Mawai, on 03 December 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:
LOL. Sorry. I think the following has been pointed out before but I will repeat it.
The ENGINEERS that do netcode, host state rewind, UI 2.0, CW are NOT the same as the ARTISTS that do hero mechs, cockpit items, weapon art work, map layouts, map tweaks, mech variants.
The problem is that PGI employs far MORE artists that engineers. Look at their corporate linked-in profile. There were about 17 artists and 6 software engineers last time I checked. PGI has invested in three times more artists than engineers. All of the heavy lifting on the engineering side is supported by 6 to 10 developers (and that number assumes not everyone has put themselves on linked-in or has properly identified their role).
Basically, PGI is far under-staffed for the slate of engineering development tasks on their priority list. (At least based on the limited data available). As a result, PGI has many patches that are dominated by art content and few that include engineering improvements.
Also, keep in mind that engineering code is much higher risk than art assets. Engineering changes could break the game while bugs in art changes are unlikely to be more than an inconvenience. Given PGI's track record of testing and the number of bugs currently reported in UI2.0 (look at the test feedback threads and known issue threads) ... they are justifiably concerned about introducing new code.
Thanks, man. I supposed I've read that, in one form or other, and just didn't manage to put two and two together.
Makes you wonder, though. It may or may not be intentional, but it really comes across as an attitude of "we don't really care if the game itself continues to move toward any of the gameplay issues we've promised to address as long as you keep pumping cash into the MC machine for all the cool artsy stuff we come up with."
Doesn't really matter, though. They don't seem to be in any danger of delcaring bankruptcy, they seem to have a decent sized fanbase (granted, it's more a matter of new people filtering in and out than from loyal players sticking with the game), and they've got a death-grip on the franchise.....which pretty much leaves anyone more competent out of the running of developing a better game.
I'm not saying I could do a better job, I'm not saying I'm quitting...I'm just pointing out that some of the core gameplay issues should have been addressed and patched before they added more "buy me! buy me!" {Scrap}. Guess they want to have a company Xmas in Hawaii this year.