213 replies to this topic

[Kunae]

Roadbeer, on 14 November 2013 - 09:11 AM, said:

Oh yeah, they need a healthy dose of Humble Pie... or K Town cake (which can be quite humbling)... whichever.

The cake is a lie!

RG Notch, on 14 November 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

My comments regarding PGi's resume wasn't about them trying something new, it was about acting like successful companies that can get away with telling their player's it'll be done when it's done. If you've got a track record of success people will cut you slack. When you have none you are required to get things done on time or people will use the slack to hang you.
I said before you get slack as a new company if you act like know you are one. Once you decide you can be arrogant and you know best, well then you've worn out your chances.

This has been their problem from the start. The arrogance of thinking they know what they're doing, when they are really entering new territory for their company. It's plainly evident whenever the "big 3" interact with the community.

[Heffay]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

This has been their problem from the start. The arrogance of thinking they know what they're doing, when they are really entering new territory for their company. It's plainly evident whenever the "big 3" interact with the community.

Is that more annoying than when an auto mechanic decides he knows what is best for the game and demands PGI makes the game according to his design wishes?

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Is that more annoying than when an auto mechanic decides he knows what is best for the game and demands PGI makes the game according to his design wishes?

If he's using common sense, then he's in a better position to know what's best for the game than PGI is.

[Roadbeer]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

The cake is a lie!

While many of

the ingredients

are similar.

The Cake is

most definitely

not a lie.

[Heffay]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

If he's using common sense, then he's in a better position to know what's best for the game than PGI is.

You may have your opinions about PGIs ability to make video games, but they've been in the business for over 10 years. If they were really as incompetent as you say, they would have folded years ago.

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 12:21 PM, said:

You may have your opinions about PGIs ability to make video games, but they've been in the business for over 10 years. If they were really as incompetent as you say, they would have folded years ago.

PC Video games(MWO) != Console Video games(PGI's "experience")

That's like saying that someone who writes apps for I-Phones can be considered a PC application developer.

[Heffay]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

PC Video games(MWO) != Console Video games(PGI's "experience")

That's like saying that someone who writes apps for I-Phones can be considered a PC application developer.

I thought you were talking about game design, not their particular platform programming abilities?

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

I thought you were talking about game design, not their particular platform programming abilities?

It's about neither, really. It's more about the philosophy of game design.

A PC game, especially one based on an IP with as rich and storied history as BT/MW, requires a great deal more thought, attention, and understanding than making a console game about bass-fishing. The scope needs to be entirely different.

Add multi-player into the mix and it gets even more complex. Online community management requires a deft touch, especially if your company is new to the genre, and has no real, relevant, track record to work off of.

My impression is that PGI leapt into this project without comprehending the scale and scope of what was necessary. Their arrogance, in this respect, continues to this day. This game would be better off with a new indie developer, who didn't have this false pride in accomplishments which aren't applicable. Someone who could genuinely admit error when it happened, could fully engage the community, and endeavor to create the game that people deserve in collaboration with the core player-base.

On the technical side, especially art and movement, etc, the staff at PGI have done some great things. From a design and leadership perspective, the people in control have failed both their staff and the community, to this point. Until they can be completely forthright with everyone, they will continue blindly down this path to the destruction of this game.

[Heffay]

I knew you'd find a way to show how they are a complete failure despite staying in the industry for over a decade.

It's the sign of a good conspiracy. An organization can be simultaneously deviously smart and insanely dumb at the exact same time.

[Heffay]

I do agree that they bit off more than they can chew. And probably made some design decisions early on that is biting them in the ***. They are basically recreating the entire UI, instead of building it from the beginning with all the featured needed in mind.

Good thing I'm a patient man. ;-)

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 02:51 PM, said:

I knew you'd find a way to show how they are a complete failure despite staying in the industry for over a decade.

It's the sign of a good conspiracy. An organization can be simultaneously deviously smart and insanely dumb at the exact same time.

Just look at pretty much any corporation.

Lots of good and talented people work for those corporations, but they still succeed or fail primarily due to the idiocy, or not, at the executive level.

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

I do agree that they bit off more than they can chew. And probably made some design decisions early on that is biting them in the ***. They are basically recreating the entire UI, instead of building it from the beginning with all the featured needed in mind.

Good thing I'm a patient man. ;-)

The real issue isn't the early design decisions being bad... it's a combination of two things:

1. Not being willing to publicly admit that they messed up with their early design decisions and work on finding a better, common sense solution.
2. Continuing to make really foolish design decisions to this day, and patting themselves on their back for their "ingenuity".

[Heffay]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 03:59 PM, said:

The real issue isn't the early design decisions being bad... it's a combination of two things:

1. Not being willing to publicly admit that they messed up with their early design decisions and work on finding a better, common sense solution.
2. Continuing to make really foolish design decisions to this day, and patting themselves on their back for their "ingenuity".

