constructive critique on the development process

[Trivaldi]

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.

[Odimara Orca]

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 ;-)!

[Hell-demon]

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?

[Odimara Orca]

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)

[Trivaldi]

@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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Hell-demon]

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?

[TychoAvalon]

...
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.

[/QUOTE]

The biggest reason I've seen over my 9 years playing the newbies bail on us is the lack of proper game documentation.
In-game or out---it's just flat MIA.

[Doc Holliday]

I have a lot i want to suggest/add but no time to do so. Gonna sit down and put pen to paper on this stuff tonight. Found my way back here again and read this thread with great interest.

I have some bonafide suggestions (literally fell asleep last night thinking about it all and woke up an hour later with some major thoughts popping in my head) to help things a little, hopefully from all aspects and elements of the game and community.

I will report back.