Feyshtey said:BeaverBiscuit said:
It makes plenty of sense. Again, you can make predictions on design just like you can predict about anything else. If you post at all why can't it be on design? because some things will be thrown out? VR has confirmed that several things are set in stone. Some other things they may simply not think to change. Viva la development forums to help them along the way.
What ScoutSniper is trying to point out is that it's rather unproductive to tell developers what's wrong with their product when you have no idea what the specifics of the product are. It's like telling Ford that the Mustang concept car you saw a few pictures of in a magazine is going to handle like crap, and here's why! Or saying that the whole car is obviously going to be a failure and you can prove it because no self-respecting muscle car designer would ever paint one with a checkerboard pattern, yellow lines and weird circles with crosshair marks, when the reality is that those patterns are all there to gather testing data on performance or crash testing and have nothing at all to do with any future aesthetics.
I've only ever heard VR state things being set in stone in regard to core tenents. Everything else they've said comes with the caveat, "We'll have to see how it works out in testing.". How can you argue with that? They have a design goal. If they didnt they'd become one of the many MMO's that have either failed to reach market or never gain a solid customer base because the production was just a hodge-podge of things that never really seemed to be pulling the project in a consistent direction. (Tabula Rasa, anyone?) The specific systems cannot be set in stone until they are tried in tandem with everything else and either tweaked or thrown out entirely if they don't mesh with the foundational goals. "Make a fun game" isnt a plan. It's a hope, and hope isn't a strategy.
If you think the core tenents, the foundational goals, are flawed then that's a different conversation. But VR has been more consistent in their adherence to those goals than most other games I've been a part of the pre-release community for, and I've been in my fair share.
All this is why I've largely backed off of my posting on these forums. First, I dont know how a lot of these ideas will fit together in the end, so it's not fair for me to comment too much. Second, I see a really new idea here on the forums about once every 3-4 months. All the conversations have been had, re-had, and beaten far past death for over a decade on 100s of titles. We're not breaking new ground here, and any new ground that VR is attempting they are wise to keep under wraps at this stage of development. Ultimately I have realized that I was willing to pledge to this team because I know their roots, and I know their pedigree. I know what they can do if given the resources, and I must have a degree of faith that they will produce something I'm interested in playing for the long term. I'm under no illusions that my specific opinions will sway the course of the game, nor should they.
None of this is to say that I havent heard a thing or two that gives me concern. I think I'll always have heartburn over the idea of Progeny, for instance. But I've come to the conclusion that I cant fairly judge it until I try it in the way that VR impiments it, and no amount of screaming bloody murder about it here is going to change the outcome. If the developers were swayed every time even a vocal group raises a stink about something the game would quickly go off the rails into disjointed tangents.
Saying a car's paint job sucks before it gets painted is bad, yes. But saying you think the car will look great in orange? How is that unfair or unhelpful?
I'll bet you haven't tried being struck by lightning. By your logic that means you have no right to comment on the pros and cons of being struck by lightning. Sorry, but I must disagree. I can imagine things, and using knowledge, experience, and/or creativy, imagine how those things will play out. I know I Don't want to get struck by lightning, because it will likely hurt and damage my body in some way, possibly permanently. Even if noone had ever been struck by lightning, or had any sort of similar experience, I probably could still guess I don't want to get struck by lightning. And this isn't something I actually know much about or imagine very often. Games and fantasy stories, though, I do know about.
I believe that imagination of an end product is extremely important when it comes to development. That way you can imagine things you might want to test in the testing phase (such as whether orange really does look good on the car), as well as fix some of the easier things before you ever need to test them (such as knowing before hand that an usanded surface is harder to paint, rather than testing the color orange on an unsanded surface, realising that it should be sanded, sanding it, and then painting it orange again). It saves time, effort, money, etc.
Isn't the current lore set in stone? sure they may add on to it, but will they actually go in and change what we have? Also some things, while not set in stone, are still VERY likely to stick around. Day/night cycle, weather, colored mana, etc.
