1. #1

    Default constructive critique on the development process

    Hello

    I'm thankful for the Team's Job and I do my best to contribute.

    I would like to bring some constructive critique concerning the development process forward however.

    - We can’t tell what you work on.
    - We can't tell if you make any progress.
    - This is frustrating.

    I suggest A Development Roadmap with fixed update dates (every 3 or every 4 months) so when we look at the website at these particular dates we can get some insight on what’s going on.

    DANGEROUS: THIS PART IS A RANT!

    Especially considering Implant and Armor changes: Please start using some Kind of Visualisation for Changes and a Change Log: An Excel Sheet with multiple Tables, SQL Dumps, an Arab riding a Donkey giving out Stone tables, i don't give a shit, just stop with this:

    - Change every Implant in the Game
    - Ask people to test the changes
    - Ignore Requests for a comprehensive collection of the fucking Data

    YOU CAN FEEL SAFE AGAIN THE RANT IS OVER


    For example:

    Quarterly Development Update

    Titan

    - No major Bugs
    - Infrastructure Update on the XX.XX.XXXX

    Veedena

    Weapon Damage Balancing
    Zoltan

    - Weapon Balancing (90%)
    o Fix “Stellschrauben” (100%)
    o Fix mayhem created by fixing “Stellschrauben” (100%)
    o Weapon A, B, C need another look at (50%)
    - Low TL Weapon normalizing (0%)
    o Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    o Need to figure out the Calculations (5%)
    o

    Implant / Armour revamp
    Bragi

    Implant

    A Full list of Implants as they currently are on Veedena and a Change History you can find here:
    [Link to Forum]


    - Coma Values are removed (100%)
    - Hacking INT implants implemented (100%)
    - Barter INT Implants implemented (100%)
    - Gloves for more than Tradeskills? Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    - More Bones? Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    - etc.

    Armor

    A Full list of Armor as they currently are on Veedena and a Change History you can find here:
    [Link to Forum]


    - Coma Values are removed (100%)
    - Pistol Tank PA’s implemented (50%)
    - H-C PE PA’s implemented (50%)
    - Etc.


    New objects and textures

    - CityCom (50%)
    - Gogo Guardian (50%)
    - Some Alphas not working in the Wasteland (80%)

    Don’t work with ETA’s but give use a percentage Value of how you see yourself with the
    Work.

    Or don't. Just write what you're working on and what you can complete. Just some kind of regular Update (which we can expect) would be much appreciated!

    Additional Question

    What is the General purpose of Veedena?

    An environment to create a completely fixed out Neocron 2, with all the implant and armor changes, the new textures, the weapon balancing all ready for one big patch?

    Or an Environment for small Iterations to be made which hit Titan regularly (there would be a feeling of progress and you can implement and fix certain themes one at a time. (best example: Body Zone removal and the necessary adjustment of armor resist values across the board).

  2. #2

    Default

    Just letting it be known that we read you loud and clear. It's a fair critique and I'll come back to this thread over the weekend to give you a more robust response.
    Trivaldi
    Neocron Support Team
    N E O C R O N - G A M E . C O M

    »I'm in a glass case of emotion!«

    DOWNLOAD NEOCRONPLAY NEOCRONFACEBOOKTWITTERIRCGET SUPPORTFORUM RULESRULES OF CONDUCT

  3. #3

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    Just letting it be known that we read you loud and clear. It's a fair critique and I'll come back to this thread over the weekend to give you a more robust response.
    Still waitin' for you Trivaldi ;-)!

  4. #4
    Bitter Veteran Hell-demon's Avatar
    Join Date
    September 2002
    Location
    England. I think...
    Posts
    4,374

    Default

    I too share your sentiments. We need more communication and transparency.

    However, I do understand Neocron is run by a small team of volunteers, and that we can't have as much content produced. What we want to know is what the future for neocron is?

    So far the balancing is taking ages, and we can't get enough testers anyway because of low populations. In terms of new additions to the game we've been promised new crates and city comm models, which although pretty don't really add much to the game, especially when there is balancing to be done. As much as they look nice they aren't really a priority unless you're trying to appeal to crate fetishists.

