That's cause our threads got buried.
Many of us hopped on the test server, voiced our complaints on the forums, and went back to the game we enjoyed to enjoy it before that patch came.
Ultimately it did not matter. That test server amounted to nothing. They did not even fixed the reported bugs and carried them right into live.
Many of us hopped on the test server, voiced our complaints on the forums, and went back to the game we enjoyed to enjoy it before that patch came.
Ultimately it did not matter. That test server amounted to nothing. They did not even fixed the reported bugs and carried them right into live.
I'd put EC slightly lower than SuperBunnyHop for channels people link like they're the gospel that frequently get things wrong. If you want to know more about game design, watch developer commentaries. EC tends to have fairly obvious design 101 stuff (that a well made PDF can explain better and in less time provided you're (general you, of course) not an extremely slow reader) and then a series of things that are just James' own opinions touted as though they're industry practices. When you consider the fact that a lot of people watch the show for his apparent industry experience, and yet said experience is fairly limited (I did a search for Mr. Portnow a while back and couldn't find more than about 2-4 titles depending on the website, with at least one of those being a canned project), the reality that this frequently parroted show is essentially a soapbox with little more backing it than any other starts to set in.
On another note, regarding the FireFall comparison complaint, this game is basically something of a Do-Over, so comparisons to the failed game and discussions about what went right or wrong are as inevitable as they are necessary, especially in an environment with very little information to go on re: Ember itself
On another note, regarding the FireFall comparison complaint, this game is basically something of a Do-Over, so comparisons to the failed game and discussions about what went right or wrong are as inevitable as they are necessary, especially in an environment with very little information to go on re: Ember itself
I see your point and think you're probably right. However EC is mostly focused on edutainment (education + entertainment). It's not written for professional game designers or as the one and only learning material for new beginners. Instead it provides some basic game design information in, to a relatively large community, entertaining way. Is James (and his team) always right? Probably not. Is their shared information totally useless or wrong? Probably not either.
I guess they might get too much credit for their work, however they often do talk about current situations and have started many, many thought processes.
I guess they might get too much credit for their work, however they often do talk about current situations and have started many, many thought processes.
Likes:
DARKB1KE
Yeah no.... you missed the mark. It's not for professionals, it's for the YouTube audience of gamers that enjoy their hobby and who may be curious of design basics. The people who are curious about the mechanics and the gears and switches.
They bring up a lot of interesting topics that aren't really discussed anywhere in public. If anything it sparks up conversation and ideas among gamers/hobbyists. I don't consider them to be all-knowing, but they are the only channel I know that's talking about these subjects.
They bring up a lot of interesting topics that aren't really discussed anywhere in public. If anything it sparks up conversation and ideas among gamers/hobbyists. I don't consider them to be all-knowing, but they are the only channel I know that's talking about these subjects.
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The R&C and Conker dev playthroughs are also not purely formal learning material, but provide better information backed by actual experience.
Beyond that, I'd just say go to specialist channels. On my end, Arena Shooters have decent coverage between DDK, the occasional Thorin video and other similarly inclined channels. Theyre not industry-standpoint but still offer great mechanical analysis. Opinions are labeled as such and outside of that they stick to the facts. You'll still have bad channels but they're easy to identify and filter.
On the topic of "edutainment" in general I find there's a sliding scale towards what basically amounts to uselessness, particularly when incorrect or misleading information is added. I'd definitely put a channel with frequent mistakes that goes on at length about the rule of threes as though it hasn't been an artistic and industry "thing" for over a decade more towards the useless end, particularly when the proper educational material is easier and faster to digest. The point of edutainment should be making information easier to take in than it would be using a formal alternative, and I feel EC fails in that regard
Beyond that, I'd just say go to specialist channels. On my end, Arena Shooters have decent coverage between DDK, the occasional Thorin video and other similarly inclined channels. Theyre not industry-standpoint but still offer great mechanical analysis. Opinions are labeled as such and outside of that they stick to the facts. You'll still have bad channels but they're easy to identify and filter.
On the topic of "edutainment" in general I find there's a sliding scale towards what basically amounts to uselessness, particularly when incorrect or misleading information is added. I'd definitely put a channel with frequent mistakes that goes on at length about the rule of threes as though it hasn't been an artistic and industry "thing" for over a decade more towards the useless end, particularly when the proper educational material is easier and faster to digest. The point of edutainment should be making information easier to take in than it would be using a formal alternative, and I feel EC fails in that regard
There are already people doing a better job, so that's unnecessary, and it's less so a "I on my own would do a better job than a full team of people with an established reputation (earned or otherwise)" and more so that there's significant issues with EC as an educational source, no matter what bucket you want to put them in.
Thank you though for such a clear illustration of a non-argument though. I can only assume that you have never criticized a game developer or filmmaker, else you would likely still be busy trying to do a better job as we speak
In short, I really wouldn't use EC as a source on anything in particular. Not only are they not necessary to see what the plan was with FF, but they definitely aren't necessary to see what the problems were with that it turned into.
