[2012] TotalBiscuit Interview with PA Devs [2012]

Like I said, it's very subjective, but use a bit of common sense with it. It's definitely not years, doubtly a couple months (I'd say a month, two if it were), possibly a couple weeks.

Honestly, I don't know, won't act like I do. But it's the best I've got until I can do some.. Real digging. (I wouldn't be surprised if one of the livestreams gave a date/time frame at one point.)

Anyway, I'd love to have a whole map out of what's going to happen, but I don't think it'd work out due to people getting mad over possible delays.

Also I really don't like the term "left in the dark" when threads like these exist: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/graphics-update-making-things-go-faster-by-doing-less.64323/

Taking the time to explain optimizations and such, when he has a job, possibly a family, etc... I think people tend to forget that the devs are people too, and they don't have unlimited free time.

Even if I agree that the link you posted is an amazing source of general information about how 3D animations works, what has it to do with a roadmap for the missing features in PA?

I ask it one more time. When did Uber give a precise date for any of the steps in development, up to release (which disappointed lot of customers)? And has they been clear about when saving and offline will be available to the customers?

Dude, I like you, but it sounds like that generally you have little idea of what you're speaking about.

I've been around here ~a year.

I didn't go searching, because it's a monumental task... And I was away because I needed to take a shower, anyway, If I really wanted to go looking I'd have to go all through out the forums and watch every live stream essentially... I wish I had the drive to do it, but it's just too much. All I know is Uber used to be quite vocal with the community, Uber would be on the forums every day it seemed during early development, a stream almost once a month, so when you say that they've always been quiet... it urks me, as I know very well they haven't. What exactly has got us to this point? One can only for educated guesses. I believe I've heard most likely Brad speak of why they haven't been as vocal anymore, other than due to increased work load, but I'd have to go searching, that one might be easier, so I might look for it, I'll get back to you- eventually if I dot end up taking the time to do so.

I haven't always been such the defender of Uber, quite the opposite at one point, but even then I tried to be as civil as possible. I never called them liars or otherwise (not implying you have or anything, just the general sense)

I created a whole thread about commanders, the alpha and progenitor. I expected to get them with my Steam 90$ early access (as people who bought galactic edition for 90$ on the Uber store did), I was quite the disappointed customer, but I ended up selling out an extra 200 for them. I wasn't mad before then, especially once the situation was thoroughly explained, heck, I apologized to the devs and a couple other forum members for being quite ignorant and maybe a bit over the top.

I just want you to know this so you know I don't really have any blind faith towards Uber or anything, I just legitimately see a good company in them, all the interactions I've had, personally, with the devs have been good. I'm even friends with one to a point. I just get a little passionate about the game, and Uber, and I try my absolute best to get rid of all the misinformation that may flutter about.

Honestly, I'd love to get a good road map of the features, and I'd love to know what's coming up next... Heck, if Uber eventually brought up the Vanguards once more I'd squee from happiness, and nearly beg to be a part of it, because I want to know about things too.

It makes me sad to see people just say the games failing, or will fail, just because, when there's even a bit of proof to say otherwise. One common misconception is most reviews are negative, yet 77% or so are actually positive (on steam) and 60%+ are positive on meta critic (the last one was quite arbitrary, just said that based on the 6 grade on metacritic)

Anyway, hope maybe this helped to show that really I have been here for quite a while, I have been listening for quite a while, and a lot of things have been said within these past two years. That's the only way I see myself as having a bit more information than you, because I'm literally on the forum all the time. At least 17 hours of the day, always checking. I even started up that little list of quotes about offline just so people could see.. they at least acknowledge them, they're not ignoring to the extent some people think they are.

I've been thinking about requesting something like the Vanguards be made once more to one of the Devs in a PM chat, not sure what the answer would be... but I've been thinking of trying, because I want this game to succeed.

My request to Uber, please, please make an official statement. I'm trying my hardest to get your back, searching all through out many threads, just so I can let people know what you're saying.

Please make an official statement, and if you can't due to work or other such things, please let your best and most trusted community members do it for you, pin it, whatever. People are worried, people feel cheated, I know it's not the intent.. I know you guys do care, but you've just got to put that little bit more effort. I'm sure things will work out.

Okay.. Sorry for all that, just felt like making a long post again, a really long post, for the first time in quite a while.

As I've said before, a prime example of a great (and HIGHLY VISIBLE) roadmap is the Planetside 2 roadmap. Every company should do this!

http://www.planetside2.com/roadmap

Again, the problem isn't that they don't meet deadlines and draw ire, that's the result from not updating the expectations they set when things change with development.

Mike

I think I remember something about that being a disaster. Anyone?

Most companies don't have the support of one of the largest technology companies in the world.

It's not easy to plan roadmaps for anything.

I'm sure if Uber knew when they push out features, the community would know.

That's a fair point...not every company is backed by a multi-billion dollar tech corporation.

Road maps don't need to be about specific 'Whens', just knowing 'What' is roughly being worked on in an easily viewable, easily accessed and most importantly, often updated format would have been a boon to PA.

