Nah, this approach means that if it isn't, the wait until next batch of changes to try and salvage it will be too far away in the future (and it also won't get any feedback, so can still fail too).. until the product dies because it couldn't adapt fast enough. It's natural to think that spending lots of time before releasing anything is great, but all branches of business are trying to move towards faster cycles, because it's more efficient. Extreme programming or Agile software development apply to game development in particular. The important bit is to put out a minimum viable product so you can start receiving feedback from the guys who give you your money: the customers. What counts as a minimum viable product varies, obviously. Alpha and beta tests are (supposed to be) minimum viable products. The people who join alpha/beta tests of products want to be in on the first wave of people who use a product, they will accept deficiencies. Obviously the best case scenario for a customer is getting the perfect product on day 1, with no testing period. But that's unrealistic and is basically gambling. Over a longer period of time on average, customers are served better by a quick development cycle since the end product will be 1) better and 2) reached faster. --- Gabe Newell may be some sort of genius that he always gets things right. But just because someone can do it doesn't mean everyone should try. --- If you've got 100 invitations to a party to send by mail, it's actually more efficient to do 1 invitation at a time from start to finish (writing, folding, putting in envelope, writing address etc) than doing one operation at a time for all 100 invitations, and should a (systematic) mistake happen, the time to recover from it is much shorter as well. --- Yes, I've been reading some Lean Startup book lately, and probably misrepresented the ideas a lot
Lean Startup, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, etc. are all good at certain things. For all I know, SOE could be using them all. So this is my disclaimer: The following is just my opinion on what I can see as a consumer. I think you have the right idea with concentrating on a minimum-viable-product, but it may only apply to the code development part of a release. Developing a new feature for a game is much more than the actual coding, but the development methodologies should be considered for the dev part first, IMHO. For instance, adding the empire specific MAX AV weapons is not just one item. I would expect the graphics/display/physics of the item in game to be a deliverable, where the team is tasked with releasing the minimum viable product to solicit feedback. Then you also have the damage/reload speed/balancing aspect, which may not benefit from this methodology since it's more of an interaction than a product. But back to your point, I think SOE would benefit from the minimum-viable-product focus on the actual software development. From what I can tell, the actual software is prone to being buggy. This leads me to believe that they are not finishing the development of the software early enough in the cycle, and are introducing unnecessary risk by introducing code changes near the release date. The last part of the period should be fine tuning and balancing. I'd push the actual "release date" of the development up in the cycle to where all the devs are "pencils down" during testing/balancing.
Well said, especially about how the requirements vary within PS2 itself as it's such a complex product. That we have a test server now is awesome. It lets the company use more minimum viable products continuously without alienating their more demanding customers. Test server is for the early adopters only as long as there is no other reward, and they require less for the privilege of being first to try it out. I do suspect however that the developers either try to do too many things at once while still being fast.. resulting in poor quality as deadlines strike. Or that they have small groups of experts instead of cross-functional teams, so when the single parts are brought together the whole is less than the parts. Poor quality? Why would I complain about poor quality when I simultaneously ask for 'minimum viable products'? Because poor quality is fine once to save time, not continuously. Sometimes you have to slow down to go faster in the end.
Yes cause Glancer and Vortex where so usefull mighty weapons and TR and NC weapons sucked... (thats why VS use their ES specific crap about 1/3 as much as the TR and NC does...) Yet all i hear is NC whining on Strikers and Fractures and TR whining on Phoenix and Ravens... (you all **** about VS weapons for a good damn reason they suck cohones...)
I love the lancer when I play with my Vanu scum friends, you're using it wrong. It's not a destroyer, it's a sniper. NO other faction gets that functionality. NC gets fire from cover at an absolutely painful RoF, TR gets a really powerful lock on (albeit some pretty silly guidance), and VS gets the only true long range rocket. That's some good stuff if you can figure out how to use it.
Yah right and Vortex is really good to... (the fact that it takes 10 direct hits to kill inf is just a fluke) and what exactly is its strenghts compared to Fracture and Ravens? (and the fact that ANY uncerted infantery can take out an atleast 2000crt MAX with its sidearm) Many VS is fed up and quitting their faction (around 1/3 of my old outfit so far) Im starting to play 4th faction to... so gonna be a 2 faction game soon... (good work SOE)
Higby tweeted that in GU09 they will have an anti-aimbotting, adadadad strafing macro, no-recoil, no bulletbloom surveillance system that will rid the game of hackers that should have been included in the transition from beta to live.... oh wait, nevermind.. they still havent done it... and even if they happen to catch you people that feel the need to cheat they will only slap you on the hand and give you a couple day ban..... cant lose those players, even if they ruin the game.
only people that actually get banned are the people that warp/speedhack and go under the map. Everything else seems to be fair game, since they throw their hands up in the air and presume that they cant stop it - even the GMs in game say as much... they say that the devs are working on solutions to hacking, but its been like 8 game updates now... going on 9. It's borderline embarrassing that they can fix this.