    Neocron is stuck in a quagmire (giggity) at the moment due to problems with the licence. Kirk couldn't get investors for a sequel and has not formally spoken to the community in years. On top of that we have a near skeleton crew running this free mmo, but despite being free has a very low population and no new content. Things can only get worse as Neocron competes against new online titles like The Division and other free mmos that get updates. Another problem is we've had some ex-volunteers post on here in the past and they felt they were mismanaged and were frustrated as further developments to Neocron hit brick walls - not surprising considering it runs on an old engine and ancient code, which from Neocron's checkered development over the years has always been a buggy bitch.

    End result is an over-worked small team trying to run an mmo, with no clear direction for it's future, with a small population of players. It's a sad state of affairs. I do feel sorry for the volunteer team. They clearly have a passion for this game and have been gracious enough to keep it up and running. At the same time the very real human element here is they are people with family and jobs and are not a dedicated development studio.

    Bottom line is (in my opinion):

    Where is Neocron going?
    I’m going to become rich and famous after I invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

  5. #5

    Default

    Righty, thanks for your patience. Busier weekend than anticipated but I didn't want the community to think something like this was being ignored.

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    Hello

    I'm thankful for the Team's Job and I do my best to contribute.
    Thanks!

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    I would like to bring some constructive critique concerning the development process forward however.

    - We can’t tell what you work on.
    - We can't tell if you make any progress.
    - This is frustrating.
    You're spot on with this observation, particularly the frustration. In the past we've tried a few things to make things more transparent. Generally we see the best way of doing this is with interaction, rather than huge posts, in and around the community and via things like Twitter. Most of our team have their own Neocron focused Twitter account which they're free to use as a platform for talking about some of the details of what they're working on.

    This tends to happen in bursts though which isn't great as it's all dependent on when our limited resources have time to work on Neocron. For a lot of us that has been very limited up until the last few weeks. I'd like to think with things like input from Xortag in the art thread and my own posts across the last few weeks we're not quite the blank wall we've been in 2016 so far.

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    I suggest A Development Roadmap with fixed update dates (every 3 or every 4 months) so when we look at the website at these particular dates we can get some insight on what’s going on.
    We've tried this in the past. Generally these take a lot of effort to organise, write, rewrite and publish. In the past we've released these to the community with almost silence in response. While they serve as a good vehicle to dump an update out of the team, the effort involved in creating them outweighs the impact.

    With much smaller updates and interactions we tend to get more engagement with much less effort. Any effort saved can be put to use doing something else. Important where resource is thin on the ground.

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    DANGEROUS: THIS PART IS A RANT!

    Especially considering Implant and Armor changes: Please start using some Kind of Visualisation for Changes and a Change Log: An Excel Sheet with multiple Tables, SQL Dumps, an Arab riding a Donkey giving out Stone tables, i don't give a shit, just stop with this:

    - Change every Implant in the Game
    - Ask people to test the changes
    - Ignore Requests for a comprehensive collection of the fucking Data

    YOU CAN FEEL SAFE AGAIN THE RANT IS OVER
    Bare in mind there's a light theme and a dark theme on the forum - the color tag is evil

    You're looking for a before and after comparison of every change made to the game? Generally we provide a gauge onto the changes made, the valuable results come from knowing how broken your setup now is or any of the other effects to gameplay. Pushing out a pile of numbers seems like it would only produce results like "that looks to high" with no basis on these things being trialed.

    Can you go into more detail of what data you what, why you'd want it and how that would help you produce meaningful test results.

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    For example:

    Quarterly Development Update

    Titan

    - No major Bugs
    - Infrastructure Update on the XX.XX.XXXX

    Veedena

    Weapon Damage Balancing
    Zoltan

    - Weapon Balancing (90%)
    o Fix “Stellschrauben” (100%)
    o Fix mayhem created by fixing “Stellschrauben” (100%)
    o Weapon A, B, C need another look at (50%)
    - Low TL Weapon normalizing (0%)
    o Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    o Need to figure out the Calculations (5%)
    o

    Implant / Armour revamp
    Bragi

    Implant

    A Full list of Implants as they currently are on Veedena and a Change History you can find here:
    [Link to Forum]


    - Coma Values are removed (100%)
    - Hacking INT implants implemented (100%)
    - Barter INT Implants implemented (100%)
    - Gloves for more than Tradeskills? Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    - More Bones? Need to set a project goal (suggestion Thread in the Forums is here: [link]) (0%)
    - etc.

    Armor

    A Full list of Armor as they currently are on Veedena and a Change History you can find here:
    [Link to Forum]


    - Coma Values are removed (100%)
    - Pistol Tank PA’s implemented (50%)
    - H-C PE PA’s implemented (50%)
    - Etc.


