News: Daybreak Games Hit With Layoffs, Matt Higby resigns - Page 5

Calista · 2015-02-23, 09:19 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Drat, now I might just have to make that list p0intman was on about.

Well hop to it lad!

Mordelicius · 2015-02-25, 06:11 AM

They have to fix Redeployside and restore the old Resource Mechanics (in the interim if they are making a new one).

The Flat Resource system is just destroying the game. How bad is it?

Just put it this way. Take the Flat Resource system and stick it in to World War II. What do you get?

World Peace.

All Japan wanted is to be a legitimate world power. In able to achieve that, they need natural resources. Hence, they've become imperialistic.

With a flat resource system. There would be no reason to invade or expand.

Same with Germany. All of Hitler's megalomaniac dream of expansion, domination and genocide eastward for that 'Living Space' would be for nothing, if they get flat resource in the end.

That's right. Take the most vicious war in the history of humankind and combine it the Planetside 2 resource mechanic. And you get peace

.

So, what is a peace stimulator like a Flat Resource system doing in Planetside 2? Instead, they need to add mechanics that stoke fighting.

Example: Supply Crate Airdrop Reward for Alerts. ( http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=55841 ). Don't lock the continent after an alert and continue the fight with the airdrop minigames.

ringring · 2015-02-25, 07:58 AM

I've just listened to the talk Kid Riot did with Matt Higby yesterday (or early this morning for me).

It was interesting although there were no shocks.

He mentioned the engine still being developed in tandem with the game.

Hinted about the game maybe going live a little early.

Said that FTP had good points but also downsides.

Said that it was much harder to develop content after going live than it was before and he didn't realise this until it after - I believe I recall warning him about that, I think on these very forums, cos that has happened to me in the past.

And related to that there were lots of things where the designs have been spec'd but which have had to wait.

Thinks that PS4 release will be major for the game in terms of revenue which should feed through to game development

And he said he was thinking about his next project for about a year and when SOE became Daybreak that seemed the best time to go although ideally he would have stayed a month or two longer (seeing the ps4 launch was one of the reasons for staying a bit longer).

He also spoke well of the current development team (which I suppose that on the one hand you'd expect that but on the other he didn't have to say it but he did)

Calista · 2015-02-25, 08:29 AM

He also said initially they were considering not to put maxes in the game but he told them oh hell yes they are going to be in as they were in the original and considered them iconic to the franchise.

I found it interesting his take on f2p. Said since the game was free they viewed it OK to release in an unfinished state. If it were p2p they would definitely have to wait until it was more polished.

No doubt the ps4 version will be the game's fork in the road. It will be do or die. If you'll recall Smed said it would make more money than the PC version since they already have purchase information via PSN. Players can just simply click to purchase without any hassle.

Kinda off-topic but I have been reading about an upswell of angst over f2p. Parents are getting tired of seeing these micro-transactions on their CC bill for "free" games. It seems there is growing sentiment of some sort of regulation of the industry in regard to f2p but we will see how that goes in the near future.

Figment · 2015-02-25, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by Calista

Kinda off-topic but I have been reading about an upswell of angst over f2p. Parents are getting tired of seeing these micro-transactions on their CC bill for "free" games. It seems there is growing sentiment of some sort of regulation of the industry in regard to f2p but we will see how that goes in the near future.

Why do parents give their kids access to their bank account in the first place?

Would you? No. Why? You know what microtransactions are. These parents that have concerns never played games with those (probably mostly one time purchase games IF ANY AT ALL). I mean, players like us, who have grown up with online gaming, will have a different view from these parents that are indirectly exposed to it.

The answer is not necessarily to change the format through the company, but parents teaching their kids the value of money. And maths (that small purchases add up) and budgeting.

Calista · 2015-02-25, 08:50 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

The answer is not necessarily to change the format through the company, but parents teaching their kids the value of money. And maths (that small purchases add up) and budgeting.

Well that would be ideal but it doesn't always work that way. I guess I could go on a while about family dynamics in modern culture but I think I will pass.

I read http://www.gamesindustry.biz a good bit to get the viewpoint of game developers on a variety of topics. A lot of the articles are originated from other websites and aggregated there but the thing is only verified members of the game development community can post comments. It's interesting and enlightening to see the viewpoints of those folks. A couple of them expressed a feeling of guilt of mining children for money and realize that f2p is headed for regulation. Exactly how is anybody's guess.

