46 replies to this topic

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

How is drop in matchmaking going to fit in different with a meta game than server browsers? Your rationale doesn't make sense since you can have faction servers... where one side is always DCMS, or FedCom or whatever and they get a new challenger every week.

Well, I don't have actual code here, or concept, but I assume, you need, say, real time statistics for CW. And, actually, interactions between factions.
Don't think the devs are stupid. If they were, they would have started to implement their own engine.

[xRaeder]

Undead Bane, on 27 November 2012 - 04:41 PM, said:

Well, I don't have actual code here, or concept, but I assume, you need, say, real time statistics for CW. And, actually, interactions between factions.
Don't think the devs are stupid. If they were, they would have started to implement their own engine.

Your argument is invalid as DICE has proven that you can have real time stats coming from all around the world to a central data center. Both BF2 and BF3 have this capability.

[Xenophontis]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

This might be true. But... modders have made a better game in the same amount of time w/ no money.

So while educational it still doesn't negate that.

Yeah because 80% of the work is already done for them . . .

You seriously cannot compare modding to full on development/

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

Your argument is invalid as DICE has proven that you can have real time stats coming from all around the world to a central data center. Both BF2 and BF3 have this capability.

*sigh*
We are talking in different languages. I will explain what I mean in detail later.

[Leroy Jenkens]

Fire some of these: Graphical design department

Hire some of these: "Netcode" programming staff

[xRaeder]

Xenophontis, on 27 November 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

Yeah because 80% of the work is already done for them . . .

You seriously cannot compare modding to full on development/

Let me see... MW:LL was a total conversion, just like this game... both PGI and modders had the SDK of their respective engines... yet one had funding. The other did not. Like PGI the modders had to come up with vehicle controls, weapon effects, modify physics, animations... the whole nine yards. So yes... I can compare the two as they are mirrors of each other.

PGI CHOSE to not use a lot of the things the SDK had already laid out for them. That includes coming up with a matchmaking system. My main complaint is the drop in nature of this game. Not bugs... not crashes... not weapon balance. No... I sense a lack of vision and that disturbs this Btech fan.

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

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 05:22 PM, said:

Let me see... MW:LL was a total conversion, just like this game... both PGI and modders had the SDK of their respective engines... yet one had funding. The other did not. Like PGI the modders had to come up with vehicle controls, weapon effects, modify physics, animations... the whole nine yards. So yes... I can compare the two as they are mirrors of each other.

PGI CHOSE to not use a lot of the things the SDK had already laid out for them. That includes coming up with a matchmaking system. My main complaint is the drop in nature of this game. Not bugs... not crashes... not weapon balance. No... I sense a lack of vision and that disturbs this Btech fan.

The thread has been hijacked by mwll fight...
OK.
So.
1. New controls - lol, funny. That is NOT hard, actually.
2. Weapon effects - yes. And if you look, say, even 1 year back, they were terriBAD.
3. Modify physics - they DID NOT do that.
4. Animations - yes. But the animations are bad. Actually, so bad, that it can be an example of how you should NOT make bipedal machine's animations.

So, all in all, they did weapon effects, huds, animations. Basically, that is all.
And again, pros and cons of original Crysis SDK are not a small topic. So this should be discussed separately. I just can say, that there are, for a MMO game with high server load, more cons than pros.
I'm not saying that MWLL modders did bad job - they did job as well as a modder community can do, even better. But not enough for a game, really.

Edited by Undead Bane, 27 November 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[xRaeder]

Undead Bane, on 27 November 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

The thread has been hijacked by mwll fight...
OK.
So.
1. New controls - lol, funny. That is NOT hard, actually.
2. Weapon effects - yes. And if you look, say, even 1 year back, they were terriBAD.
3. Modify physics - they DID NOT do that.
4. Animations - yes. But the animations are bad. Actually, so bad, that it can be an example of how you should NOT make bipedal machine's animations.

So, all in all, they did weapon effects, huds, animations. Basically, that is all.
And again, pros and cons of original Crysis SDK are not a small topic. So this should be discussed separately. I just can say, that there are, for a MMO game with high server load, more cons than pros.
I'm not saying that MWLL modders did bad job - they did job as well as a modder community can do, even better. But not enough for a game, really.

Twice as many models (more Mechs. AEROSPACE. TANKS. Infantry = a more complete Battletech experience). Twice as many maps. And most importantly... they did it for free.

