The Cesspit. - The Cesspit

The web team needs a meeting to be able to post a link to a patch

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:02:22 -0800

This is just ridiculous enough to deserve a post.

The 15th September EA releases "Need For Speed: Shift". It's a surprise because the game is very, very good and far from the poor arcade titles that were released in the last few years and that got worse with every new title in the franchise. It was a quite brilliant and unexpected move to hire an external team specialized on a simulator and apply to it enough production value to make it also graphically advanced.

The game sells well in spite of a good competition in the genre and a number of important releases in the same weeks. From there everything turns to shit. It's like EA realized they unknowingly did something good for once and kicked into gear to right the wrong. Shit on what is good, apparently their greatest talent.

The game has lots of problems, obvious bugs and lack of support for simple things (like the impossibility to configure some controls). Most of these problems are fixed by players on the PC because it is discovered that the game uses a compression for the game files that comes from a previous title. So they can unpack the game logic and edit it. Fix most of the problems.

Yet it takes exactly THREE MONTHS to EA to make an official patch that is hoped to fix all the problems the game has (some game-breaking). In October on the forums a community representative explained that controls couldn't be reconfigured because the art team didn't have enough time to redo the screens. I shit you not. EA isn't able to add some lines of text to the controls page. They say IT'S TOO HARD.

End of September and the project manager of the game explains that all the problems reported have been fixed internally and the team is working on optimizations (since the game has been patronized by Nvidia and required to run like shit on ATI systems). A new patch is expected for the following week, and another later with those optimizations.

Two days later the project manager vanishes from the internet. Silence about the patch. Nothing comes for two weeks, then a message on the forums from a community manager saying that it will take at the very least two more weeks because the patch was in QA hands.

In November they say the patch comes in December.

Now three months are needed to make a patch to a game that was rough on the edges and that had some very serious bugs. Most of these fixed by resourceful players in a matter of days. But it takes the full force of EA three months to hack together a patch. And controls can't be reconfigured, even three months later, because the art team just isn't capable of producing "art" for a configuration screen.

It's worth pointing out that the UI on the PC has been handled externally from the studio that is responsible of the actual game.

Today people wait for the patch. The web team "are currently in a meeting but once they're out I will get them to update the downloads page and release the patch".

This surely a mention, if not a prize, for worst post-release support on a game that could have actually been very good.

How things go

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:57:38 -0800

Via Twitter.

Mythic Entertainment, responsible for Warhammer Online, just laid off 80 people, about 40% of its employees.

Lum:

Don't know anything about numbers, but literally everyone I know who was still at Mythic outside of upper management is looking for work this morning.

Blame the economy, but not just.

"Love"

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:20:50 -0700

Best MMO of the year. 3 euros for 30 days of game time. Team based PvP shooter (well, I think).

Tom Chilton realizes down the road what I was preaching for many years

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:32:06 -0700

My understanding is not perfect, especially when he starts to babble, but from halfway through till the end he really seems to realize some core problems that go against all he "designed" up to this point. Permeable barriers and all.

Tom-Chilton-IGN-Video-Interview

Enjoy the backpedaling, smart ass.

P.S.
It looks from the video they are redoing water effects with this expansion. RotLK was shadows, this one water. We are in the future. Tech and design. So advanced. Think of all the progress in the last few years. Unbelievable.

How the story ends

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:14:40 -0700

I don't write about mmorpg anymore if it's not about leftovers. I guess I'll comment this.

Seen on Rock-Paper-Shotgun:

EA will merge Mythic and Bioware to create a new MMO and RPG division. The new division will apparently be headed by BioWare boss Ray Muzyka, while BioWare’s other co-founder, Greg Zeschuk, will become Group Creative Officer. Mark Jacobs, the outspoken boss at Mythic, will apparently be leaving the company

It didn't end too well, did it?

Nope, for anyone. I guess you would expect me to be all happy about this since I wrote so much negative stuff about Mythic and especially about Mark Jacobs along the years. Nope, I'm not. Justice is done? Nope.

Justice is when things are understood and people collaborate to work toward something better. Justice is to see things realize their potential and draw the best from the people who made them. There's little justice in seeing something fail, even if there are good motivations behind the failure. Or whatever, even if you still won't call this failure.

And there's also no justice when you're proven right, and yet you can't put it to any use.

Eve-Online surpasses Warhammer

Wed, 06 May 2009 18:14:13 -0700

I guess it's worth pointing out.

Yesterday was EA financial conference and this time there is no mention of Warhammer subscription numbers in the official report. Probably because subs numbers don't look all that awesome (if you trust x-fire, the game is steadily but slowly losing activity, that considering various factors would lead me to guess the sub number at 280k in the most optimistic case).

