Four Years (or, Why free passes re: development have to stop)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Canterbury, Mar 11, 2017.

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  1. yarnevk

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    What is funny about the necro of this thread is the perspective time brings.

    What has happened is those who usually try to silence the critics are now the most positive supporters of new players that dare have the courage to report problems with the game.

    The change is that discouraging negative feedback now would be going against the opinion of the devs who finally agreed with the critics and said yes the instances are too small, and some quests maybe complete but if they are not unplayable they are certainly unconsequential. Yes not having a world map sucks so they are adding it (it never made lore sense that there was town maps but not world maps?!). etc. etc.

    The devs decided to push out many of the release features in favor of polishing the new user experience and repeating free trials to get even more honest feedback.

    I dare say had such forumgoers at final wipe realized early access should use positive reinforcement to encourage rather than discourage feedback, more people would have stuck around knowing their voice was heard. Now the question is ... is it too little too late- did their actions already cause the game to fail?
     
  2. Canterbury

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    Thank you.
     
  3. Lord_Darkmoon

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    As soon as the Early Access phase is over the grace period for SotA ends...
     
  4. nonaware

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    yeah pretty much.
     
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  5. yarnevk

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    Then watch the review scores plummet, no amount of gaming reviews by older players can overwhelm a review bomb by new players. You get mostly positive reviews in Early Access that turn into mixed reviews at Release. In some of my kickstarters they 'released' just to move on to another game as the devs was tired of it even though it was not ready for release they just wanted the uptick in sales.

    Soon as this game releases the focus will shift to the ep2 dev cycle and fundraising. ep1 will be 'done' and judged accordingly. Despite all the devs saying it is continuous improvement, the new users do not have the patience for blurry releases. Look at how many people left ESO at start, it took years to recapture that player base (triple players just this last year)
     
  6. BigCountry

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    Actually the game "launched" back in August 2016 with the great "wipe" and start of server persistency. I hear the land rush was insane. Probably the best time online you could spend in this game, far as player population and actual interaction with other players. Really sucks I missed it. I bet it was epic. Sucks the manufacturers of this game cannot see how actually epic it was and model around it so something like it happens more often. IDOC/land rush is everything....
     
  7. yarnevk

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    But they did not say it was released at wipe, thus the reviews have been tempered because of the excuse of early access. At some point they have to take the early access label off to capture sales to those who refuse to buy into early access titles. And that is when positive reviews will shift to negative.
     
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  8. Lord_Darkmoon

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    Not only that but a game that stays in Early Access "forever" does get a negative taste over time. People would start to ask themselves "Do the devs try to hide something? Are they hiding behind Early Access to prevent bad reviews?"
     
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  9. GrayFog

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    Well the game already has quite many bad reviews, no need to hide behind anything.
     
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  10. yarnevk

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    It will get worse. New players are more likely to get a steam key, and those older players who got a steam key just to keep positive reviews updated will not be able to keep the score up.

    Right now you can hide behind early access, people can justify the bad scores because of that. In fact it says this very thing on the steam page by the devs themselves, that the bad reviews are because this game is early access. When they can no longer say that, then potential buyers will realize it is bad reviews because the game is just bad. It is why releasing before you think it is good enough to get a good review is a really bad idea. (NoMansSky)
     
  11. Bahamut Arc

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    That's pure true.
     
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  12. Lifedragn

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    As an experienced developer, I would just like to throw out there:

    1) Using ready-made engines such as Unity can certainly provide a boost in some areas but often serves as a hindrance in others. It saves a little time, but unless all of your engineers and design staff are extremely familiar with the engine going in it isn't going to save as much time as you might think.

    2) A team size of 37 is rather small for modern MMO development. I'm not sure if that is the number, but that is what I saw thrown out there. Given also that much of the staff is probably working for less than average salary for the area to help the game become reality means they have to forge their own superstar talent from within. That takes time in and of itself. And I believe we are starting to see the fruits of those efforts now. Having Unity doesn't match to having a tenth of the budget and a quarter or the team size. You need to remember when looking at AAA companies producing games, the people on "The Team" is just a fraction of those working at the company. The Team often doesn't count Dev Ops, Marketing, Central Support Teams, or most of upper management. Those other companies have other teams with toolsets and experience that contribute to their success.