Edited by xRaeder, 27 November 2012 - 05:58 PM.

[xRaeder]

And you're missing MY point.

MW:LL devs did more with less than PGI has done with millions of dollars. They were also given in-house support from Crytek as per terms of the SDK agreement that they purchased. Whether or not they took advantage of that is another matter... and a mistake if they didn't.

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

Twice as many models (more Mechs. AEROSPACE. TANKS. Infantry = a more complete Battletech experience). Twice as many maps. And most importantly... they did it for free.

1. Twice as many models of WAY lower detail level.
2. Twice as many models mostly copied from old games (still remodeled, but not much of design here) or videos.
3. Twice as many models over 4 years. Compare to 1.5...2 year old MWLL please, if you'd like.
4. Twice as many maps, which level of detail is a joke from modern game perspective (really cool for a mod, though)
5. Twice as many maps with quite unbalanced layout

Should I bother continuing?

Again, what MWLL makers did was great. However, it is not enough for a modern game. At all.

Oh, and million of bucks is not a small sum, of course, but not big one either, if you look from perspective of a company, and take all legal issues into consideration

Edited by Undead Bane, 27 November 2012 - 06:04 PM.

[xRaeder]

Undead Bane, on 27 November 2012 - 06:03 PM, said:

1. Twice as many models of WAY lower detail level.
2. Twice as many models mostly copied from old games (still remodeled, but not much of design here) or videos.
3. Twice as many models over 4 years. Compare to 1.5...2 year old MWLL please, if you'd like.
4. Twice as many maps, which level of detail is a joke from modern game perspective (really cool for a mod, though)
5. Twice as many maps with quite unbalanced layout

Should I bother continuing?

Again, what MWLL makers did was great. However, it is not enough for a modern game. At all.

Oh, and million of bucks is not a small sum, of course, but not big one either, if you look from perspective of a company, and take all legal issues into consideration

Oh come on. They were working from what amounted to a tech demo engine... which is what Cryengine 2 was. Remember that you needed a 4k computer to run it back in the day. You don't with Cryengine 3 because it is a. Optimized for console hardware, and b. more dev friendly.

I've worked professionally with both of them and know for a fact that Cryengine 3 is far easier to use and more feature rich than the previous iteration.

We both know that if MW:LL devs had had 7 million they'd have made a better game... don't kid yourself by thinking otherwise.

The only reason why this game currently has higher production values is that it was started later when tech and dev tools had advanced and they had the money to hire full time staff to work on it.

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

Oh come on. They were working from what amounted to a tech demo engine... which is what Cryengine 2 was. Remember that you needed a 4k computer to run it back in the day. You don't with Cryengine 3 because it is a. Optimized for console hardware, and b. more dev friendly.

I've worked professionally with both of them and know for a fact that Cryengine 3 is far easier to use and more feature rich than the previous iteration.

We both know that if MW:LL devs had had 7 million they'd have made a better game... don't kid yourself by thinking otherwise.

The only reason why this game currently has higher production values is that it was started later when tech and dev tools had advanced and they had the money to hire full time staff to work on it.

...and a big angry man with a shotgun made them choose that engine...
...and they did not have donate button, so there was no way for them to get money...

Also, on each argument I post, you don't post counter-argument. You just switch. Sorry, but I'm tired of following that.

And no, I don't think that they would have made a better game. Because they had a chance and never made it. Mod, while being interesting, was completely unsuccessfull. For an example of a successfull one, look at CounterStrike. And please, don't start telling me that this is all about the engine, becuse then we will have to assume, that angry man with a shotgun actually was there, and I'm mostly sure, that he was not.

Oh, and instead of comparing who was working with what, I will just post this:

Edited by Undead Bane, 27 November 2012 - 06:37 PM.

[xRaeder]

Still waiting for that "write up" you promised.

[Undead Bane]

xRaeder, on 27 November 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

Still waiting for that "write up" you promised.

I will write it in a separate post, because MWLL vs MWO is not exactly what this one is about. Soon.

[mekabuser]

Undead Bane, on 27 November 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

Modders.
This means these guys have nothing to do with
a) 3d/2d programming - it was all actually made for them
netcode - they just used whatever the game gave them

Also, the ones we are (supposedly) talking about made ****** animations, bad balance, questionable mechanics, etc.

