A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In America
Rat
Join Date: 2002-12-24 Member: 11486Members
Join Date: 2002-12-24 Member: 11486Members
<div class="IPBDescription">a monsoon tears into India</div> Sigh. This will probably be another well intentioned, long-thought-out and utterly futile thread in the scheme of things, as it will be skimmed, misinterpreted and then buried in the spam of "omgorge teh balance si teh fux0red" threads. For many of you out there, you simply play this game called NS and see v_models, p_models, w_models, .bsp, .wad and .exe files as simply "the game." However, you have to understand that fundamentally, this game is nothing more than 1s and 0s arranged <i>just so</i> to provide you with the beautiful scenes and interaction on your computer monitor. It is <i>coding</i>, and thus, like any amount of complex code, there are bound to be bugs or problems in the efficiency of the code. This is said as explanation, not as criticism. There are so many layers to the coding and gameplay in NS that many people fail to realize just how in-depth and painstaking the coding process was for this mod. Outside of having unique model-structures and re-organizing bones, vertices, hitboxes, and origins, this mod also has an internally-coded gui that is far outside anything the standard HL SDK provided. It has surpassed every other HL mod in its creativity and ability to produce a quality product in relatively short time. If you think 6 months is a long time to code and balance a release candidate, then think about FireArms Mod, which took over an entire year to go between RC 2.5 and RC 2.6, and is now, a year later looking to go from RC 2.7 to RC 2.8. That'll make three RCs in two years and three to five months (making a total of 27 to 29 months) and creating an average of 9 months per RC. And the NS team is not making that large of changes to overall gameplay, just little changes that will effect the ebb and flow of the rounds played.
So let's get down to the most important part of this whole post: balancing such a complex set of variables. For those of you who know html coding and nothing else, please, don't post about your ability to create bug-free code. Html is the sandbox, and c++ is so far beyond it that it's not worth discussing. I recently read vinin's thread concerning why people dislike playtesters and vets, and it really struck me how misinterpreted playtesting actually is. First of all, you have to understand that playtesting does not always take the game to its outer limits. That's why so many vets were in on the playtesting--to push the game as far as it could go. Additionally, you have to understand that debugging game code usually involves <i>trying</i> to make a server crash, and then recompiling everyone's logs or experiences to figure out exactly what caused the crash. And even after hundreds of games and hours of play, you have to understand that nothing is perfect. Even games that Valve sells for money that are no longer in beta form are not perfect. They have glaring inbalances, and yet, they are accepted and continually improving. Simply put, trying to balance a game as complex as this is akin to taking 100 coins, and flipping them one-by-one to land on their edge. And while making these coins stand directly on their edge, you're not allowed to knock over any other coins in the process. And every time you knock one over, you have to go back to the beginning and start anew. You could be on the 99th coin, and flip it and have it knock over every other coin you've flipped. Even the slightest change in the code can effect the game all the way to the core of its gameplay.
Lastly, you have to understand that playtesters are NOT the dev team, and therefore, though they may give advice, they can not directly change any part of NS. If you have a problem with the way things were done, griping out the pts/vets is the wrong place to go. Feel free to email/flame the dev team so they can rid these boards of your whining and waste. Whining is NOT a form of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and thus, there should be no tolerance for it in my eyes. If you have nothing meaningful to contribute, in this thread, or any thread, please, use your back button or close your internet browser.
-Rat
So let's get down to the most important part of this whole post: balancing such a complex set of variables. For those of you who know html coding and nothing else, please, don't post about your ability to create bug-free code. Html is the sandbox, and c++ is so far beyond it that it's not worth discussing. I recently read vinin's thread concerning why people dislike playtesters and vets, and it really struck me how misinterpreted playtesting actually is. First of all, you have to understand that playtesting does not always take the game to its outer limits. That's why so many vets were in on the playtesting--to push the game as far as it could go. Additionally, you have to understand that debugging game code usually involves <i>trying</i> to make a server crash, and then recompiling everyone's logs or experiences to figure out exactly what caused the crash. And even after hundreds of games and hours of play, you have to understand that nothing is perfect. Even games that Valve sells for money that are no longer in beta form are not perfect. They have glaring inbalances, and yet, they are accepted and continually improving. Simply put, trying to balance a game as complex as this is akin to taking 100 coins, and flipping them one-by-one to land on their edge. And while making these coins stand directly on their edge, you're not allowed to knock over any other coins in the process. And every time you knock one over, you have to go back to the beginning and start anew. You could be on the 99th coin, and flip it and have it knock over every other coin you've flipped. Even the slightest change in the code can effect the game all the way to the core of its gameplay.
