constructive critique on the development process

**eNTi** · 21-04-16, 22:50

Originally Posted by Xortag

Well, here is the task:

> Take the attached NFO Exporter orignally written by Greywolf for RF.
> ReWrite it to work with at least Blender 2.76 instead of 2.4
> Feel free to bring it in line with all the features of the original 3dsmax7 exporter for genesis (grab it here: http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/d...exporters.html)
> Get a copy of http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/d...installer.html RF and test your exported model (if it works there, chances are high it works for NC too).
> Report back.

what version of rf? what are "all the features of 3dsmax7 exporter for genesis". what are those features and which are required? why not make a thread for this. seems kind of pointless and yeah... i guess passive aggressive is exactly how it comes across. are you serious about this?

**Hell-demon** · 21-04-16, 23:07

I'm going to back to the original post:

Originally Posted by Odimara Orca

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).

Yeah yeah we've all read it, but it still raises points yet to be addressed.

What are you guys working on consistantly? Hence the backlash from the update over revamping the newbie area. No one asked for this, we've mostly asked for balancing and bug fixes. This came out the blue and also has no relation to balancing to some extent.

But progress is another thing. How far are you with the graphics, balancing and bug fixes, and how much of the newbie revamp is in the works? It looks incomplete. But also the overall progress with Neocron. Where are we at the end of the year? Ok you can't give exact dates, but you must have some projections? A point you want to reach and a time frame for it.

You say we are being heard but we see no implementation of our suggestions. Odima asks why Bragi has not got back to him on his suggestions for bone enforcements, and Bragi specifically asked for feedback!

My own thread "A thousand little papercuts" has loads of suggestions that have been claimed by your team to be feasible. Yet no patch. A small patch implementing just a few of those suggestion may seem trivial, but to a new player it will give the impression that this game is still being developed. It looks like there is activity.

What is the point of the test server? What areas should we test in particular? What is happening with the test server?

There is a mountain of stuff to do, we get it, but the core game is broken. Everything hinges on it. That should be priority and also maintaining the current community. You have a potential playerbase of hundreds, waiting, ready to rejoin. But time and time again they come back, the old veterans, see that not much has changed and leave again.

Know what is fucked up? Neocron is FREE. Most mmo's are subscription or free to play with a cash shop. There is none of that with Neocron. It's FREE! An FPS cyberpunk game with the aesthetics similar to Deus Ex (a popular game) and it's FREE. And hardly anyone plays it. It's fucking FREE and there was a time when we had subscriptions and people paid to play it. Even FREE those old players wont come back.

It's a shame. Something drastic needs to be done. Morale on your team is low, population is low, game is broken with a to-do list that sounds like it covers a whole roll of toilet paper and the game has not seen an update in a long time. Something drastic must be done because you can't keep it up like this and expect things to change.

Talking is a start, but more action is needed with the balancing project. I feel that has been sidetracked.

**Xortag** · 21-04-16, 23:14

Originally Posted by eNTi

are you serious about this?

Yes and and no. It wasn't meant to be agressive but also a example of what things we have to deal with, sorry if it's sounded that way. I can be more specific on it if someone is really interested. As for now, we have to export our models with Max7 into a Genesis .NFO format to be baked into a NC Actor file. The age, feature set and somewhat lacking documentation of that pipeline puts a lot of stress there and prevent some newer meshes to properly find their way into the game. You have 3 conversions of formats in this pipeline along with re-rigging / physique only in Max7.

Since we are no company and can't buy a lot of Max2015 licenses and also don't have huge requirements on meshes, Blender is a good way to go. There was a smart guy on the RF forums who has written a NFO exporter, unfornuatly it dont work with newer API version of Blender. As far as i digged in there yet, it lacks animation exports too. The Exporter is Phyton.

So thats the story around it, and a task we can ask the community for. If you are interested and have further questions, feel free to write me a PN.

**Bifrost** · 21-04-16, 23:15

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

Also we are getting a very bleak view of behind the scenes. Are you working a dev team or a cancer ward? Seems like everyone is fucking miserable and has a tumour and is screaming " I just want this over with!"

