46 replies to this topic

[Kaelus]

Undead Bane, on 28 November 2012 - 05:52 AM, said:

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.

See the thing is if they were smart they'd use the built in time of day stuff for cry engine and have it spawn random maps based on random times of day..say pick 6 times early morning, morning, noon, after noon, night, late night. maybe even add in dusk. Then every map becomes a lot of maps and people get a helluva lot less bored. Or pick even more.... i mean
http://freesdk.cryde...+Up+Time+Of+Day

Engine supports it, just doesn't make sense they do things the hard way, plus that could flow nicely into community warfare. I have no idea what is stalling them, maybe get the community onto the maps, either way if they had a ton of maps people would be a lot less bored.

[Undead Bane]

Kaelus, on 28 November 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

See the thing is if they were smart they'd use the built in time of day stuff for cry engine and have it spawn random maps based on random times of day..say pick 6 times early morning, morning, noon, after noon, night, late night. maybe even add in dusk. Then every map becomes a lot of maps and people get a helluva lot less bored. Or pick even more.... i mean
http://freesdk.cryde...+Up+Time+Of+Day

Engine supports it, just doesn't make sense they do things the hard way, plus that could flow nicely into community warfare. I have no idea what is stalling them, maybe get the community onto the maps, either way if they had a ton of maps people would be a lot less bored.

Agreed. This could be a little bit refreshing. Actually, I expected (when entered CBT), that for, say Forest Colony that has been implemented.
How to do that on Frozen, Caustic and River city is questionable - first two don't have earth's atmosphere and last one should look like a city in the middle of combat, that means fog/dust etc, but at least for Forest Colony I don't see anything agains this.

It would be also great to get feedback on that too, however "Ask the devs" is not up anymore AFAIK.

[Kaelus]

Undead Bane, on 28 November 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

Agreed. This could be a little bit refreshing. Actually, I expected (when entered CBT), that for, say Forest Colony that has been implemented.
How to do that on Frozen, Caustic and River city is questionable - first two don't have earth's atmosphere and last one should look like a city in the middle of combat, that means fog/dust etc, but at least for Forest Colony I don't see anything agains this.

It would be also great to get feedback on that too, however "Ask the devs" is not up anymore AFAIK.

I suggested this many times in early CB, but many of my suggestions went unanswered.

[Taizan]

Leroy Jenkens, on 27 November 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

Fire some of these: Graphical design department
Hire some of these: "Netcode" programming staff

Fantastic idea! While doing that they should hire you as CEO. The game will be done in 24 hours.

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.

Maybe its not just "making the map" but having to squeeze in map testing into the already quite full testing pipeline? Also its not just making a nice terrain and slapping some meshes on to it. Collisions, performance optimization, level balancing and several development pass-throughs come to mind and probably there are several more things to be green lighted before a map gets goes live.

[Undead Bane]

Anti-ECM bump!

Also...

Taizan, on 28 November 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

Maybe its not just "making the map" but having to squeeze in map testing into the already quite full testing pipeline? Also its not just making a nice terrain and slapping some meshes on to it. Collisions, performance optimization, level balancing and several development pass-throughs come to mind and probably there are several more things to be green lighted before a map gets goes live.

Well, yeah, a bottleneck somewhere. The problem is, that if the bottleneck is not handled properly, certain dev departments will just sit and play minesweeper as they have no tasks to do.
I hope it's no like that now

[Ghosth]

A That is only possible if they have a reasonably solid stable game engine to work with.

B As for the timeline, that only works if they are not adding any new content. But just changing how that content works.
Mods that actually add new content often take a year or more.

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.

[ollo]

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

So, just like PGI as they're using the same engine? What did you want to say again?