109 replies to this topic

[BLOOD WOLF]

I think its time to start a little discussion. Most of you guys are mad that things like CW isn't here. and it took so long for UI 2.0 to get here and you know what i'm not surprised. I dont think people understand the work needed to make something like that happen. with old technology and dont get me wrong, the cry 3 engine is powerful in own right but the current interface of 1.0 has too many limitations. Many who play the game aren't programmers, nor do they really understand the challenges when changing or moding a current config to make it do new things. I myself know a little in things such as coding and rigging although my brother made games in calculators and could mod things in street fighter and oblivion, he always had a nack for techy stuff. My father was a high level programmer and a good one, so i would always watch him do his work, i was too little to know what he was doing but i knew it would take months/weeks or days depending. my point is, PGI, they are trying, what they are doing isn't easy, how many of you right this minute can picture what their tasks are.

For those of you who do know whats its like then you should now its a big task. I know modders who in 6 years still haven't fully completed their games and are still working on it despite the fact that people on their forums have said the same things some of you are saying about PGI. I know the game isnt perfect, but its what we got, who else decided to reboot the franchise? i like LL but its just cant be anything more than what it is. MWO has the chance to be what we have been wanted for all these years. ask russ, ask paul, ask bryan ask the team, let them tell you how hard their jobs are. let them tell you how easy it is.

As from monetary stand point, i have put about 100 in the game, no i didn't have a chance to get founders. Yes they made millions off of the kick starter and yes they charge a good deal for clan mechs but this is to keep the machine going. "and it's still not enough on its own to fund everything the studio wants to do" I heard the gripes about the income but how many of you know the output? do you know the cost of keeping this running>? and when all is said and done this game will attract people, the cost will go up. that 5 million is gonna run dry, " The $100 million-plus figure in the article referred to the development and upkeep of World of Warcraft, its massively-multilayer online game." look at that, and this game isn't even as big. http://kotaku.com/55...illion-to-make. It saddens me deeply to see people act as if nothing can be fixed, as if one cant make it better. Fix one problem and another arises so the grateful become the ungrateful. ugh, good thing my classes start the 27th, English class here i come

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 28 January 2014 - 04:19 PM.

[NextGame]

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I think its time to start a little discussion

Learn to paragraph first, then start discussion

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and it took so long for UI 2.0 to get here and you know what i'm not surprised. I dont think people understand the work needed to make something like that happen

One or 2 individuals should be able to get a reasonably comprehensive user interface out in less time than it has taken the entire PGI team to still not deliver it (at the time of writing)

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with old technology and dont get me wrong, the cry 3 engine is powerful in own right

Cryengine 3 is not old technology

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I myself know a little in things such as coding

Then why are you making assertions on it?

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PGI, they are trying,

The only thing they are trying is the community's patience.

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For those of you who do know whats its like then you should now its a big task.

Yet MW:LL managed a more complete game in cryengine, in a smaller timeframe, in their spare time, on a budget of nil. Yet PGI are professionals and fully funded.

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that 5 million is gonna run dry and other nonsense about costs

MWO has made far more than $5m, probably around triple that as a conservative estimate.

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$100m for WoW figure

WoW was not developed on a pre existing engine that comes with half of the hard work already done.
WoW has more variety in content in level 1-10 than MWO has in its entire game.
WoW has an entirely different business model.
WoW fits into a completely different genre.
etc.

$5-$15m is an utter abundance of wealth to use to put out a feature complete mechwarrior game with a staff of 40 inside 2 years when using a pre-existing engine.

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English class here i come

Yes, learn to paragraph.

[BLOOD WOLF]

