Digital Extremes Could Deliver So Much More

[WrothBog]

the majority of the games quoted initially are single player experiences with static content. in the two bethesda titles it's the same toolset and near identical gameplay with different art assets. the art assets in question are set pieces arranged together and BOTH have heavy source material to draw from

 

path of exile is the only near comparable game, but gameplay is significantly more basic. it does share the randomised content and 4 player co-op, but the randomised maps are 2d isometric maps with 2d movement. this is hardly comparable to warframes tilesets which are 3d and feature 3d movement.

 

PoE loot from when i tried it was much more grindy as well. at least all warframe loot is consistent, there's no purple and gold variants to vitality with additional effects.

 

as for staff counts. i'd dispute the 200 claim, especially 200 content devs. i'd be very surprised if content devs exceeded 50 odd. they keep claiming the programmer (as though there's one) is doing everything from AI, to animation programming and everything between. the art devs seem to be in single digits in all fields. i'd be astonished if there was actually 200 content developers. i'd be willing to argue 20-50 content devs and the rest are working on the backend in QA, servers, community stuff etc.

 

if they DO have 200 content devs then they need a round of layoffs because that would have severely diminishing returns on the finished content. that's too many creatives to get anything done

[FrissonSeeker]

the majority of the games quoted initially are single player experiences with static content. in the two bethesda titles it's the same toolset and near identical gameplay with different art assets. the art assets in question are set pieces arranged together and BOTH have heavy source material to draw from

And Warframe doesn't use the same assets, engine, and gameplay of that garbage Star Trek game DE was working on?

 

 

path of exile is the only near comparable game, but gameplay is significantly more basic. it does share the randomised content and 4 player co-op, but the randomised maps are 2d isometric maps with 2d movement. this is hardly comparable to warframes tilesets which are 3d and feature 3d movement.

This entire game operates on a horizontal plane. Name ONE tileset where vertical movement matters. Hell, you couldn't even name one tileset where you have to shoot enemies above or below you except for very niche examples.

 

 

PoE loot from when i tried it was much more grindy as well. at least all warframe loot is consistent, there's no purple and gold variants to vitality with additional effects.

 

Are you actually complaining about drop variety?

[Keltik0ne]

You shouldn't mention that DE was responsible for the pile of steaming dung that was Star Trek.

 

Although in fairness, all their games tend to have a few issues, maybe it's the nature of "art".

[Bibliothekar]

It's a dual-edged sword for DE. When they say 'soon', people complain about not getting definite answers. When they provide a a deadline, they might end up giving us a rushed product that is inferior, or have to delay release - either way, they'll get complaints again.

Well, isn't that what the Developer Workshop was intended for, when they first introduced that forum? Giving us players a more or less frequent update what they are working on and the progress they're making? As I see it, right now, they could just delete that forum again and put those threads in the news or corresponding feedback section.

[Deicul]

And I forgot to mention the new faction that will appear at some point the future is bright from where I'm standing

You're standing in the tunnel and what you see are the headlights of the Dark Souls 2 hype-train.

[WrothBog]

And Warframe doesn't use the same assets, engine, and gameplay of that garbage Star Trek game DE was working on?

 

This entire game operates on a horizontal plane. Name ONE tileset where vertical movement matters. Hell, you couldn't even name one tileset where you have to shoot enemies above or below you except for very niche examples.

 

 

Are you actually complaining about drop variety?

1 i have no idea about this star trek game in question, but you may want to look up what assets refers to if you want to continue defending bethesda's work style to DE's. hint i doubt there are any grineer in star trek

 

2, almost all the tilesets have levels and enemies occuring at all heights. not to mention joining 3d tilesets together is significantly harder than sticking a bunch of horizontal planes together. the navigation for mobs would be a much bigger challenge alone. name one section of PoE where a mob can pass under another section. i'll bet if a setpiece like that exists (i didn't see any in act 1 or 2) it's always the same

 

3, compared to PoE's drops yeah. that got so unrewarding i stopped playing. i have just as much control over WHAT drops but at least it's not multiple layers of RNG. warframe is one roll of the loot table. PoE is chance to drop, then identify, then more RnG goodness with trying to upgrade with the items used in upgrades being insanely rare.