    New objects and textures

    - CityCom (50%)
    - Gogo Guardian (50%)
    - Some Alphas not working in the Wasteland (80%)

    Don’t work with ETA’s but give use a percentage Value of how you see yourself with the
    Work.

    Or don't. Just write what you're working on and what you can complete. Just some kind of regular Update (which we can expect) would be much appreciated!
    This looks like a reasonable format to collect information while avoiding the long drawn out process of creating a text based update. I'll have a think on this and discuss with some of our key team members to see what the feasibility of doing this is.

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    Additional Question

    What is the General purpose of Veedena?

    An environment to create a completely fixed out Neocron 2, with all the implant and armor changes, the new textures, the weapon balancing all ready for one big patch?

    Or an Environment for small Iterations to be made which hit Titan regularly (there would be a feeling of progress and you can implement and fix certain themes one at a time. (best example: Body Zone removal and the necessary adjustment of armor resist values across the board).
    Vedeena is a test staging ground prior to Titan.

    As a whistle stop tour to how we do things: We test our changes on a server we can build on the fly which isn't something we can achieve with public servers right now. To ensure all of our incremental and more agile changes will play nice on Titan, we build a traditional patch and release it to Vedeena to make sure it doesn't melt. At this point we ask the community to test specific things. Once we believe there's nothing world ending in the patch (we tweak it a few times) we release it to Titan.

    Unfortunately we're at a bit of a stale mate at the moment, which is why there's not been a Titan patch in a very long time. There have been a number of fundamental changes to the inner workings of the game, these changes must all be delivered together. Some of these changes have roadblocks (the alpha problem causing trees to stop being transparent is a tool-chain issue) or certain elements of interdependencies still need to be finalised (PSI weapons and drones have their own cryptic Ouija, we're standardising where possible and building the specific stuff into a more manageable set of additional components) before we can release "the whole package".

    As balance relies on a lot of these new fundamental changes, we cant implement better systems for guns, implants and armour until we finish the foundation work. Things are moving again though after an extended period of low motivation across the entire team. Hopefully with increasing levels of interaction with the community, we can stoke the fires of motivation and get the last pieces of the puzzle put into the place. This will open the gates for all the changes on Vedeena to come to Titan as a big bang patch, we can then rebase Vedeena as a clone of Titan (we do this every few patches) and start making smaller, incremental patches again based on our new foundation.

    Hopefully this answers some of your questions, I'm sure it doesn't answer all of them.
    Trivaldi
    Neocron Support Team
    N E O C R O N - G A M E . C O M

    »I'm in a glass case of emotion!«

    DOWNLOAD NEOCRONPLAY NEOCRONFACEBOOKTWITTERIRCGET SUPPORTFORUM RULESRULES OF CONDUCT

  6. #6

    Default

    Hello Trivaldi

    Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer.

    I'm very happy that you are all still alive and kicking (or crawling through the code... probably depends on position, eh? ;-))

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    You're spot on with this observation, particularly the frustration. In the past we've tried a few things to make things more transparent. Generally we see the best way of doing this is with interaction, rather than huge posts, in and around the community and via things like Twitter. Most of our team have their own Neocron focused Twitter account which they're free to use as a platform for talking about some of the details of what they're working on.

    This tends to happen in bursts though which isn't great as it's all dependent on when our limited resources have time to work on Neocron. For a lot of us that has been very limited up until the last few weeks. I'd like to think with things like input from Xortag in the art thread and my own posts across the last few weeks we're not quite the blank wall we've been in 2016 so far.
    I think this type of interaction is great to get the community involved and to get feedback on specific issues.

    As an orientation of where the project is going, the information is just spread to far across the different channels.

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    We've tried this in the past. Generally these take a lot of effort to organise, write, rewrite and publish. In the past we've released these to the community with almost silence in response. While they serve as a good vehicle to dump an update out of the team, the effort involved in creating them outweighs the impact.

    With much smaller updates and interactions we tend to get more engagement with much less effort. Any effort saved can be put to use doing something else. Important where resource is thin on the ground.
    It does not have to be in such detail.

    I really liked the way Zoltan managed it in his updates about weapon damage.

    He put up a list of the stuff to do and whenever he got one thing done, he stroke it through.

    With a quick note of the date when the work was completed, there’d be an easy to maintain, easy to follow list of things you guys work on.

    This would require you to define some specific goals for each project though.