let me go down the list

1.i already apolgized for the spacing and phrasing, you adressing it like you did means your an ******* and probably didnt take a word i said into consideration becuase you have a stick up your ***
2. Because i said im familiar with it and i am very close to those who can program and it is not easy, the people at MMLL didnt have to create somethig as big as CW. nor will they, and it doesnt matter if they did it in their spare time, the fact that you have mundane points means you never coding a thing in your life.
3. cry engine is relatively old tech when compared to newer engine, as tech is always evolving this can be an issue. there could be massive limitations in what they want to do, it is powerful like i said but working around it could be tricky.
4. i can make assertions about it becuase of how close i am to it. i seen what one can do with the technology at hand. you will be suprised
5. The people at MW LL dont have the challenges that PGI is facing, they are two different ballgames when it comes to content. MWLL will never be on a level that MWO can be because of limitations.
6. they have definitly made more than 5 mill, i wouldnt guess much more. But do you know the cost of maintaining a game like this? a hint, you couldnt pay for this game even if you put all your savings in it. that's a guarantee
7.yes wow is different game but your an {Dezgra} because i was talking about the cost of maintaining the game. "It costs Blizzard Entertainment $200 million to maintain World of Warcraft" You ****** 5 mill is nothing and that's only because of the number of people that play the game. just imagine if MWO doubled in size by next year? how would PGI keep it going.
next time take your finger out your nose before you talk. dont let bias get in the way of fact. It is not easy and it never will be.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 23 January 2014 - 05:10 AM.

[NextGame]

let me go down your list

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1.i already apolgized for the spacing and phrasing, you adressing it like you did means your an ******* and probably didnt take a word i said into consideration becuase you have a stick up your ***

No, you didn't. Also, how much effort does it take to simply hit the enter key every so often in order that your post becomes readable.

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2. Because i said im familiar with it and i am very close to those who can program and it is not easy, the people at MMLL didnt have to create somethig as big as CW. nor will they, and it doesnt matter if they did it in their spare time, the fact that you have mundane points means you never coding a thing in your life.

I am a developer, albeit not a game developer.

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3. cry engine is relatively old tech when compared to newer engine, as tech is always evolving this can be an issue. there could be massive limitations in what they want to do, it is powerful like i said but working around it could be tricky.

Cryengine 3 had no titles released on it until crysis 2 in 2011. It is still relatively recent. In fact its replacement, off the top of my head, only came into place around q4 last year. If it is old then there would have been plenty of documentation and support available in developing MWO. You cannot have it both ways. Regardless of this, PGI chose cryengine 3 to develop this game on when they could have picked one of several other engines, therefore any shortcomings regarding engine selection still sit at PGI's door.

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4. i can make assertions about it becuase of how close i am to it. i seen what one can do with the technology at hand. you will be suprised

Sure, and I bet you have super special jedi force powers too, and can see ghosts, and can count to 10.

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5. The people at MW LL dont have the challenges that PGI is facing, they are two different ballgames when it comes to content. MWLL will never be on a level that MWO can be because of limitations.

Bandying around the world "limitations" is vacuous. Every engine has "limitations", for example you cannot eat it, nor can you use it to fuel a rocket ship to take you to the moon. Using the term "limitations" is meaningless in the way that you are, as you aren't providing any examples of a limitation that has prevented them from getting UI2 or CW out the door. PGI picked this one to work with, with the goals they wanted to achieve in mind. Are you suggesting that the mighty cryengine 3 prevents them from outputting a relatively straightforward UI inside a year and a half?.

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6. they have definitly made more than 5 mill, i wouldnt guess much more. But do you know the cost of maintaining a game like this? a hint, you couldnt pay for this game even if you put all your savings in it. that's a guarantee

Given that I am frequently involved in the tendering for outsourcing software development, am a developer, have been involved in hiring other developers, licensing software etc, albeit not in the gaming space, I'm pretty well aware of ballpark costs for software development.

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7.yes wow is different game but your an {Dezgra} because i was talking about the cost of maintaining the game. "It costs Blizzard Entertainment $200 million to maintain World of Warcraft" You ****** 5 mill is nothing and that's only because of the number of people that play the game. just imagine if MWO doubled in size by next year? how would PGI keep it going.
next time take your finger out your nose before you talk. dont let bias get in the way of fact. It is not easy and it never will be.

More insults please, I like free entertainment.

MWO is a minimal effort, low risk mod-like title developed on a pre existing engine. It can be made to work with $5-$15m no problem at all. WoW is a totally different kettle of fish and therefore not comparable in any way, shape or form beyond virtue of being a game. Keep trying to make it fit, the comparison won't convince anyone.

If PGI wish to keep MWO going, they will deliver the features that they said they would in the first place, in a timely manner. Because as far as I'm concerned, they have no genuine barriers (technical or financial) preventing them from doing so.