Even if you look at the PS2 one linked above, there are only 5 things listed with rough month based dates, with the 18 other items listed as "unscheduled". and the fact of the matter is that I'd assume even if they don't meet a "date" they at least discuss why and talk about rescheduling.

Again, it's not about them setting out every date for the next two years, but more so about "Here are the things we want to work on, and some of them we are working on we think we can get out sometime during X month and as things develop we'll let you know."

Mike

If I were to assume PA won't have the money to develop for more than a few extra weeks what would that change? Apart from yet another negative tone added to the forums. We don't need those. If the negative outcome of something cannot be helped and there is no way to prepare for it you might as well continue based on the assumption it won't happen. If it should happen I'll be sad as anyone else, but really no point to start agonizing about what mistakes led to things that have no happened and show no indications to happen.
All you do with that kind of negativity is scaring off potential customers, increasing the chance the bad scenario is actually gonna happen.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to conjecture that PA may not continue development too far in to the future based on the observation that it has garnered poor reviews and sits very poorly on the Steam sales list. There's a very long precedent for "bad reviews + bad sales = abandoned game". That's a reasonable and logically defensible idea to have. That you don't like it, I don't care at all - I can defend my reasoning.

And w.r.t scaring off potential customers, I have two points to make. One, a fraction of a fraction of the potential customer base will ever visit these forums and read what I've written. Two, if a potential customer decides PA may not continue development using the same very reasonably inference I have made, and so chooses to not buy the game, I'd argue I have helped them and done net good, because I don't work for Uber. Nobody should buy a game based on promises of what may not come. It's not my job to mislead people in to buying this game.

Unmitigated disaster. They were talking about releasing the fourth continent at launch. It arrived two years later.

Well but that fourth continent was anything but an important core feature.
I never dug into the Planetside 2 forums but the roadmap was awesome in that it informed me about the upcoming stuff the developers were working on. Timings are not important in such a map, which is why they later set almost all items to "unscheduled".
It just mattered that the devs had some sort of plan - and that plan was also changing based on user feedback, giving confidence to me as a player.

I think what your missing is what Uber are doing with PA. They're banking on getting a sales spike with each major update, they're also following the Valve marketing model where by they keep details very quiet until a few weeks before launch of a big update, then start dropping hints to get people interested...

It's worked for them so far (each major update has resulted in PA being at the top of Steam Sales for a few days). That's the key. The problems will arise in the event that a major update *no longer* generates the sales spike (which would occur if all the potential users have purchased the game, or if interest has gone due to poor reviews etc).

I agree there is no guarantee that they will keep working long term, but on the other hand I think we're pretty safe for the next big update which should bring quite a few nice improvements I'm already happy with the game for the most part, one more major update may be all it needs for me at least so I'm happy we're getting at least 1 more. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

The problem is that they aren't really set up right for that system yet, they don't have the neat, completely self contained content packages(at best they don't have as many) as they might have with some development changes earlier on.

That, combine with the stat of PA at release will have turned a good many people away from PA, of course some will come back as things improve but I doubt all will along with the theory that Uber could have retained more players by having a more "Complete" release compared to the players they will get to come back by providing things they were expecting in the first place. I talk about this a bit more in this post.

Mike

Except it was just straight-up misleading. Stuff was done early that was on the roadmap far later down the line and some stuff got added by surprise when it was lingering in 'unscheduled'.

Planetside 2 is still my most-played game ever on Steam - for better or for worse. My PA Steam client is rapidly catching up of course but I spent a lot of time on that thing before I got sick of the direction they were taking it. The roadmap generated a lot of false expectations and resulted in a lot of lost goodwill towards SOE.

No one knows anything!, Show me the sales report uber sent you, show me uber's bank statement. I personlly think uber have made 1 Billion dollars and sold 10 million copies, that is just as valid as everyone elses bullshit analysis.

Why the **** would they post a roadmap?? so people in 6 months time can shout and scream and bash them with it, over and over.

This round about discussions that seem to continue on the forums are getting boring as ****, always the same people, always pushing the sky is falling agenda, "if only they spoke to me, i know best". Always the same rehashed argument of the last 10's threads discussing the same ******* thing.

Comon people talk about something interesting! that hasn't been discussed 1000 times before.

and that is supposed to mean what?
the game got made didn´t it? here is another option to get in the RTS genre now... wheither you like it or not is another matter entirely ... what new rts games aside from starcraft 2, that is years old as well were there you could get from 2008 onwards ... rts with PA, grey goo and act of agression a.o. make a slide comeback .. before that there was next to nothing to get RTS wise for like 5 to 6 years? ....

not like i want to defend him ... but arent you just knee jerk reacting about his knee jerk reaction as well?
and why should you care about someone that at the moment doesn´t care either in the first place?
he has his opinion on EA already ... which i personaly don´t entirely disagree considering how people lack on wanting to inform themselves properly etc ...
i don´t see how anything of this shall be helpfull ...


sry for double...