    In this regard Bragi has the worst card. Overhauling everything is just a mammoth work with many specific tasks to accomplish.

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    This looks like a reasonable format to collect information while avoiding the long drawn out process of creating a text based update. I'll have a think on this and discuss with some of our key team members to see what the feasibility of doing this is.
    Keep it a short keyword list on the forums, stroken through and noted with the completion Date when you finished it.

    The previous announcements and Blogposts are very comprehensive and filled with information indeed.

    They were also a pleasure to read, these were very well done.

    But you can make us happy with way less 

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    Bare in mind there's a light theme and a dark theme on the forum - the color tag is evil

    You're looking for a before and after comparison of every change made to the game? Generally we provide a gauge onto the changes made, the valuable results come from knowing how broken your setup now is or any of the other effects to gameplay. Pushing out a pile of numbers seems like it would only produce results like "that looks to high" with no basis on these things being trialed.

    Can you go into more detail of what data you what, why you'd want it and how that would help you produce meaningful test results.
    This opens Pandoras Box for me, so bear with me through the next few paragraphs.

    The first part:

    If we talk about the Implant and Armor revamp there is a very specific need for a tracked collection of the changes.

    There were a few defined Project Goals as I understood them:

    Implant

    - No more coma values
    - No more useless Implants
    - No more secondary choice implants
    - Possibilities for different Setups (Trader Implants (HCK, BRT, IMP, RES), Pistol Tanks, Heavy Combat PE’s, etc.)

    Gauging the current setups doesn't work in this case.

    As I understand it Bragi is in the process of innovating and opening up new playstiles.

    Just telling you how gutted the current cookiecutter setups are won’t work.

    Else the Patch hits Titan and 2 Weeks later people have figured out some OP shit which was not intended at all.

    To find these cookiecutter setups and play with Ideas I need the list of the values.

    I don’t go ingame and pop implants in my Head for 20 hours to get all the variations down.

    I do it in 20 Minutes in Excel and then I test it ingame!

    And seriously you guys must have some tracking tool yourselves.
    If you don’t then who the hell still has an overview?
    Especially if you need to start comparing cross class armor depending on different Requirements? (Say STR: Req Armor with PSI: Req Armor?).

    Armor

    - No more useless PA’s
    - Armor not depending on body zone anymore.
    - No more secondary choice PA’s
    - Possibilities for different Setups (Droner PA, Strength PE PA, etc)

    First let me get this out of the way: Armor not depending on body zone anymore.

    What the hell happened to this? The current Armor values on Veedena would be insanely high if this ever came to the game!

    So either this was trashed somewhere along the way without telling anybody or everybody will have full body 300 energy resist in the future.

    With the rest it’s the same as above. If I want an overview over the new playstiles I’ll do it first on paper and then ingame.

    For this I need the values.

    And if Bragi changes values because of feedback or because he implements something new:

    I also need to know what changed for the same reason!

    Quote Originally Posted by Trivaldi View Post
    Vedeena is a test staging ground prior to Titan.

    As a whistle stop tour to how we do things: We test our changes on a server we can build on the fly which isn't something we can achieve with public servers right now. To ensure all of our incremental and more agile changes will play nice on Titan, we build a traditional patch and release it to Vedeena to make sure it doesn't melt. At this point we ask the community to test specific things. Once we believe there's nothing world ending in the patch (we tweak it a few times) we release it to Titan.

    Unfortunately we're at a bit of a stale mate at the moment, which is why there's not been a Titan patch in a very long time. There have been a number of fundamental changes to the inner workings of the game, these changes must all be delivered together. Some of these changes have roadblocks (the alpha problem causing trees to stop being transparent is a tool-chain issue) or certain elements of interdependencies still need to be finalised (PSI weapons and drones have their own cryptic Ouija, we're standardising where possible and building the specific stuff into a more manageable set of additional components) before we can release "the whole package".

    As balance relies on a lot of these new fundamental changes, we cant implement better systems for guns, implants and armour until we finish the foundation work. Things are moving again though after an extended period of low motivation across the entire team. Hopefully with increasing levels of interaction with the community, we can stoke the fires of motivation and get the last pieces of the puzzle put into the place. This will open the gates for all the changes on Vedeena to come to Titan as a big bang patch, we can then rebase Vedeena as a clone of Titan (we do this every few patches) and start making smaller, incremental patches again based on our new foundation.