Edited by NextGame, 23 January 2014 - 06:31 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

"Bandying around the world "limitations" is vacuous. Every engine has "limitations", for example you cannot eat it, nor can you use it to fuel a rocket ship to take you to the moon. Using the term "limitations" is meaningless in the way that you are, as you aren't providing any examples of a limitation that has prevented them from getting UI2 or CW out the door. PGI picked this one to work with, with the goals they wanted to achieve in mind. Are you suggesting that the mighty cryengine 3 prevents them from outputting a relatively straightforward UI inside a year and a half?."

How bout errors, bugs, tears in the system what if clicking lauch crashed the game every time you clicked it. or adding a part on a mech causes it to lag/crash or whatever. there are many things that can happen if not done right. for instance changing a value in the coding/one miss or wrong move can cause many problems. I dont even know what CW is gonna look like but i can tell you and im sure you know because your a dev but when they try to add or implement something new X will prevent it from happing. example, i can open my skyrim pref and change small value in the distance i can fire and arrow right, one wrong value will mess up the whole mechanic.

[Display]
iTexMipMapSkip=0
bFXAAEnabled=0
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=3072.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=4096.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=1500.0000
fLightLODStartFade=1200.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=3600.0000
iShadowMapResolution=1024
fShadowBiasScale=0.3000
iShadowMaskQuarter=3
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=1
fShadowDistance=2500.0000
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=30
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=10
iAdapter=0
iSize W=1024
iSize H=768
iMultiSample=8
iMaxAnisotropy=12

what would happen if i changed the values? how much will it affect my game. that is what it comes to when managing a game, numbers and values. your no dev because if you were you wouldn't have said to me that im throwing around limitations, instead you would have given some yourself. i doubt you know anything.

[BLOOD WOLF]

you said your A dev? you shot yourself in the foot man. you should already now what it takes to make a game. Expecially on the scale they are trying to make it. I doubt you really understand programming at all.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 23 January 2014 - 06:30 AM.

[NextGame]

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you said your A dev? you shot yourself in the foot man. you should already now what it takes to make a game. Expecially on the scale they are trying to make it. I doubt you really understand programming at all.

What *are* you waffling on about? What does some random copy paste of skyrim graphic config parameters have to do with MW:O? Are you implying that I should pull up ICQ, get someone from bethsoft on the line and ask them why PGI can't do their jobs?

English class 101

Lesson 1: Paragraphs
Lesson 2: Coherence
Lesson 3: Discussion via critical/logical thinking rather than arbitrary nonsense

Edited by NextGame, 23 January 2014 - 06:48 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

NextGame, on 23 January 2014 - 06:41 AM, said:

What *are* you waffling on about? What does some random copy paste of skyrim graphic config parameters have to do with MW:O?

English class 101

Lesson 1: Paragraphs
Lesson 2: Coherence
Lesson 3: Discussion via critical/logical thinking rather arbitrary nonsense

1. I dont see what paragraphs have to do with anything, i can make it into paragraphs but its not needed.
2. how have i not been coherent? you lack and argument
3. I have not been irrational this whole time.
4. I used skryim data/prefs because i thought you were smart enough to know what happens when you change the values.

[CDLord HHGD]

Girls girls, you are both pretty.....

Blood Wolf has some very good points. Nextgame, you do too, but some of your responses come off condescending which doesn't foster reasonable discussions. Cryengine 3 is more than 6 months old, so of course its old tech. Still very viable, but not the latest and greatest. That being said, I am also a software developer albeit not games and there really is no cross functionality in the logic and expressions needed. I can program my telecom gear, but I couldn't program this game. At least not without some dedicated education and playtime. I can use my experience sure, but not a lot of my knowledge.

I am sure the PGI team is constantly running into "w-t-f" moments and they are working through them. Is it as fast as we'd like? No. Do we understand everything they need to take into consideration when making a new UI or update? No. We can only speculate on the extent of the new UI and it's affect on the game, though from what I understand, it's everything. So when you are building a new interface that if not done properly, can crash the whole system, I don't mind them taking their time to check and test the code (and develop new things to put into it as well).

Have patience, have faith, or move on. I haven't seen any of the warning signs of a failing game. What I have seen though is a game that went into production too early. But it is what it is and they'll get it eventually.

[BLOOD WOLF]

yea, although, he completely danced around what i was trying to say, instead focused on grammar.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 23 January 2014 - 06:57 AM.