Ember should definitely avoid FF's pitfalls, but I think it's important to remember that the game was still far from perfect before the swap to vertical progression was complete. I was around in the earliest tests, and from NDA sharable content forward the game had some fundamental issues that needed to be addressed from a PvP and PvE angle. Thankfully Mark Kern's new, more conservative plan may just fix many of those by necessity
Thank you though for such a clear illustration of a non-argument though. I can only assume that you have never criticized a game developer or filmmaker, else you would likely still be busy trying to do a better job as we speak
In short, I really wouldn't use EC as a source on anything in particular. Not only are they not necessary to see what the plan was with FF, but they definitely aren't necessary to see what the problems were with that it turned into.
Ember should definitely avoid FF's pitfalls, but I think it's important to remember that the game was still far from perfect before the swap to vertical progression was complete. I was around in the earliest tests, and from NDA sharable content forward the game had some fundamental issues that needed to be addressed from a PvP and PvE angle. Thankfully Mark Kern's new, more conservative plan may just fix many of those by necessity
I pointed out people in the same field who do a better job, and said they've used considerable amounts of misinformation in the past. That's not the same thing as saying that I work in the same industry as them and do (or could do at the drop of a hat) better work on my own with fewer people and less funding. Feel free to continue to attack that strawman if it makes you feel better though. I won't tailor my criticism to the parameters dictated by fanboyism, nor will I pretend that Mr. Portnow has a greater level of credibility than he has displayed thus far
I still feel bad for not testing that garbage. I trusted them so much. Never in a million years I thought they would mess it up like that. It was night and day going from 1.3 to 1.6 I was like wtf did someone get hit in the head when they were patching this? But what ever. The past belongs in the past. Let's just never repeat that again.
Red5 said right after Mark was removed that they still "wanted" our feedback or input but that the "hard decisions" had already been made. In other words thanks for commenting, "now eat your vegetables".
Henvar is correct on this one. The players were only given the illusion that what they thought mattered and that they had a say.
Part of me never wants to see anybody mention Firefall again. I don't even like to mention it in the forums. I prefer to say that other game that went to shit or The9 FuckinFail.
Henvar is correct on this one. The players were only given the illusion that what they thought mattered and that they had a say.
Part of me never wants to see anybody mention Firefall again. I don't even like to mention it in the forums. I prefer to say that other game that went to shit or The9 FuckinFail.
Happens a lot when a game fails to meet targets. Hawken had a rather similar issue in its development process and the original devs eventually went under. They even went so far as to mislead testers about feedback from other groups, failing to recognize that such information inevitably circulates
Hopefully Kern et al can keep the design clean and focused now that they've watched a previous project fail and presumably will only answer to themselves and their username this time. Not a surefire way to succeed by any means, but a better shot than they had before.
You're free to think whatever you like, but I clearly wouldn't be looking up educational material and listening to dev commentary if I thought I knew everything.
Hopefully Kern et al can keep the design clean and focused now that they've watched a previous project fail and presumably will only answer to themselves and their username this time. Not a surefire way to succeed by any means, but a better shot than they had before.
You're free to think whatever you like, but I clearly wouldn't be looking up educational material and listening to dev commentary if I thought I knew everything.
I dunno how you guys jumped to that conclusion. If you thought you were gonna make any decisions on how the game would be made you guys were a bit unrealistic. I don't say that to be mean or anything, but it's the truth. This is why I always say that hype leads to disappointment if expectations are not met.
Asking for feedback doesn't mean it will be implemented exactly how you want it to be, or implemented at all. You can ask people for feedback all day long doesn't mean it's gonna change anything.
Take a look at the new Ember mech shown.. you can already see the wheels in motion because it's impossible to please everyone.
Asking for feedback doesn't mean it will be implemented exactly how you want it to be, or implemented at all. You can ask people for feedback all day long doesn't mean it's gonna change anything.
Take a look at the new Ember mech shown.. you can already see the wheels in motion because it's impossible to please everyone.
