's done when it's done" really makes people frustrated, be it your boss or your customer. Explaining challenges you're facing, areas where you are making progress, or things you're still designing is far more interesting.

Remember that neat explanation of the UI/HUD bugs? Not only did it take the heat off PGI somewhat, it also helped avoid the "done when it's done/working on it" trap, and gave us something to sink our teeth into. Given past situations, it's easy to understand why the players might be timid and frustrated and quick to leap to negative conclusions.

Consider an alternate reality where PGI, in December, told us that they underestimated interest in player-run mercenary units and were going to redesign community warfare to focus more on that instead of revolving so much around loyalist-vs-loyalist great house combat. They tell us they're looking into unit asset ownership (dropships/travel, corporate hangars, equipment pools) and will have some new proposals within a month or two. Then they explain what they've come up with, and we nod our heads or scream if it sounds bad.

In our reality, we blew past the February "CW begins" milestones and continued through summer without any news.

[Blue Footed Booby]

Belorion, on 10 October 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

Chrono, even a cynic such as yourself has to admit that the time between when they first started improving their communication (wasn't that your main complaint about a month and a half ago?) and now isn't enough time to implement all of the things of which you speak?

There is only so much forward momentum they can have in such a time period. Obviously early on they overestimated their ability to leap these hurdles. At this point you have to admit it will take a little time. Things are looking up for ui2.0 and dx11. From hear on out expect steady and constant improvements. You can't expect the world on a platter in one day.

Who said anything about "since they started improving communication"? Chrono is talking about all the features that woulda coulda shoulda been in by now. PGI is communicating again, which is great, but what they're currently communicating indicates that what many of the so-called doomsayers, to include Chrono, have been saying for a while now is pretty much dead on. You can think Chronojam is being melodramatic about it, or maybe that he's not being constructive (I don't agree, I'm just saying I could see those arguments) but I don't think it's at all fair to characterize his statements as "expecting the world on a platter in one day."

Don't get me wrong, PGI is making progress, we're approaching release of some long-awaited features, but the point still stands that you don't recover from falling behind by resuming the original pace.

[Chronojam]

Belorion, on 10 October 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

You can't expect the world on a platter in one day.

Poor management/prioritization can easily sap the time you do have, though. This isn't PGI's first project.

[Chronojam]

stjobe, on 10 October 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

Didn't they tell you? You'll be getting your meal one bite at a time, irregularly, over five years or so. That was the deal.

It's annoying that I was assured this place was non-smoking, and saw people lighting up while I waited for a table. Then I was assured there were actually smoking and non-smoking sections, and was somewhat okay with that. Unfortunately that wasn't entirely true either; they meant my personal table was non-smoking because I wasn't smoking, despite all the tables around me puffing away.

(Third person view gives you lung cancer)