Also Higby mentioned on occasion he had discussions with the business folks where they wanted more focus on revenue generating features because they missed the revenue goal for a previous month. So they couldn't really address some content additions like they wanted to when they had targeted them. That's just sad.

ringring · 2015-02-26, 04:44 AM

re:ftp and kids.

One good thing about subscription is that the adult can take out the sub and play and their children can also play free on a different character when the adult isn't.

That used to happen in my ps1 outfit, I'd often get a message from an outfitmate saying X is his son and can I make sure he behaves himself.

Figment · 2015-02-26, 05:43 AM

Seen the family sub thing too, but that can be done in F2P too.

Thing is, milking people is a choice of the people being milked. I've spend over E.500,- on PS1 subscriptions (in fact it ran a while while I wasn't aware I was paying as I wasn't playing... ¬__¬').

I don't come close to that on PS2, War Thunder and World of Tanks, combined.

If you as a developer feel guilt for taking too much from a single player, you could go as far to start sending warnings to accounts. Show a total sum of money spend on the game so far, put up maximum expenditures per month or year or in the most radical situation, you could put a maximum expenditure in at which point (specific) new content becomes standard. Say purchase $80 in cosmetics, all new cosmetics are free of charge for you. Same for subscriptions.

The thing is, only single purchase can stop you from milking someone by their choice. And tbh, I really would prefer single purchases.

Look at Adobe though. If you want to see milking done excessive. Look at Adobe CS.S.

**Muldoon** · 2015-03-06, 11:58 AM

It's unlikely either of Planetsides will be open sourced for two reasons. 1) It's a security vulnerability since it would show how our authentication and login servers work. With PS2, it would also show people stuff they could exploit in the engine. 2) There's a lot of third party software that was licenced. We wouldn't have the rights to open source that stuff.

Calista · 2015-03-06, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

It's unlikely either of Planetsides will be open sourced for two reasons. 1) It's a security vulnerability since it would show how our authentication and login servers work. With PS2, it would also show people stuff they could exploit in the engine. 2) There's a lot of third party software that was licenced. We wouldn't have the rights to open source that stuff.

Makes sense to me. It baffles me why anyone would think a company would benefit from considering doing such a thing.

Figment · 2015-03-07, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

It's unlikely either of Planetsides will be open sourced for two reasons. 1) It's a security vulnerability since it would show how our authentication and login servers work. With PS2, it would also show people stuff they could exploit in the engine. 2) There's a lot of third party software that was licenced. We wouldn't have the rights to open source that stuff.

Makes sense, though that is full open source.

But what if you have written contracts and background checks on volunteer developers? Limiting who has access to it to say three - four people?

I have signed NDA's before.

It would also be possible to only disclose only partial code: what is needed for unit placement, coding and movement? Similar, world objects, if you provide parameters, code structure and a delivery format, new bases wouldn't have to be a huge issue.

Besides... several people already dug into the code and made modded items in it... Look up "Planetside terms of service violations" on YouTube. And secant was informing SOE over how hackers abused security breaches in the code. Even delivered ready made solutions to block cheaters.

**Muldoon** · 2015-03-08, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Makes sense, though that is full open source.

But what if you have written contracts and background checks on volunteer developers? Limiting who has access to it to say three - four people?

I have signed NDA's before.

It would also be possible to only disclose only partial code: what is needed for unit placement, coding and movement? Similar, world objects, if you provide parameters, code structure and a delivery format, new bases wouldn't have to be a huge issue.

Point blank: how do we make money from this? Cause this would be a lot of work on our end for... what exactly? Check Vons Ad and Jewel-Osco Ad.

Figment · 2015-03-09, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

Point blank: how do we make money from this? Cause this would be a lot of work on our end for... what exactly?

That kinda depends. Personally I thought it a bad idea to make PS1 free to play. It just invited braindead hackers back in without any cost or risk to themselves. :/ Lowering the subcost would have been an option. Before PS1 was made F2P, I personally prefered the idea of over-time loyal subscriber rewarding, which has been implemented on PS2 I think. Or including it as a bonus to people who pay premium for PS2 (two games for the price of one). The ideal one would be a choice between one time purchase or purchase over time until the one-time-purchase cost (and a bit of interest) would be reached. People who have invested in a game play it differently than free account players.