Lastly, you have to understand that playtesters are NOT the dev team, and therefore, though they may give advice, they can not directly change any part of NS. If you have a problem with the way things were done, griping out the pts/vets is the wrong place to go. Feel free to email/flame the dev team so they can rid these boards of your whining and waste. Whining is NOT a form of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and thus, there should be no tolerance for it in my eyes. If you have nothing meaningful to contribute, in this thread, or any thread, please, use your back button or close your internet browser.
-Rat
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
id did. and i think he's correct. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Thank you for telling me balancing was hard... were it not for you, I'd have thought making a computer game was about as hard as maybe clicking my mouse a bunch of times.
So remind me again what this post is about? Somewhere in between your philosophical meanderings about how the game is really a complex network of intertwining variables, I got the feeling that there is none. You suggested nothing, and ultimately said very little. Yes playtesting is hard. Yes making a computer game is hard. Yes, balance is hard. I believe this has been hashed, rehashed, then sliced into little itty pieces and reprocessed more times than any sane person would want to count... So umm. Yes.
The game is "unbalanced", and it will be hard... nay! IMPOSSIBLE to balance it completely. So funnily enough, your post violated your last paragraph. You really contributed nothing but whining about people who whine. Because ultimately you didn't provide constructive criticism, nor any actual improvements.
That was very therapeutic, thank you for letting me laugh.
{Edit: Yeah what DarkWulv said <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->}
Allready have...
Your point is valid that the PT/Vets dev team flarya all get loads of stick for this game they have made but if u flip the coin over thier are also those people that love the game and like what they have created.
Thier will always be two sides to an arguement nomatter how small that arguement is, its the way the world goes round.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Whining is NOT a form of CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and thus, there should be no tolerance for it in my eyes. If you have nothing meaningful to contribute, in this thread, or any thread, please, use your back button or close your internet browser.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People are gonna see this in two diffrent ways some will say good on ya, others will say well your only moaning at the people that are moaning.
Ultimately u can never win.... thier will always be people that moan and those that dont.
Whats that persons sig.
"War does not prove who is right only who is left"
The best u can do is put up with it.
The main problem with the pt/vets crap is that they had a small amount of people who were <i>good</i> at the game testing it. The kind of people who play more to win than to have fun. I realize this is a generalization, but this is what most clans are. It is absolutley SHOCKING the amount of stuff they missed. Electrify any building, for example. Maybe they found it and bottled it up, but that is still the same as not finding it in a QA point of view. The fact remains is that they were doing all the testing and all the balancing for <i>clan</i> play, and that is how we come to this mess with balancing now.
As for crashing bugs, well. Come on, in an objective language, this should simply not happen. Know the limits of the things you are using, and if you write your own dynamic allocation, clean it up.
How about posting some suggestions or something and back off the redundant and self-righteous posts. Your post is pretty much just one long insult to the intelligence of everyone that has a opinion on the balance of the game.
Well, you are exactly the sort of person the original poster is talking about. Suffice it to say that a project like this is much, MUCH harder to create than you think. If you don't believe me then learn all that easy stuff and do a mod yourself.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The main problem with the pt/vets crap is that they had a small amount of people who were good at the game testing it. The kind of people who play more to win than to have fun. I realize this is a generalization, but this is what most clans are. It is absolutley SHOCKING the amount of stuff they missed. Electrify any building, for example. Maybe they found it and bottled it up, but that is still the same as not finding it in a QA point of view. The fact remains is that they were doing all the testing and all the balancing for clan play, and that is how we come to this mess with balancing now.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, according to Flayra, the "mess" we had with 2.0 came from some last minute changes that did not have time to be properly tested. The game was balanced near the end of beta but it sacrificed a lot of the fun in the process, and Flayra tried to fix it before it went public.