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Generally when a large portion of your player base tells you they hate a feature, you can expect a loss in player base if you implement it
See: Bloodline Champions, Global Agenda, Tribes: Ascend, Hawken, and of course, FireFall
It's ultimately up to you if this risk is worth it, but you'll only lose more support if you so flagrantly ignore the people telling you why your system doesn't work for them and for others. In fact, all the games I listed, whether the decision making process was dev-side or publisher-side made these decisions in direct opposition to what the community wanted, and their games suffered and died as a result. You don't have to please every individual poster, but at the end of the day, actual people need to be playing and paying for your game, not some abstract target market or demographic. Even if your playerbase is only complaining about a symptom or the "wrong" mechanic, there's still probably a decent reason why they're complaining
We're talking about a game that slowly choked out its PvP following and then gradually bled PvE players. It's pretty clear that the grand plan was not working out and that, to some extent, community feedback was correct
See: Bloodline Champions, Global Agenda, Tribes: Ascend, Hawken, and of course, FireFall
It's ultimately up to you if this risk is worth it, but you'll only lose more support if you so flagrantly ignore the people telling you why your system doesn't work for them and for others. In fact, all the games I listed, whether the decision making process was dev-side or publisher-side made these decisions in direct opposition to what the community wanted, and their games suffered and died as a result. You don't have to please every individual poster, but at the end of the day, actual people need to be playing and paying for your game, not some abstract target market or demographic. Even if your playerbase is only complaining about a symptom or the "wrong" mechanic, there's still probably a decent reason why they're complaining
We're talking about a game that slowly choked out its PvP following and then gradually bled PvE players. It's pretty clear that the grand plan was not working out and that, to some extent, community feedback was correct
Likes:
NitroMidgets
But they did listen to feedback. but there was a greater problem...
That was leadership problems.
For some reason they had a program in place where different teams within the group could take hold of the reins of the whole project and make changes however they see fit. One of the Red5 Devs, either cloudchaser or FadedPez remarked about it back when they still worked for Red5, when people asked if they lied about the plans to keep PvP separate from PvE.
You see for a period of time after before Arena PvP came back to Firefall the game was being developed so that PvP would be separate from PvE. But then as we learned from Red5 devs on their forums after the Arena PvP update that idea got tossed out by the PvP team that had control for a period of time. The PvP lead decided to balance PvE and PvP together instead of separately. Even though they had the history and the community feedback to show that just wasn't working out. And there were developers that also spoke out against that change... it still went through.
There was plenty of times where community feedback did shape where Firefall went but it seems that Red5 leadership was really wonky especially when the overall control of the project could change hands and get altered so easily. I hope that doesn't happen here.
That was leadership problems.
For some reason they had a program in place where different teams within the group could take hold of the reins of the whole project and make changes however they see fit. One of the Red5 Devs, either cloudchaser or FadedPez remarked about it back when they still worked for Red5, when people asked if they lied about the plans to keep PvP separate from PvE.
You see for a period of time after before Arena PvP came back to Firefall the game was being developed so that PvP would be separate from PvE. But then as we learned from Red5 devs on their forums after the Arena PvP update that idea got tossed out by the PvP team that had control for a period of time. The PvP lead decided to balance PvE and PvP together instead of separately. Even though they had the history and the community feedback to show that just wasn't working out. And there were developers that also spoke out against that change... it still went through.
There was plenty of times where community feedback did shape where Firefall went but it seems that Red5 leadership was really wonky especially when the overall control of the project could change hands and get altered so easily. I hope that doesn't happen here.
While this is useful for people who weren't around for it, it needn't be addressed to me. I was around from the first tests onwards
There were also plenty of times when community-facing R5 staff reacted very poorly to feedback, whether that was their intent or not (the most glaring one being the quick scoping fiasco, though thankfully there were attempts at clarification after the fact) Additionally the instance that's being discussed, that being The9's takeover and the switch to openly vertical progression, was not done with community feedback in mind. This is where those who had not written the game off would still, quite often, suggest that it had "died"
I agree with you with regards to leadership though. The game needs to have a solid plan and stick to the fundamentals of it. If it turns out their core ideas are inherently flawed they need to jettison them, but they shouldn't just throw the baby out with the bathwater to fix balance issues or anything like that.
There were also plenty of times when community-facing R5 staff reacted very poorly to feedback, whether that was their intent or not (the most glaring one being the quick scoping fiasco, though thankfully there were attempts at clarification after the fact) Additionally the instance that's being discussed, that being The9's takeover and the switch to openly vertical progression, was not done with community feedback in mind. This is where those who had not written the game off would still, quite often, suggest that it had "died"
I agree with you with regards to leadership though. The game needs to have a solid plan and stick to the fundamentals of it. If it turns out their core ideas are inherently flawed they need to jettison them, but they shouldn't just throw the baby out with the bathwater to fix balance issues or anything like that.
Meh, too many changes of direction, too many bad ideas forced on a community who spoke out against them, too many Red5 discussions in an Echo Chamber and in the end the Founders were screwed and the game failed. Just as many said it was going to.
In some regards I hope it was a career killer for certain people who should of been held accountable for the lies and failures. I'm way more jaded now when testing a game. If there are signs of Firefalling I leave at the end of Alpha or the start of the beta. No sense in waiting until the ship is on the bottom of the ocean before admitting it is sinking.
In some regards I hope it was a career killer for certain people who should of been held accountable for the lies and failures. I'm way more jaded now when testing a game. If there are signs of Firefalling I leave at the end of Alpha or the start of the beta. No sense in waiting until the ship is on the bottom of the ocean before admitting it is sinking.