BeaverBiscuit said:Feyshtey said:BeaverBiscuit said:
It makes plenty of sense. Again, you can make predictions on design just like you can predict about anything else. If you post at all why can't it be on design? because some things will be thrown out? VR has confirmed that several things are set in stone. Some other things they may simply not think to change. Viva la development forums to help them along the way.
...SNIP...
Saying a car's paint job sucks before it gets painted is bad, yes. But saying you think the car will look great in orange? How is that unfair or unhelpful?
I'll bet you haven't tried being struck by lightning. By your logic that means you have no right to comment on the pros and cons of being struck by lightning. Sorry, but I must disagree. I can imagine things, and using knowledge, experience, and/or creativy, imagine how those things will play out. I know I Don't want to get struck by lightning, because it will likely hurt and damage my body in some way, possibly permanently. Even if noone had ever been struck by lightning, or had any sort of similar experience, I probably could still guess I don't want to get struck by lightning. And this isn't something I actually know much about or imagine very often. Games and fantasy stories, though, I do know about.
I believe that imagination of an end product is extremely important when it comes to development. That way you can imagine things you might want to test in the testing phase (such as whether orange really does look good on the car), as well as fix some of the easier things before you ever need to test them (such as knowing before hand that an usanded surface is harder to paint, rather than testing the color orange on an unsanded surface, realising that it should be sanded, sanding it, and then painting it orange again). It saves time, effort, money, etc.
Isn't the current lore set in stone? sure they may add on to it, but will they actually go in and change what we have? Also some things, while not set in stone, are still VERY likely to stick around. Day/night cycle, weather, colored mana, etc.
I think you're so focused on your own misunderstanding that you're not listening to what is being said. I don't mean to sound abrasive, however, you've written several posts proclaiming to possess a vast array of disagreements with myself and others. If you disagree, that's wonderful, however, I would expect your statements of disagreement to be followed up by logical counter arguments. If I'm off base on something, I'll be the first person to change directions because my quest is one of learning and knowledge not ego or living in some imaginary world, blinded by my own false perception of righteousness. When I read your posts, I don't get a logical set of counter arguments that I can follow and reason through. Instead, I get a laundry list of informal, logical fallacies that leave me wondering if you're reading the words people are writing. What do I mean by logical fallacy? As you proceed to present your case against some of the statements that have been made, you reveal the fact that you don't understand what's being said. This leads you to make arguments against something that no one is even talking about. Quoting statements, made by others, out of context, and then presenting an argument against those statements is an informal fallacy, typically referred to as the "strawman". I don't think you're doing this on purpose but that's what you're doing, nevertheless. Try to understand what people are writing before you respond. There can be no greater clarity on what I've been trying to say than what Feyshtey wrote in a previous post, so I fear this last attempt, on my part, may fall short. However, I believe in you man! Even though you're essentially arguing with yourself, the broad and simplistic argument you're making, against yourself, I agree with. However, I'm still waiting to hear where you disagree with what I'm actually talking about.
Saying a car's paint job sucks before it gets painted is bad, yes. But saying you think the car will look great in orange? How is that unfair or unhelpful?
Perfect example of the "strawman". No one is saying or talking about anything that dull or simplistic. The fact that an opinion should be based on a view or judgement about SOMETHING, requires no defense, verbel, written or otherwise. Having an opinion about "something" that doesn't exit makes as much sense as an ocean without water or a fire without heat and even attempting to mount a defense against the requirement that an opinion be based on "something" would be a pointless waste of precious air.
Furthermore, saying a car will look great in Orange is an example of what we SHOULD be talking about. You like Orange cars, great! I like red cars, wonderful! What we should NOT be talking about is anything related to the orange car being released on specific date because we know more about how long it takes to build a new car (and paint it orange) than the engineers at Ford. Making statements like that and then hiding behind the word "opinion", to avoid judgement, is a copout. I'm not suggesting you're doing this, I'm only suggesting this tactic is often used by people who want to complain about things where their knowledge on the subject is found wanting.