I'll give you my view on what behind the scenes is like.

Earlier in the thread I saw the "challenge" that Xortag laid down for the conversion tool and then saw your first question on the task (About which language to use) my thinking went like this.

So we need a tool. I could write it in .NET or maybe Python? Ruby? Go? One of those languages may be the right tool for the job or not. Now that's the first question you asked, but what will be the next question on the task? Soon you will realise that potentially a simple task will have lots of questions and issues to make the task a lot harder.

In software engineering terms, Neocron has a lot of technical debt. Frequently we have a discussion on slack for a simple problem, that turns out to be a lot more complicated. However I do feel the willpower is there to solve the problems.

Here's something I'm working on with Trivaldi - sorting out the email problems. I would have loved to have fixed this problem weeks ago, but when you are changing around with critical part of the Neocron infrastructure (And I'm not talking about the mail server itself) you need to tread very carefully. Tonight there is an issue with syncing in game. As I type this, Zoltan has found the issue (A log file was taking up space) and I can stop worrying that it's not connected to what myself and Trivaldi did last night.

Here is the negative side of things. Put yourself in a customer support role. When you read the forums you see complaints, negative feedback etc, how would you feel? We do have to step back from time to time, otherwise you could find a pissed off team member closing this thread and banning your account - we don't do that. If we did that, we would loose the community.

I would very much love to work on NC full time, but practically that's impossible. I need a job to keep the roof over my head and pay for the equipment to make NC better.

What keeps me going and not walking away - the community are a fantastic bunch when they are at their best.

**Hell-demon** · 21-04-16, 23:25

Originally Posted by Bifrost

Here is the negative side of things. Put yourself in a customer support role. When you read the forums you see complaints, negative feedback etc, how would you feel? We do have to step back from time to time, otherwise you could find a pissed off team member closing this thread and banning your account - we don't do that. If we did that, we would loose the community.

I would very much love to work on NC full time, but practically that's impossible. I need a job to keep the roof over my head and pay for the equipment to make NC better.

What keeps me going and not walking away - the community are a fantastic bunch when they are at their best.

Like I've said it's cyclical. We all feed into this. We vent our frusatration but if we don't get enough feedback to eleviate us of our concerns then we are going to get more pissed off. However, there is also little you can do because of technical hurdles. It's a stalemate and a shit sandwich we all have to bite into.

But lets be honest here the forums are about as populated as a pedophiles funeral, and the game too. We need more concrete feedback and word from you lot. If we have more regular updates we would stick around. We would have something to look forward to. Be it a patch, an in-game event, competition (haven't had one is ages) or progress reports. Leave it for weeks and animosity will fester. No good for anyone.

**Bifrost** · 21-04-16, 23:47

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

Like I've said it's cyclical. We all feed into this. We vent our frusatration but if we don't get enough feedback to eleviate us of our concerns then we are going to get more pissed off. However, there is also little you can do because of technical hurdles. It's a stalemate and a shit sandwich we all have to bite into.

I'm thinking how do we get out of the stalemate without biting into the shit. If this was chess, I would rip up the rulebook.

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

But lets be honest here the forums are about as populated as a pedophiles funeral, and the game too. We need more concrete feedback and word from you lot. If we have more regular updates we would stick around. We would have something to look forward to. Be it a patch, an in-game event, competition (haven't had one is ages) or progress reports. Leave it for weeks and animosity will fester. No good for anyone.

I've been around a long from the KK days when a small change in a patch would result in a TL 100 holy-thread-storm from the players. However can I say in my best diplomatic words that sometimes we want feedback from the community but don't get it when we want. I think that's just as important to resolve as well as your views that we are not giving you the feedback you want.

Just my 2nc's worth on the subject, and I should really say these are my own views and not the NST's view.