As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Thousands of pub players all playing at once will find a LOT more bugs than a handful of vets and PTs ever could, and it is insulting to everyone who worked hard to make the game fun for you and me when you make stupid assumptions such as that. Please learn what you are talking about before you belittle the efforts of the devs and testers; perhaps when you have actually made a comparably complex mod instead of just theorizing about how easy C++ is, your opinion will be more appreciated.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As for crashing bugs, well. Come on, in an objective language, this should simply not happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
May I ask what experience you have to back up this statement?
Wow you <b>REALLY</b> don't know what you're talking about here.
For the record, we DID find that. Flayra said he fixed it and we couldn't do it anymore. I may also have gotten "unfixed" at the last minute <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
How about posting some suggestions or something and back off the redundant and self-righteous posts. Your post is pretty much just one long insult to the intelligence of everyone that has a opinion on the balance of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Look it's another Mared post, designed ... eh forget it. The rules say it best:
- Never, ever, under any circumstance, attack or "flame" anyone. Ever. No behavior is bad enough that warrants retaliation.
Look, when someone takes the time out to write a post as well thought out as this, the last thing you should do is post something along the lines "it's too long make it shorter coz im too lazy to read it." Please show a little respect towards your fellow forumers.
What Rat's saying is that there is a lot more to the game development then what you think. Recently, people have gotten into the habit of blaming the PTs and the Dev team for the inbalances found in 2.0. These people must understand that it's NOT easy to balance a game, and insteading of whining and complaining (which makes up pretty much all the balance posts on the forum), they should be more patient.
I didn't. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
*Steps on soap box*
Why do you think this? Is it because your attention span as short as pen or pencil? Please, if you can't say anything intelligent then please do not post in here. Rat is making a VERY VALID point here and when you don't contribute anything worth talking over, then the post will seem null to the creator.
I do believe Rat is right in this rantation that he did create. In fact, I can vouch for practically everything he has said since I have experienced the "<b>play-testing</b>" field of a game.
Take a manual from a game... preferably a PC game. Now, flip to the back where it shows the credits and the producers of the game. Now, you see the category that says "<b>QA Team or Quality Assurance Team?</b>" What exactly do you think that means? If you thought that it meant the game was tested by these people, then your assumptions are correct. The QA Team is responsible for basically breaking the game. They sit there and do everything they possibly can to make the game crash. For example, one person loads up a game and then just smashes a ton of keys on the keyboard constantly and see if the gaming code can handle that. If the game does crash, submit that bug to the developers and then they go into the billions of lines of code and try to find the problem. This actually takes the team, if they're really good like Flay and the others, no more than a couple of days to find. Another example would one team member would just sit in a game and spam one unit constantly by clicking the mouse while holding down another unbound button. If the game can handle it, then the code is solid. If the game cannot handle it, then the code is broken.
Unfortunately, I know somebody who does this day in and day out and let me tell you right now... it's not fun. The primary function of the Quality Assurance Member is to <b>break</b> the game. You're not playing the game to have some fun. In fact, you're playing the game to make sure the developers of the game are in a living hell when trying to fix all the bugs in the coding.
This was probably similar to what the play-testers had to do before the launch of Natural Selection 2.0. It took a lot of guts to create this threading and I was waiting for somebody to finally open their mouth and actually defend the developer team 150% instead of whining about every little aspect of the game instead of trying to enjoy it and appreciate what a team is doing for free to deliver to everybody.
I still have to remind myself that Natural Selection is a <b>HALF-LIFE MOD</b> and not it's own game with it's own engine. I can forsee it heading towards that way since it IS the most successful by far.
I don't know anything about coding and probably never will unless somebody forces me to learn it. Even though I have no knowledge of the code, I still know how painstaking the proccess is to fix code. It's not fun however, in the long run, it's definitely worth it to see hundreds of full servers constantly online playing the modification of Natural Selection.
Thank you.