    Hopefully this answers some of your questions, I'm sure it doesn't answer all of them.
    The Second Part.

    Alright but in this case the Armor, Implant and Weapons revamp are just too early and they should not be discussed or experimented on.

    How should we test the behavior of the underlying changes if the overlying system changes at the same time?

    How about doing Small Iterations instead trying to do everything at once instead:

    1) Fix the underlying issues.
    2) As a Goodie remove the Integer values on the items with the next patch (let’s get this shit out of the way already guys, come on: Low hanging fruits, for fucks sake I can’t understand why this was not done 3 months ago).
    3) Bring it to Veedena the way it is supposed to hit Titan.
    4) Test it on Veedena.
    5) Fix it on Veedena.
    6) Bring it Live.
    7) Fix remaining issues (which always exist ;-)!)
    8) ??
    9) Profit.

    And then when you’re ready start a new Cycle with the focus on the revamp.

    First you adjust existing system

    1) Remove Body Zones
    2) Adjust Armor values to reflect this change
    3) Bring it to Veedena the way It is supposed to hit Titan
    4) Test it on Veedena
    5) Fix it on Veedena
    6) Bring it Live
    7) Fix remaining issues
    8) ??
    9) Profit

    Implement new Systems

    1) Implement new Implants
    2) Adjust Implant values to reflect this Change
    3) Bring it to Veedena the way it is supposed to hit Titan
    4) (You know the rest)

    Then in the NEXT Iteration

    1) Implement new Power Armor
    2) Adjust Armor values to reflect this Change
    3) Bring it to Veedena the way it is supposed to hit Titan
    4) (You know the rest)

    Then you move through the specific project goals one at a time.

    As it stands now things are just a mess.

    Regards and Thanks for reading

    Odi

  7. #7

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    End result is an over-worked small team trying to run an mmo, with no clear direction for it's future, with a small population

    @Trivaldi
    I once read that you first want to fix major issues and then start recruiting new players.

    Is this still the case? Even an old MMO like neocron can increase it's playerbase with some marketing (Vanilla WoW Servers have done it for years).

    to name a few

    Emerald Dream 2010 - 2015 (RIP) 6000 Players peak hours
    Chronos 2015 - Today 800 Players peak hours
    Nostalrius 2015 - Today 15000 (fifteenthousand!!!) players peak hours

    And believe me these Servers had and have more bugs than neocron since you guys took over.

    Also there are so many people with great memories of this game which just need a compelling reason to come back (stability, content, vision)
    Last edited by Odimara Orca; 29-03-16 at 15:55.

  8. #8

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    @Trivaldi
    I once read that you first want to fix major issues and then start recruiting new players.

    Is this still the case? Even an old MMO like neocron can increase it's playerbase with some marketing (Vanilla WoW Servers have done it for years).
    At the moment we have little to shout about, so we're a little quiet. The social media machine should be getting a bit more of an airing over the coming weeks though to try and tempt folks back into the fold.

    Entirely new blood has a few reasons to get stuck and then turned off from Neocron, being a lone and the less than ideal new player experience. Baldur and Xanthos (our Content Development chaps) are working on improvements to Area MC5 to prepare today's fresh blood a little more for Neocron's steep learning curve by explaining certain things way better through new missions.
    Trivaldi
    Neocron Support Team
    N E O C R O N - G A M E . C O M

    »I'm in a glass case of emotion!«

    DOWNLOAD NEOCRONPLAY NEOCRONFACEBOOKTWITTERIRCGET SUPPORTFORUM RULESRULES OF CONDUCT

  9. #9

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    I too share your sentiments. We need more communication and transparency.
    It's a bit of a traditional issue which tends to raises it's head during the longer periods between patches. In an ideal world you'd have communication purely out of us achieving things rather than us having to produce content on what is currently in the pipe. I appreciate I've said it too many times that'd I'd like to see that change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    However, I do understand Neocron is run by a small team of volunteers, and that we can't have as much content produced. What we want to know is what the future for neocron is?
    The future is to stay online and keep improving the game. We have a vital tool in the pipeline which has cost us 3 developers in 3 years of zero to no progress. We now have a chap working on this making great progress, so fingers crossed that tool will see the light of day in the coming months.