    3) They have been stating in recent telethons that they are aiming to have Episode 1 release ready this year. True, this is not a firm date, but neither is it an appearance to remain in endless development.

    They are seeing ideas they like, and telling both us and themselves that maybe they'll consider it for episode 2 because they do have to finish this episode at some point. Open development processes are rough. The player base gets understandably impatient. Part of the problem is that most games aren't announced until a couple years after they are in development and still end up taking a couple more years after. Here, we've been in almost from the start.

    Free Passes are bad. But I don't think we've reached the point where they've been given a free pass yet. @Canterbury - Can I ask what it is you want to see changed about development exactly? Are you asking for 70 hour work weeks to hurry it up? Are you wanting them to stop working on the tech for a while and script more quests ahead of time, instead of at the end of the process where they often fall? What is it about combat that you feel is so unpopular? I tend to like the combat system.
     
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  13. yarnevk

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    The OP was not about the devs, it was about the forums response to the devs. There are a number of people that say we should not be critical towards the devs because it is in early access, despite the devs having said themselves that is why they are in early access to get that very critical feedback. This 'free pass' has led to things like the devs suddenly discovering months before planned release after a free trial that the new user experience and questing structure is horrible. Despite many of us saying these same things for years, but not getting listened to because those with the devs ears was saying nothing was wrong they love the game.

    The devs have hired some pretty good art students and modders that are familiar with Unity, that was never the issue, the issue is they was working on end game PVP/PVE scenes rather than revamped new user experience. Just go look at the thread for the new new user scenes to see how quickly they are putting something together. This despite certain forumites saying months ago they cannot afford to revisit 'finished' scenes because devs are a small staff, so we should instead give them a free pass and be grateful for what we had.

    They have been saying they are releasing every year for years, what makes you think anyone hear believes it is really this year? Especially since we see tweets for quest writers applications mere months before the supposed story finished proclamation?
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2017
  14. Barugon

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    There's a big difference between constructive feedback and ranting.
     
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  15. Canterbury

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    yarnevk has explained my POV pretty well already. I don't want to tell the devs how to change what they're doing or remodel their day; they are the experts, I will leave that sort of thing to them. So, not what I was referring to.

    What I was referring to was indeed the way in which too many people here do the instant thumbs-up, the instant "you guys are great", the instant "anyone who doesn't like the game/an aspect of the game is a bad person...", etc.

    That line of thinking is the free pass. That line of thinking means we're mere months from full-on, official release (despite many here still saying, "we're in alpha!" guys; you really aren't), and there are still major issues to be solved.

    I was floored, as I might have said in the OP, with the recent admission that quests were even confusing people internally. How do you get four years beyond your Kickstarter then "suddenly" realise something that vital isn't working?

    I seriously put it down to the free pass culture. As long as the majority on the official forum are giving those thumbs up and saying that any dissenting voices are just crazy people, I think it does lead, directly, to what's happening today.
     
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  16. Ice Queen

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    They already say that on other forums where people can speak more freely.
     
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  17. Lord Dreamo

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    One thing I would like to point out... why do you think most MMORPGs forgo housing at launch, and especially non-instanced housing? and I'm not sure I've played any housing system as robust and well implemented as SOTAs...unfortunately I think this really was a big time tink many games don't deal with... in fact every one of those MMOs listed in this thread had no housing at launch.

    A lot of immersive qualities in general get thrown aside... you can only now sit in chairs in ESO.
     
  18. Canterbury

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    Did you never play Star Wars Galaxies? You'd take a house blueprint and go anywhere you like (outside of established cities), and build it wherever you liked on the planet map. It didn't cost an arm and a leg, either.

    If a few people got together and built their houses, and some public buildings, they'd have a town. Again... anywhere they liked. No "lots". No Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) in artificial "land rushes". Nothing like that.

    I could go on, but all I'll really add is that Star Wars Galaxies was released in 2003. So while I respect your experience in games, mine is that housing was done - a lot better - in some MMOs, 14-odd years ago. True story.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2017
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  19. Bubonic

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    Yup. We made our own settlement where we chose. Man that was cool.
     
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  20. Canterbury

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    It was tremendous. And it pains me greatly that it's becoming so long ago that a generation of gamers never did it and thus, to their minds, it's never happened in gaming before. Makes me a bit sad, honestly.
     
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