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Re: Intrepid - Time spent travelling?
It will be pretty crazy when you decide to travel far and then you won't see for friends for maybe weeks or even months
Re: Intrepid - Time spent travelling?
So you can just hop on a mount and go pee and make coffee, and hope you won't get attacked.
Once again the Idea and Concept (lol) of "Others" who may defend your Character, becomes a very enticing thought.
Or Escort NPC's like with some Caravans. Personally i hope there "WILL" be Bandit-like Players who may attack "Travel-Carts" or whatever even if the Inside is not Wares but other Players. 😁
It might give Players something to do who thirst for PvP all the time. Like some PvP-Guilds offering their Service against Coin to escort People who want to "Afk" during being travelled somewhere.
Aszkalon
1
Re: The Leveling Up Effect
In a game like BDO, the first 60 levels shouldn't have animations or sound effects. You level so fast through those levels that you seriously end up in animation lock. In a game like ashes, if levels are going to feel rewarding, animations and sounds that compliment that are a huge part of the experience!
Krisco
1
Re: The Leveling Up Effect
A definitive sound effect will be necessary in my opinion as well. The animation shouldn't get lost amongst a bunch of other effects if you happen to "ding" mid-battle. It would be fantastic if for your final level, there were a special animation that were maybe a bit more dramatic.
StewBad
1
Re: steven, is this you?
And those demands never work. The only thing that gets through to the execs in question is absence of money right now. Except most of these shitty games not only NOT lose money, but instead make crazy money. And even when a game does fail and lose the company some money, you know what those execs do to "solve the problem"? Fire the people that made it, because that's an easier way to make their profits look better by the end of the quarter.Us demanding better games is us demanding those at the top allow those working on the product to do better quality work.
Like I said, we need a revolution that will never happen. We've been "demanding" good things for decades, but things are only getting worse. And now the pendulum is swinging back to the small companies making semi-indies, which is kinda the entire point of this game and why we're here (well, at least some of us).
And if we believe Steven's claims of super low turnover at Intrepid - they'll supposedly succeed at making a good game and then keep it good for a long time. So, just as I said from the start of this convo - the currently developing games might be able to replicate the EQ model of content release pace, or at least be close to it. But we'll need to wait a few years to see that.
NiKr
1
Re: steven, is this you?
The boss is part of the company.But what can the company do when that someone is literally the boss and you trying to change the result simply gets met "you either listen to me or you are fired"?This isn't a valid excuse though. If someone at my work produces poor results, them just saying "sorry, I'm shit at my job" doesn't excuse the poor result.
Us demanding better from the company includes the boss. It STARTS with the boss.
That is what Swen was saying. A developer working on a game is doing their job, within the restrictions they are required to work within - it is those restrictions that determine the bulk of the quality of the final product, and they are set by the people at the top. As such, they are not valid excuses. Someone working on the game can use it as an excuse to absolve themselves of how poorly the game may be, but since those restrictions still come from the company, the company itself can not use them as an excuse.
Us demanding better games is us demanding those at the top allow those working on the product to do better quality work.
Noaani
1
Re: steven, is this you?
But what can the company do when that someone is literally the boss and you trying to change the result simply gets met with "you either listen to me or you are fired"? You could say "well, yeah, just leave for another company" and that's been somewhat of a trend lately, with all the new companies started up by industry vets, but you gotta be sure that you can survive while being jobless and the current times make people anything but sure about their lives, so it's just safer to shut the hell up and have a job for at least a bit longer (still not really an assurance, considering all the layoffs).This isn't a valid excuse though. If someone at my work produces poor results, them just saying "sorry, I'm shit at my job" doesn't excuse the poor result.
And as Swen (and a lot of JP companies) proved - the best way to make best games is to keep the same group of devs and keep grinding. Except this only works with already good execs, so the only way to make this a standard in the industry is to replace all execs and ideally even shareholders, which I highly doubt will happen any time soon.
And it won't happen soon because the dumb majority of players will just keep buying all these fucked up games that make insane money and all the dumb execs will see that and keep saying "copy that!" And it'll always be "copy that" in the worst way, because devs will try adjusting the "that" to fit their game in the best way possible, but execs won't let them either by directly telling them or fucking them over through budgetary means.
In other words, we need a revolution that topples the upper echelon of management, except when was the last time when any industry had that in a successful way? Cause I don't remember if I've ever heard of one. And I'm all for that revolution and am only paying money for the games that I believe in or want to see more of, not like that matters though.
NiKr
1
Re: steven, is this you?
And it's always cool to say "but don't you want everyone and everything to be up to my lvl of standards", but that's simply not realistic for most situations. It's very nice when it happens (stuff like B3 or Helldivers 2, etc), but that's still exceptions to the general rule, rather than an industry standard.
Funny you should mention this.
When BG3 came out last year, developers at other studios tried to point out that this shouldn't alter the expectation players have of other games. The argument was that the developers of other games had restrictions and requirements that Larian didn't have. Swen Vincke basically came out and said that players should have higher expectations due to BG3, and while the people working directly on other titles may have other restrictions, those restrictions are not inherent to the product, they are artificially placed on them by the board or CEO. Players expecting better games doesn't mean everything has to come from the developers, it means the executives also need to step up.
Essentially, games like the ones you have mentioned prove that if you make a damn good game, you end up with a shitload of money. Since that is what every company wants, there is no reason to not make a damn good game. It results in the players getting what they want, the developers being proud of the work they did, the company making a lot of money, the shareholders making a lot of money, and the CEO probably also getting a fat bonus.
Like, that result is what everyone wants. The way to get that result is fairly clear - make damn good games. Don't make excuses.
The problem is there are very few CEO's of game companies that both understand games, gaming and gamers, and are also good at the actual job of being a CEO (which can be summed up to "keeping the shareholders happy", when talking about a publically traded company).
As far as I am concerned, that is where the issue is. The few CEO's that know games can't manage to keep shareholders on side long enough to see those games fully developed, and the CEO's that have the ability to keep shareholders on side have no idea what makes a good game.
This isn't a valid excuse though. If someone at my work produces poor results, them just saying "sorry, I'm shit at my job" doesn't excuse the poor result.
Noaani
1
Re: steven, is this you?
So they also have an initial purchase of the game, then a sub, then an expansion cost, then an in-game shop that's p2w (and obviously cosmetics) and a way to directly buy currency? Cause that's the kind of greed I'm talking about. And that's western greed. Eastern is quite often even worse.It really isn't as if Daybreak Games aren't just as greedy as other developers, they just know the way to satisfy that greed is constant new content.
JP companies are usually better, which is why FF14 is the way that it is, but they're usually an exception to the industry "standard".
You might not consider this an acceptable excuse, but it's a reality for a shitton of companies. We all want to live in a perfect world where this shit is not the case, but sadly we don't....and total mismanagement, neither of which I consider acceptable excuses.
I'm very glad that you just so happened to love the, seemingly, only game in the world that satisfied all your needs, but, outside of maybe Mihoyo, I don't know any other company that can do the same, though even Mihoyo get shit on by their overfed fans now, because some patches are "filler" And mihoyo is a multi-billion company that just so happens to be, seemingly, well-managed and has a strict direction they're moving in with a good plan behind it.
In other words, you have 1st-world-gaming privilege and you should check it You've been spoiled too much!
NiKr
1
Re: steven, is this you?
I'd imagine it's the execs. Cause it usually is. Devs trying to do smth good and interesting? Exec comes in and says "I want new WoW, cause look how much money it makes". Devs want to spend some time making their own tools that will be great in the longrun? Exec says "no, I need the game yesterday! Make do with what you have". Etc etc etc.what excuses do other developers have that have access to those newer tools?
Like I said, not all of us played a game that was well-managed from the bottom to the top, while also being liked by the players. Supposedly OSRS is similar, though iirc osrs was also a response to the stark decline of RS3's popularity (if I'm not messing up my timelines here).
GW2 seems to be doing things well too, but afaik their content putout is nowhere near EQ's.
In other words, EQ was the only old game that could support the kind of pace you want, while any newer game requires the current tools, because the industry has notoriously slowed down due to higher demand of "quality" from players. All the other old games were severely mismanaged and/or greedy AS FUCK (which is pretty much the same thing), and it's only now that we're seeing indie-ish companies getting into the mmo sphere, exactly because the tools finally caught up to the good content release pace.
NiKr
1