    Said tool is directly related to the content we can produce. With said tool we can reduce the time (and importantly the frustration) of building missions. We can then get creatives back on board who have previously joined and left the team due to the intensive slog that is currently building NPC driven content.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    So far the balancing is taking ages, and we can't get enough testers anyway because of low populations.
    I think some of this is answered in my first response. Once the foundation is fixed, the underlying broken stuff removed and straightened out, i'd be up for much quicker iterations on Titan. So long as nothing gets very broken in each balance patch i'd like to think "left a bit, right a bit, no the other right, up a bit, down, there!" approach to balancing would better serve the size of the team and the community. This is what Sparta was supposed to be for but the engagement was difficult to drive.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    In terms of new additions to the game we've been promised new crates and city comm models, which although pretty don't really add much to the game, especially when there is balancing to be done. As much as they look nice they aren't really a priority unless you're trying to appeal to crate fetishists.
    This has been said many times. Horses for courses. We have resources that can create art assets - why wouldn't we use them to do that? We use the best people for the right job where we have them available. For example you'd be better off turning the servers off completely if you'd rather I spend my time balancing the game as I don't have a clue when it comes to setups and getting all those ducks in a row.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    Neocron is stuck in a quagmire (giggity) at the moment due to problems with the licence. Kirk couldn't get investors for a sequel and has not formally spoken to the community in years. On top of that we have a near skeleton crew running this free mmo, but despite being free has a very low population and no new content. Things can only get worse as Neocron competes against new online titles like The Division and other free mmos that get updates. Another problem is we've had some ex-volunteers post on here in the past and they felt they were mismanaged and were frustrated as further developments to Neocron hit brick walls - not surprising considering it runs on an old engine and ancient code, which from Neocron's checkered development over the years has always been a buggy bitch.
    We've lost a lot of volunteers over the years due to frustration. Some of the hoops you have to jump through to implement things are beyond what folks expect. Most of those hoops are technology based. Management of folks is the rest which is why we really need people to be self starters when joining. Internal communication is much better than it was in the past and we've removed a lot of barriers which have caused frustration in the past.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    End result is an over-worked small team trying to run an mmo, with no clear direction for it's future, with a small population of players. It's a sad state of affairs. I do feel sorry for the volunteer team. They clearly have a passion for this game and have been gracious enough to keep it up and running. At the same time the very real human element here is they are people with family and jobs and are not a dedicated development studio.
    Motivation is a big issue here. Buzz and chatter within the community goes a long way to improve motivation, even if it's things like this, the noise creates a bit of energy and gives us something to feed off of.

    Our direction and vision is to modernise and expand.
    • Visual improvements to breathe life into the game world.
    • New content to give our long standing players something new to do and bring the game further inline with post-WoW quest driven MMOs.
    • Making PvP interesting again and improving variation for today's players.
    • New tools to make the three former items significantly easier to actually achieve
    • Fixing bugs and making the game run well on today's computers.
    Trivaldi
    Neocron Support Team
    N E O C R O N - G A M E . C O M

    »I'm in a glass case of emotion!«

    DOWNLOAD NEOCRONPLAY NEOCRONFACEBOOKTWITTERIRCGET SUPPORTFORUM RULESRULES OF CONDUCT

  10. #10
    Bitter Veteran Hell-demon's Avatar
    Join Date
    September 2002
    Location
    England. I think...
    Posts
    4,374

    Default

    I appreciate the response. Very quick and timely. Thanks

    Still the big question remains and that is what of Neocron's future?

    With Kirk becoming a recluse and Neocron Reloaded http://nukklear.com/#en/_Neocron_Reloaded being a dead end, what is the future goal here?

    Hypothetically if all your balancing tool dreams come true where do you go from there?

    Also your direction to modernise and expand is very vague and very ambitious for a small team.

    Visually Neocron runs on directX 9 and no matter how many higher resolution objects you make you will still be running an older engine and unable to compete with the newest iterations. Neocron has a lovely aesthetic and personally I think it all meshes well together, but I feel it would be a massive face lift if you wanted to really modernise Neocron. We still have assets that are in directX 7, and although Neocron 2 made the move to directX 9 and had better models, there were only a few things that got updated. There are loads of low polygon NPCs that need remodelling, weapons, locations and objects. It's a huge task.

    PVP is another thing. If you truly want to modernise neocrons pvp you need a massive overhaul as the current system is outdated. If you want fresh blood you have to emulate what the new bloods play and that is iron-sights and quicker combat - so the COD kiddies as they are known. You can of course disregard that and improve on what you have, but again that needs a lot of balancing.

