74 replies to this topic

[Adrienne Vorton]

Stonefalcon, on 26 November 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

No game developer wants to spends months and hundred of thousands of dollars to develop their game for 5% of the personal computer market, Macs are dying as a gaming PC period. If a Mac user wants to play they can go buy a real computer and play on that.

as far as i know, devs said that Microsoft as the rightsholder of the MechWarrior brand just doesn´t want the game to be available for Apple products

[Beachy]

Thanks for the answer to my question Garth

[TheAquired]

Xervitus, on 26 November 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:

No offence to anyone who got a question answered but, do you guys do ANY research before you post here? I learned almost nothing from this thread, as almost all of it was available on these forums and in podcasts.

I'm really glad my question got answered. The one about the PC specs. Now we know they will encounter the same issues we get, and we can be assured they are fixing those kinds of issues

[Sakadzuki]

Why no one asked about fafnir or marauder 2?

[Waverider]

Garth Erlam, on 26 November 2012 - 10:34 AM, said:

Q: Will you/ are you looking into reconnect for players that disconnect/crash in a game.
For example WOT, you can restart your cilent and log on.Then go straight to a loading screen to get back into the game you were dropped from. Sometimes you have already died, but other times It can be a rage saver [/color] [color=#959595][Beachy]
A: We're working on a system for this, but it will likely be next year before it is in. [Garth]

While people are disconnected or force closed the AFK Mech could use some server side AI system to run out of fire - even a dumb AI that just runs back to home base (server side control) would be nice and Mech saving!

Edited by Waverider, 27 November 2012 - 09:22 AM.

[Ashnod]

Thanks!

[Tuoweit]

You armchair development managers exhorting PGI to "work harder" when you have no ******* clue what is going on inside the company or what's involved with actually writing quality software should really keep your mouths shut and think a bit about how incredibly disheartening/rage-inducing it must be to be busting your balls doing 16 hour days and have someone tell you that you just aren't passionate enough about your work. Software development is not like shoveling manure.

[Spirit of the Wolf]

Tuoweit, on 27 November 2012 - 10:02 AM, said:

You armchair development managers exhorting PGI to "work harder" when you have no ******* clue what is going on inside the company or what's involved with actually writing quality software should really keep your mouths shut and think a bit about how incredibly disheartening/rage-inducing it must be to be busting your balls doing 16 hour days and have someone tell you that you just aren't passionate enough about your work. Software development is not like shoveling manure.

Agreed.
I swear, it seems like those people have never even heard of 'Dilbert'.

All joking aside (actually, the Dilbert comment wasn't really a joke anyways), I still remember how my dad used to regularly get home at 11:00 pm after working from 7 AM in the morning. Often the same thing happened on weekends. It sucked. He quit the industry because he said like he felt he was going to have a heart attack. (No, he hasn't yet, thankfully, but I would not have been surprised if had experienced one while working in the Software industry.) And guess what people -- it ain't just the devs putting in insane hours. Both my parents worked in QA (that's 'Quality Assurance', for those who don't know), and my mom, who is still in the industry, wakes up at 5:00 nearly every morning, get's home at ~7 or 8 pm, and then promptly goes to bed, unless she has more work to do.

Trust a child of two software industry workers when I say:
NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO PUT IN THOSE HOURS TO MAKE A GREAT PRODUCT;
BUT PEOPLE STILL DO IT ANYWAYS.

So, instead of complaining, unless you have constructive criticism (y'know what that is right? It means being polite, and offering helpful suggestions instead of being an unhelpful a**hat with a clinical case of cranial-r.ectal inversion.), why don't we all just be happy that we even have this game?

If you have actual suggestions, put them in the 'Suggestions' part of the forum. The people at PGI do in fact read them (as noted in this weeks' answers), and would be more inclined to read more of them if people would be nicer and less 'I'm entitled to this, so GIMME' in their posts. Also, they can't do everything perfectly, and they do need a list of priorities -- I highly doubt they have enough people to fix all the problems at the same time. It'd be great if they did, but that's unfair to expect it of them. How would you react if you were in their position? (And before you answer that for yourself, think about any previous experiences you had where you were asked to do something you thought was almost entirely unrealistic, and then remember what your response was.)

And I know not everyone is including 'entitlement' in their posts like that, but enough people are like that to have made some people at PGI stop reading the forums.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and don't alienate the people who make your game if you want to keep playing it.

Any objections?

No?