 

warframe just uses credits, fusion cores and trash mods. all of which are common.

 

i'm not going to say warframe is without problems. but pointing at other games as examples is useless. especially so many single player games. if you wanted a linear corridor crawl shoooter i'm sure DE could have wrapped one up in half the time. if they never set out to create an elder scrolls than i'm hardly surprised to see they didn't make one.

 

on top of this the OP is claiming DE is doing nothing. but the new lobby system and plans for badlands factions and the other thing all seem to point at DE has many plans in the works. the very valid point that character artists dont do level design can't be stressed enough. the concept guy isn't going to start texturing assets, the cleaner isn't going to start working on navigation paths. 200 employee's wont help if only 6 work on level designs. SOME game developers have that level of flexibility in their staff. most do not.

[XxSonicTheEdgeLordxX]

Good points OP, worth reading imo.

Best that they can get their act together real soon, else they'll be losing alot of potential customers.

 

You're standing in the tunnel and what you see are the headlights of the Dark Souls 2 hype-train.

True, at least some games won't drop the ball in terms of gameplay, lore and combat.

[dubignou81]

I think you're mistaken, Digital Extremes has 200 employees but that doesn't mean there are 200 persons working on the game.

 

There are support, hr, management, marketing, translators etc.

 

Some studios decide to offshore that, other let publishers handle that

[XxSonicTheEdgeLordxX]

I think you're mistaken, Digital Extremes has 200 employees but that doesn't mean there are 200 persons working on the game.

 

There are support, hr, management, marketing, translators etc.

 

Some studios decide to offshore that, other let publishers handle that

Gonna take a guess and say at least 100 of their employees are marketing/sales/pr staff.

How else do you think this mishmash of clunky features stapled together got more than 10,000 people playing it? Additionally, if there's anymore than 10 programmers working on warframe producing this sort of product, I'm gonna be pretty damn appalled.

[Relkin408]

lol OP you fail incredibly hard to acknowledge the most impotent asset that all of those companies were given for free which DE was not - Time.  Also, DE works on other games too iirc,  Warframe has been in development for a little over a single year.  Fallout was in development for 4 years.  Savvy? 

[(PSN)munkt0r]

How can someone that played a game for 1k hours be dissapointed...especially when it's free?

 

That's like saying, "I ate cheeseburgers from restaurant X for a year straight, and really, they could be better"

 

lol, maybe stop?  Maybe try something else?

 

Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

[Psychosist]

How can someone that played a game for 1k hours be dissapointed...especially when it's free?

 

That's like saying, "I ate cheeseburgers from restaurant X for a year straight, and really, they could be better"

 

lol, maybe stop?  Maybe try something else?

The fact that he's spent over a thousand hours shows his opinions have merit and are backed up with a very high amount of experience with the gameplay.

 

Sure, he could've quit, but the fact that he's posting here shows that he has some extent of hope for change. If he really didn't like the game he wouldn't have made this thread.

 

 

Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

lol rng

Edited February 21, 2014 by Psychosist

[Keltik0ne]

Gonna take a guess and say at least 100 of their employees are marketing/sales/pr staff.

How else do you think this mishmash of clunky features stapled together got more than 10,000 people playing it? Additionally, if there's anymore than 10 programmers working on warframe producing this sort of product, I'm gonna be pretty damn appalled.

You would be surpised how few PR/HR types DE actually has, the majority of them are specialist asset creators (art/audio/feature creators).

However, you would be even more shocked to learn they don't really have much in the way of QA either :P

[FlyDungas]

i just have to throw out that skyrim is not a good example it was an unfinished bug ridden piece of trash thats only worth playing 6 months after it comes out with mods and unofficial patches that fix tons of stuff Bethesda basically just told console players to go **** themselves with, DE is miles better than Beth but yeah you can't **** with CD Projekt

[(PSN)munkt0r]

The fact that he's spent over a thousand hours shows his opinions have merit and are backed up with a very high amount of experience with the gameplay.

 

Sure, he could've quit, but the fact that he's posting here shows that he has some extent of hope for change. If he really didn't like the game he wouldn't have made this thread.

