"You will have the opportunity to work in a collaborative and open setting with some jolly smart people and a minimum of bureaucracy. We are lead by our passion, ownership, and high expectations, rather than deadlines."
"We believe that good work gets done as part of a balanced life; Three Rings has never run in 'crunch mode'."
In other words, OOO doesn't take deadlines too seriously, or go into overtime when something really bad happens (like a huge flop in an event, update, etc.).
Good. I'm glad they don't. I'd rather have a well thought out and executed update a month, or more, later than they were aiming for then to have some piece of crap that was rushed and full of bugs, errors, misspellings that causes lag and crashes or that doesn't work at all.
I'm gonna reserve my judgement on that when I see how fleshed-out the Gunner Update ends up being.
Not taking a stance until then.
That second bit is apparent even now, though!
Read Draycos's last post.
fleshed-out
Nick: Something about a Grim Repeater
Grim = connected with death
fleshed-out, death
Dat irony
Why am I in italics
But I agree with Noone in that I'd rather a well-thought out once a month reply than a hasty speed-stitched one that falls apart 7 seconds in.
We are lead by our passion, ownership, and high expectations, rather than deadlines. -OOO motto
So... meeting a deadline is not a high expectation? Where can an Expectaion be setted up without deadlines? Give yourself a short amount of time to produce a good quality work is an essence in game develpoing, of course, there are cases where the deadline are obviously too early and the game quality at launch is pathetic (BF4... EA, you are the scum of the Earth), but without a deadline, efficiency and consistency would be non-existance, and if that is what the staff of OOO are doing(slacking off), I think SK is in serious trouble.
What I want to know is how many bugs there would be if they did have a deadline. Sometimes it amazes me how many there are in a regular build.
"You will have the opportunity to work in a collaborative and open setting with some jolly smart people and a minimum of bureaucracy. We are lead by our passion, ownership, and high expectations, rather than deadlines."
Well, the opposite side of this is a high-stress, (low-paying), low-passion, deadline-shoving job where you go for months without seeing the sun on your way back home and then quit.*
If it was like that, the company would soon run out of developers and die a slow smothering death.
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At the moment, this thread is kind of in a cloud of "omg the game is dying" woe criers, but I've seen the updates for the past year and I can tell that Three Rings has been trying to do things to make the game more friendly to get into for new players.
Think of it this way: your guild members will get tired and stop playing. A live guild has a mix of new players filling in those places where there were inactives and 'veteran' players who for some reason or another continue to play the game and help pay upkeep. You've told your guild members that you'll be adding a Guild Training Hall in October, but you realized your newer, lower geared members are more likely to grow into t3 people who can contribute to upkeep if you add Energy Wells for them and treat them nicely, so you decide to use your funds to set up the Energy Wells and host guild events instead of a GTH. You've missed out on your promise for October but at the same time, your newer members didn't quit. What are they gonna do with a GTH? The endgame players can lulz around with the minigame and punching bags, but it doesn't do anything for the newer members. So you screwed your word to give them something fun in October, but there was a more pressing problem you needed to fix first to keep your guild alive for longer.
The game works the same way. They've been making sweeping changes to the game for the sake of newer players and the older ones don't get it and get noisy about it. The main terrible thing I see is that newer players get screwed in damage output (but not progression) when they start using 5* items, but that's a known thing, and a real twist in the arm to try to get upkeep paid, if you know what I mean.
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*based on my past and last year in the game industry.
"of course, there are cases where the deadline are obviously too early and the game quality at launch is pathetic"
Sonic the Hedgehog 2006.
"Where can an Expectaion be setted up without deadlines?"
Half-Life.
"of course, there are cases where the deadline are obviously too early and the game quality at launch is pathetic"
Sonic the Hedgehog 2006.
...You do realize that SEGA was planning cashing in on the game in the fist place, right? I don't think any deadline would help sonic 06 from being any worse, it is already a bad concept to begin with.
"Where can an Expectaion be setted up without deadlines?"
Half-Life.
Well... it is valve right? They have a bunch of brain dead TF2 fan boys cheering after him right? Half life 3 confirmed? Ha, what about L4D and L4D2, two games are essentially the same and you are forced to pay twice as much for it... so who is the scum bag now?
"You will have the opportunity to work in a collaborative and open setting with some jolly smart people and a minimum of bureaucracy. We are lead by our passion, ownership, and high expectations, rather than deadlines."
^
They aren't lead by money <69 just passion
"We believe that good work gets done as part of a balanced life; Three Rings has never run in 'crunch mode'."
^
Work-Life Balance is very great to have for sure I mean who would want to over-work their employees until they rage quit <69
In other words, OOO doesn't take deadlines too seriously, or go into overtime when something really bad happens (like a huge flop in an event, update, etc.).
^
No in other words, Three Rings employees are not looking at that dollar amount, or how to create an update that isn't up to par with their expectations. They hold high expectations and make sure the work they do is up to par with what they would like to see in a game. They like to have work-life balance if possible since well over-working your employees leads to negative results <69.
Sonic: yes, but it could've been better. Most people hated it because of the bugs, not the storyline.
Valve: You forgot to criticize Portal ;D
Valve: You forgot to criticize Portal ;D
That is not true, portal 2 is definately an improvement over the original with its cool co-op campain (you even get to play as a robot) as well as a good single player campain continued from the orginal, with a well thought out boss fight and a good amount of comedy relieve here and there. (graphic is significantly better as well)
But L4D2's only improvements over the original are the following:
some new guns
Two new game mode
One new throwable (ek, puke...)