-Morrik
*Steps off soap box*
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy.
i can only hope that by writing a response to this nonsensical thread i will lure others into the trap as well
*snip* <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I did take the time to read it, and as much as I dislike the whining balance posts it seems pretty clear that you don't know what you're talking about. Nobody's whining about bugs in the game. Coding and game balance are two <i>totally</i> seperate things, and this business of "a careful balance of 1s and 0s" screams out "I know how computers work but I've never seen C++ code and don't know what a compiler is".
All it takes to dramatically alter the game balance is change a few constants.
Now, I am by no means saying that that's all there is to it. I'm by no means saying that playtesting and game balencing is an easy task, and I'm not implying that coding new features is a piece of cake. Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate, but you honestly don't know what you're on about.
Wow you <b>REALLY</b> don't know what you're talking about here. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do. Do you?
Think of some of the things that could crash a program:
Bad hardware (I/O) - This is beyond the scope of this mod, and is handled several layers lower
High processor utilization - This shouldn't crash things, but it does.
Memory corruption due to heat/radiation/goblins - Preventable, but way beyond the scope of the mod.
Corrupted input data - Depends how bad it is, really. Shouldn't be a problem.
Segmentation Faults - Bingo, we have a winner.
There are other things, but they are much less common (some of the things listed here shouldn't happen at all)
I'm not saying Flarya is a moron or anything, but it seems that he is the only programmer, and one programmer often misses alot of their own mistakes.
Yes, you're right. Object-oriented is the more accurate term, I was using objective like in 'Objective-C' which, I am aware, is not C++.
Your assertion that programs will always have errors troubles me. This is certainly proven wrong by the simplest of programs. The truth is, while you may say it holds true for very large and complex projects, nothing short of uncontrollable hardware failure should cause errors.
There are many examples of programs that when used correctly, quite simply, do not crash. While the problem may lie in windows, or half-life, and be unavoidable, you should not simply say that it is acceptable for software to fail. It is not at all true that is impossible to make programs that will not crash. (Again, the assumption must be made that the hardware it is running on is working properly)
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Flayra codes in binary now
There are many examples of programs that when used correctly, quite simply, do not crash. While the problem may lie in windows, or half-life, and be unavoidable, you should not simply say that it is acceptable for software to fail. It is not at all true that is impossible to make programs that will not crash. (Again, the assumption must be made that the hardware it is running on is working properly) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course that's proven wrong by the simplest of programs. They're <i>simple</i>. Anyone can write an error-free "Hello World" program.
Is it possible to write bug-free code? Yes, of course it's technically possible. But I want you to go and find one game - just one - that didn't have a QA department. One game that was written <i>so well</i> that it had no crash bugs whatsoever.
Then, once that's been found, I need you (or anyone else you can find) to go and devote three years of your life to coding a half-life mod far beyond the scope of anything else ever attempted in this engine, and make it bug-free. On the first try now, mind. If it's so simple to "clean it up", as you stated in an earlier post, then it shouldn't be a problem.
....As for crashing bugs, well. Come on, in an objective language, this should simply not happen. Know the limits of the things you are using, and if you write your own dynamic allocation, clean it up. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
We found pretty much all the bugs you guys did no joke, its just a matter of FIXING these bugs, we could always delay the release to fix these minor bugs if you would like. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
And crash bugs do happen, a lot, in all mods, so dont bother trying to say it shouldnt happen.
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Flayra codes in binary now <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
C++ is compiled into binary.
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Flayra codes in binary now <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
C++ is compiled into binary. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes but that original post makes it look as if Flayra is coding in binary.
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Flayra codes in binary now <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
C++ is compiled into binary. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes but that original post makes it look as if Flayra is coding in binary. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well he was right sort of, C++ isn't interpreted. lol.
God this really puts it all into perspective, Thanks Buddy. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Flayra codes in binary now <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
C++ is compiled into binary. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes but that original post makes it look as if Flayra is coding in binary. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well he was right sort of, C++ isn't interpreted. lol. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The compiler intreprets the code. Obviously it was a joke, no one codes in binary anymore*
* Assembly might be considered coding in binary, but no one actually stares at 1s and 0s to write instructions.**
** Some people are masocists, and just might do this. Don't expect anything large to come out of it though. For other fun languages, do a google search on brainf--k (you must spell out the word)