[Mawai]

"One or 2 individuals should be able to get a reasonably comprehensive user interface out in less time than it has taken the entire PGI team to still not deliver it (at the time of writing)"

This is probably the issue. PGI has about 6 software engineers total for ALL development items including UI2.0, lobbies, CW ... in my opinion they are significantly understaffed for the amount of development (as opposed to artwork) that they have on their plate.

They have the time to devote art staff to completely non-essential items like cockpit glass ... can anyone say the game would be significantly worse off without this feature? Does it affect game play or make the game more interesting in any significant way? Not in my opinion ... they just had the artists sitting around with nothing else to do ... I can't see any other reason why such a low priority item would get released.

Apparently MWO is based on Scaleform for the UI and Cryengine 3 for the game.

It seems to me that they should have invested in the Scaleform UI kits

"Scaleform UI Kits - prebuilt customizable Flash-based UI templates for high-performance HUD, front end Menu and Multiplayer Lobby that are used to get started quickly."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaleform

Though the mech customization screens (mechlab) would probably take some work

[NextGame]

BLOOD WOLF, on 23 January 2014 - 06:54 AM, said:

1. I dont see what paragraphs have to do with anything, i can make it into paragraphs but its not needed.
2. how have i not been coherent? you lack and argument
3. I have not been irrational this whole time.
4. I used skryim data/prefs because i thought you were smart enough to know what happens when you change the values.

Clearly it is opposites day in the land of Tamriel.

Enjoy playing with your draw distance (and similar) parameters, good luck.

[BLOOD WOLF]

NextGame, on 23 January 2014 - 07:00 AM, said:

Clearly it is opposites day in the land of Tamriel.

Enjoy playing with your draw distance (and similar) parameters, good luck.

this is my problem with you, out of everything i said you just nitpick. all i was trying to say was that It may look easy enough but their could be a whole matter of problems that we dont even know about. the word limit means to go as far as you can/ something can. be it an object or whatever you want. I bet my *** that without UI 2.0 they couldn't do anything else so there was a clear limitation. I restate, i dont know their level of programming but the case was that they just couldn't do it fast enough. In conclusion, nothing new could be brought into the game

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 23 January 2014 - 07:08 AM.

[NextGame]

cdlord, on 23 January 2014 - 06:55 AM, said:

Girls girls, you are both pretty.....

I try my best

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Blood Wolf has some very good points.

Yes, we should all be playing with skyrim configs instead of discussing MWO, it is all so clear now.

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Nextgame, you do too, but some of your responses come off condescending which doesn't foster reasonable discussions.

Garbage in, garbage out.

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I can program my telecom gear, but I couldn't program this game. At least not without some dedicated education and playtime. I can use my experience sure, but not a lot of my knowledge.

It's not so hard to slip into something new with a bit of practice and documentation, maybe some examples to work with. At the moment I'm having to mess around with unity engine (primarily for games) to see if its a worthwhile platform for mobile applications (there are more straightforward platforms in that space to work with, but nevertheless)

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I am sure the PGI team is constantly running into "w-t-f" moments and they are working through them.

there is no such thing as a wtf moment that causes the level of delays that we have seen on key features for this title. I am inclined to agree with Mawai that improper staffing levels is the real reason for the issues that this game has been facing.

Edited by NextGame, 23 January 2014 - 07:16 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

"It's not so hard to slip into something new with a bit of practice and documentation, maybe some examples to work with. At the moment I'm having to mess around with unity engine (primarily for games) to see if its a worthwhile platform for mobile applications (there are more straightforward platforms in that space to work with, but nevertheless)"

there's no stopping this guy. well ****, making game must be so easy.

[Mister Blastman]

OP:

That's one hell of a paragraph. Get to those English classes, fast.


Second... I understand programming pretty well. I used to code a decade ago for a .com and wrote back-end engine code... the "guts" as some people call it, that everything else ran on top of or relied on. So I understand how a lot of all this fits together. I also understand how hard or easy it would be to add features, new sections etc.

PGI is working on Cry Engine. I know MW:LL Had a hard time getting mechs into that game... But in four years since it went into very early Alpha, it ended up with over 40 maps, 26 mechs, lots of vehicles, way more weapons systems and was balanced extremely well, to boot--with less programmers than PGI has.

