158 replies to this topic

[Steven Dixon]

Volthorne, on 31 January 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

Shhhh! That's just the lure we use in Canada to get people to move up here to work. Then they get all surprised when we show up at the "airport" (read: strip of hard-packed snow) with "cars" (read: dogsleds) and drive them to their "apartment" (read: igloo). The stupid Americans will never catch on!

...

Did I just say all of that out loud?

Another of your Communist Canadian Conspiracies. Or you send your convert infiltrators who come to our country (the USA) and try to act all normal and nice and intelligent when they are secretly trying to steal our maple syrup secrets. You'll pry them out of my cold dead hands.

Edited by Steven Dixon, 31 January 2013 - 10:48 AM.

[o Riva o]

Mister Blastman, on 31 January 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

Seriously. If you know it all like you say you do--go make us a game! Tell us when you're done.

If you can give me the $ 5M you gave PGI for MWO, or hell, even 1 M is ok, I can create a better game then MWO for you. Which is kind of sad in regard with MWO.
It will even have story missions and AI mechs you can fight against Not even talking about more then 4 maps

Btw I like the guy who sayd that assets had to be "remodeled" from Unreal to C3 engine

Edited by o Riva o, 31 January 2013 - 10:59 AM.

[toxx1790]

I estimate the OP to be around 24-25 years old. He's probably worked at a few places and might be quite good at what he does. Perhaps his friends are too.

I suggest that none of them have any business experience and have never had to make decisions that effect the bottom line of a company.

I imagine a scenario where the OP and his buddies convince an "angel investor" to give them the funding for the "3 months" it takes to make MWO, only bigger and better.

I think the OP would benefit from the experience of arriving at the end of the three months and realizing that they aren't even close to where they need to be and needing to go back to the investors for more money.

[Volthorne]

Steven Dixon, on 31 January 2013 - 10:47 AM, said:

Another of your Communist Canadian Conspiracies. Or you send your convert infiltrators who come to our country (the USA) and try to act all normal and nice and intelligent when they are secretly trying to steal our maple syrup secrets. You'll pry them out of my cold dead hands.

Hey, you stole our secrets first, so we're just trying to steal them back! Besides, everyone knows Canadian Maple Syrup is quite literally the best.

[Bishop Steiner]

o Riva o, on 31 January 2013 - 10:20 AM, said:

I suspect they would want me to relocate to theyr frozen end of the world. I did refuse that for 2 compaies already. Not ready to change my mind (I hate cold )

I agree. Still it would have to be several months of "corporate snags" for every major asset to fit the development time
The fact that they have to have everything approved by 'FASA' is a speculation though, right ?
What makes you (all) think any of us want to work at Piranha ?
Besides you dont really have to be super "good" to be able to create something like MWO in the time given above. Thats considered "normal" in most game companies I know.
1. I dont think the MWO art is "fantastic". Imo it all looks pretty blank and uninteresting. definetly compared to curent topselling games.
2. the concept sketches dont take as much time as you imagine. Also I think all the designs in MWO are based on tons of ilustrations that already exist in Battletech franchise for years. Not even counting the notion that they (quite surely imo) used all the assets and artworks they had done for MW5. And not even counting that they arelady had very good base for designs in previous MW games They didnt really need to pre-viz anything. (Im writing this just to inform how things usually work. And not.)

Its maybe clear to you, but can you clarify for me where did we go wrong ?
Hi to fellow level designer!
I agree that if you are making a big, intricate level for a real FPS, with tons of checkpoints, areas, scripted and unscripted AI enemies, maybe several interchanging environments and hihg level of detail, then it takes a lot of planning, pre-viz-ing and maybe even whiteboxing 1st.
The levels for MWO are basic, small, empty, non-interactive, low-detail, have one simple environment ... dont need to continue
I just cant imagine making a dozen of artworks just to make the blant 'Frozen city' map.
Who the .. did you hire ?
Especialy: "2 Animators" ? What did they animate ? The only things that move in the game are the player-driven robots and Im guesssing that most of the robots animations are either code-created (legs, torso twist) or physics simluation (death).

and the interactive (though most interactions are currently set to off, but much of each map features destructible terrain) the water on the water levels, smoke, the trees and grass blowing in the breeze, the snowfall in Frozen City.....

yeah for such a wizbang programmer you sure have overlooked a lot of animation.....

[o Riva o]

Thontor, on 31 January 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

Where did you go wrong? What, you think PGI made MWO in a few days and then has been on vacation since them?

Thread title question:
"How long did it really take to make MWO?"

Answer:
Around 15 months at this point.

Does your estimation match that? No? That's where you went wrong.

So clearly there are processes involved in making MWO that you didn't take into account.

I dont mean to argue with you (or any fanboy here). Thats pointless. (Hence the smilies at the end of all my sentences )
The truth is neither me NOR you know what happened and happens at Pyranha.
You just believe what they tell you and present it as a fact. Children do that

toxx1790, on 31 January 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

I estimate the OP to be around 24-25 years old.

Quite a bit older. I just sound (read) as an *** (I guess) when I write on forums (in english which is clearly not my main lang)

Quote

I suggest that none of them have any business experience and have never had to make decisions that effect the bottom line of a company.

Believe or not, I successfuly led a small game dev company for 6 years.
"Small" means we were working on a small online but non-mmo games like MWO or racing games etc. (Compared to a suicidaly huge, real, games like Dishonored and such)

Quote

I imagine a scenario where the OP and his buddies convince an "angel investor" to give them the funding for the "3 months" it takes to make MWO, only bigger and better.

I think the OP would benefit from the experience of arriving at the end of the three months and realizing that they aren't even close to where they need to be and needing to go back to the investors for more money.

I actually had that kind of investment offer once. But that was for full AAA game or nothing. I did ren from it (and screamed ) That wasn't a simple deadmatch game with robots.

Edited by o Riva o, 31 January 2013 - 11:19 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

o Riva o, on 31 January 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

I understand you dont really know what 'checkpoints' and 'areas' are in a (modern) game.

I don't have to be a programmer or developer to understand how craptastic FPS games have become in recent times. The last "good" modern FPS I played was the Stalker series--which are open world and very complex.

Call of Duty/Halo/Whateverelseis similar don't count towards good game design at all. They give great reasons how NOT to design a game.

Game design is a far different concept/philosophy than the actual technical portion of creating the game. They intertwine while at the same time, drive each other in different ways.

But whatever, I play them. And I know what is terrible and what isn't.

Checkpoints to "save your game" or advance the uninteresting corridor are crutches introduced by Half Life 2 (which was a good game despite its glaring flaws). I'll have none of these lazy shenanigans like, "Oh look, Black Ops has amazing graphics and level design wow wowowow."

I play a game first, look at it second.

We're not entirely doomed. Just look at what Dark Souls has accomplished. Such an amazing experience without all the stupid cutscene, handholding BS.

[Tice Daurus]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 January 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

and the interactive (though most interactions are currently set to off, but much of each map features destructible terrain) the water on the water levels, smoke, the trees and grass blowing in the breeze, the snowfall in Frozen City.....

yeah for such a wizbang programmer you sure have overlooked a lot of animation.....

The OP overlooked a crapload of things that he never took account of.

[Ken Fury]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 January 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

and the interactive (though most interactions are currently set to off, but much of each map features destructible terrain) the water on the water levels, smoke, the trees and grass blowing in the breeze, the snowfall in Frozen City.....

yeah for such a wizbang programmer you sure have overlooked a lot of animation.....

He also forgot the different Animations for the different Cockpits.
Different Models for all Mechstates / Variants
And it reasonable to guess that he doesn't know about High Ress Models.

[Steven Dixon]

Volthorne, on 31 January 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

Hey, you stole our secrets first, so we're just trying to steal them back! Besides, everyone knows Canadian Maple Syrup is quite literally the best.

Please, more communist propaganda, next you'll try to claim that Canadian hockey is better than American hockey. I'll have you know good sir that I play hockey with a rubber ball on cement as its meant to be played. And in my experience working with some internet IPOs (although no game companies) that toxx1790 is probably correct in his assumption. The op claims its not, don't know, don't really care. Its like watching Jerry Springer, I don't care if its real its just fun.

Edited by Steven Dixon, 31 January 2013 - 11:15 AM.

[toxx1790]

o Riva o, on 31 January 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

I actually had that kind of investment offer once. But that was for full AAA game or nothing. I did ren from it (and screamed ) That wants a simple deadmatch game with robots.

Well, at least you made the right decision there.

