188 replies to this topic

[Noth]

and zero, on 07 August 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

PGI boldly displays for all to see, once again, that not only do they suck at game development, they also have the business sense of a 4 year old. I mean jesus ******* god.

"WE WONT DO THINGS TO MAKE THE GAME VASTLY BETTER IF WE CANNOT DIRECTLY SELL THOSE THINGS. BECAUSE THAT WONT MAKE US ANY MONEY" ******* brilliant.

No where do they say they won't make maps. In fact they are making two right now.

[and zero]

Noth, on 08 August 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

No where do they say they won't make maps. In fact they are making two right now.

...Did you even read the thing I quoted??? ...did you even read what I said for that matter?

[IraqiWalker]

Infine, on 07 August 2014 - 10:36 PM, said:

I don't hate TT for heat penalty.
I hate TT for... Let's see...

It's chokepoint online.
If you don't have JJs - one wrong step and you have to run around the whole map to get back where you were.
I used to ride dualgauss cat, and the slopes make it impossible to fight with torso-mounted weapons anywhere but inside the caldera.
It's friggin dark. It's worse than river city night, because thermal vision does not work.

PS: the more I play, the more I think this game is an elaborate and expensive advertisement campaign for MW:LL.

It's only choke point online as you put it, if you let your team make the stupid move, and head for the center. Other than that, there are a lot of fun avenues in the map that can be used for some serious tactical play. The terrain is wonderful for setting up ambushes, and killing fields.

[Noth]

and zero, on 08 August 2014 - 12:26 AM, said:

...Did you even read the thing I quoted??? ...did you even read what I said for that matter?

Yes. it said that there are other priorities above maps. That does not mean that they are not working on maps. Again, they have two maps being worked on now and that flat out proves your statement was false.

[IraqiWalker]

and zero, on 08 August 2014 - 12:26 AM, said:

...Did you even read the thing I quoted??? ...did you even read what I said for that matter?

Noth, on 08 August 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

Yes. it said that there are other priorities above maps. That does not mean that they are not working on maps. Again, they have two maps being worked on now and that flat out proves your statement was false.

I think you're both arguing semantics right now.

[and zero]

Noth, on 08 August 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

Yes. it said that there are other priorities above maps. That does not mean that they are not working on maps. Again, they have two maps being worked on now and that flat out proves your statement was false.

What I said had nothing to do with maps. I was observing how terrible PGI's business strategies are.

[Noth]

and zero, on 08 August 2014 - 01:09 AM, said:

What I said had nothing to do with maps. I was observing how terrible PGI's business strategies are.

There strategies are in line with the strategies of the f2p market. All f2p developers place priorities on things that directly influence income over things that don't.

[Monkey Lover]

Troutmonkey, on 07 August 2014 - 02:01 AM, said:

Do you know how hard it is to make a good random level generator? It's bloody hard. You can also completely forget about balanced maps too.

As for community tools those in themselves would be quite laborious to make, and then someone would have to go through and vet maps, and then someone would have to go over that map and make sure everything is up to spec.

Even with those excuses I still think that this game needs more maps pronto. The existing maps all really need to be refined as well, with crappy hitboxes and stupid pebbles everywhere.

Well im guessing you never have done any programming. A normal game makes the models. Say one model for each tree. Then a model for a rock. The a model for a building and so on. Then you build a layer with height added by code. Then you add textures. Last you assign the models to the layer. This is how you make maps. You dont make 1 model with every feature on it. So to make a radom map generator you randomly assign heights to you stand layer for land scape maps. The tools to make a map should have already been made for the deisgners. But they were to stupid to program the game correctly from the start. Problem is it was cheaper to make a few large models at rhe start than to make it right. Now they need to scrap all of it and start over. In the time it takes to make 2few maps they should be able to make a new system. How do they plan on doing real community warfare with thousands of maps? Allso they dont need to check anuthing if the map is bad people will fix it or stop using it. ( please forgive my type-o im posting on the phone)

Edited by Monkey Lover, 08 August 2014 - 01:27 AM.

[Mycrus]

Noth, on 08 August 2014 - 01:12 AM, said:

There strategies are in line with the strategies of the f2p market. All f2p developers place priorities on things that directly influence income over things that don't.

and what about their PR skillz?

[Noth]

Mycrus, on 08 August 2014 - 03:28 AM, said:

and what about their PR skillz?

What PR skillz? They don't have much of them, but at least they didn't blow smoke up our asses with that statement when many f2p devs would or as they have in the past.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Noth, on 08 August 2014 - 03:31 AM, said:

What PR skillz? They don't have much of them, but at least they didn't blow smoke up our asses with that statement when many f2p devs would or as they have in the past.

There should be some guy sat ina a corner making maps.
And it should not take said guy 7 months to make a map.

If it did, said guy should be fired.

[Mycrus]

DV McKenna, on 08 August 2014 - 03:35 AM, said:

There should be some guy sat ina a corner making maps.
And it should not take said guy 7 months to make a map.

If it did, said guy should be fired.

same intern that designed the hero kintaro...

[CeeKay Boques]

DV McKenna, on 08 August 2014 - 03:35 AM, said:

There should be some guy sat ina a corner making maps.
And it should not take said guy 7 months to make a map.

If it did, said guy should be fired.

I... well... yeah.

[CeeKay Boques]

About 160 hours in one work month for an individual.

There are 5 to 7, we'll say 5, guys working on the maps.

In 7 months we have 2 new maps, sorta.

That's 5600 hours, or 2800 man hours per map. (impossible, of course, government levels of inefficiency.)

I can see why they are so expensive. I can not see why they are small and have even one imperfection, with this much time spent on them.