Here's the problem with your theory. They *are* a successful company in the video game industry. Most companies fail in the first year, and they've been going strong for over 10, in an industry that has claimed more than its fair share of big name studios. And hiring to boot.

So let's assume as a successful company, they know a thing or two on how to earn a dollar (even if it's a worthless Canadian one). Which is good; you want them to worship at the altar of the dollar, because making money makes you more money. But for your theory to be correct, not only do you have to believe that they are all of a sudden losing money, but they abandoned whatever business sense they had to not make the changes you want just out of... spite?

The fact that they aren't coming back to the playerbase and saying "sorry, we made mistakes, we're going to make the changes you asked for and I hope you can forgive us" means to me that they aren't suffering, that possibly some of their decisions were not only right, but profitable. It's not like EVE where they had to get on their knees to placate the player base. They aren't doing ANYTHING to say "ghost heat is wrong" or "3PV was a mistake, we'll get rid of it and try something new." And to think they are sacrificing dollars out of spite despite being a successful company is *very* hard to believe.

I'm sorry, but take a step back and look at what's going on. If they really were struggling or worried about the future, they sure aren't acting like it. And IGP sure doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop them either. Both of them are happy enough with the way things are progressing that they are continuing down the path, and I have to believe that dollars are driving them over spite and stubbornness.

To sum it up:

- Successful for years
- Hiring
- Not fellating the playerbase

Sorry, but your theory does not hold water.

[Silent]

Heffay doesn't seem to realize that a common practice in game development is management keeping everything under wraps till the last minute and then springing a "Surprise you are all out of a job!" party on the staff.

[Kunae]

Heffay, on 14 November 2013 - 05:03 PM, said:

Here's the problem with your theory. They *are* a successful company in the video game industry. Most companies fail in the first year, and they've been going strong for over 10, in an industry that has claimed more than its fair share of big name studios. And hiring to boot.

So let's assume as a successful company, they know a thing or two on how to earn a dollar (even if it's a worthless Canadian one). Which is good; you want them to worship at the altar of the dollar, because making money makes you more money. But for your theory to be correct, not only do you have to believe that they are all of a sudden losing money, but they abandoned whatever business sense they had to not make the changes you want just out of... spite?

The fact that they aren't coming back to the playerbase and saying "sorry, we made mistakes, we're going to make the changes you asked for and I hope you can forgive us" means to me that they aren't suffering, that possibly some of their decisions were not only right, but profitable. It's not like EVE where they had to get on their knees to placate the player base. They aren't doing ANYTHING to say "ghost heat is wrong" or "3PV was a mistake, we'll get rid of it and try something new." And to think they are sacrificing dollars out of spite despite being a successful company is *very* hard to believe.

I'm sorry, but take a step back and look at what's going on. If they really were struggling or worried about the future, they sure aren't acting like it. And IGP sure doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop them either. Both of them are happy enough with the way things are progressing that they are continuing down the path, and I have to believe that dollars are driving them over spite and stubbornness.

To sum it up:

- Successful for years
- Hiring
- Not fellating the playerbase

Sorry, but your theory does not hold water.

No where have I stated that they are doing anything out of "spite". That is your straw-man to play with alone.

They have been "successful for years" doing something markedly different than making a game like this. They have been a marginally "successful" company in the console-game market. Not really the "video game industry", as a whole. Did you have any idea of their existence prior to MWO? I surely had none.

No where did I say they should be "fellating the playerbase", nor anything like that. Again, your straw-man construction to play with.

No where did I say they were doing anything in relation to my "wants", nor "changes you asked for". Straw-man x3. Hope no one is lighting matches.

Whup-de-doo that they are "hiring". With a single game focus, and a pretty simple arena-shooter, at that, they have enough or too many people already, with the ~50 they have now. Just another example of incompetence either now or earlier, by the management.

I am not proposing a theory, I am stating my observations.

[Ter Ushaka]

Silent, on 14 November 2013 - 07:21 PM, said:

Heffay doesn't seem to realize that a common practice in game development is management keeping everything under wraps till the last minute and then springing a "Surprise you are all out of a job!" party on the staff.

I got that party once.

[GalaxyBluestar]

looking forward to clans when they arrive.

we can call them Kongs, as vass has just initiated, i can wait till 2016 for that.

such a funny place to be, hating all that is wrong with development and hating all that is the attitude of people so emotional about a video game that they want to write pages in buisness communication history books.

pgi will get what they deserve, i'll just sit back and see if it's a populated game or the streets, can go either way at this point.

[Heffay]

Kunae, on 14 November 2013 - 07:28 PM, said:

No where have I stated that they are doing anything out of "spite". That is your straw-man to play with alone.

