Project Reality - Responding to Feedback, Developer's Intent, Moderation

[Matrox]

Good insightful post there Masaq. A good 45 mins spent right there!

[Psyko]

But in fairness M.Warren...
If the community had a greater say in the value of a suggestion and it's impimentation to the mod. they would look at how impressive it is on its own, and they wouldnt see the overall effect. (the PR butterfly effect i suppose you could say.) Where one small element on one end, effects the gameplay on another end. ([cough]F&57{0PZ[/cough])

I seen people complain, and at the same time embrace the new machine gun changes to the game, and very few of them wondered whether the changes were in fact deliberate and for any specific reason/s. Mostly it was incoherient flame, the likes of which i may see if a person was to come off a game server after getting beat and deciding to vent his feelings on the forums. But to me man, and try seeing it from my perspective...i love the new difficulty to the insurgent side! i cant express enough how much i hated having dispondant squad leaders and rambo squad members on the insurgent side! now that the AR is there to put manners on them they follow orders FINALLY!!! after like 2 1/2 years of rediculous spam/camps/rush and retaration both the insurgent side and the cooilition side's fighting energy is balanced and theres still room to be rambo still, you can, its just not advised.

why? because the developer team are good. not monolythic, but very good. they analyse the situation to the best of their ability.....measure the facts based upon documentation of reality.....and place a portion of emphesis upon gameplay creating three very important charactieristics that take a lot of skill and thousands of hours to develope.

......If, in the suggestion thread there were suggestions, with a point system, that elaborated in a democratic way, the amount of interest that the public had for ideas, it would taint the system, it would sour developers off and kill PR. I'll put it bluntly...because i cant think of another way to put it...

If the Public had a majority say in the work the DEVs did for them, the DEVs would feel like the ***** being controled by the butch, it would inspire good devlopers to retire leaving behind the few that would have to maintain the workload. but currently all the answers are theirs and they have access to the questions, and ultimatly they get what they want, they feel good and they provide high quality product for us (the reality gamer) to use at our disgresstion. and right now from my perspective, the system works, and im sure you know what happens when you destabilise a good thing.

I'm sure a problem that forum members will have to address for themselves is that they dont enjoy this idea of not being in control. they have built up a reliance to somthing they use all the time, and perhapse some even believe that PR is still small enough to be controlled on an individual level. its not. it has grown out of proportion of which the forums was initially ment for.
I imagine the internal development team of lets say Battlefield2 or God of War is about the same size of the PR development team, but they dont hold open forums from where they are exposed to mass opinions on an emotional level. Those systems are controlled in a very strict way so that others do not interfere with the work going on there.

But the PR development team could have done than a long time ago and close their suggestion thread and become biast and aggressive to change and outside use and they didnt. for two reasons, the most important reason being that they are fair and generous, they have openly disgussed whats going on to everone for all eyes to see, and secondely because with the openess of the forum, they have more access to new developers and designers who might want to join them.
But the masses have taken advantage of their generocity, not only complaining but taunting and pushing. And they must learn to chill, or evenually the dveloper team may outgrow the public and cut them off through nessesity, purly to save them more headache and heartbreak.

[Kirra]

It can be extremely galling to spend days, weeks or even months' worth of man-hours on a project to have people state that you've done it wrong or badly, without even an acknowledgement of the work that's gone in.

Thats a pretty crappy argument IMO. It doesn't matter how long you spend making something. I could spend the next year making a statue out of poo and when im finished it's still gonna be shit.

A map can still be completely miserable even if you spend months making it. If the thing you are making is fundamentally ****, its gonna stay that way no matter what.

[IronTaxi]

Thats a pretty crappy argument IMO. It doesn't matter how long you spend making something. I could spend the next year making a statue out of poo and when im finished it's still gonna be shit.

A map can still be completely miserable even if you spend months making it. If the thing you are making is fundamentally ****, its gonna stay that way no matter what.

but you are forgetting a key point..

We wouldnt make someone a dev who made **** maps... So if there are any maps which you consider "****" in the mod right now they are the cream of the ****...

I mean.. in reality.. the devs team are a concentrated group of game developers with a keener and more in depth interest in games and their development than the vast majority of the players.