From other sources it was repeated the 300k number for the end of March. I don't consider this reliable but it's an hint that either they are where they were in December, or under but still around that number. If the numbers were higher you can bet Mythic and Mark Jacobs would be all over the forums boasting better results, instead there's absolute silence.

So I'll be optimistic despite all hints of numbers being lower, and say Warhammer is at 300k.

What is instead proven is that Eve-Online has 300k confirmed now.

In January Eve had 250k. Warhammer 300k. Four months later Eve gained another 50k, Warhammer is either there stalling, or losing behind the scenes.

The surpass happened.

Because, you know, after a few years every game is stale and ready to be replaced. Or so they say. I wonder where Eve will be in another year. And I wonder where Warhammer will be.

Let's hope till June

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:57:21 -0800

At the moment the only MMO I'm playing and willingly to play is Football Manager (that is mostly awesome).

On the horizon there is absolutely NOTHING that interests me. I could go back to WoW for a while once they decide that dual speccing is a good thing, but that's it. The rest is crap and in the future there's nothing that looks promising.

But then there's "Jumpgate Evolution". Jumpgate was one of the first MMO I played. Really. At the time I only played Ultima and I think only a few months later after Jumpgate I started DAoC.

The first Jumpgate was a promising game with lot of potential. The problem is that once released in beta form (it worked, but extremely barebone) Netdevil simply STOPPED to develop it. There were no patches to the game with the exclusion of very minor fixes. No devs presence. They just released the thing and forgot it existed. A behavior that became typical of Netdevil. They don't care about what they do, and it shows.

At the end I mostly ran fed-ex missions and got bored really fast. Combat was a mess and this isn't a game like Eve-Online where you concentrate on the tactical aspects. Here flying was extremely hard due to the flight model used (the one where the heading of your ship doesn't affect its direction).

Jumpgate Evolution LOOKS like the perfect game I ever wanted (and with me a whole lot of players). They changed the flight model with one closer to other sims. It's a dogfighting game, so with gameplay supposed to be where the fun is. The features list is everything I wanted (minus the randomly generated missions).

"Fight against thousands of players online in epic large-scale player vs. player real-time battles."
"Protect a merchant vessel on its trade route by intercepting enemy players or answer a battle station's call for help by delivering them much needed supplies."

An exhilarating PvP open world, fighting for territories, conquest, huge battles, dogfights! Or at least I hoped. Then you read on forums that the game is built like WoW. It has levels segregating players, world divided into zones and instances, the twitch combat is severely limited and PvP happens on battlegrounds. Oh well.

This is the press release today:

From an immense racing world to an entire universe, Codemasters Online and developer NetDevil announced that Jumpgate Evolution®, the action-based PC Massively Multiplayer Online game that promises exhilarating space combat on a vast scale, is scheduled for take-off this June.

I can continue to hope till June. From experience I know I can't expect anything good from Netdevil. They never understand what makes a game good and fuck all kinds of awesome concepts only to imitate others and do worse than what was intended. Auto Assault was the perfect example of how you can wreck the few things that made its concept vaguely appealing. (btw, Jumpgate Evolution forums already have *zero* devs presence)

The graphic looks extremely good for this type of game. But here it's all about gameplay. The world is still waiting for a massive X-Wing/Wing Commander type of game. We don't need anything new. We don't need to even RESEMBLE to WoW. It's already all done, only needs to be made.

Hopes up till June. Then the usual huge disappointment. This is going to be another "Earth and Beyond".

P.S.
But then you can invite me to beta and spare me the later disappointment.

What's up with EA? EDIT: Warhammer 300k

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 08:55:51 -0800

This is not about Warhammer, but since it was mentioned in early December on the forums I've been keeping an eye to the financial charts.

It was mentioned in December (and on a bunch of business sites) because the chart had a new dip, but if you look at how it was going along the year you can notice that the crisis started in September (yeah, Warhammer again, but it's likely a coincidence and more a problem of world crisis).

Today I think is the day of their earnings conference. I have really no idea on how to read these charts as I know little to nothing about economy, but the chart today reached a new low and is under 15 (whatever 15 means).

STOCK PERFORMANCE: Shares of the Redwood City, Calif.-based company tumbled nearly 57 percent during the quarter to finish at $16.04. In Monday morning trading, the stock hit a new year low of $14.78.

I guess the next few hours will be important? Maybe investors are waiting to see what happens with the conference.

About Warhammer:

EA's earnings call is in a few weeks and after that, there will be a lot more clarity about our numbers.

