232 replies to this topic

[Craig Steele]

gavilatius, on 01 May 2014 - 11:07 PM, said:

Because SO ******* MANY OF YOU can't answer the god damn question, I'm gonna put on my big boy pants and do what you people can't.

So here's one of those things you're supposed to use when detailing projects... I learned in my PROJECT MANAGEMENT course last semester

*breakdown*

Are you happy? ARE YOU ******* HAPPY?

Now all thats going to happen is people will argue with you over each individual item you listed arguing why it is wrong.

They want to be right, not corrected.

[White Bear 84]

LORD TSARKON, on 25 April 2014 - 06:08 PM, said:

More maps does not equate sales for PGI... hence they put it on the back burner for now... .its pissing a lot of people off.

It does when lack of varied content (maps in this case), results in players getting bored of the same thing over and over; same ways of playing, same tactics, same routes - there are those of us who dont mind it and focus on the actual action but there would be a reasonable amount of players that would just get bored.. ..this same principle applies to CW, which obviously has a much more significant impact and priority.

Of course I would hazard at a guess that the map team is separate to the mech design design team, so perhaps it is more of an issue of either having a low number of staff or not having the resource allocation for the department/team which makes new maps. (e.g. finances/staff numbers)

It is obviously a company decision to focus resources on other content... ...I do not doubt for a second that the team would/should be capable of producing a higher volume of maps if they had the appropriate resource allocation. For now we get stuck with 'the bare minimum' to keep the majority of us content...

My 5c...

Edit: Just flicked back and noticed Bryan's response, pretty much summed it up here...

Edited by White Bear 84, 01 May 2014 - 11:39 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

gavilatius, on 01 May 2014 - 11:07 PM, said:

bad idea

pretty bad to make up stuff like misc overheads no gantt chart to support why such costing should be applied to the creation of one map, for example wages $120000? does this cover whom {1 employee or 100} and for how long {a month's worth of map making or a year's worth} and then ther'e misc wages and what's involved with starting costs ending costs, the beer to celebrate talking about a map and patching a new map???

sorry couldn't resist poking as craig is right either you have the truth or you start making rumour after false rumours after hells arguments etc.

we really need the question answered by an pgi staffer and really they don't have to tell us anything about how they manage their finances. really it was a stupid thing to say it costs xxxx to make a map.

[CrashieJ]

GalaxyBluestar, on 02 May 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

the beer to celebrate talking about a map and patching a new map???

If only that were the case... sitting around a table, drinking beer and going "hey... do you know what would be a good map? I'm thinking of one of those Sci-fi Megacities... we should do that."

... That's how my map started...

[Craig Steele]

GalaxyBluestar, on 02 May 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

,,,,, really it was a stupid thing to say it costs xxxx to make a map.

This I can agree with. PGI's corporate communications have been lack lustre (to say the least) from time to time.

Regardless though, that doesn't make us as consumers / general public entitled to commercially sensitive knowledge no matter how strong our sense of in justice.

Ranting about it in Forums only reflects poorly on the ranter. Bottom line is it's still an unreasonable question. In this case here, a CEO of a corporation should know that so why he continues to insist upon it is beyond me. He certainly wouldn't accept it from his customers / staff judging by his tone here.

Personally, I'd be more disappointed with PGI if they did answer the question no matter what the answer is. It gives me a bit of comfort to know that they don't buy into this sort of argumentative stuff and roll over every time the tears start.

[IraqiWalker]

N0MAD, on 01 May 2014 - 08:47 PM, said:

And how am i to do this?. Do i have a chat lobby to get to know new players, nope.
Do it here on the forums? well PGI and many others tell me that its a small percentage of players that visit the Forums.
So how do i help new players when i cant talk to them? or do you suggest i go full tutorial on them while we are trying to fight a game?.
Ohh wait i will delete my friends of my list so i can add a pug i dont know to it right?
If youre going to make a suggestion make it viable, not something thats not possible to do with any ease.
So tell me how exactly i try help people?, you have given me no tools at all.

You do know we have a new lobby implemented right? Not just in the dropship mode. Go click on the community tab up top, and access the lobby there. It's still really new, so not many people there.

Other than that, yes, in your matches, when you run into new people, ask them to add you if they want some help, if they add you, then go right ahead and help them. If they don't .... well, you tried and they apparently are confident/arrogant/shy enough that they refused.

gavilatius, on 01 May 2014 - 11:07 PM, said:

Because SO ******* MANY OF YOU can't answer the god damn question, I'm gonna put on my big boy pants and do what you people can't.