PGI has been working on this for at least two to three years.

They have self-admitted they have far more guys in the art and marketing department than they do in the coding end of the game. Even with that said, they STILL have more coders than MW:LL had.

What we see every week is new art for sales, new camos for mechs, new dashboard items (though I admit it seems like it has been a litt... err... nope. That darn cheerleader for the Hunch), new packs to buy, gold mechs... you get the idea!

The majority of what we see is art. Everywhere. And it is always trying to cram more stuff down our throat for us to buy--while the game itself lingers and gets stale. They implement new things and it ends up broken, they do this, they do that--point is and I don't want to waste my fingertips... it has been a comedy of errors on the coding end of this game. There have been things that should have been incredibly simple to put in that aren't and others that should be designed in that are ignored.

Take the new UI--the Mechlab is atrocious. Anyone that designed it should have realized this from the first day they drew up a design document and started framing it on paper. Yet, it went forward anyways. Only after considerable outcry did they admit that they are going to put in a Smurfy-like one--a free project that took a dude a little bit of his time (but not too much--there are several Smurfy-like ones on the web now).

We are mad for a reason.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 23 January 2014 - 07:43 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

oh! i just realized, that is one hell of a paragraph

[Kain]

[ Grabs popcorn ]

Bloodwolf is on his white knight horse
And NextGame is drowning in PGI dissapointment.

That being said, I think the story is a bit off both, but probably a bit more off NextGame's

Of course PGI had setbacks, and tasks take longer than expected, and building a solid multiplayer online game takes a good time and expenses,....but..

Their development speed is beyond understanding, don't forget they are already working 1 year on UI2.0, a feature which they knew would be a bottleneck in in the future, so they build an UI which is far worse than the current UI, in user experience

They have a team of 40!! Employees working on this title, and the progress is disappointing, when you compare the current game with the game at the end of closed beta

Also I am a freelance programmer, UX designer, and a when I would have given the same estimates as PGI to my customers, the customers would never agree on such delay and little progress,
Also when my customers would be complaining the same amount as the mwo community, then I would know that I have done something really wrong.

[Sug]

I like NextGame.

[xTrident]

BLOOD WOLF, on 23 January 2014 - 05:09 AM, said:

let me go down the list

1.i already apolgized for the spacing and phrasing, you adressing it like you did means your an ******* and probably didnt take a word i said into consideration becuase you have a stick up your ***
2. Because i said im familiar with it and i am very close to those who can program and it is not easy, the people at MMLL didnt have to create somethig as big as CW. nor will they, and it doesnt matter if they did it in their spare time, the fact that you have mundane points means you never coding a thing in your life.
3. cry engine is relatively old tech when compared to newer engine, as tech is always evolving this can be an issue. there could be massive limitations in what they want to do, it is powerful like i said but working around it could be tricky.
4. i can make assertions about it becuase of how close i am to it. i seen what one can do with the technology at hand. you will be suprised
5. The people at MW LL dont have the challenges that PGI is facing, they are two different ballgames when it comes to content. MWLL will never be on a level that MWO can be because of limitations.
6. they have definitly made more than 5 mill, i wouldnt guess much more. But do you know the cost of maintaining a game like this? a hint, you couldnt pay for this game even if you put all your savings in it. that's a guarantee
7.yes wow is different game but your an {Dezgra} because i was talking about the cost of maintaining the game. "It costs Blizzard Entertainment $200 million to maintain World of Warcraft" You ****** 5 mill is nothing and that's only because of the number of people that play the game. just imagine if MWO doubled in size by next year? how would PGI keep it going.
next time take your finger out your nose before you talk. dont let bias get in the way of fact. It is not easy and it never will be.

You did apologize, which meant you knew it was probably hard to read.... So why not fix it? You didn't and got called on it.

Pertaining to the majority of your original comment it seems your base point is programming such a game and the extras is a lot of work. Fair enough, but I too have friends that are programmers that have a very good idea what it takes - one of them plays this game and he's a bit disgusted with the time frame as well. I also talked to a buddy that got into MWO well before I did, as in November 2012 and he said CW was three months away at that point. Here we are almost a year later. Don't promise if you can't deliver. I think everyone has a right to b****.

Edited by xTrident, 23 January 2014 - 09:04 AM.