    If the idea is to expand and modernise you need funding and more developers. Again, that's why I ask where is the game heading in terms of financial expanse as well as development?

    I understand discussing finances is rather personal, but it would be nice to a have a vague hint of where the I.P is going in that regard. On my own personal feelings I think you guys need to be compensated for your efforts, yes?

    All this hard work and frustration should result in a product that you can sell commercially. If that means rebranding it as something else then so be it. Let's be honest, the less than favourable reviews of neocron in the past have been a dead albatross around your neck.

    The image we have of the development team is optimistic but also overwhelmed. You have done an amazing job running it but I don't know if I can speak for everyone when I say where is this all heading?

    Is neocron going to get thrust back into the mmo spotlight? Microtransactions, twitch gameplay, blistering directX 12 graphics with social media integration for the modern age?

    Or struggling and niche with no financial reward for your efforts?
    I’m going to become rich and famous after I invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

  11. #11

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    I appreciate the response. Very quick and timely. Thanks

    Still the big question remains and that is what of Neocron's future?

    With Kirk becoming a recluse and Neocron Reloaded http://nukklear.com/#en/_Neocron_Reloaded being a dead end, what is the future goal here?
    You'd have to speak to Kirk. We're here for Neocron Community Edition and that's that as far as I know. Future plans for the IP and or the license are nothing to do with us, to put it bluntly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    Hypothetically if all your balancing tool dreams come true where do you go from there?
    Balance never ends but you'd get to a point where you just keep on tweaking like all MMOs do. Once the current stuff is in a better position (I'm really not the best person to comment), we can then add new stuff, upset the apple cart and do it all again. The joys of a theoretically constantly evolving game world.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    Also your direction to modernise and expand is very vague and very ambitious for a small team.
    Modernise might be a poor choice of words. We just intend to make the game 'better', keep adding, keep improving, keep making Neocron more or better than it was when it originally came out and never quite hit that sweet spot of being the game it should have always been.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    Visually Neocron runs on directX 9 and no matter how many higher resolution objects you make you will still be running an older engine and unable to compete with the newest iterations.
    Not quite right. Neocron "runs on directX9" but it uses next to none of the technology. Neocron could look significantly better 'just' by getting to the point where we use the technology available in directX9 and the assets to support it. Getting reflections back, for example, would be nice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    Neocron has a lovely aesthetic and personally I think it all meshes well together, but I feel it would be a massive face lift if you wanted to really modernise Neocron. We still have assets that are in directX 7, and although Neocron 2 made the move to directX 9 and had better models, there were only a few things that got updated. There are loads of low polygon NPCs that need remodelling, weapons, locations and objects. It's a huge task.
    Yes.. unsure of what you're trying to say with this. We have some guys working on new assets, in terms of world textures there's a lot of repeating textures. There will be some words from Xortag on this in the not too distant future to perhaps add some clarity.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    PVP is another thing. If you truly want to modernise neocrons pvp you need a massive overhaul as the current system is outdated. If you want fresh blood you have to emulate what the new bloods play and that is iron-sights and quicker combat - so the COD kiddies as they are known. You can of course disregard that and improve on what you have, but again that needs a lot of balancing.
    Again, perhaps a bad choice of wording. The aim is to make Neocron enjoyable. Fixing what's broken, preventing your eyes bleeding when looking at it, making it the best version of what it was supposed to be. The Neocron Support Team, the band of us lovable rogues who pour our time and money into the game do it out of love and to build a living tribute while upgrading the engine as we go. We're never going to be Destiny. We could hit the kill switch and start building an Unreal Engine 4 game tomorrow but it wouldn't be Neocron and you wouldn't even see a playable Alpha this side of 2020.

    As far as we see it, the community loves Neocron for it's gameplay and it's general aesthetic. It certainly feels different to anything I've ever played. So let's give that gameplay and aesthetic a decent coat of paint.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hell-demon View Post
    If the idea is to expand and modernise you need funding and more developers. Again, that's why I ask where is the game heading in terms of financial expanse as well as development?

    I understand discussing finances is rather personal, but it would be nice to a have a vague hint of where the I.P is going in that regard. On my own personal feelings I think you guys need to be compensated for your efforts, yes?

    All this hard work and frustration should result in a product that you can sell commercially. If that means rebranding it as something else then so be it. Let's be honest, the less than favourable reviews of neocron in the past have been a dead albatross around your neck.