**eNTi** · 21-04-16, 23:47

Originally Posted by Xortag

Yes and and no. It wasn't meant to be agressive but also a example of what things we have to deal with, sorry if it's sounded that way. I can be more specific on it if someone is really interested. As for now, we have to export our models with Max7 into a Genesis .NFO format to be baked into a NC Actor file. The age, feature set and somewhat lacking documentation of that pipeline puts a lot of stress there and prevent some newer meshes to properly find their way into the game. You have 3 conversions of formats in this pipeline along with re-rigging / physique only in Max7.

Since we are no company and can't buy a lot of Max2015 licenses and also don't have huge requirements on meshes, Blender is a good way to go. There was a smart guy on the RF forums who has written a NFO exporter, unfornuatly it dont work with newer API version of Blender. As far as i digged in there yet, it lacks animation exports too. The Exporter is Phyton.

So thats the story around it, and a task we can ask the community for. If you are interested and have further questions, feel free to write me a PN.

i'd appreciate it if you made a thread in any applicable (development?) forum for each such task. people would be able to take a look and see if they can actually do something about it. i think it's not useful to have this task info buried on page 5 of who knows how long discussion about general constructive critique. so if you are serious i'd like you to put your posts in a new thread and give us as much info as possible about the requirements.

**eNTi** · 21-04-16, 23:53

Originally Posted by Bifrost

However can I say in my best diplomatic words that sometimes we want feedback from the community but don't get it when we want. I think that's just as important to resolve as well as your views that we are not giving you the feedback you want.

well you can't expect us to jump through hoops you yourself put on fire. if you are referring to balancing feedback on the test server... well guess what. no one asked for that and you did it anyway. this has to be the most boring thing in the universe and still some people tried. you can't reliably test everything in such a scope without a large player base. that's why we've said that balance changes need to be done on titan and incremental.

if you are referring to something else... i just don't know what. you really need to make those things clearer.

**Hell-demon** · 22-04-16, 00:01

Good point. Maybe set up a open volunter sub-forum with tasks (the more feasible ones at least).

Originally Posted by Bifrost

I've been around a long from the KK days when a small change in a patch would result in a TL 100 holy-thread-storm from the players. However can I say in my best diplomatic words that sometimes we want feedback from the community but don't get it when we want. I think that's just as important to resolve as well as your views that we are not giving you the feedback you want.

We all have been here since KK and there was a reason for the backlash. Same reasons now. KK had terrible priorities (Black Prophecy anyone?) and also completly broke the balance. You guys have had to clean up their mistakes and still are. Yet I see the old mistakes happening such as a brainport that has no sway in the game, poor communication and lack of updates/patches. When 2.1 came around the backlash was on graphical priorities and not the much needed balance. The focus was shifted but the balance half-arsed. The game got broke. Communication broke. An exodus happened.

I remember Neocron 2 and its updates and how the community started to fade out. Over time we have lost so many valued members of the community, and not due to getting older, but getting bored and apathetic.

I know you guys hate hearing this stuff but it's a reality we must face. A sober realisation that the state of things needs to change. A big issue is the overall future hanging in the land of Fuck Knows. Daddy Kirk has abandoned us and as some people have stated why stick around a game that you are unsure is going to close its doors tomorrow or appears dead.

**Trivaldi** · 22-04-16, 01:11

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

It's really hard to guage what is going on with the game and development. We're being told one moment that theres a big push to get a much needed tool in place and then we are told that new player experience is the main priority. What's going on?

To address this point specifically as I don't think it's been covered.

There is a big push to get a much needed tool in place. That is correct. That big push is by the people with the skills to perform that push. Or rather it's the main priority of a chap called Avalon who is our current tools programmer. He joined us at the beginning of the year and is the third...(fourth?).. volunteer we've had to create this tool since 2012. There has been much stalling and vanishing and expanses of time where we've not had a dedicated tools programmer in those 4 years. He's also a graphics artist but we've asked that he focuses on tools programming for now, as tools he creates can enable more people to get more done.

Finally that project is getting somewhere. That project is a much needed tool which we can put in front of creative writers and tell them to write NPC dialog and missions. It's invaluable as a resource as it can theoretically reduce the time to create an NPC script from many hours of frustrating LUA scripting - something most creative writes will run a mile from - to taking as long as it takes for those writers to let their ideas escape from their brain through their fingertips.