For one, it's easier for NC and TR to compare their weapons, and so feel more confident in their arguments. Also, the VS weapons are very black and white. VS got the best guns for what they are supposed to do, and are obviously worst at anything else. So VS has a very self-contained argument: Is the benefit worth giving up everything else? Nothing NC or TR can do to help answer this question, so they'll probably stay out of it as long as nothing becomes broken or OP.
alright scrubs all of you. NC got a riot shield, it isn't a full body shield, but its a SHIELD that can take a pounding, whether you use it just to block an incoming rocket or a tank shell or something, you flip it on to protect yourself and flip it off afterwards. You use it offensively or defensively, depending if you want to make a push or hold a line, The look of it is lame though, they could do better to make it either out of metal or a real shield like heavy assault. A real nano regenerating steel shield of sorts would be far more cooler though, hate their lame *** nano machine energy shields. TR get lockdown, for all understandable reasons, standing still can spell doom unless you understand the concept of positioning and when not to remain like that for hours on end. It is a defensive and offensive ability at the expense of being still during its use to simply shoot much faster, its all about placement much like engineer turrets, except YOU ARE THE TURRET. It has a use and it is kind of ****** for a game where the max isn't as durable as it should be, but it isn't terrible, its still relatively good and will **** if used by not a brain dead call of duty/battlefield player. VS got what originally would have been jumpjets for mobility, is a speed increase for mobility, we don't instantly start at max sprint speed, atleast currently it only takes affect once you reach top speed and then turn it on, we supposedly take more damage with it on, and it isn't that we can keep sprinting while shooting. Overall I feel the ability to reach a higher sprint speed in a max is something everyone should get, but they felt it should be empire specific, you guys call this OP, but it is pretty mediocre and doesn't feel very empire specific just something lazily slapped onto the VS, I bet the other factions would want this, but if you really had to give up what good you have going for you I'm sure you'd also realize how shoddy this ability is. Is being able to reach a higher sprint speed a defensive or offensive skill? Not really either, its more like something to band aid an issue EVERYONE HAS, which is being really slow when out in the open and you need to get places, if you guys are getting curb stomped and crying OP I don't think you should be playing games. the only OP thing here is the NC.
Yeah a weapon that you can use against everything is easier to compare against another gun thats good against everything... not fair to compare it against a weapon thats good against nothing at all... that the Vortex... good against nothing...
Never said it's OP just said ZOE is currently the best of the three, i also think all got their uses but zoe is just the one which fit's in nearly every situation , that is no QQ post or sth like this. I wouldn't even want it on my max (rather would take the riot shield) but im fine with the lockdown, but the problem i see with the lockdown is that it will be very situational. BTW the only reason the NC ever would run with riot is when they could reload while holding it but the fact that they currently can is that it's a bug. (simply because you can't reload when holding it , you must reload and the while it reloads pressing the ability key, then it stacks with the shield)
They pushed the January update, which was scheduled for January 30, back 3 days, which put it in February. Please stop pretending that it was delayed for an absurd amount of time, or that it happens frequently.
Did i say that Although there has been a hand full of features that have been completely wiped off the roadmap .
I wish I could convey the frustration that I feel for the Striker, Vortex, and Lancer every time I get into a vehicle. I doubt a vehicle of mine has died in a week to VS without sustaining damage from the Lancer and/or Vortex. Hell, I've not even seen Vanu without the tell-tale beams as well. As far as I can tell, the Striker and Lancer/Vortex are more powerful against NC armor than NC armor is against them.
I have seen another form of hack. Killed instanly by a vanu with a weapon like an orion into a building. And this four time. Never see that nano max and resist shield normally impossible without snipe. I go see combat log and player stats. The log say killed by zephir, and all 33 guy before me killed by zephir. This guy having a hack to switch her weapon with another. A great orion with bullet replaced by zephir damage. 600 rpm of explosive bullet you can't deal with that.