    The image we have of the development team is optimistic but also overwhelmed. You have done an amazing job running it but I don't know if I can speak for everyone when I say where is this all heading?

    Is neocron going to get thrust back into the mmo spotlight? Microtransactions, twitch gameplay, blistering directX 12 graphics with social media integration for the modern age?

    Or struggling and niche with no financial reward for your efforts?
    The end of your post contains a list of questions that the current keepers of Neocron Community Edition can't even begin to answer I'm afraid. Those we might be able to have some input into would need a better answer than I could potentially give here and now. I do think I've stated what we consider to be our current aims. Beyond that sort of remains to be seen.
    Trivaldi
    Neocron Support Team
    N E O C R O N - G A M E . C O M

    »I'm in a glass case of emotion!«

    DOWNLOAD NEOCRONPLAY NEOCRONFACEBOOKTWITTERIRCGET SUPPORTFORUM RULESRULES OF CONDUCT

  12. #12

    Default

    @Hell

    A game doesn't need all the shiny stuff to be succesful.

    A compelling gameplay, something fresh is what keeps dedicated players.
    The triple A Bandwagon will always have it's riders but imho this is not something neocron should or could aim for.

    Look at runescape.

    In terms of financing: Microtransactions for Cosmetics like PA Colours, Afros and Cigarettes might actually be a good idea!

    But I Agree on one point: The biggest elephant in the room is the I.P. there's too much dead potential simply due all this limbo going on here.

    Community driven projects usually arise after the Source Code is released for general use and modification.

    But what is Kirk up to with the I.P. anyways? He ain't doing shit.

    He won't even answer your emails (see the account expired debacle).

    Also on a personal frustrated note: He couldn't get this game running close to the standard you guys accomplished with twenty thousand times the income and sixty times the ressources.

    Edit: Just realized as it stands we probably couldn't even start a fucking kickstarter for the Team without them getting in trouble -_-

    This is ridiculous.
    Last edited by Odimara Orca; 29-03-16 at 20:39.

  13. #13
    Bitter Veteran Hell-demon's Avatar
    Join Date
    September 2002
    Location
    England. I think...
    Posts
    4,374

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    @Hell

    A game doesn't need all the shiny stuff to be succesful.

    A compelling gameplay, something fresh is what keeps dedicated players.
    The triple A Bandwagon will always have it's riders but imho this is not something neocron should or could aim for.

    Indeed but my point is that you should look at your competition in terms of understanding the current trends. I don't want neocron to be a rooty tooty shooty call of duty clone. I just think some elements need to be revamped and made contemporary.

    The biggest problem as you have stated, and many others, is Kirk and the I.P. This is the stalemate that is hindering the future. There can be no sequel, no crowdfunding, microtransactions, availability on Steam or any large commercial endevour. The only way out is through some legal means. Maybe a loophole somewhere or some clause that a fine eyed lawyer could find amongst a tonne of paperwork.

    But that in itself is a huge headache. You can see my concern. Nothing is secure. The volunteers could slave away and some twist of cruel fate could see the I.P. holder pulling the plug. If not that then the unpaid volunteers team's own fatigue. We appreciate all you do and your labour of love, but let's be honest this isn't a soup kitchen. You are trying to run an entire MMO, with a small crew who do not get paid, and have moments of low morale and real life interfering. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer, I'm trying to be realistic in how feasible it is to achieve some of these goals.

    Neocron is far from perfect and has always been a diamond in the rough. The melt down left by Reakktor has left a very bitter fallout that clings to this I.P. If we can more content then we can boost our playerbase. Yet, time and time again the population is fleeting. The main problem is keeping momentum with the content, which can be a daunting task even for big game developers.
    I’m going to become rich and famous after I invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.

  14. #14

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Odimara Orca View Post
    Community driven projects usually arise after the Source Code is released for general use and modification.
    Well, and usually they die just as quickly due to splintering...
    If you want to fix the game, start with the most essential part: The Community...
    Quote Originally Posted by Danae
    <&Danae> i don't like anything that's furry, totally dependant on me, and shits and pisses in sneaky places
    <&Danae> i have kids, i don't need pets ^^

  15. #15

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Drachenpaladin View Post
    Well, and usually they die just as quickly due to splintering...
    Imo they die because of community frustration.

    Mostly because lack of transparcy or rampaging bugs.

    Both things the Neocron Team has under Control compared to those endeavours.

Page 1 of 9 12345 ... LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •