Digital Extremes Could Deliver So Much More

[Bibliothekar]

people who work on lore

To be perfectly honest: I doubt there is anyone working solely on the lore. Most of it seems just made up as they go along. "Oh, we might want to add two or three lines of background story. *scribble* Done."

Even if they had just one writer who only focuses on the lore, the codex would at least be half filled with decent background stories on warframes, weapons, bosses, ...

/e: It's just ... if they keep the current pace of adding new lore to the Codex, "June 2030" won't be a joke but the sad truth. And I'm not sure if any of us will still be around then.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Bibliothekar

[Nod_Off]

To add to that Kvothe, I think in order to keep people for the long haul, rather than come out with new weapons and frames, they need to introduce another aspect of gameplay into Warframe. 

 

I also feel they need to, once you are in a clan, make your Dojo your replacement solar system. Rather than that being your main hub, you should auto log into the dojo, and have a planetary room where you can click on the console and zoom in on the solar system, to then choose your destination. Then have an armory where you click on a center console to manufacture what ever it is you want.

 

This will introduce a feeling of community that the game lacks. 

[Silvershadow66]

Yup, and WF is chock full of it's own bugs too, some of which also took months to fix (Wyrm's CD anyone?)

 

Nice to see you ignore all the points that show that DE are doing fairly well compared to a game you suggested as a comparison. Even with that there is the simple fact that DE do fix some bugs a lot quicker, we have bug fix patches every few weeks, not every few months.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Nice to see you ignore all the points that show that DE are doing fairly well compared to a game you suggested as a comparison. Even with that there is the simple fact that DE do fix some bugs a lot quicker, we have bug fix patches every few weeks, not every few months.

Oh no, it was despicable how many bugs launched with skyrim, and how long some took to iron out, but you're ignoring the fact that DE has some of the same problems:

 

Strict Nat (need servers, not P2P)

Wyrm's CD took like, 4-6 months or so to fix IIRC

 

And lets not forget Ash's Bladestorm! That thing was bugged for like 5-6 "fixes". And also for every fix they generally introduce a new bug (not saying the fix causes a bug, simply a new bug appears, i.e. Affinity boosters seem to be quadrupling, not just doubling affinity gain, so either boosters are bugged, or unboosted is bugged)

[Cyrionn]

I feel like this is getting off topic with all of the semantics revolving around which games we are comparing it to... 

^this

 

I agree that when you come to compare how DE is making its communication, the decisions they make to fix some problems and the general pace of the development of the game, there is a feeling of amateurism. (sorry this is harsh but can't come up with another adjective...)

We have incomplete patchnotes lacking many details like the "- Fixed about two dozen Warframe abilities not working in Conclaves/Dojo PVP." (which ones ? o.O), an overall communication relying too much on the "coming soon™" and a lack of clarity in their intentions.

They can come up with the idea of the cores without thinking about obvious exploits, or implement some changes biased by a shaky game balance where the difference between static and scaling values is too big to be relevant.

 

That said, I've been playing a lot of games since I laid my hands on an Atari ST and I feel like they managed to create a unique alchemy with Warframe and gathered a very passionated community, as toxic as it seems (well coming from LoL I guess I'm not really objective there...).

 

To me it seems like they are not really focusing on a precise goal. I don't really know how they handle their teams but I hear them talking about too many project at once and I don't see any coming.

We hear at the same time about the Focus system, the Badlands, Melee 2.0, stealth missions, and other things that comes to my mind while there at the same time a balance to be done (on many different levels) and many bugs to resolve on the existing content. I may be wrong as I'm not in DE's office but it sounds like tons of work on the desk but nothing coming to an end.

 

I'm not really inclined to compare DE to other companies or Warframe to other games. I've played some games that were amazing but ditched too early by the community because the development was shaky at start, they still managed to become top tier productions even if unnoticed by the lots (thinking about Anarchy Online for exemple there).

I want to put my trust in DE's hands for now, as hard as they can disappoint me, and see what they can achieve. :3

Edited February 22, 2014 by Cyrionn

[Vaskadar]

DE needs a roadmap.

Features that were suggested or implemented should be clearly listed.

[Bibliothekar]

There is a very good reason for that, lots of players don't particularly like Parkour, it would have been a bad decision by DE to limit their customer base when they chose F2P, which relies on reaching a large customer base.

Problem is, that those alternative routes often are that much faster than the Parkour route, that even Parkour-loving players will take them to keep up with their team. And for that one room in the Grineer Galleon (the small circular one with four lockers on the center platform), Parkour has been completely destroyed when they added the non-Parkour ways.

[Earthworm_Jim]

Nice to see you ignore all the points that show that DE are doing fairly well compared to a game you suggested as a comparison. Even with that there is the simple fact that DE do fix some bugs a lot quicker, we have bug fix patches every few weeks, not every few months.

 

Ok really, I have honestly had enough of this.

 

We are beta testers. Our job is to test things. Our job to help them fix their game. That's the reason for a beta test. When you take your car in to get checked by a mechanic, the mechanic is not going to tell you that your spark plugs are in pristine condition and that he's never seen such a good looking power steering belt; he's going to tell you that your brake pads need to be replaced, the motor for your windshield wipers are burned out, and that your engine has an oil leak. Just to be extra super clear since this thread has been nothing but nitpicking semantics, in this analogy Digital Extremes is the owner of the car, the car is Warframe, and the mechanics checking the vehicle are us. If all you are going to do is tell the owner of the car what looks good on their vehicle, then when they get on the freeway to drive home they are liable to crash because nobody told them that their brake pads were worn out and that the braking ability of the car was compromised.

 

We know what Digital Extremes is doing right. We don't need to be told that. We wouldn't be playing this game in the first place if there was literally nothing good that this game did right. At the same time, we're not necessarily going to tell Digital Extremes what they're doing right, because that's not the reason we're here in the first place; just like the auto mechanic couldn't care less about your spark plugs being in peak condition. As a beta tester, your job is to find bugs and problems and point them out for Digital Extremes to fix them. If you're not doing that, you're not doing your job and have no business being a beta tester.

 

Make no mistake; I am not saying that if someone points out a problem that you do not feel is a problem, that you shouldn't step up and say you don't think that needs to be fixed. That's part of the beta testing process as well. If a developer tried to fix the problems of every tester, the game would never launch. However, the purpose of this thread is not about a bug or a gameplay element or feature; it's about the speed and rate at which Digital Extremes releases content. Secondarily, this thread is about comparing Ditigal Extreme's progress on warframe with other developer projects with smaller team sizes, funding, or both. Anything else is off-topic.

 

If you would like to elucidate everyone on all the good things Digital Extremes is doing for Warframe, please make a different thread.

 

 

On a completely different note than the one above, let's cover some bad arguments present in this thread and why they are bad arguments.

 

Are we qualified to discuss this? Absolutely. Working in the game industry or having management experience is not required to formulate an opinion on this subject, nor is it required to make a conjecture about the way Digital Extremes does business. Experience does not automatically make you correct, nor does it automatically validate or prove any claim a person might make. If I did not have certification in 3D art and animation and stated that Autodesk Maya has a better animation suite than 3DSMax, that statement would still be correct because Autodesk Maya DOES have a better animation suite. The question that should be asked is not "Well do you have any experience?", it should be "Can you please explain how you have reached that conclusion?". All screaming about experience, qualifications, and/or authority does is fill up the discussion with fallacious logic and miscommunication that has no business here.

 

Let's cover another argument that has no business being here; "We do not have all the facts, therefore we cannot make a judgement on the issue". The long and short of it is that yes we can, and not having all the facts present does not make a claim any less true or false. This is another fallacy that has no business in actual big-boy debate. If I were to take a look at a broken down vehicle with a busted engine, and without checking the engine said "That car's engine must be busted", the engine does not magically fix itself because I made a claim without having all the facts. The engine remains busted, and the claim remains true. Again, the question to ask in this case would be "Can you please explain how you have reached that conclusion", not continually pointing out the same thing over and over as if it actually means something.

 

Lastly, "But that's just your opinion". No. If the only thing you have to add is pointing out someone's opinion being an opinion, please have some self control and do not post anything at all, because doing so is a waste of space. If you want to post that someone's trying to pass off an opinion as fact and give a valid reason as to why you believe so, go right ahead.

 

If you are going to make an argument that follows any of the three above, please have some self control and either a) not post and browse a different thread, or b) take some extra time, sit down, and elaborate on your argument instead of spewing fallacies in everyone's face. There have been good arguments and bad arguments in this thread; don't be someone with a bad argument.

 

As an example, if someone says "Warframe has only ~15k players in it, that is sad" you could reply with "You don't know that because you don't have all the facts!" or you could reply with http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=230410 and point out that this metric only reports on steam users and does not even factor in PS4 users or PC users who use the launcher from Closed Beta and never migrated to steam.

 

Again; don't be someone with a bad argument. Do your research, think critically, THEN post.

[Eremes]

to note, my clan's agressiveness on the feedback subject has risen itself due to both the ill mannered handling from the moderation and the means that the feedback threads are also "pumped".

Edited February 22, 2014 by Eremes

[Bibliothekar]

or you could reply with http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&appid=230410 and point out that this metric only reports on steam users

*steam users playing the game at this very moment

It doesn't even cover the overall number of players via Steam, it's only a snapshot saying "right now, 17591 players have Warframe running". If you check the frontpage of the forum, you'll see that we have a total of 624836 members at the moment. Even if you take into consideration, that there are some duplicate accounts and an unknown percentage of people who don't play anymore, that is quite an impressive number.

[Eremes]

*steam users playing the game at this very moment

It doesn't even cover the overall number of players via Steam, it's only a snapshot saying "right now, 17591 players have Warframe running". If you check the frontpage of the forum, you'll see that we have a total of 624836 members at the moment. Even if you take into consideration, that there are some duplicate accounts and an unknown percentage of people who don't play anymore, that is quite an impressive number.

not exactly. not all accounts are forumbound as in the beginning it was possible to make a account and not be tied to the forum, as much as those accounts arent all playing right now.

 

630k supporters is nowhere near the previously mentioned "4 million tenno" by DE. id wager not all of them are playing currently, i know that my clan saw over 4k players that joined and were eventually banned for inactivity.

[Stalvert]

words words words

 

Don't be so entitled. It's still a beta.

[Zephuros]

I'm playing this for free, can't complain much (well of course, aside the electricity charge i've been playing this for months)

but i do agree with you

[Deicul]

Don't be so entitled. It's still a beta.

Can't contain your verbal farts, eh?

[Silvershadow66]

Oh no, it was despicable how many bugs launched with skyrim, and how long some took to iron out, but you're ignoring the fact that DE has some of the same problems:

 

Strict Nat (need servers, not P2P)

Wyrm's CD took like, 4-6 months or so to fix IIRC

 

And lets not forget Ash's Bladestorm! That thing was bugged for like 5-6 "fixes". And also for every fix they generally introduce a new bug (not saying the fix causes a bug, simply a new bug appears, i.e. Affinity boosters seem to be quadrupling, not just doubling affinity gain, so either boosters are bugged, or unboosted is bugged)

 

Hold on, the OPs argument is that DE should not have such problems because other games avoided them, thus DE are under performing and "bad".

 

Skyrim took 3 years with 100 people to get to launch. Warframe has had 2 years and the starting team was smaller than 100. It is also far more complex to work on a game that has already been soft-launched but DE did not have a publisher or lots of funds to back them for a F2P title. So Skyrim did have some of the same sort of issues that Warframe does and at a later point in its development cycle.

 

When you compare WF to Skyrim the facts are that DE are not that far adrift considering the time elapsed and DE are definitely releasing content and bug fixes at a roughly rate equal to, or faster than was done for Skyrim after it launched.

 

The comparison that you proposed shows that DE is not doing badly compared to Bethesda with Skyrim (which is a reasonable comparison), yes there is still work for DE to do but claims that they are terrible compared to other companies do not stand up well.

[Bibliothekar]

not exactly. not all accounts are forumbound as in the beginning it was possible to make a account and not be tied to the forum, as much as those accounts arent all playing right now.

Right, I just checked the members list for three friends who started with me when open beta launched. One shows up, two don't. So those 630k are only a fraction of the actual number.

 

Don't be so entitled. It's still a beta.

I have that strange feeling, that you are using the word "entitled" because you heard it a few times and it sounds good, but you actually have no clue what it means.

[Deicul]

I'm playing this for free, can't complain much (well of course, aside the electricity charge i've been playing this for months)

but i do agree with you

Are you unable to discern between complaints and feedback at all? You think all this here, in this thread, is nothing but complaining? Or did you not read more than one page?

[Stalvert]

Can't contain your verbal farts, eh?

Well, I thought it was funny.

I still think it's funny.

 

The comparison that you proposed shows that DE is not doing badly compared to Bethesda with Skyrim (which is a reasonable comparison), yes there is still work for DE to do but claims that they are terrible compared to other companies do not stand up well.

Except funding doesn't make people work better. There's zero evidence of this. And Skyrim was wildly successful comparatively. It had an actual development cycle. It had an actual design document to guide production.