First reports already in:

Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning®, an MMO from EA’s Mythic Entertainment studio, ended the quarter with over 300K paying subscribers in North America and Europe.

This means 300k as December 31 2008.

Indeed. And flawless victory.

EDIT: Mark Jacobs only comment at this time:

Because not everything that I hoped to talk about was in the earnings call (they had other things to talk about obviously), I'm waiting on guidance from corporate to see if I can add a few additional bit of information that weren't contained in the call before I write a longer post than this.

Apparently he's pissed because EA didn't spin the numbers enough to make them look better.

EDIT2: Comments from EA:

And while we expect to benefit in the future from increased sales from these franchises, generally games with a two on them sell better and do sell with a lower R&D budget.

drive our content direct-to-consumer. This is a strategic initiative that is very important for the long term. In FY09, we made $150 million online investment with limited associated revenue. In FY10, all significant online spending, except for the LucasArts BioWare Star Wars MMO, will be generating positive income. These investments are working. We expect over $500 million in direct-to-digital revenue in fiscal year ’10.

And also for fiscal ’10, we are going to get a full year of Warhammer subscription revenue. We talked about the fact that we are already at 300,000 subs. That is a very ratable and more predictable business, and so that is new for FY10 compared to fiscal ‘09.

At loss for words

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:20:49 -0800

Yes, Warhammer again.

It's like the perfect manual on how to be COMPLETELY out of touch with your game and community. Full denial of problems. Head in the sand attitude, and some of the stupidest ideas coming out of the blue.

Apparently as the first players rush onto the system and spread out across the servers, a ton of information and feedback will come flooding in via game forums, initial reviews as well as raw internal data. The temptation then is for the team to rush in and immediately start fixing things based on extremely small data sets and subjective interpretations. What the Warhammer Online team did instead was what might be referred to as "game triage." They needed to decide which problems were truly game-threatening and focus on those and which could wait.

So they weren't fooled. They wisely waited to address the real problems. Oh, really?

"When we look at game balance, we look at it in terms of realm vs. realm balance," said Jeff Skalski, Warhammer Online's RvR Strike Team Lead. "As long as we're hitting that realm balance, we're happy. Factional, racial or career population imbalances aren't as critical."

In fact, the team asserts that one of the biggest criticisms and fears around launch time -- the potential for population or class imbalance -- hasn't really materialized.

Yes, denial will help. As always.

The team also takes message board and player feedback very seriously and will address issues when they reach certain critical thresholds. A recent shift to healers, for example, occurred because the complaint by healers that their big healing spells were essentially useless in combat was backed up by internal data that showed how often such spells were used. As a result, many big healing spells were jazzed up to become more attractive for players.

Interesting, because the latest patch just reset the timers on those "big healing spells" to how they were previously.

Of all the problems the most crucial one the game had was one that many players doing other things missed -- there weren't enough people playing in the lower tier open realm RvR. While this had always been an anticipated problem as the player base aged and leveled up, all the data indicated that it was happening faster than it should. It was clearly something that needed to be addressed.

So they realized something wasn't working. Now let's see what it is:

"What we've found is that Scenarios tend to be their own reward," Drescher said. "People who really want to do Open RvR, though, were falling behind PvE and scenario players in terms of gear. We needed to do something to draw people back into the 'RvR lakes.'"

What!? Scenarios being "their own reward"? People in ORvR falling behind in terms of gear?

Do you have EVER played your own game? Scenarios weren't their own reward. Scenarios were played because they gave HUGE boosts to experience and renown. ORvR players were falling behind in experience and renown. They are still falling behind.

In fact Scenarios didn't provide gear in any way. If not through renown, which is again proportional to the experience.

If anything playing in ORvR will make your renown level advance FASTER than your experience level. This means that you proportionally get more gear via ORvR than what you get via Scenarios at the same level. The exact opposite of what you said.

And you are saying that in ORvR players were falling behind IN TERMS OF GEAR? And that, since you realized this, you fixed the problem by adding influence as another system to obtain gear WHILE YOU LEAVE EXPERIENCE UNTOUCHED?

Excuse me, this is nothing else than a plain display of utter incompetence. This is not a blogger with an axe to grind, this is just not having a clue about what you are doing.

Working on the Open RvR system also allowed the team to try and get ahead of another problem -- the aging of the player base. The first element of this is the addition of "chicken content." This is a series of quests that encourage higher tier player to revisit lower-tier zones (where they get turned into a chicken) in exchange for a fun series of Tome unlocks and quests that also provide interesting content for lower level characters as well. Apparently players will get experience for killing high level player-chickens and according to the team, there are as many Tome unlocks involving them as there were for fighting while naked.

...Speechless.

