11 replies to this topic

[Dexter Herbivore]

Doors and the LRM problem. Some insight into the programming process and the questions that the devs face.

[El Bandito]

Could you be more specific? Maybe cause it is past midnight, my brain isn't connecting the dots.

Edited by El Bandito, 03 May 2016 - 07:19 AM.

[Dexter Herbivore]

Click on the link, it's a Kotaku article about game design using doors as a metaphor, After midnight? Aussie, I'm guessing? 11.19pm here in Perth.

[Afuldan McKronik]

The game engine also has to allow doors in the first place, or all this is pointless.

[Mechteric]

No idea what you're referencing, though I do think the LRM door delay needs to be removed for mechs that still have that

[Dexter Herbivore]

To help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.

• Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.”
  
• Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.”
  
• Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.”
  
• Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.”
  
• Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”
  
• Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.”
  
• Animator: “I made the door open and close.”
  
• Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.”
  
• Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.”
  
• Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.”
  
• FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.”
  
• Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “
  
• Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.”
  
• Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.”
  
• Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.”
  
• Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.”
  
• AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.”
  
• Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?”
  
• Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.”
  
• Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.”
  
• Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.”
  
• Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.”
  
• UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.”
  
• Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.”
  
• Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.”
  
• Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”
  
• QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.”
  
• UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.”
  
• Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dør. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문”
  
• Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”
  
• Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.”
  
• CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.”
  
• PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet”
  
• Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.”
  
• Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.”
  
• Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.”

Point is, people complain about features and talk about simple fixes. There is no such thing as a "simple" fix.

[Afuldan McKronik]

Not going to quote that because I am lazy, and if I quote that lazily this page will scroll forever.

The devs are the ones who said the current engine makes doing anything tedious. Probably more than your example.

Like it or hate it, eventually one of two things happen. One, they continue to use the current engine, which the ammo switching cant be done, has hacked in dx11 support which is unstable, takes ages to add new features which frustrate the devs and players, among other things.

Or we wait with zero updates while they port everything over to a new engine. Which frustrates players due to no new anything for X months, but makes the devs jobs easier in the long run, due to them being able to re document how every step works in the port and adaptation, so we don't end up with a code that noone knows how it works (ammo switching). It may make it easier for the devs to develop features, it may be better optimized, it will for sure be easier for the devs, if they document everything and something is broke.

I would much rather have no new pokemechs for a while, and have a properly working game engine that the devs understand exactly how it works and why, even new hires, because every change or workaround to get it to work was documented.

Yes it would be frustrating for players who are addicted to shoving money at new shinies. Would the optimized, shiny new engine that doesn't seem to be broken half the time help the devs in the long run? Absolutely. It would benefit the players in the long run also.

[Dexter Herbivore]

No arguments with that, I just get sick of reading "simple fix" from people who obviously have no understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. Every minor change to an existing mechanic is an absolute shi... errr, BUN-fight between competing needs of different departments.

I've been involved in software development and the worst words you could hear, particularly at a late stage were, "We've just got this little change that we want to make".

[Afuldan McKronik]

Dexter Herbivore, on 03 May 2016 - 07:41 AM, said:

No arguments with that, I just get sick of reading "simple fix" from people who obviously have no understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. Every minor change to an existing mechanic is an absolute shi... errr, BUN-fight between competing needs of different departments.

Simple fixes are XML values, for equipment stats. A lot of the fixes that people are suggesting are new features, which as we have heard, are damn hard to impliment due to the custom code that MWO is half unknown due to coders leaving or somethingalongthoselines.

It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up if 1)devs want to make new features easily and 2)if we want some of the new features.

That was the tone I got from the devs talking about a new engine.

Edited by Afuldan McKronik, 03 May 2016 - 07:45 AM.

[El Bandito]

Dexter Herbivore, on 03 May 2016 - 07:25 AM, said:

Point is, people complain about features and talk about simple fixes. There is no such thing as a "simple" fix.

For LRMs, that might be the case, but for other weapons such as MGs? Easy fixes are right in front of them.

[XtremWarrior]

Dexter Herbivore, on 03 May 2016 - 07:25 AM, said:

To help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.

• Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.”
  
• Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.”
  
• Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.”
  
• Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.”
  
• Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”
  
• Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.”
  
• Animator: “I made the door open and close.”
  
• Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.”
  
• Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.”
  
• Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.”
  
• FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.”
  
• Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “
  
• Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.”
  
• Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.”
  
• Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.”
  
• Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.”
  
• AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.”
  
• Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?”
  
• Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.”
  
• Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.”
  
• Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.”
  
• Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.”
  
• UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.”
  
• Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.”
  
• Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.”
  
• Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”
  
• QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.”
  
• UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.”
  
• Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dør. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문”
  
• Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”
  
• Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.”
  
• CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.”
  
• PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet”
  
• Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.”
  
• Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.”
  
• Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.”

Point is, people complain about features and talk about simple fixes. There is no such thing as a "simple" fix.

MWO Players: "how to open as many Doors as possible before overheating?"
PGI: "we're concerned about the numbers of Doors people can open at the same time so instead of making doors opening longer, we make a rule: so if you open more than 3 Doors in less than 1 sec, the second one will close itself."

[Afuldan McKronik]

Ghost doors.