UWE .. you are your own worst enemy
Balmark
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3476Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3476Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Yes @Ironhorse .. this rant deserves it's own thread
UWE .. please .. for the love of god .. learn from your absolutely diabolical timing problems with NS2 with all your future projects.
If there was a study on how to screw up the timings of bug/performance releases, feature releases, maps, announcements, priorities .. you take the cake ..
Anyhow .. go back to the beginning ..
You made your release date (er release month) .. and released a poorly executed server browser (c'mon .. it's not as if this is a small feature that people won't be using?) .. something that was hacked together in the last week .. performance was unbelievingly shit ..
Then there were a few sales and player base rocketed for a short period ..
After something like the 4th sale .. a patch was released that greatly improved performance .. now .. by this time, anyone who might have stuck with NS2 had already bought it, tried it and disregard it due to the shocking performance they would have previously experienced.
Over-hyped announcements from Hugh
2 maps in 2 years .. (yes yes .. one had lovely rain.. but they're probably the 2 worst maps)
and now pug/match making when the player base won't support it .. seriously?
If you looked at what people were asking for from day one .. it was basically, in order..
1) performance, 2) maps, 3) match making system (server browser was commented on, but since it was 'functional' people accepted it) - that sound about right?
Anything else was really secondary/nice to haves .. I find it so hard to understand how the rework to the game regarding biomass etc. took a higher priority to a match making system .. who made these calls??!
I love NS2.. I'm still playing it and will for however long there are people to fill servers.. but its just frustrating looking at all the bad calls made in the ns2 project .. great game .. but I just wish you got the bloody timings + priorities right
I understand NS2 isn't going to generate much revenue for you (if any) from now .. and anything we get we should be grateful for .. I am grateful .. but timing .. timing timing timing
Check out agile development .. check out having user stories .. priorities them .. have set deliverables every 2 weeks on your projects, have demos internally of what was done and use it as a forum to get input from others within the company at this time,
I read somewhere that you guys did things very informally .. that just leads to people picking cherries and the tough stuff just gets left to the end
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant
waffle waffle rant waffle
frustrated as hell
I look forward to all the disagrees and flags .. but I don't really care as long as someone within UWE reads it feel free to delete the thread etc.
Bal
UWE .. please .. for the love of god .. learn from your absolutely diabolical timing problems with NS2 with all your future projects.
If there was a study on how to screw up the timings of bug/performance releases, feature releases, maps, announcements, priorities .. you take the cake ..
Anyhow .. go back to the beginning ..
You made your release date (er release month) .. and released a poorly executed server browser (c'mon .. it's not as if this is a small feature that people won't be using?) .. something that was hacked together in the last week .. performance was unbelievingly shit ..
Then there were a few sales and player base rocketed for a short period ..
After something like the 4th sale .. a patch was released that greatly improved performance .. now .. by this time, anyone who might have stuck with NS2 had already bought it, tried it and disregard it due to the shocking performance they would have previously experienced.
Over-hyped announcements from Hugh
2 maps in 2 years .. (yes yes .. one had lovely rain.. but they're probably the 2 worst maps)
and now pug/match making when the player base won't support it .. seriously?
If you looked at what people were asking for from day one .. it was basically, in order..
1) performance, 2) maps, 3) match making system (server browser was commented on, but since it was 'functional' people accepted it) - that sound about right?
Anything else was really secondary/nice to haves .. I find it so hard to understand how the rework to the game regarding biomass etc. took a higher priority to a match making system .. who made these calls??!
I love NS2.. I'm still playing it and will for however long there are people to fill servers.. but its just frustrating looking at all the bad calls made in the ns2 project .. great game .. but I just wish you got the bloody timings + priorities right
I understand NS2 isn't going to generate much revenue for you (if any) from now .. and anything we get we should be grateful for .. I am grateful .. but timing .. timing timing timing
Check out agile development .. check out having user stories .. priorities them .. have set deliverables every 2 weeks on your projects, have demos internally of what was done and use it as a forum to get input from others within the company at this time,
I read somewhere that you guys did things very informally .. that just leads to people picking cherries and the tough stuff just gets left to the end
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant
rant rant rant rant rant
waffle waffle rant waffle
frustrated as hell
I look forward to all the disagrees and flags .. but I don't really care as long as someone within UWE reads it
feel free to delete the thread etc.Bal
Comments
The biggest mistake UWE made was that they did too many large gameplay changes and that caused problems. There were a few areas they could have improved on, but for a company making their first standalone game on their own engine, UWE did well enough.
I'm hoping for a NS3 that doesn't repeat the same mistakes (with their small team at the time to create such a huge game is large effort), by now they should have the funding to do it better. But they also alledged their mistakes, but I guess most passionate are frustrated with NS2 as it could have been so much better.
Also something I'll just leave here, from the depths of the internet
And:
They wont make a game that they have no more Passion for.
I thought it was well publicized Sewlek was doing the balance in game play (his sole role), so balances changes can be pushed out faster (not to mention the amount of feedback and beta balance tests he puts out as a test mod).
tl;dr: you made some valid points, but don't see the bigger picture (UWE = small and can't keep up with all the demands of a passionate community).
You only need to look at previous "free weekends" the release bt mod as vanilla and have outdated guides which don't resemble the game at all. It's all these small things that contributed to a big problem.