Josh Drescher, a name to remember.

If you had said we'd be where we are just a few months after launch last year, we'd have called you a liar," Drescher concluded. "We're ecstatically happy with where we are

Good for you then. If only you could persuade me you're convinced of what you are saying.

In fact it sounds simply pathetic.

Warhammer selling less than EQ2?

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:03:09 -0800

From PC World.

Top PC Game Sales for November 2008

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King ($36)
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King CE ($70)
3. Call of Duty: World at War ($50)
4. Spore ($48)
5. Fallout 3 ($49)
6. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest ($34)
7. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe ($19)
8. Left 4 Dead ($48)
9. The Sims 2: Apartment Life ($21)
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 ($49)

WoW wasn't the only MMO to make November's top 20. Sneaking in at #14? Sony's Everquest II: The Shadow Odyssey expansion pack.

No Warhammer?

EDIT: Aye, confirmed.

11. World Of Warcraft - (Activision Blizzard) - $18
12. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts - $19
13. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy - Her Interactive - $20
14. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey Expansion Pack - Sony Online Ent. - $40
15. Far Cry 2 - Ubisoft - $50
16. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - (Activision Blizzard) - $29
17. Bioshock - 2K Games ( Take 2) - $14
18. Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack - Electronic Arts - $19
19. IGT Slots: Little Green Men - Masque - $20
20. Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition - Ubisoft - $17

WotLK credits

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:32:50 -0800

I gave a quick glance at WotLK credits. It seems that the happy trio got promotions.

Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan is now "Game Director"
Tom "Kalgan/Evocare" Chilton is now "Lead Designer"
Alex "Furor" Afrasiabi is now "World Lead Designer"

The hard part is getting in the loop.

WotLK wants me to play

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:48:14 -0800

Interesting.

Account page

Useful tool

EDIT:
Not really, it still requires a CD-Key, without a way to get one online.

Warhammer DID NOT reach 800k subs

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:09:19 -0700

There's a lot of confusion on the forums (and Gamespot) about EA fiscal report and Warhammer subscription numbers.

Specifically the part that gets quoted the most:

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, an MMO from EA’s Mythic Entertainment studio, sold 1.2 million copies in the quarter – with over 800 thousand current players.

The confusion is about two aspects. The first is whether 800k are real active, uncanceled accounts, or just registered accounts. The second is whether the number is as of 30 October, the day the report was compiled, or 30 September, the end of the second quarter that is subject of the report.

The first aspect is rather obvious if you just read the title of the PDF:

As you can see, it clearly states "Registered Users" and not active subscriptions.

The second can be inferred by looking at the other two press releases.

September 26

in the first week since launch over 500,000 new players have registered

October 10

today announced that 750,000 players have registered

Now, if the Fiscal report was limited to the 30 September then we would have a time paradox since Warhammer had 500k registered accounts as of 26 September, then 800k as of 30 September and finally 750k as of 10 October.

Obviously the 800k is to be put later than the last press release and probably closer to the day the fiscal report was compiled, so the end of October.

But there's also another point to consider: gold sellers.

Let’s subtract from the 800k all those fake accounts that gold sellers made. 13k are just those that Mythic caught and banned. I expect the total number to be much, much higher.

If the CD-key system was cracked then they can create unlimited accounts, and so the number of active accounts is not in any way indicative of the success of the game.

Moral of the story: we need to wait for active subscriptions to see how successful the game is (my guess is that they are south of 500k and that they'll have a very hard time passing that number, with WotLK release in a couple of weeks).

Factional Warfare further down the drain

Mon, 19 May 2008 12:05:19 -0700

More dev blogs arrived and they didn't reassure of the situation, they made it, if possible, worse.

Factional Warfare is then nothing even close to make PvP more fun and accessible, it's a way to PRETEND to do it. It works when it will be time to spread around banner ads for the game.

I was worried that the system allowed gankers to finally be able to gank everywhere in space as long their targets were in one of the three enemy factions (which is confirmed), now we learn that not only by enlisting you sign the right to be ganked everywhere, but EVEN NPCs HUNT YOU.

You'll also find that, as a fully paid-up militia member, hostile factions won't like you all that much. If, as an Amarr Militia member, I venture into Rens, the Republic Navy is going to try its hardest to clear me out. Be aware though! The Navies have finally twigged that two frigates and a cruiser aren't really a significant threat these days, so they've upgraded their rapid response teams. Considerably. They won't scramble, but if you hang around expect to get hurt.

Expect to get hurt.

Because these days two frigates and a cruise are no threat within A FUCKING SYSTEM MEANT TO BE ACCESSIBLE.