[General Taskeen]

NextGame, on 06 August 2014 - 11:26 PM, said:

I'm surprised that there hasn't been any investigation done around converting some of these maps to MWO

They would be great to see converted, but they require a specific game mode to have the entire map used. Namely Conquest, with uncaptureable main bases, and respawn - and 60 minute matches. Most of those maps are enormous in MW:LL also (which is awesome) - in MWO's few large maps have a huge amount of unused space due to 15 minute short matches and no respawn type mode. In any case, the MW:LL team would not allow their game maps to be converted over, they don't want anything to do with MWO.

[Angel of Annihilation]

headbasher, on 07 August 2014 - 02:02 PM, said:

the simple fact of the matter is if they are small as they say then they need to hire more people and go beg microsoft or whoever for money . A game like this REQUIRES a big budget and cannot be run on what it is currently running on . I think that is the main problem right now. Which results in us getting nickle and dimed and content trickling out at the rate a redwood ages . Which brings me back to PGI/IGP whoever , should not have picked this game up.

No, it doesn't require a big budget. MM:LL proved that. MM:LL was a player mod that offered tons more depth and game play than the current MWO does. If a couple guys working for free, from home, can designed a complete remod for a game that is relatively high quality and uses the same exact game engine as MWO, then PGI with the 5 million it earned from Founders Packs alone should have been able to knock our sock off with an amazing game.

I think this is the problem.

We have an example of a player made Mod that while not perfect is still a pretty good simulation of Battletech with close to a TT rule set and it was all done without a budget, during spare time. Now granted, it is a overlay on crysis wars which did have a budget and professional studio but the mod is still an extensive ground up rework that required alot of effort...again done for free in spare time by just a few individuals.

Then we have PGI who has probably earned at least $50 million on this game so far, probably more. Now I know that alot of this goes to payroll, utilites and hardware but there should have been more than enough left over to design something that is much, much better than a player mod yet I think alot of people will agree, that mod is a better game than what we have currently.

To me this means that the vast majority of profits aren't being used by PGI to improve the game which is really a major betrayal to the player base providing those profits.

[Ambuscade]

There is a big difference as to why MW:LL produced what they did and MWO didn't. MW:LL was a MOD, produced by people who weren't doing it for a paycheck. They were doing it as a hobby and a passion. They were on a team with other like minded individuals. PGI on the other hand is a company. As a company they have to make money. Money to pay for expenses, employee salaries, growth, and continued existence. Furthermore, PGI has a publisher it has to appease. As has been stated before, that publisher cares about one thing: return on investment.

Now on the subject of content production, the reason MWO got outpaced by MW:LL can be summed up in one simple word: Bureaucracy.

Ambuscade

[xX PUG Xx]

Prezimonto, on 07 August 2014 - 05:05 AM, said:

I do wonder about this sometime. If they could just outright pay the MW:LL guys for access to their maps, I bet it would be significantly cheaper to get a reasonably finished map and polish it up a little than to build one from scratch.

As much as I like this idea, the problem there would be that the maps were created on an unofficial mod that was free. Therefore the MW:LL guys don't actually own the maps and so couldn't sell them. However, I'm sure it would be possible to work out a deal to gain the data that the MW:LL devs have on these maps, hell it's possible that one of the PGi team already thought of this and for some reason it just can't happen.

I do believe PGi need to either expand their team drastically to allow ramping up of things such as map creation, CW implementation and bug fixing OR they should be looking at outsourcing or working in conjunction with another software/dev team. This is already in motion with another well documented game (that I will not name ) and by all appearances is working well for that developer.

The argument that people would have to move to the city the company is based in doesn't make sense to me, the internet is a wonderful thing. Surely it is possible to send the software / information over the interweb? I realise this method would be slower than having someone on the office floor but adding another avenue of resource instead of stretching an already limited one would still be better, yes/no?

It has been said many times over, there are some very talented and (mainly) level headed individuals who have an emotional investment in this IP and game. I'm sure if PGi were to ask the question, they would find many of them would put there hand up to help. They would not have to accept community created maps from random people, they could vet the candidates much the same way as carrying out an interview; what experience does the individual have? None - thanks for your interest but we'll pass. Been creating maps/ developing software for 15 years - thanks for your interest, here's a the map dev kit we use, lets see what you can do.

The argument of having to vet the maps is a moot point as this would have to happen anyway, regardless of who and where the maps were created. Having the process of the maps being created by someone not in PGi's office means that those people in the office are free to work on other things until a map is ready to be given the QC passover, which can only speed the process of getting the game developed and thus bringing in more new players (and hopefully reigniting the interest of past players). Which will help them earn more money, pay their bills and feed their families, which in turn makes them want to turnout even more content and so on and so on.

[CeeKay Boques]

Ambuscade, on 08 August 2014 - 07:15 AM, said:

There is a big difference as to why MW:LL produced what they did and MWO didn't. MW:LL was a MOD, produced by people who weren't doing it for a paycheck. They were doing it as a hobby and a passion. They were on a team with other like minded individuals. PGI on the other hand is a company. As a company they have to make money. Money to pay for expenses, employee salaries, growth, and continued existence. Furthermore, PGI has a publisher it has to appease. As has been stated before, that publisher cares about one thing: return on investment.

Now on the subject of content production, the reason MWO got outpaced by MW:LL can be summed up in one simple word: Bureaucracy.

Ambuscade

All the reasons I didn't get into MWLL ended up f!@#$% me in the end.

[Noth]

Technoviking, on 08 August 2014 - 07:23 AM, said:

All the reasons I didn't get into MWLL ended up f!@#$% me in the end.

I really suggest putting more faith in modders and what they are capable of. In the Elder Scrolls games, the community made content is almost always better and even has more features than the company produced games.