[Sniperdog]

Beautiful post Masaq

[joethepro36]

The only great amount of complaining I've seen about the new changes is on the forums (aka "you've completely ruined pr even though I've barely played it yet") and ingame about the civi spawn time.

I've played about two dozen rounds of .86 already and I've talked a lot to my squad members about the changes in the quiet interludes. The general consenus/thoughts from about 95%+ of squaddies is:

AR changes are cool and a very positive change
Civi spawn time is terrible
RPG is is practically useless unless the enemy armour stays still and doesn't fire at you etc.
Why remove the lynx from al basrah?
Deviation is rather nice, seems improved
AK-47 didn't deserve the accuracy nerf
Hydra deviation seems more realistic, no laser-like unguided rockets
Insurgents are awesome regardless of changes, win almost every round (which I've noticed is when the blufor attacks in single squads and doesn't support each other)

My personal feelings are that:
The deviation is nice but slightly gamey. Getting headshots and popping kill shots from cover with ease.
Ak-74 and insurgents in general are great.
AR's are finally the kit they should have been.
Civi spawn time is silly, should be same as insurgents with lower penalties for blufor

As usual, the changes in the current version have made it better than ever, haven't shared my opinion on the forums yet as it's been only a week and teamwork on the pub games is non-existant (lol new release).
In about a month we can figure out what needs fixing and what's already great, 'til then I'm going to keep squad leading because either no one else wants to or they're not competent...

[Kirra]

but you are forgetting a key point..

We wouldnt make someone a dev who made **** maps... So if there are any maps which you consider "****" in the mod right now they are the cream of the ****...

I mean.. in reality.. the devs team are a concentrated group of game developers with a keener and more in depth interest in games and their development than the vast majority of the players.

There is especially one map that comes to mind where the gameplay is imo horrible. Besides, that is the only map that is near unplayable on my PC due to lagg (All the other maps are fine). So imo, the person who made that map has "failed". Luckyly the map is not played often.

[GrayeKnight]

Those kinds of posts are the exact ones this thread is aimed at.

Regardless of how you feel about the map or how well it plays on your computer (which is immaterial in an argument) the development team overall has spent many, many hours on every map.

without even an acknowledgement of the work that's gone in.

I suggest you think over any other posts you make in this thread...

[Kenny]

I think their's one important point that we may have forgot.

The Dev's don't get paid and all that time and effort they have put in for free.
They derserves nothing but the upmost respect no matter how much people disagree with some things they have done they deserve thanks and praise for all the hours that they could of done something different in, because remember they made the game, sure the community helped with ideas but the Dev's devoloped them and made them into something great and without them it would never got off the ground and we would still be playing vainilla crying because of the hackers and bunny hoppers.

Remember the future isn't set in stone, it's still in devolopment and that mistakes are another way of learning.

[Twisted Helix]

Thats a pretty crappy argument IMO. It doesn't matter how long you spend making something. I could spend the next year making a statue out of poo and when im finished it's still gonna be shit.

A map can still be completely miserable even if you spend months making it. If the thing you are making is fundamentally ****, its gonna stay that way no matter what.

These are the kind of comments we are talking about. These juvenile outbursts that contain scatology references display the mind of a small child having a temper tantrum.

If you cannot communicate and behave like an adult then perhaps PR is not for you. How you can possibly think that you can influence or in anyway be considered to have a valid opinion when that is the kind of outburst you come out with is mysterious indeed.

[Masaq]

Thats a pretty crappy argument IMO. It doesn't matter how long you spend making something. I could spend the next year making a statue out of poo and when im finished it's still gonna be shit.

A map can still be completely miserable even if you spend months making it. If the thing you are making is fundamentally ****, its gonna stay that way no matter what.

"Fountain". R.Mutt. 1917.


"My Bed". Tracy Emin. 1998.

Both these pieces of art stirred up controversy when they were exhibited, sparking debates as to the nature of art and the level of work that must go into a project for it to be considered work.

If Emin's blood-and-semen smeared sheets can be considered art - and win her fame, media coverage and a not inconsiderable sum of money - after she spent a fortnight sick in bed and displayed the results, then the least a mapper can expect for six months or a year's worth of work is a little courtesy when you're talking about their work.