So here's one of those things you're supposed to use when detailing projects... I learned in my PROJECT MANAGEMENT course last semester

Breakdown

Are you happy? ARE YOU ******* HAPPY?

As realistic as those numbers seem, people are gonna keep on complaining and asking ludicrous demands. Thank you for the effort, but I'm afraid it's not gonna help the few stubborn and blind in here.

[Cavendish]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 April 2014 - 12:39 PM, said:

Those of us that have been modding and map making for 20 years know bullshit when we see it and no longer have patience for this idiotic type of rhetoric.

Of course, those of us that have been modding and map making since Doom has done it for a very limited parameters from the players abilities.

For the sake of my argument, I will use the term "soldier" for the players model.

The soldier is always the same height, the mechs are not.
The soldiers move at a fixed speed (or two with if there are some talents/skills/mods/running/dashing) while the mechs are not.
The soldier can jump a fixed height and lenght, mechs are not restricted to one specific height or length.
The soldier can usualy only fire direct fire or lob a grenade, the mechs weapons are more varied in how they travel.

To make a normal Cry-engine map you do not have to consider even half the variations of player imput that MWO has to. Even the MW:LL maps that some praise here had SERIOUS issues with some mech builds and would not have been acceptable for a real company to release.

Player maps are great in mod-friendly games people host themselves, and maps that require good computers with decent GPUs to run can be turned off by players with older machines. In MWO, PGI has to make sure the maps can be run on the lowest recomended hardware on low settings... consider this for a while. This means that the mega-city map thats totaly built using houses, intersections, rooftops and covers the area of a large city is not possible. The lower end machines would choke on them leading to yet another round of whining on the forums (omfg! my 4 year old HP machine cant play the Mega City map! you suck PGI! Uninstall!).

Can maps be done in a day? Sure, I can go do a 100x100m white map with a wall in the middle in 5 min that we could run around and shoot eachother on, but I doubt it would be fun.

Can viable maps of decent size and intresting layout taking into consideration all the variables of game-play and minimum hardware requirements be done in a day? Hardly.

[N0MAD]

IraqiWalker, on 02 May 2014 - 01:29 AM, said:

You do know we have a new lobby implemented right? Not just in the dropship mode. Go click on the community tab up top, and access the lobby there. It's still really new, so not many people there.

Other than that, yes, in your matches, when you run into new people, ask them to add you if they want some help, if they add you, then go right ahead and help them. If they don't .... well, you tried and they apparently are confident/arrogant/shy enough that they refused.

Good advise.
Next time i install the game i will keep it in mind...

[IraqiWalker]

N0MAD, on 02 May 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

Good advise.
Next time i install the game i will keep it in mind...

Add me, and we can drop together. Comms would be nice, but aren't necessary.

[NuclearPanda]

I absolutely agree that we need new maps. This game is completely stale, and the recent patch hasn't even enticed me to even TRY to log back on to play.

Nope, not a single bit. I don't think I'll be coming back for quite awhile now.

So in the meantime I'll leave you all this to look at in my absence.

[Joseph Mallan]

That guys is insanely awesome Panda!

[Joseph Mallan]

gavilatius, on 01 May 2014 - 11:07 PM, said:

Because SO ******* MANY OF YOU can't answer the god damn question, I'm gonna put on my big boy pants and do what you people can't.

So here's one of those things you're supposed to use when detailing projects... I learned in my PROJECT MANAGEMENT course last semester

Task Name

Map Project Total Cost

$250,000.00

Starting Costs

$10,000.00

Wages

$120,000.00

Lower Level Applicants

$20,000.00

Artists

$50,000.00

Programmers

$30,000.00

Testers

$5,000.00

Misc. Wages

$15,000.00

Server Side Support

$80,000.00

On-Site Server Upgrades

$20,000.00

On-Site Server Upkeep

$40,000.00

Of-Site Server Storage

$20,000.00

Project Management

$10,000.00

Charter and Plan

$2,000.00

Status Reports

$2,000.00

Distribution

$3,000.00

Week 1 Support

$3,000.00

Misc. costs

$20,000.00

Ending costs

$10,000.00

Are you happy? ARE YOU ******* HAPPY?