For a mod that mod is good. For a game - it is worse than MWO now with all the programming bugs.

your out of your mind by orders of magnitude.Seriously, you live in a fantasy world... We dont even have a viable ppc in the game...
so please kindly refrain from posting your opinion.. Your about as right as those who defended slavery to the death

[Vassago Rain]

I only have limited experience with living legends. The reason why is, it's not a mech game.
It's a 'kill the mechs with horded tanks and aiplanes'-game.

Ergo, it didn't satisfiy my need for giant robots fighting, since there was very little giant robots fighting.

[Undead Bane]

mekabuser, on 28 November 2012 - 04:49 AM, said:

your out of your mind by orders of magnitude.Seriously, you live in a fantasy world... We dont even have a viable ppc in the game...
so please kindly refrain from posting your opinion.. Your about as right as those who defended slavery to the death

Thank you for the offer - and no, I will not refrain.
I never said, that the game in current state is what it should be, that we have all that is needed but some minor stuff. No. Heat balance is a joke, netcode is conceptually bad so far (they are rewriting it, huray), all but no optimisation and so on and so on. BUT. This is what BETA is all about. We have core mechanics working SOMEHOW (not necessary nicely), now these mechanics must be tested/polished/rewritten. Again, this is what BETA is all about. Remember, 20% of effort give 80% of result. The devs made these 20% already, we have our 80%. Now they are deep in the remaining 80%, and this is tough.

And about fantasy world - If you do think that the amount of work in MWLL is comparable to amount of work in new game development it is you, who are living there. MWLL developers stopped exactly at that 20% of effort, because, well, they were not full time MWLL developers, they did it for fun.

Edited by Undead Bane, 28 November 2012 - 05:12 AM.

[Undead Bane]

Vassago Rain, on 28 November 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

I only have limited experience with living legends. The reason why is, it's not a mech game.
It's a 'kill the mechs with horded tanks and aiplanes'-game.

Ergo, it didn't satisfiy my need for giant robots fighting, since there was very little giant robots fighting.

Well, that is what combined warfare is. Eventually you end up fighting (never balanced) VTOLs mostly, as they were (and are) the most effective machines on the battlefield. Also, they were quite evil in TT.

[Kaelus]

Undead Bane, on 27 November 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

Well, did I ever say that netcode is good (actually, it may even be not bad, it's more likely conceptual flaw)? I just want you (and the likes) to understand, that netcode is responsibility of a part of the team. And only this particular part of the team can fix it.
So, when people declare things like "SOTP MAkIN BOBLEHEADZ, FIX DA NETC0DE!!!!!!1111oneone" - they are just being ignorant and I want that ignorance to go away a bit. Designers have nothing to do with netcode, they may not even know C. Should they stop working then?

And believe me, PGI is working on the netcode. It is just hellishly hard to fix, but they will do it eventually.

So who works on the maps? and why do we only have 4 with two reskins? One guy working on alternate saturdays ? Static tiny maps dont make sense in a game of this caliber. It's irritating and frustrating. At least we get 1 mech a month.

[Undead Bane]

Kaelus, on 28 November 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

So who works on the maps? and why do we only have 4 with two reskins? One guy working on alternate saturdays ? Static tiny maps dont make sense in a game of this caliber. It's irritating and frustrating. At least we get 1 mech a month.

Oh, finally, a proper question, thank you!
Actually, I have the same Q for the devs. Some time ago it was announced, that they have separate teams working on mech and map design. Let's assume that is still correct.
Then, why don't we have more maps now, but we have more and more mechs? I think, that there is a bottleneck somewhere. Maybe it is Game designers, who have their hands full with fixing weapon mechanics and don't have time for maps analisys? Well, it would be nice to know then.
Or, maybe, the map production for the current game mode has been stopped completely, and maps are made (and were made for quite a while) for a more advanced game mode, say, the Conquest we keep hearing about? If so, it is also understandable, but hey, PR, we could know that and be thankfull.
Or, the worst case, everyone has their hands full and map making was stopped or goes uncontrolled right now. I really hope, that this is not happening.

Of course, all these variants are valid only if the assumption of having two different teams working on mechs and maps. Otherwise the situation looks way more different.


PS
I don't have any insight into PGI, unfortunately. All I can do is speculate on how the development teams are normally structured and correct that basing on whatever info I can dig from dev's replys.

Edited by Undead Bane, 28 November 2012 - 05:59 AM.