Melee weapons (why aren't they in the first game anyway?)
Three new consumables (chest pattle, explosive/incendiary ammunation)
Three new zombies and a female boomer reskin
Four new maps at release, nothing special about them
Four new characters, less intresting than the original IMO (Zoey > Rochell)
Everything else stays the same.
"We answer only to ourselves, not to those kids in their self-proclaimed community."
The system works.
Left 4 Dead has a much darker feel, whereas Left 4 Dead 2 is more of a shooter. I love the customizeability of Left 4 Dead 2, especially with mutations and realism mode, plus the fact that it was free on Steam on Christmas day. If I want good old fashioned Left 4 Dead with a much more sinister feel, then I'll take Left 4 Dead over its sequel.
I for one, appreciate that OOO does not drive their employees into extreme stress, depression, and karoshi through crunching.
Which is fine and how it should be but they couldn't stay late one day to increase the radiant drop rate from .0001% to .1% ???
/troll
/seerus
#yolo
"We answer only to ourselves, not to those kids in their self-proclaimed community."
"The system works."
You think the system works. This is also what I'm talking about when I say there needs to be improvement here. I'm not talking in terms of game content. I'm talking in attitude. That so called "self-proclaimed community" is the site's customer base. That feeling of being part of and valued is what makes them want to be part of the game. To word it "their self-proclaimed" demonstrates they are thought of as being worthless and unwanted. Second, the community isn't just "kids" unless those kinds of statements continually being made have already made the adults feel as though they shouldn't be here and have already pushed them away. Those adults have the spending power, credit cards and PayPal accounts, that pay for the game, the servers and staff salaries. To alienate them is to cut thy throat. Same with telling people half way or so through their game that they are end game and shouldn't be here anymore. Anyone who isn't noob is having the door slammed in their face and pushed out.
The flip side is, it was a bunch of kids on the forum demanding things that were detrimental to the game and acting poorly to get what they want. Things like mist removal so they could play more and for free. When they were catered to, those who were paying felt their games were ruined and they ran to other games which left OOO with a bunch of non-payers. I'm glad OOO learned from that mistake.
OOO is not the only ones with fault in what is going on. For the longest time I have been hard hitting the community in regards of the nastiness and negativity on the forum. That plethora of bad behavior, negativity, being nasty to each other, trolling down every thread and fellow users meant to ruin every thread and post is ugly and again only servers to push away. From the outside looking, by people considering starting here who is considering investing time, effort and money sees that and many won't bother starting. Personally, I always look at a sites forum and what is going on there before I start a game. I have skipped games where the forum is full of that kind of things happen and ones that are full of bugs, glitches, crashes and failures to start. Ones where the threads made in the "Technical Issues" sub-forum seem to go unanswered/ignore forever. The forum is a good insight to what you can expect to encounter once you join the game and it's community.
The staff can work hard as heck, make things super cool and mega fun but if the owners, staff and fellows users are rotten to the core the rest has little meaning.
For months, maybe more, people have been asking and wondering why I'm so angry and negative. It's because both sides are doing things that will ruin a game I love and had hoped to continue playing for a long time.
Delayed sprite update --> still crap.
GG.
GOTY.
TL;DR
We have the passion to make a game but we have no idea how to do it!
What I want to know is how many bugs there would be if they did have a deadline. Sometimes it amazes me how many there are in a regular build.
My thoughts exacly, my dad used to be a project manager (he's retired) and he ALWAYS had deadline to respect... And having those deadline was useful to push people so they could accomplish more in a short period of time... Yes he had trouble sleeping and had a lot of stress, but he made it, he's alive and retired and well...
You work with deadlines the moment you are born... 2 years you gotta walk, 4 years you gotta talk, if not then there's a problem...
I'm actually down with how they work these things out. I'd much rather they come up with quality updates over the course of forever than timely updates that introduce new bugs. The issue isn't with how they work- its with how they communicate and deal with feedback. Shard bombs should have gone differently. Mistakes should be admitted, even if it was just buffing the new crappy shard bombs.
They don't have to admit mistakes to us, only to themselves so they can learn and grow from them. They don't have to and shouldn't admit them to us or in public. That would only add to the disrespect and attacks they already endure from the community and hence cause burnout. To demand it would be also be disrespectful to them. People should treat them with far more care then what is occurring now. Remember, they are the keepers of our games.
@Iamnoone
I would like evidence of what you're saying. How do you know that it would only add to the disrespect and "attacks"? Can you give some examples?
Look at the "give DIRETIDE" thing and how that turned out. Valve posted a letter, made some changes, and now the community loves them and their game has worked out for the best. Should they have acted like the players meant nothing to them?
Every time OOO has admitted to faults that have been pointed out to them it has gone well afterward. When they released the new and improved antiguas, players were extremely happy. When they admitted that armor wasn't balanced and fixed chaos the first time, as well as gave shadowsun gun damage med, players rejoiced.
What if they announced that they'd heard us when we complained how candlestick keep and compounds pay out far too little in both boxes and crowns for their difficulty, compared to levels like clockwork tunnels? They could add a good 10 boxes to both levels, you don't think the players would think that was for the better?
Please, show me that I'm wrong-- but do so with evidence to something, not just your personal philosophy.
"Well there's your problem"
-Adam Savage