We've lost probably more creative writers to this problem than I can count on both hands. Those people have been chock full of ideas but there has been no reasonable way to let them throw those ideas at the game as quickly as they'd like. That lead to frustration, that lead to low motivation for those people, that lead to those people leaving. A big negative for our hopes of bringing more content to the game. That's what make this tool so important.

Meanwhile Baldur has strapped recent addition to the team Xanthos to a chair and force fed him Neocron's LUA scripting language. Both of these chaps now painstakingly manually script each NPC they introduce. These guys by their own admission will tell you they are not programmers. Baldur has taught himself this particular skill over time using existing scripts, the small amount of documentation we inherited and a ton of trial and error work he and I carried out a few years ago.

With these skill sets in mind, their current focus and push is to make the new player experience that bit better. This push has come after the last few patches which introduced new ways to improve soullight, which was a big issue in the end game. There are now more and more reliable ways to improve low soul-light.

Investment in the new player experience was chosen to allow those new runners a better way to get a reasonable grasp of the basics, even without other players around. Important when our population can be restrictive to a new players learning curve. The logic here is that more players will make it over the hump and stick around. More new players urges more old players to jump back in as suddenly there's new people to teach, new people to team up with and likely most importantly... new people to fight.

On top of that they fix bugs in existing scripts and remove multi-year-old bandaids from various missions in between.

We have mentioned that more than one thing is "our priority" but its important to note that those are the priorities of the right people who can do the right job. Horses for courses and all that.

**Hell-demon** · 22-04-16, 02:12

Ok it's good that you've got some stuff in play but it doesn't really address the balance issue. What has frustrated us players is that this new player experience is the "main priority" despite the fact the game is fundamentally broken. There is loads to be done with balancing and fixing items. This is something that affects both the new players you want and the old loyal fanbase which is dwindling. It's insane! It's like working backwards when the core game is broken, and it needs sorting before you throw more content into the mix and new players. Your efforts to get new players will be in vain when they come across the same frustrating problems current players have and leave.

I mentioned tools because we were told a tool was in development in regards to balance. Something to help with tweaking items and implants. Yes? But no new word on that. In fact nothing substantial about the balancing project at all has been mentioned or any update to it's progress in a long time.

We need to know how the tools for balance are progressing? What is happening to the test server? What needs testing? What are the areas that you are covering?

What do you hope to have done by the end of 2016? Will we see balance? Because if you're telling us you guys are struggling to get things out and your doing a whole new revamp and new content, then where does that leave the balancing project? How long is that going to delay things?

It feels like it's on the backburner.

Who is working on it? What is being worked on?

It's great you've got new content in the works but at least do something with what you've currently got. Many players find the current state unplayable. It's a huge problem and I can't be the only one thinking we need a real push with the balance project.

Please give an update on the balance project.

**Trivaldi** · 22-04-16, 08:13

Balance has been covered earlier in this thread, with an explanation of the blockers to the project and the status of those.

**Hell-demon** · 22-04-16, 09:23

Does that mean your still at an impasse then?

No update on the balancing project? How does it figure into the recent announcement that you will be focusing on the new player experience? We don't know if the balancing project is being developed further alongside it or put on hold.

**Trivaldi** · 22-04-16, 09:32

Originally Posted by Hell-demon

Does that mean your still at an impasse then?

No update on the balancing project? How does it figure into the recent announcement that you will be focusing on the new player experience? We don't know if the balancing project is being developed further alongside it or put on hold.

Baldur, Xanthos and Avalon are not (and they'll agree) balance people. I've detailed a few times just in this thread that differentpeople work on different things. We have Bragi and Aegir working on refinements to implants and armour which will be delivered alongside weapon changes once the underlying foundations are complete.

All of our resources have their own tasks and priorities. The focus of the content team is new player content. The focus of the balance team is balance.

**Hell-demon** · 22-04-16, 09:34

Can we get any word from the balance team then?

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