[o Riva o]

Bishop Steiner, on 31 January 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

and the interactive (though most interactions are currently set to off, but much of each map features destructible terrain)

Another fanboy who presumes work done which nobody ever seen (and may very well never see) ?

Quote

the water on the water levels, smoke, the trees and grass blowing in the breeze, the snowfall in Frozen City.....

yeah for such a wizbang programmer you sure have overlooked a lot of animation.....

If you were at least a beginner (game) programmer, you would know, that:
animation of water, trees, grass - are all very simple effects created in code with very simple "vertex shader". Also sayd shader is included in any licensed engine for decades. (and surely was in stock C3)

smoke - is a "particle effect" made by "particle engine" and same applyes to it as for the vertex shader. All the level smoke/flame effects you see in MWO are most likely a part of default fx library in C3. No work for any devs at all.

Please, do not smartass if you dont know what you are taking about. Same goes for that "remodeling" guy btw
On the other hand, maybe some of you will learn something about real game development among the trolling.

Edited by o Riva o, 31 January 2013 - 11:18 AM.

[Ken Fury]

o Riva o, on 31 January 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

Another fanboy who presumes work done which nobody ever seen (and may very well never see) ?

If you were at least a beginner (game) programmer, you would know, that:
animation of water, trees, grass - are all very simple effects created in code with very simple "vertex shader". Also sayd shader is included in any licensed engine for decades. (and surely was in stock C3)

smoke - is a "particle effect" made by "particle engine" and same applyes to it as for the vertex shader. All the level smoke/flame effects you see in MWO are most likely a part of default fx library in C3. No work for any devs at all.

Please, do not smartass if you dont know what you are taking about. Same goes for that "remodeling" guy btw
On the other hand, maybe some of you will learn something about real game development among the trolling.

Hey which company did the Guy work for who said one Mech (everything included) can be done in 5 hours?

[Roland]

Quote

I was the 'nicest' one, since Im not so specialised as the other artist so I ie. estimated creation of one Mech (3d model, mormalmaps, textures, putting together in engine, animation ..) to 2 days of work (of single 3d art person). My other 3d-artsy buddy was 'brutal' and actually stood behind "5 hours not more" ! :-o (..and Im quite sure he can do that, which is scary )

I would like to see you construct a model of the same complexity as any of the MWO models, rigged up and ready to go in the game, in 5 hours.

Or hell, even in your "conservative" estimation of 2 days.

Go for it. I eagerly await your results. Since it's such a short period of time, I suspect you could invest that effort just for the sake of argument.

[Star Colonel Mustard Kerensky]

Tank Boy Ken, on 31 January 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Hey which company did the Guy work for who said one Mech (everything included) can be done in 5 hours?

They guy that only had to make a 2d 16bit sprite for one.

[Ryvucz]

Submit your resume or take your ER Large Laser out of your Rear Center Torso armor.

[Parnage Winters]

Remember kids on the internet, everyone's either a game developer or friends of a game developer. You'd think with all this able talent walking around they'd be hurling resumes at companies not sitting on forums complaining about things and making snide comments.

[Bishop Steiner]

Roland, on 31 January 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

I would like to see you construct a model of the same complexity as any of the MWO models, rigged up and ready to go in the game, in 5 hours.

Or hell, even in your "conservative" estimation of 2 days.

Go for it. I eagerly await your results. Since it's such a short period of time, I suspect you could invest that effort just for the sake of argument.

Hey let's give him 3, so his concept artist can come up with the "finished" concept too.......
(After all anyone can lift the in game models right out of MWO now with a cryengine editor)

Anyone want to second my nomination for the "Riva" troll be renamed either "The Least Competent Software Engineer in the World" or "The Most Boring Troll in the World"?

[Steven Dixon]

Just out of curiosity, to those that feel that PGI should have a lot more progress, is your assertion that they are lazy and spend most of the day clowning around or that they are incompetent. For the record I vehemently disagree with both ideas, I think this is a great game that is coming along quickly but to be fair I could be biased because Im a BT fan. My background is in business not programming so to be honest I really have no idea how long it should take to program a game. But most games take a few years to develop this game seems pretty on track. Ive seen people give estimates based on how long it should theoretically take them to do a project that were wildly underestimated because they hadn't actually done something like it before.

[soarra]

anyone else find it funny they are in a pub drinking and ill presume woman around and they are talking about MWO?