How come the Artist is being paid twice? there is $125k for wages and 50K for artists... And why does the sum of all costs Exceed the Project Budget?

Its 210K over budget from my calculations.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 02 May 2014 - 07:02 AM.

[NuclearPanda]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 May 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

How come the Artist is being paid twice? there is $125k for wages and 50K for artists... And why does the sum of all costs Exceed the Project Budget?

Because PGI employs more artists than actual devs/coders/etc for some reason. Still boggles my mind.

[Craig Steele]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 May 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

How come the Artist is being paid twice? there is $125k for wages and 50K for artists... And why does the sum of all costs Exceed the Project Budget?

Jeez Joseph, the Bold are sub totals man.

LOLOLOLOLOL

[IraqiWalker]

Joseph Mallan, on 02 May 2014 - 06:58 AM, said:

How come the Artist is being paid twice? there is $125k for wages and 50K for artists... And why does the sum of all costs Exceed the Project Budget?

Its 210K over budget from my calculations.

You do know this is made up right?

NuclearPanda, on 02 May 2014 - 07:00 AM, said:

Because PGI employs more artists than actual devs/coders/etc for some reason. Still boggles my mind.

You do know this is made up right?

If we really wanna derail this thread then we should first launch it into K-town.

[Joseph Mallan]

IraqiWalker, on 02 May 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

You do know this is made up right?

Then at least make it up so its doesn't come in that much over budget!

[LowSubmarino]

AUSwarrior24, on 25 April 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

With all due respect, do you guys really know that much about game development?

To build new maps, developers and designers have to dedicate a large amount of time towards designing the maps, which is important for a relatively tactical game, and creating it, which is no easy feat due to the amount of little (unnecessary imo) details on each.

'Expanding the maps' indeed. What they need to spend time on is the damn core features of the game, like the Clans, and something other than this god forsaken deathmatch gameplay.

I would so love a way more complex game. The game looks good and the gameplay is a lot of fun. But there isnt any depth to it. But look at all the other games released all the time.

I can understand the developers. Ppl love totally easy 3-button playstyle games where you don't have to do anything than just 'jump right in'.

Apart from that deathmatch is getting absolutely boring. There are so many cool game modes I could think of right this very moment which somebody prolly suggested somewhere.

-protect one mech
-escort one mech to a certain location (or multiple possible locations) in a specific time (and vice versa)
-have 3 small 2-mech groups try to get from one side of the map to another breaching a 12 man defense line
-a real assault mode where you get respawned if your team manages to secure 'drop locations' mimicking constant resuplies and a big battle with strategic resources (you either take the artillery/airstrike location for dominacne in a certain area or your team tries to get the drop locations for respawns, etc. etc.)
-shit there is so much that would be hell of a lot more fun than just deathmatch. And quite frankly, skirmish or assault....they are the same.

But what I miss most is that we don't have to put any thought into maintencance cost (maybe buying and selling from an always changing market to be able to finance your mechs, hiring staff, etc).

And that you would really have to think how to spend your earnings; do you hire more engineers or do you need all money to repair your mech because you like to drop in heavies and assaults, and so on.

Some complexity where there is a game 'outside' the battlefield. A real simulation. But those times are prolly over. PPl wanne play arcade and deathmatch in every single game nowadays.

It must all be casual. I truly hate this idea of the 'casual' gamer haha. It robbs games of innovation, depth and more satisfying holisitc experiences.

[CeeKay Boques]

You are paying the programmers and artists too much. Solved.

A year's salary for one map? Wait you have 4 artists and two programmers working on it? Why the hell's it taking multiple months then?


Thanks for the fun numbers though.

[mania3c]

We all know (some are just defending PGI for whatever reason), that 250k per map is just insane and made up..as much as I tried to calculate everything..something has to be WAY overpriced ..or that cost is just BS..

however..I can't understand logic against player's made maps. It's not like they have to implement them.. but..it's awesome community driven content..something what will spice up communication within the community..let us create, host and test these maps...and who knows..maybe there will be some awesome maps to play on...it's not rocket science to make maps in cryengine.people are doing it all the time..

[NuclearPanda]

IraqiWalker, on 02 May 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

You do know this is made up right?

If we really wanna derail this thread then we should first launch it into K-town.

How is it made up? Russ broke down the employees they have awhile back. Unless they have done a lot of hiring for new devs they employ more artists overall.