[Silvershadow66]

We are beta testers. Our job is to test things. Our job to help them fix their game. That's the reason for a beta test. When you take your car in to get checked by a mechanic, the mechanic is not going to tell you that your spark plugs are in pristine condition and that he's never seen such a good looking power steering belt; he's going to tell you that your brake pads need to be replaced, the motor for your windshield wipers are burned out, and that your engine has an oil leak. Just to be extra super clear since this thread has been nothing but nitpicking semantics, in this analogy Digital Extremes is the owner of the car, the car is Warframe, and the mechanics checking the vehicle are us. If all you are going to do is tell the owner of the car what looks good on their vehicle, then when they get on the freeway to drive home they are liable to crash because nobody told them that their brake pads were worn out and that the braking ability of the car was compromised.

 

As an analogy that is not one of the worst. Of course what you have to take into account is that the feedback from the mechanic covers a huge array of things that are non vital as well. Some of those things need to be fixed to make the vehicle roadworthy but some are less important, some can be lived with and some are just personal preference.

 

Yes we need to tell DE if the brakes don't work just as much as we need to tell them that in in our opinion the seat controls are a bit unresponsive or that it needs more cup holders. But as a car owner without unlimited funds and time things do need to be prioritised. For example on my car the down volume control for the radio on the steering column is broken. Yes it would be nice to have that fixed but its expensive because you can't buy just the switch, its a whole moulded section on the dash. So I live with turning the volume down using the radio itself, however a worn tyre is an immediate replacement.

[Stalvert]

As an analogy that is not one of the worst. 

His analogy is not the point of contention. It's an analogy.

[Silvershadow66]

Except funding doesn't make people work better. There's zero evidence of this. And Skyrim was wildly successful comparatively. It had an actual development cycle. It had an actual design document to guide production.

 

Funding allows more people to work for longer, that is a fact. The higher the budget for a game the more people and time can be allocated before it hits the market. WF has a development cycle, that cycle is almost certainly an iterative RAD process (probably a variety of Agile or Scrum from what I have seen) as that approach works much better where you have continuing incremental improvements to a product that is in use. Skyrim probably used more of a Waterfall method as that is better suited for development of a product that in launched in a near-complete state.

 

You have absolutely no facts that WF does not have a design document to guide production, I am willing to bet money that it does have one because you cannot run any development without one nowadays.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Hold on, the OPs argument is that DE should not have such problems because other games avoided them, thus DE are under performing and "bad".

No, his argument was that they accomplished more in the same amount of time, not that they avoided the problems, or are perfect. Hell, no one is saying any game ever is 100% perfect.

 

Skyrim took 3 years with 100 people to get to launch. Warframe has had 2 years and the starting team was smaller than 100. It is also far more complex to work on a game that has already been soft-launched but DE did not have a publisher or lots of funds to back them for a F2P title. So Skyrim did have some of the same sort of issues that Warframe does and at a later point in its development cycle.

IIRC, the starting team for WF was 120 people (or so), and the "but it's soft launched," isn't an excuse, it's still "beta", (or that's the position DE maintains at least), so they shouldn't have a problem changing anything.

 

 

When you compare WF to Skyrim the facts are that DE are not that far adrift considering the time elapsed and DE are definitely releasing content and bug fixes at a roughly rate equal to, or faster than was done for Skyrim after it launched.

...except when you consider man hours. DE has had 120 people from the start (or so), and now they're up to 200, that means they have roughly double the man hours skyrim had per year. At this stage WF should be much further along.

 

The comparison that you proposed shows that DE is not doing badly compared to Bethesda with Skyrim (which is a reasonable comparison), yes there is still work for DE to do but claims that they are terrible compared to other companies do not stand up well.

See above, DE has more man hours per period of time, they're lacking sorely here. Compare the amount of content, real content, grind walls don't count because they just stretch content out, and WF is far far behind skyrim despite having more people than skyrim's team.

[KTribute]

I feel like we just found a new forum white knight contrarion. It's disgusting how some of you guys would go so far to write out why you think the content of 1 weapon per week and crappy fixes is a good thing.

 

This is beta, and bugs are everywhere. The latest hotfix (with more buyable clan tech) FINALLY fixed Sonar not working. This problem has been here since U8, and it was just finally fixed.

 

The rate of fixing/ releasing content is laughable.

[Deicul]

This is beta, and bugs are everywhere. The latest hotfix (with more buyable clan tech) FINALLY fixed Sonar not working. This problem has been here since U8, and it was just finally fixed.

I might be slightly offtopic here, but I think DE found their solution for low market sales of new guns and they now intend to cram each and every new gun in clantech labs.

[Skynin]

Derailing?