Good. Let's all behave then, shall we?

Edited by Spirit of the Wolf, 27 November 2012 - 01:56 PM.

[Socket7]

Thank you for the Q and A session. It's wonderful to hear from the devs.

I wasn't going to spend any money on this game, It's free to play after all. After spending some time on the forums though and seeing the huge volume of vitriolic, utterly useless complaints that do absolutley nothing but make real information hard to find, I think I will send you guys some cash. You deserve it for putting up with these wetnose freebirths.

Terrible players, those who rant on the forums about devs being lazy, farm for c-bills, and pilot assault mechs like abject cowards are far more irritating to me then any of the bugs in a beta game.

I love this game. It has returned me to my childhood. It feels authentic, and the strategy and teamwork required to win delights me (except when I draw the short straw from the matching system and get paired with a bunch of fools, thats annoying).

Keep up the good work, and remember, the people who complain bitterly about the game are nothing but petulant freebirth scum. They have never made a video game. They are not programmers. They are not artists. They do not know the long hours you work, and they aren't worthy of your attention.

Thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you so much.

[Spirit of the Wolf]

Socket7, on 27 November 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

Thank you for the Q and A session. It's wonderful to hear from the devs.

I wasn't going to spend any money on this game, It's free to play after all. After spending some time on the forums though and seeing the huge volume of vitriolic, utterly useless complaints that do absolutley nothing but make real information hard to find, I think I will send you guys some cash. You deserve it for putting up with these wetnose freebirths.

Terrible players, those who rant on the forums about devs being lazy, farm for c-bills, and pilot assault mechs like abject cowards are far more irritating to me then any of the bugs in a beta game.

I love this game. It has returned me to my childhood. It feels authentic, and the strategy and teamwork required to win delights me (except when I draw the short straw from the matching system and get paired with a bunch of fools, thats annoying).

Keep up the good work, and remember, the people who complain bitterly about the game are nothing but petulant freebirth scum. They have never made a video game. They are not programmers. They are not artists. They do not know the long hours you work, and they aren't worthy of your attention.

Thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you so much.

Ayup.

Actually, I'll add to what Socket7 just said:

I've been using Autodesk Maya, which is a 3D computer modeling and animation program, because I am currently taking game design classes.

IT'S. NOT. EASY. (I enjoy it, so it makes it much better, but still.) Making models is hard, and I haven't even gotten to putting skeletons in them yet (which are used by engines to animate them). I'm certain that the people at PGI can do stuff both faster and better than I can, given that I'm just a student, but I'm just talking about modeling.

Then you need to code how the models will react under different circumstances.
Then you need to code environments.
Then you need to code more things that make the game actually look playable.

And don't forget, PGI modified the game engine -- Cryengine 3 -- so that it can take damage to different parts of the body with different hitpoints.
THEY MODIFIED THE GAME ENGINE.

There are ZERO precedents to what they're doing, people, so I consider that a huge accomplishment by itself. Are there days when I stop playing because something gets too buggy? Yes-- but it's Beta. I expect it. It's also much better than it was when I first started a few months ago, so I say we all simmer down, give 'em some time, and let the magic happen, Quiaff?

[Hetfeng321]

Prosperity Park, on 26 November 2012 - 07:46 PM, said:

I believe what Garth was saying is that PGI employees regularly work much overtime and aren't just sitting back and drinking Grey Goose martini's with our Founder's Money, so it's unfair to call the PGI Employees "lazy" for not putting enough effort into the game.

Good. I was not saying that they weren't putting their all into the game, I was saying that for months on end there has been no evidence of such. I think it is reasonable to assume, without a word from the devs, that a lack of devotion could be one of the causes. I never called them lazy, but I think you know that, I called them uninspired because that's what it looks like from a player's point of view. You say you dislike the negativity on the forums, who wouldn't? However, you have the power to fix it.

I have participated in a few closed betas before and the results of those devs' work was much more continuously displayed. I am not saying that they did more work per month than PGI does; I am saying that they showed evidence of it. You say that you are working hard, then you probably are, I doubt you would lie. The problem is people less understanding then me look at the lack of change in this game over such a long period of time and think "Wow, these devs are lazy." It is a known fact that MWO is losing players due to that and other technical issues that should have been solved long ago (maybe they were, but the fixes have not been implemented). I have seen that players believe the devs are lazy in general, you said the same, that is bad, it has been going on for too long. Eventually, it will hurt the developement of this game. I don't want that to happen.