Thing is, PS1 wasn't made to be F2P and is too vulnerable to third party cheating software, there should be at least account related costs to put up a threshold, even if it's no guarantee.

I think there's two scheme's I would consider at this point: a one time purchase for an account key would be the best scheme, since it would deter cheats the most (they'd risk more with a ban, so if they'd cheat they'd do it subtly, rather than gamebreaking: most blatant hackers used free accounts). The other the aforementioned PS2 premium inclusion. You won't see protests against this, since nobody really wants to play total F2P PS1 due to lack of (GM)-support from SOE anyway. SOE hasn't even bothered to ensure all content worked (Core Combat and Aftershock broke after the server transfer to the west coast) and when it turned out to be broken to at least make sure all empires have the same amount of locked caves.

Server running costs wouldn't be earth shattering (iirc PS1 could run on a Pentium II as server hardware) and you've got a Community Council thing running, so NDA contracts already exist and people drafting and determining contracts are already hired, contracts would just have to be expanded a bit. So administration is covered as well.

When you run the game mostly with volunteer enthusiasts, your development costs are non-existent.

Regarding the transfer and investment, theoretically it is possible to ask former PS1-devs if they would be interested in helping to run it as a hobby project for a few hours a week or month, with a share of any profits made. Whether they'd be interested, I don't know. IIRC a number of PS1-devs left SOE somewhat disheartened, but they might just love the game enough to be interested if they got carte blanche to do with it as they'd see fit.

If you could get those folks interested, the investment would be a lot lower. And of course, GMs could have a similar structure.

Currently though, PS1 makes no money at all. So all you stand in losing is a one time investment. :/ Me, I'd make some calls to devs. Hell, if you could just get me the contact details of former devs and a detailed "this is as far as you'd be allowed to go", I'd contact them for you.

**Muldoon** · 2015-03-09, 01:07 PM

Originally Posted by Figment

Server running costs wouldn't be earth shattering (iirc PS1 could run on a Pentium II as server hardware) and you've got a Community Council thing running, so NDA contracts already exist and people drafting and determining contracts are already hired, contracts would just have to be expanded a bit. So administration is covered as well.

When you run the game mostly with volunteer enthusiasts, your development costs are non-existent.

Regarding the transfer and investment, theoretically it is possible to ask former PS1-devs if they would be interested in helping to run it as a hobby project for a few hours a week or month, with a share of any profits made. Whether they'd be interested, I don't know. IIRC a number of PS1-devs left SOE somewhat disheartened, but they might just love the game enough to be interested if they got carte blanche to do with it as they'd see fit.

If you could get those folks interested, the investment would be a lot lower. And of course, GMs could have a similar structure.

Currently though, PS1 makes no money at all. So all you stand in losing is a one time investment. :/ Me, I'd make some calls to devs. Hell, if you could just get me the contact details of former devs and a detailed "this is as far as you'd be allowed to go", I'd contact them for you.

I'm unaware of any community council on Planetside 2. I'm not a designer, so I might be a bit out of the loop. And I haven't heard of us using any sort of NDA on Planetside in a loooong time.

Asking devs to work for free is a huge task. Most people don't like working for free, usually you have to offer them money. And getting devs outside the company into a place where they could work for free would be effort on Daybreak's part.

Unfortunately I will not provide any contact details of former devs. I barely know any of them. If you happen to find any on your own, go ahead and shoot them an email/tweet/what-have-you.

I understand you are very passionate about Planetside, but what you want might not be possible, at least right now. Maybe one day.

Babyfark McGeez · 2015-03-09, 07:17 AM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

Point blank: how do we make money from this? Cause this would be a lot of work on our end for... what exactly?

I think concerning PS1 the only reason for most of us asking about the source code is that we'd like to be able to deal with the hacking. You know, stuff that's usually been done by the people running the thing.

And maybe we could also fix the broken stuff while we're at it...

Besides that i cannot possibly see any way you guys can still make money from PS1 aside from selling the whole thing to some enthusiastic freaks, though you probably referred to PS2 with your comment(?).

However you could gain some invaluable stuff with a move like handing over responsibility of an old game to its dedicated fanbase, stuff that's highly sought after in this industry these days: Consumer trust and positive PR.
You guys want that. I know it.