 

 

lol rng

 

I'm not saying his opinion has no merit, simply illustrating most games with players sporting play times in the hundreds (let alone thousands) are a success.

 

The point of a game (contrary to this day and age young gamer) is to have fun.  If you have fun, it was a success.  It isn't to create an endless stream of content for free.

 

To the original point of the poster, yes.  They could have delivered more.  So could every game ever made though, so I find it to be a moot point.  Instead, let's praise a dev for being ambitious and continuing to support an overall free to play game. 

[Relkin408]

The fact that he's spent over a thousand hours shows his opinions have merit and are backed up with a very high amount of experience with the gameplay.

 

Sure, he could've quit, but the fact that he's posting here shows that he has some extent of hope for change. If he really didn't like the game he wouldn't have made this thread.

 

 

lol rng

Or his opinion is jaded and bitter and completely shaded by the fact that he's overplayed a single game way too much.

 

 

If you order the same meal from the same restaurant every day for a year and a half - you ARE going to sick up over it. 

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Or his opinion is jaded and bitter and completely shaded by the fact that he's overplayed a single game way too much.

 

Or, he wants the game to improve so he (or she) can continue to enjoy it. The game is pretty lacking, there's no "real" content outside of leveling weapons, there's no real lore, we have a couple of unrelated snippets, scaling/damage is borked pretty well still, mods 2.0 still needs work, all the new mods they add generally are useless, and if they're niche (i.e. resistance mods) you can't even hope they'll be decent.

[Serpitus]

Or his opinion is jaded and bitter and completely shaded by the fact that he's overplayed a single game way too much.

 

 

If you order the same meal from the same restaurant every day for a year and a half - you ARE going to sick up over it. 

it's not so much growing tired of the same meal as wondering where the rest of the meal is since other restaurants have provided far more with far less.

 

 

 

i just have to throw out that skyrim is not a good example it was an unfinished bug ridden piece of trash thats only worth playing 6 months after it comes out with mods and unofficial patches that fix tons of stuff Bethesda basically just told console players to go **** themselves with, DE is miles better than Beth but yeah you can't **** with CD Projekt

that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[Bibliothekar]

There are [...] translators

Yeah, well, no. Translation is done by kind players. Maybe someone from DE takes a look at the finished files, but that's about it.

[Relkin408]

Now I'm sure you all have loads of product or software development or at least project management experince making you all incredibly qualified to talk about the timeframes that they get things out in and all but you probably don't :( I have to leave this thread bc I'm going to lose my cool - this is one of those threads oozing in raw insufferable ignorance. 

 

 

Or, he wants the game to improve so he (or she) can continue to enjoy it. The game is pretty lacking, there's no "real" content outside of leveling weapons, there's no real lore, we have a couple of unrelated snippets, scaling/damage is borked pretty well still, mods 2.0 still needs work, all the new mods they add generally are useless, and if they're niche (i.e. resistance mods) you can't even hope they'll be decent.

Watch the livestreams - they are working on it and have already laid out the ground framework explaining what some of these things are going to be.  Also, the new mods they added are all useful so not sure what you are talking about....

 

it's not so much growing tired of the same meal as wondering where the rest of the meal is since other restaurants have provided far more with far less.

 

 

 

that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Not far less....you people are starting to frustrate me.  Do you understand how time works in relation to work and product?  Not even talking about diminishing returns on staffing or the fact that DE does work for other studios as well - they're not 100% focused on warframe.   They've been at it for a little over a year - what they've pushed out in that timeframe is actually impressive. 

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Watch the livestreams - they are working on it and have already laid out the ground framework explaining what some of these things are going to be.  Also, the new mods they added are all useful so not sure what you are talking about....

It's been that way for roughly a year, anything they say is then followed by "Soon", or "Around the corner", or "We're working on it.", they never give concrete details about what they're working on.

 

How long has it been since Vor's Prize? And how long since the last time they said "It's coming soon!"?

 

And are you really trying to tell me Warm coat is useful? Or flame repellent? Both of those are outdone by a redirection of the same cost so they're not useful!