I personally haven't seen any performance gains in the 2.5k hours playing this game. So, I have given up almost all hope of any performance increases.
In regards to gameplay. While it needs a few things tampered with I honestly feel the game is currently the best it's ever been.
However, much of what is being said here is valid. NS2's a great game but a lot of bad decisions were made along the way. I've always felt that it could have had a much bigger playerbase if UWE had done things differently. Oh well, all we can do is hope that UWE learns from their mistakes when they approach future projects.
wat.jpg
Performance may still not be in an ideal place for people with Jaivol speed computers... but it is decades better than what it was like around beta/release.
This game needs a learning curve that is not instantaneous like angry birds or Candy Cruch. So having the basics right is really important for new players. This usually end up in some people that just don't listen / comply and or ruin the game. Then they got a RTFM.
This game need a little organization and / or brain. Those things you don't see in other games that go dumber year by year. Every sequel is dumber : Cod last of the name, TES: Skyrim, Mass effect etc...
It is clear that the NS population that actually stays is older than other. Though these "groups" aren't incompatible (young/old farts), there is a gap.
Tutorials that ensure they cannot connect before getting the basics right would have clearly helped. The rookie problem is still going on.
It's been a year and a half since the game's release. If it had all of these things upon release, it likely would have maintained a much higher player base. I just hope that UWE learns to take their time and that their next project doesn't feel like a beta on its release day.
Performance in this game goes up and down. For example my performance and server performance is significantly worse than it used to be when LuaJIT was implemented, thanks to the reinforced patch. As of 263 performance is even worse. Before reinforced we could run 24 player (yuck) slot servers on multiplay and even hypernia could handle 18 no problems, while now multiplay can barely handle 18 players.
Every time a performance gain was made in the past, it has been lost a few patches later.
I don't know why you are using the alpha as the start of your metric when of course it is obvious that performance has improved since then. You might as well have said performance has improved 100000000 percent since the game was conceived since it didn't even run at 1 fps then. Pointless.
How about using the actual release date of the game as the start, since which there have been significant improvements of course. But once a performance gain is made it becomes the new baseline with which the performance in subsequent patches is judged. So for me, as I said, the LuaJIT patch was the best overal performance I have had in NS2 and now it is no longer as good. Performance for me is worse, relative to this new baseline, even if it is better than what it was at release or even alpa and beta.
p.s. Just for your information, I have over 3000 hours in NS2 since the beta and includes a 6 month absense 1 month after reinforced. It is not difficult to accrue many hours in a game you play regularly for 3 or 4 hours per night.
The game was prematurely ejaculated onto the market for no good reason, hence why it felt like a beta, because it was a beta.
Terrible clientside modding support and servers being unable to host their own server mods annoys me even more.
The level functions doesn't come even close to the amount of tools and map variance that goldsrc maps allowed, take for instance siege maps, doors, and useable map entities.
Then there is the little things like binding gamemodes to maps, where co_sava would always load in combat. In terms of user created content ns2 doesn't even hold a candle to ns1.
If UWE is going to embrace the competitive scene, at least give us better character customization and better bindings. I don't care if it goes f2p at this point.
Breakables: Extra Entities mod
Lifts: Extra Entities mod (slightly glitchy but working)
Weldables: Extra Entities mod
Rest of things Goldsrc had (almost): Extra Entities mod whether partially working or working just as good as goldsrc.
Neat, when can we see them to be added to the editor officially so people actually use it?
All the result I see now is 13% waist of Reinforcement cash, no additional revenue, no additional players, no additional sales (even though there was 66% off right after).
Agreed, however I doubt anything of that sort will come. I think the dev's misunderstood automatic match-making with the ENSL gathers. There is still hope for the next release (in 20 days?).
The tournament itself was very well run and an enjoyable event, but the way Hugh and UWE marketed it was beyond misleading. We were led to believe that our experience with NS2 was fundamentally going to change, and it turned out to be a tournament that only affected a small percentage of the community. Seeing as the last two "big announcements" were that tournament and the female marine skin that we already knew was coming, I don't think it's worth getting too excited about whatever is being announced 20 days from now.
I have never been so disappointed in a video game and it's developers in my life. Please learn from this.
The casual player doesnt like 6 v 6 and it will not work for public since people want and do join and leave whenever they feel like it.
Competitive balance for 6 v 6 should not be a priority given the size of our comp. scene and the fact that (caps attack) COMPETITIVE PLAY IS BASICLY ALWAYS BALANCED SINCE YOU PLAY A ROUND OF BOTH ALIENS AND MARINES AND IN THE END THE SNAILS WIN ANYWAY.
@1dominator1 makes a good point about 'innovation' (skill) diffusion in the community.
While not for NS2 in its current state, it is entirely possible to fight the tendency of players to join and leave at any point in a game. Not perfectly, but games like LoL or CS:GO competitive do pull it off to a reasonable extent. Again I'm not saying that NS2 should attempt to copy them at its current state, just that it could have possibly been done.
On the other hand, I am of the opinion that 6v6 NS2 does not work at a pub skill level regardless of leavers. In the most basic sense, with so few players it is far too difficult for pubs to coordinate defense, and far too easy to coordinate attacks (or attack successfully without coordination).