What the fuck. Petition CCP to forbid them the right to be able to use the "accessible" word ever again. They can't fucking mean it.

And how they expect to protect the Factional Warfare system to fall in the hands of a dominating corp and use it to dominate the rest and destroy the fun for all other players? WITH A COCKBLOCK!

IMPRESSIVE GAME DESIGN MEDAL OF THE YEAR!

Alliances are not allowed to enlist, and neither are corporations in an alliance (or with an outstanding alliance application). There are a number of reasons for this, technical and otherwise, the most important of which is that we just don't want the major power blocs to descend en masse and take over everything. It's obviously not a hard limit on the players involved, but it's designed to encourage the idea that if you're a major player on the nullsec political scene you're already doing something incredibly worthwhile and shouldn't let yourself be distracted by the petty machinations of the Empires.

It reduces the likelihood of Factional Warfare being completely dominated by existing major players by forcing them to divide their characters and their focus if they want to participate without giving up their 0.0 holdings. We don't envision it being a "hard limit" on Alliance players (as distinct from characters), but more a social, logistical and organizational inconvenience which will at the very least reduce their effectiveness a little when deploying Factional Warfare enabled fleets.

So, since they fear that the system can be dominated by existing major players and so losing its (pretended) accessibility, they forbid all alliances to join.

Like if it would prevent anything. This is equal to hide a mammoth behind a blade of grass. But the real reason is that CCP knows well their game. Better than you expect. They know that there are very limited slots for characters and this choice is a brand new incentive to make alts, and so create double accounts. And so pay more. Money ahead of gameplay. First give us money, then we think about how to make a good game.

NOTHING, absolutely nothing, prevents players to organize and dominate the Factional Warfare system. And IT WILL HAPPEN with mathematical certainty. Either that, or the Factional System is so badly designed that no one even cares about it. But if people care about it then you can be sure that someone will try to take over it and damage the fun of others.

If you expect that it won't happen because you put there a minor cockblock then you are absolute fools who never observed dynamics in a MMORPG. Noobs.

I'll tell you how it works. You don't make a good game by limiting WHO can play it or access certain aspects. You make a good game by shaping HOW players interact with it and contribute.

Not who, but how. Anagrams.

CCP go back at fiddling with petty walking simulators and metallic-looking textures. It was better.

Enthusiasm for Factional Warfare already smothered

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:08:59 -0700

Goodbye to the hopes that Eve-Online may become a game I like and decide to play.

Two short posts of a dev on a forum and all the nightmares are coming alive:

If you sign up for a faction you can be attacked by anyone in opposing factions anywhere. it is that in low-sec we have marked out control points which will bring the combat to them making it easier for you to find and take part in.

Attacked by anyone anywhere? Wow...

This means they are basically removing the whole concept of CONCORD polishing empire space. It's like in Ultima Online being ganked right next the bank in Britain because your guild declared war on another. Considering that there are four factions, it means that the number of targets in empire space will be still high, and that you won't be safe anymore ANYWHERE.

Or: this game isn't for noobs. Go away.

Then it gets worse:

This is something that should become clearer over the next few blogs, but for now let me just say that while there's no functional limitations on what you can do solo, you may want to try and find some ad-hoc FW-buddies to give you a bit of leverage

No functional limitations.

It basically means that in practice if you are solo you'll only be a bag of money for others, and there's no fucking possibility that you can compete if you don't have support of others. Or a lot of wealth to be ahead of others.

So the whole concept completely FUCKED. The accessibility of the system as the goal just completely gutted.

Instead of catering to those disorganized players who have difficulty to access the later part of the game, they make a system that is going to be used mainly and ONCE AGAIN by organized players who can take control of IT and farm the few noobs that are curious.

So what's the difference from before? License to kill.

If before the gankers and carebears sit in two different places of the game, this system offers the gankers the license to liberally kill EVERYWHERE.

I was a FOOL thinking that CCP would develop something for all players and not just the hardcore as always. A fool.

Question: Does it mean I can also attack the opposing faction anywhere? I mean let's take a stealth bomber to a newbie zone of the opposing empire and smoke some folks ... or camp Jita just for the fun of it?

Dev: You can not go killing noobs with impunity by signing up. You can go killing anyone signed up to an opposed faction.

You, whoever you are or whoever is behind this idea, are an idiot.

What is the fucking difference if first you make the system as a "gameplay bridge" to encourage noobs and disorganized players to engage in PvP, and then say that you can't kill noobs with impunity, because those noobs have just SIGNED to be killed with impunity.

This is simply a license to gank noobs who, like me, were fooled by CCP disguising a system as something accessible and made for everyone, when instead just feeding the hardcore with more targets.