News: Daybreak Games Hit With Layoffs, Matt Higby resigns

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.

Figment · 2015-03-09, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

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.

We had several people on the Community Council for PlanetSide since 2010. Did it for three years myself. Unfortunately we didn't get to chat to devs at the 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.

Heh well yeah I can imagine it would be and fully understand you don't (nor expected you to) share that sort of thing (right away) anyway.

Besides, there'd need to be a company plan, though of course, it would be possible to first see if there'd be interest among former devs to work on it in their off-hours before even considering such a plan.

I very much doubt they would come together anywhere any time soon though. I'd more imagine a sort of "work from home" situation, whenever they'd feel like it (but being offered the chance to if they would want to) and organise themselves. Meh.

I wonder how the people who work on Europa Universalis IV MEIOU Mods work together on it. I presume through dropbox type setups.

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

Eh. Never hurts to ask.

Mordelicius · 2015-03-10, 04:53 AM

Planetside 2 Devs "wishlist"

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...estige.216588/

They are getting ahead of themselves again.

So, they aim on saving the 80-100BR bracket while the 1-79 are quitting left and right.

They have yet to provide compelling reasons to level up to BR 80 in the first place (much less BR100). They gave means to but no good reasons for. As it is, it's all gun levelling/grinding.

That's like handing someone tools and telling them 'climb that mountain' without giving any reasons why.

Besides, the reasons why those 80-100 BR are still playing is because they
- are a newbie hardcore grinder
- are die hard veterans
- content with the current grinding/farming 'meta'.

Those who already quit or quit at low levels obviously don't find it attractive. Hence, why focus on those who are already content?

So, instead of that they ought to focus on reimplementing a sound and foundational Resource System. The same mechanics that players have been waiting for since June (?) last year. The same resource mechanics they unduly destroyed for the sake of the Directive system.

But currently, the Wishlist ideas they present are simply bunk, backwards and out of touch.

A good resource mechanic will:

- give players who quit a reason to come back give it another go.
- give new players reason to stay in the first place.
- be inviting to BR 1 - 100 and not just on (80-100BR

. Why?)

And lastly, to be exact.
- Allowing players to switch side is not in the spirit of faction warfare. Allowing an account to access is already bad as it is. Now they are literally just treating it as a lobby shooter. This is an MMO not a Lobby multiplayer game. Why use FPS as inspiration or standard?

It's like PS2 is trying to build that tallest building but they end up with deep ditch and the building buried in with only 4 floors showing because that what the other FPS are 4 floors only.

"We made the tallest building ever!"
"Where is it?"
"Here it is, buried with only 4 floors showing"
"Whyyy?"
"Look around you, every one has 4 floors only. We still have the tallest building though. Only it is buried". Planetside 2 logic

Why make the only modern MMOFPS if you are aiming to build a Lobby FPS shooter?????

- Resetting levels is also inane because players will not sacrifice all their levels unless they are given a something really useful for it, like power.

Example: In a very old MMO Shaiya. Getting players to max level at Normal mode unlocks Hard Mode (which is more powerful). Maxing a Hard Mode player unlocks Ultimate Mode (which is extremely powerful, but the downside is it Permadeath and cash shop dependent to maintain). Players did anyway despite the gut-wrenching Permadeath mechanic, because the pvp was great with open PvPvE high-end dungeons (no instanced garbage) and contestable access to high end maps.

So unless, they give something like more power. Players arent' going to reroll with that kind of system.

**Muldoon** · 2015-03-10, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Mordelicius

Planetside 2 Devs "wishlist"

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...estige.216588/

They are getting ahead of themselves again.

So, they aim on saving the 80-100BR bracket while the 1-79 are quitting left and right.

The other two items on our wishlist are aimed at helping new players. The BR unlocks give them goals to work towards every session they log in. The facility missions will guide them along a base capture. And Then there's Koltyr which is all about acclimating and helping new players.

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.

**Muldoon** · 2015-03-09, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Babyfark McGeez

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.

A lot of people ask us to do stuff for free, or at a loss, for stuff like that. If we were all rich and making money hand over fist, it would be much easier to get us to do stuff like that.

Babyfark McGeez · 2015-03-10, 07:43 AM

Originally Posted by Muldoon

A lot of people ask us to do stuff for free, or at a loss, for stuff like that. If we were all rich and making money hand over fist, it would be much easier to get us to do stuff like that.

I hear ya, if i would make that money i'd probably start my own planetside knock-off.

The thing is though, studios usually moderate the stuff they're running on their servers. And quite frankly, that is to be expected. I mean PS1 is after all an official SOE product, isn't it?
Letting PS1 run completely unmoderated just looks bad, the game looks and feels like a crappy emulated server, and everyone who sees or experiences that can get a bad picture of the whole studio that way (I know a couple of people who reacted like that when i showed them PS1; "SOE is letting PS1 run like...THIS? Wow...").

I know making it free was supposed to be a nice move (while also saving costs), and i absolutely appreciate the sentiment behind that, don't get me wrong.
But seeing PS1 in its current state - "Party drops", no Core Combat, hackers you cannot do anything about - and all in an official SOE game...well man, i'm being brutally honest here, you might aswell just have pulled the plug.
If you can't properly maintain a game, then don't do it non-properly.

Tl;dr: Money or not, bloody moderate the stuff you're letting run on your official servers. Or work out a deal with people like Figment so we can moderate it for you.

Please.