[Zakmonster]

The main issue is that this topic isn't really one for discussion. The OP put up a cohesive argument, showing how certain developers have done more with less (although he uses very broad strokes and doesn't factor all the details, such as development time, publisher support and game type). He puts forth his opinion that DE's 200-strong staff should be able to do more with this game. However, this opinion ignores details about DE's company structure - how many of those 200 are actually working on the game? Of those, how are they distributed? There are a lot of moving parts that make up a game's whole, and the different teams might just be working at different speeds, for whatever reason.

 

The problem is that we, as the other posters, don't really have much in the way of replies to his opinion. We can pretty much say one of three things:

 

- I totally agree with you man, for all the reasons you gave and more.

 

- I don't agree with you man, for these reasons.

 

- I don't think that's a fair assumption to make, based on what little information we have about DE's internal structure.

 

 

I believe we have seen all three types of replies in this thread.

 

 

Either way, whatever we say about the company doesn't really change the fact that we don't have the power to affect DE in any meaningful manner. We are not investors, or shareholders, we're just customers. Our opinions aren't really going to make DE suddenly undergo company restructuring (which, by the way, would probably slow down the development of Warframe by a lot).

 

I mean, you can post on forums about how McDonald's has terrible burgers, when you compare them to Burger King, even though McDonald's has more money and outlets and staff. It isn't gonna make McDonald's decide to change company policy, especially if they're giving you those burgers for free.

 

 

 

The amount of content per week is pitiful. The work put into these could be redirected towards actually balancing or visually improving older weapons, and more importantly, could be put towards completing any actual lore content, like what we're hoping Vor's prize will be.

 

What we get, week by week, is more than what most other F2P MMOs deliver. Look at games like Neverwinter, or Firefall, or DCUO, or even Path of Exile. Content updates, even things as minor as Tenno Reinforcements, aren't present in those games, with the same amount of regularity that exists in Warframe. And even then, they're usually sold, not given.

 

 

In fact, these Tenno Reinforcements are more of a hindrance now that I think about it. If they weren't made to make more and more guns or frames, the creative teams could easily focus down more dynamic or set missions to create a more immersive experience, rather than what many people now look at as a literal grindfest.

 

We honestly don't know how exactly their creative teams are being utilized. We can only assume. Additionally, the sort of updates we've been clamoring for, as well as the stuff DE have been talking about producing take time to make. We can also assume that they have a fair number of their creative team working on the Focus system, or the Badlands, or Melee 2.0. These type of content updates can't just be pushed out on a weekly basis - DE are still people and they still need food and rest and time with their families.

 

 

The real content we want is instead withheld for these large updates they put so much hype behind, but then immediately sell the rewards for real money. More money than what the game is actually worth.

 

This is a valid opinion, perhaps, but different people will place different values on their time-versus-money spent.

 

 

For one weapon in Warframe, these Tenno Reinforcements, you can buy a cheap game that'll take more time than what that weapon will provide. To buy a whole Update Bundle to get all the new content immediately, you are basically spending the amount of a full game, one that would take many, many more hours to beat than the weapons and frame would provide."

 

At the same time, the Tenno Reinforcements are provided for free and all you have to do to get them is to play the game.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Zakmonster

[KvotheTheArcane1]

What we get, week by week, is more than what most other F2P MMOs deliver. Look at games like Neverwinter, or Firefall, or even Path of Exile. Content updates, even things as minor as Tenno Reinforcements, aren't present in those games.

To be fair, most of the reinforcements are reskins with different stats. Few exceptions, but by an large they've been reskins

 

At the same time, the Tenno Reinforcements are provided for free and all you have to do to get them is to play the game.

And it doesn't justify the price of ~$15 on average for a weapon though.

[Zakmonster]

To be fair, most of the reinforcements are reskins with different stats. Few exceptions, but by an large they've been reskins

 

And it doesn't justify the price of ~$15 on average for a weapon though.

 

Valid point on the first one. As for the second, you don't have to pay the $15.

 

Really. You don't have to. You just have to play the game.

 

It's like they're giving stuff away for free or something.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Valid point on the first one. As for the second, you don't have to pay the $15.

 

Really. You don't have to. You just have to play the game.

 

It's like they're giving stuff away for free or something.

Again, that doesn't fix the price, or justify it. Saying "Just don't buy it then!" Has never been a valid solution in WF.