I should have specified; the post before this one stated that most of the playerbase does not see evidence of change because, frankly, there has been no evidence of change. If the devs are working there ***** off, then let's see something. Maybe the devs should release smaller patches more often instead of larger patches less often. That seems like a good marketing stratedgy and I have seen it work before in other betas. The mega-patch (phases) idea might not be the best. I never believed the devs were lazy for sure, but I can't be sure (and neither can many other players) as they haven't proven it. Is a small patch every two weeks too much? Every three weeks? Is it reasonable to ask for a partially regular patch schedule so players will have some insurance that issues will be fixed and so they have a sense that the game is moving forward?

I know the game is moving forward in the developer's offices and studios. You said so yourself; your working till 11 every night. Work must be getting done, so show it to the masses and regain their trust.

Update: I just patched MWO. Fan-**** ing-tastic! Keep them coming.

Edited by Hetfeng321, 27 November 2012 - 05:23 PM.

[gregsolidus]

Sakadzuki, on 27 November 2012 - 06:10 AM, said:

Why no one asked about fafnir or marauder 2?

The Fafnir is almost a 13 years away and you know full well why no one asked about the Marauder.

Spirit of the Wolf, on 27 November 2012 - 02:18 PM, said:

There are ZERO precedents to what they're doing, people,

Lets dial back the credit machine just a bit. They're doing a good job but they're not magical, have you seen what people have done with the Unreal or Gambryo engine?

[Ixis]

JustAStick, on 26 November 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

What I am curious about ( and I mean this in the most unangry way possible) is why Piranha Games decided to open the beta if it had so many issues and so little content. It seems to me that it would've been better to open the beta later when more bugs were fixed and more content was available so the game could be more presentable. Also staying up till 10-11pm to work on a game is pretty normal in the game development industry. It would be best for you to get your head around that as soon as possible. A great example of this is when WETA Digital worked on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many of the employees would sleep every other night in order to make sure that everything that needed to get done was being finished and that is was A+ quality. This kind of dedication is what you should be striving for (maybe not on such an extreme level but still). And on the production for The Hobbit many of the employees would sleep at their facility and wouldn't leave because they were so dedicated and emotionally invested with the project, and you guys should be like that as well. The more effort and passion you put into the game, the more it will show when people are actually playing it. The Lord of the Rings over all made approximately 2 billion dollars in theaters alone, and it was because they just about killed themselves (figuratively) trying to make the films.

The difference being that when they made Lord of The Rings they started with a huge multi million dollar budget and if you watch the credits at the end of the film,thousands of people working on it.I'm sure if garth and co' were in a similar position we'd all be having kittens over how fantastic the game was,sadly this is not the case,in the nicest possible way

[Hetfeng321]

Ixis, on 27 November 2012 - 06:50 PM, said:

The difference being that when they made Lord of The Rings they started with a huge multi million dollar budget and if you watch the credits at the end of the film,thousands of people working on it.I'm sure if garth and co' were in a similar position we'd all be having kittens over how fantastic the game was,sadly this is not the case,in the nicest possible way

The Founder's program grossed roughly 5 million. If you do a little research about the development of some the greatest video games in history, you'll see that many were achieved with even less than that (where would the companies get the money in the first place otherwise? Donations? Sure. Too bad PGI doesn't have a donations progra-- oh, wait, they do). PGI would have no problem gaining employees in this down economy if they tried. Volunteers have been suggested many times to them by beta testers and PGI should be taking advantage of that (BT and MW fanboys are abundant and will surely work for free to help this game along). Resources are clearly not an issue for PGI or they would have stated so ages ago to get the whiners off their back.

Edited by Hetfeng321, 27 November 2012 - 07:42 PM.

[Hetfeng321]

"A: BattleTech/MechWarrior do not follow 'real life' rules for many reasons, one of which is that Mechs don't actually make sense as a combat vehicle. Beyond that though, a lot of these choices are for balance, playability, etc. If this game worked like real life you'd be dying to artillery 10 kilometres away, and ships in orbit would just drop rocks on you, nuking entire areas. So basically, it'd be less fun [Garth]"