I'll bet you haven't tried being struck by lightning. By your logic that means you have no right to comment on the pros and cons of being struck by lightning. Sorry, but I must disagree. I can imagine things, and using knowledge, experience, and/or creative, imagine how those things will play out. I know I Don't want to get struck by lightning, because it will likely hurt and damage my body in some way, possibly permanently. Even if no one had ever been struck by lightning, or had any sort of similar experience, I probably could still guess I don't want to get struck by lightning. And this isn't something I actually know much about or imagine very often. Games and fantasy stories, though, I do know about.
Again, you're arguing with a ghost, yourself, or an imaginary friend. No one is suggesting anything that fits the scenario of: we can't imagine what being struck by lightning would feel like. This is another example of something that is patently obvious and requires no argument or defense. I imagine that if i got struck by lightning it would suck, however, it's also probably my only chance of acquiring a super power so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! What I AM saying is that, if a person proceeded to explain to someone, who HAS been struck by lightning, what they imagine the experience to be, as if they are an expert on the subject, then that person would likely sound ridiculous, provided their admission that they have never actually been struck by lightning before. Furthermore, that person will likely lose credibility in the eyes of other people involved in the conversation because their claim based on knowledge lacks depth, which requires experience.
You also mentioned that you can use knowledge and experience when considering what it would be like to be struck by lightning. That is not true because you just admitted that you've never been struck by lightning before. That means you can use knowledge which is a component of intelligence, however, you can't use experience, which is a component of wisdom and should be used for the proper application of intelligence. It's the combination of both wisdom and intelligence that provide the depth required to give your opinions meaningful credibility on a given subject. No matter how much knowledge you have about the effects of a lightning strike, it will be your lack of experience (or wisdom) that will make anything you say sound hallow to someone who has been struck by lightning. Just for clarity, the relationship between intelligence and wisdom can be described by saying intelligence tells you it's raining, wisdom says if you get an umbrella you can stay dry. Wisdom demands experience and provides a level of richness, credibility, and clarity to the way we speak and think about things.
The same goes for game development. We can certainly imagine what it would be like to build and design an MMO, however, we have no practical experience in doing so. We've never experienced the challenges related to writing a data driven, network based simulation at scale that must be replicated and synchronized across thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of players. We probably don't know the difference between at-most-once and at-least-once, in terms of message delivery reliability, or what it takes to scale physics and AI across a cluster of compute nodes, how to implement the RAFT or Paxos consensus algorithms, what it takes to model, rig, and animate a character, or the difference between shaders and fixed function pipeline or the difference between a forward and deferred renderer, etc. We can certainly have an opinion, however, it's going to sound hallow in light of the fact that we're missing the context provided by experience that's required to give meaningful credibility to our opinions. This is not a productive use of our time.
I believe that imagination of an end product is extremely important when it comes to development.
BOOM! Totally agree! Begin with the end in mind is not just important in game development, it's a vital component of any mission, project, or task. What we are doing should be defined by where we're going. This is an area where we can add value. If you want to dream up some awesome crafting system or class that you want in the game, then there are productive conversations that we can have around these topics. We've ALL played games before which, provides us with both the knowledge AND experience required to have credible discussions around game related ideas. I should point out that we can have knowledge/experience and still come up with an idea that the community doesn't like or that VR feels doesn't fit in with the design of the game. However, the criteria for being credible is met, given the fact that we're players and we know what kind of games we like to play. This is where I think we add the most value and help channel the development team’s interactions with the community in a productive manner. I think, as a community, we want to project an image of being reasonable, logical, and thoughtful in the way we choose to interact with VR, given we all want the same thing. An amazing game play experience that we can enjoy with our friends and family for many years to come!
So, in summary, YES I think the car would look great in orange! :)
Ok, this has now run it's course folks, we appreciate the passion but this is our game and we will do what we think is best for our game. I have removed some posts that were either off-topic, argumentative or considered to breach the guidelines, if one of those was your post, just take it on the chin and move on please, this isn't personal, these are our official development forums (our home) and we do not want arguments over personal opinions, we are here to make a game, anyone who thinks we are should do something differently or are here to criticise for the sake of it without any game development experience are free to go and enjoy the experience and thrills of making their own game, otherwise they are welcome to follow us, support us and enjoy our hard work when it is ready to be released. :)