They have been "successful for years" doing something markedly different than making a game like this. They have been a marginally "successful" company in the console-game market. Not really the "video game industry", as a whole. Did you have any idea of their existence prior to MWO? I surely had none.

No where did I say they should be "fellating the playerbase", nor anything like that. Again, your straw-man construction to play with.

No where did I say they were doing anything in relation to my "wants", nor "changes you asked for". Straw-man x3. Hope no one is lighting matches.

Whup-de-doo that they are "hiring". With a single game focus, and a pretty simple arena-shooter, at that, they have enough or too many people already, with the ~50 they have now. Just another example of incompetence either now or earlier, by the management.

I am not proposing a theory, I am stating my observations.

Maybe I should have said stubbornness, which is the word you used? Because lack of flexibility is the hallmark of a successful small company.

And yes, you are stating your theory (technically a hypothesis, but let's not quibble): MWO is failing, they don't know game design. Your observations are what are using to justify it. But witnesses are unreliable, and your interpretation of the events are suspect. You not liking the decisions they made doesn't mean they were the wrong decisions for the game.

So let's get back to your original 2 points:

Quote

1. Not being willing to publicly admit that they messed up with their early design decisions and work on finding a better, common sense solution.

They have admitted their version 1.0 and 1.5 UI can't support their vision, and have stated dozens of times that UI 2.0 is how they are going to fix that.

Quote

Continuing to make really foolish design decisions to this day, and patting themselves on their back for their "ingenuity".

Their design decisions are apparently good enough to not roll back from the data they have internally (cash probably being a big data point on that), and their publisher agrees with them.

You not agreeing with their decisions doesn't make them wrong.

[RG Notch]

Its sad that apparently there are only two ways to go in game development. Either do exactly what they players want or tell them to screw you will do you way and players be damned. Well at least that seems to be the way PGI views it.
The conclusion that since they haven't come begging to the players obviously means they are swimming in money and players. I mean obviously. If that's true, that the amount of communication they have with the players correlates to population and economic success, well this game must be topping the charts.
It's a shame that no middle ground can exist. Sad that there's no room to communicate with the players in a reasonable manner and it's gotta be the devs way or the highway. Especially because if the devs are wrong that highway leads to oblivion. but don't worry there are a tiny portion of the tiny portion of players who come to the forums who agree with them.
Oh well we can dream of a world where the two extremes aren't the only choices but sadly PGI has no choice but to either be slaves to the desires of the forums or simply ignore any voice that isn't cheering them on.

[Heffay]

RG Notch, on 15 November 2013 - 05:47 AM, said:

Its sad that apparently there are only two ways to go in game development. Either do exactly what they players want or tell them to screw you will do you way and players be damned. Well at least that seems to be the way PGI views it.

PGI takes a hybrid approach. For some things they use player input (1PV only in 12 mans, SRM buffs until they can get hit detection working), other things they hold firm on for the good of the game (ghost heat).

So yes, they do take a middle ground. Just because they aren't giving you everything you want doesn't mean they don't listen to the community.

[Roadbeer]

@RG
C'mon man, that whole post is disingenuous. You can't honestly tell me that PGI has never interacted or worked with the community. Granted it's usually in response to 'nerdrage', but to say it's either always one way or the other...

Let's face it, sometimes the community is just plain over-reactive. Look at 3PV, they lost their minds over something that basically amounted to nothing. I *RARELY* see someone in 3PV, and when I do, they're usually either a new player, or someone who hasn't figured out how to turn it off by default yet. But by the reaction of the community, being a 1PV player, my life expectancy in combat was going to be 3 seconds.

Inversely, they DO listen. Look at the recent decision to remove FSWG. They OBVIOUSLY didn't think that one through, and when called on it, they said they'd put it back. Should they have communicated with the community first. YUP, that was an example of the continued failure of IMPORTANT communication, but after the fact, they have listened, I honestly believe that they thought it wasn't going to be that big of a deal, and were wrong. I'm reserving judgement on if they've learned anything about communicating with the community by how they respond when they return it in the patch notes, "Whoops, sorry guys, we didn't think that through" will show progress. "Programming is hard" will show that they haven't.

COULD they communicate better with the community? Obviously, and the 3 at the top, in the past, did more harm than good when they DID communicate with the community. But I actually see a change in the momentum/quality of interaction, and an apparent willingness to listen to input.

As I pointed out earlier, not all player ideas are good ones, should they listen to those too? Should they say "Guys, this isn't that big of a deal and you're overreacting"? should they just remain silent and let it play out? or should they say "Thanks for your input, we're considering the things you've said" and when they do what they were going to do anyway, listen to continued rage about how they don't listen to the community?

Edited by Roadbeer, 15 November 2013 - 08:10 AM.