I don't want to argue with a dev but that is very wrong and I don't want it to limit the possibilities or immersiveness of MWO. War is a game of counters. If all we needed was artillery, then we wouldn't have sent infantry and tanks and helicopters and etc into Iraq and Afghanistan (and any other war after the 1930s). The enemy has artillery, so you bring in gunships or bombers. They have anti-air guns, so you send in tanks, to get those. They still have the artillery so you must commence an assault with multiple vehicles to cover each other. That was the idea behind the developement of the M2 Bradley. It was designed as an escort to the M1 Abrams (and other purposes such as personnel transport). The Abrams is vulnerable against infantry with anti-armor weaponry due to it's low agility and the Bradley is vulnerable to heavier vehicles due to it's lighter armor. The Bradley is fast enough to dispatch infantry quickly and the Abrams can deal with heavier vehicles. Counters and countering strategies are a fundamental aspect of war (read Art of War). Let's say they enemy has spacecraft that can glass the surface, so you send fighters to manuever past the slow capital ships' defenses. But the enemy has guns mounted on the planet to stop the fighters. So you send in ground forces to take those out. Again, a commander in this situation must commence a simultaneous assault with multiple types of forces to cover eachother.

If everything could be countered with artillery, then all we would use was artillery. This idea actually became a problem during WWI and the dawn of trench warfare. Each side could obliterate the other the minute they stepped into "no man's land". No other strategies were used. They just sat there with artillery cannons at the ready. The result was long, drawn out battles that involved days of sitting in trenches and ended when one side got impatient.

A realistic game does not mean a "boring" game. Look at ARMA and ARMA 2. Beautiful, fun, popular games that are very realistic. So popular in fact, many global mods have been made for them such as DayZ. The realism of those games make strategy a neccessity. Realism is a great way to require strategy in a game and draw in an intelligent playerbase. PGI has stressed that MWO will not be another COD-esque, brainless shooter. They should abandon the idea that realism = boring or unbalanced to help achieve that goal.

Edited by Hetfeng321, 27 November 2012 - 08:20 PM.

[p4r4g0n]

@Hetfeng321 The problem with bringing in new people in any complex and time consuming task means that overall work slows down while existing personnel bring new people up to speed. Adding the "volunteer" aspect of it also means that the volunteer could walk off without any prior notice for whatever reason with all the problems that would entail.

@Garth Erlam Thanks for the replies, they're always appreciated. I appreciate that you guys have a lot on your plate and very little time to achieve your timelines but a communication initiative that leaves people feeling you're ducking certain questions intentionally seems counter-productive. Brief comments on questions that you cannot provide firm answers to or have already answered previously would help alleviate this.

Loving the game atm and thanks for the opportunity to play this Open Beta.

Edited by p4r4g0n, 27 November 2012 - 08:08 PM.

[Spirit of the Wolf]

gregsolidus, on 27 November 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

The Fafnir is almost a 13 years away and you know full well why no one asked about the Marauder.


Lets dial back the credit machine just a bit. They're doing a good job but they're not magical, have you seen what people have done with the Unreal or Gambryo engine?

Not what I meant, but I guess I wasn't clear enough: I meant that the Cryengine 3 has never been modified in this way before, so there are no precedents. Basically, they're breaking new ground here, so they don't have anyone else to build off of in some respects.

[Hetfeng321]

p4r4g0n, on 27 November 2012 - 08:07 PM, said:

@Hetfeng321 The problem with bringing in new people in any complex and time consuming task means that overall work slows down while existing personnel bring new people up to speed. Adding the "volunteer" aspect of it also means that the volunteer could walk off without any prior notice for whatever reason with all the problems that would entail.

@Garth Erlam Thanks for the replies, they're always appreciated. I appreciate that you guys have a lot on your plate and very little time to achieve your timelines but a communication initiative that leaves people feeling you're ducking certain questions intentionally seems counter-productive. Brief comments on questions that you cannot provide firm answers to or have already answered previously would help alleviate this.

Loving the game atm and thanks for the opportunity to play this Open Beta.

That is a problem. Good thing beta testers exist. We would be more effective though if the devs acknowldged more of the important questions and saved the silly ones for lunch break.

[Aym]

Stonefalcon, on 26 November 2012 - 03:00 PM, said:

No game developer wants to spends months and hundred of thousands of dollars to develop their game for 5% of the personal computer market, Macs are dying as a gaming PC period. If a Mac user wants to play they can go buy a real computer and play on that.

At least three of my friends that play use Macs and run in bootcamp or something similar. it works.

[JustAStick]

Aym, on 28 November 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

At least three of my friends that play use Macs and run in bootcamp or something similar. it works.

I think they mean that the game wont be supported on Mac OSX