Devs need to find a new calling

(silicon_ghost) #1

I’ve gotten exactly 1 hour of gameplay in, trying a challenge. That was after wasting 2 hours NOT getting co-op working.

Where do I start?

The game was apparently designed for spazzes if you play solo. That’s fun? There is like zero strategy in the solo challenge. you die, you die, you die. Why? Because your teammates are idiots and the enemies respawn rapidly.

Ok, so ignoring gamestyle since maybe I’m not the target audience.

[ol]
[li]Co-op doesn’t work. Can’t connect to a friend. There is zero doco provided via Steam for playing the game. The tips posted by others didn’t work (and should not be needed in 2011).[/li][li]What is with the sound settings? THe game is messing with BOTH my headset volumes (I use Ventrilo, leave my damn headset alone). The voice volume (for the narrator) is far too low compared to everything else. If you adjust the master volume of your computer up to compensate, then lower the volume for all but dialog it is ok. BUT BUT BUT, the morons that wrote Brink DON’T read the game settings when all the bull**** screens during loading come up, each with their own little ditties. My neighbor six houses down now knows I’m loading Brink.[/li][li]Did I mention co-op doesn’t work? I think that was supposed to be like the number one selling point.[/li][/ol]

As a programmer myself, all of this points to a general lack of quality or caring about making a solid product. This is just plain lame. The volume issue is a simple one that any one of the dozens of programmers should have noticed in ALPHA and fixed it. If I could get a refund I would.

(LsDmT) #2

One word: YUP.

(Seyyerin) #3

devs were everywhere earlier recieving dxdiags from people with all sorts of problems. Judge the devs based on the speed they provide the patch. but as of right now they blow chunks.

fix ****ing something mass people payed you mass money.

(Ramziez) #4

Dude the game has been out for one day… it’s too early to pass judgement… nothing is perfect when it is released. So just be a good boy and wait for patches like mostly everyone else is. I’m having worse problems than not being able to do co-op you should be glad you can even play. I have faith in Splash Damage that they will be able to fix these problems. So don’t go around throwing your hate to a company that is working on fixing the problems in their game.

(Seyyerin) #5

i cant play either dude. my screen is solid blue. Splash doesn’t really have the experience with these issues, they have what 2 other games they developed? and if i remember correctly ETQW wasn’t really that great of a launch either? i hope they fix it, just these issues should have been addressed before launch.

(Sextron) #6

All issues that could have easily been fixed in an open beta. I guess what they meant when they said the game was finished, was that the console version was finished. Glad to see another PC game that’s really just a console port. Sigh…

Edit: Good. Glad to see my pointless post in a pointless thread goes through, while my reply with dxdiag info to a thread THAT I STARTED has been waiting for moderator approval for about two hours.

Makes sense.

(RumRunner) #7

  1. the game has been out for less than a day. chill.

  2. challenges are not the main game, the main game does not have insta-respawns. not to mention the objective challenge is the MOST annoying and difficult of all of the challenges.

  3. the co-op seems to be a bit hit-or-miss. some people can host and do co-op fine i’ve done both campaigns and the what-if missions co-op with 3 of my friends. only one of these was able to host, and i was unable to host as well. it is likely that this is a port-issue that should be fairly easy to resolve. (not positive but based on similar problems in other games it is a likely cause)

  4. did i mention that the game has been out for less than a day?

(silicon_ghost) #8

[QUOTE=RumRunner;297437]1. the game has been out for less than a day. chill.

  1. challenges are not the main game, the main game does not have insta-respawns. not to mention the objective challenge is the MOST annoying and difficult of all of the challenges.

  2. the co-op seems to be a bit hit-or-miss. some people can host and do co-op fine i’ve done both campaigns and the what-if missions co-op with 3 of my friends. only one of these was able to host, and i was unable to host as well. it is likely that this is a port-issue that should be fairly easy to resolve. (not positive but based on similar problems in other games it is a likely cause)

  3. did i mention that the game has been out for less than a day?[/QUOTE]

Apparently, expecting a highly-hyped and anticipated ONLINE CO-OP game that I can’t play co-op is setting my sights too high on day 1. We aren’t talking about fine tuning game balance or doing anything related to end-game missions.

I chose the first challenge of the first batch of challenges listed. If Splash Damage had any kind of competent project lead I wouldn’t have to find out from you that I happened to pick the ****tiest challenge (silly me for assuming that there was some sort of implied “early challenges are easier than later challenges”). I was playing the challenge while my friend tried umpteen more tricks trying to get the co-op working, including dedicated server; we wanted to save the main mission sequence for co-op only.

And your explanation for why after years of development they can’t even get sound levels correct?

Oh, did I mention the game shipped as a co-op game and I can’t play co-op.

If Splash Damage gives me a refund I’ll happily stop bitching here and spend my money with someone who cares about releasing quality product on day 1.

As for the game being out 1 day? They’ve been testing it internally for MONTHS if not a year. If they want me to beta test it, give it to me for free and I will consider buying it when it is really released.

My impression is that they spent WAY too much time making it pretty (I am impressed with the skinning and skeletal/muscle engine) and too little time on like game play and competent AI teammates. I played Halo (God knows how many years ago) and the marines there showed far more useful AI than I saw in 1 challenge tonight. I played Halo on an original XBox (266 Mhz?). I played Brink tonight on a Core i7 Quad overclocked to 3.7Ghz. Pretty hard to tell me that there was no CPU budget available for AI.

Consider me completely underwhelmed for paying $50 to tie up several gigs of my SSD on incomplete software. I made a mistake in trusting Splash Damage and Bethesda. I knew nothing of the former but held the latter in high regard overall. I will take my $50 lesson and never buy another Splash Damage product until I can get it from the bargain bin or used. For Bethesda I will wait for a review I trust.

(master[mind]) #9

There is a very simple reason the AI in challenges suck…your supposed to practice the techniques, your AI is not supposed to help. They can buff, they can kill, and if they don’t die from the large number of enemies, they will help defend(had it happen multiple times). The point of the challenges is to learn.

(sereNADE) #10

op needs to find a new calling close to _______________ (fill in the blank)

funnies.

(DarkangelUK) #11

As far as I’m aware coop requires someone to connect to you, therefore ports need to opened via your router… and your software firewall (if you have one) allowing access to those ports… and pinholes opened via windows firewall if active. Did SD create the rules of NAT? No…

As for sound issues, I’m sure they’re valid… i’ll see on friday.

(nocaffeine) #12

I’m not having any of the problems you are having.

Maybe it’s your computer or maybe it’s you. You definitely seem to be an alarmist who likes blowing things out of proportion and exaggerating.

(silicon_ghost) #13

[QUOTE=nocaffeine;298078]I’m not having any of the problems you are having.

Maybe it’s your computer or maybe it’s you. You definitely seem to be an alarmist who likes blowing things out of proportion and exaggerating.[/QUOTE]

Ooooh, that hurts, lol. Dude, I’ve been gaming since 1976 and writing software since the early 80’s. I know how to set up routers. I’ve even built custom Linux routers with handbuilt firewall settings. I don’t have a scruffy beard but I’ve even written software on SunOS and HP-UX.

There is a game out there called Borderlands. You might have heard of it. My friend and I preordered it on Steam. The first night we connected INSTANTLY over this wonderful thing called the internets (or interwebs). I didn’t have to **** with my router or anything. For games where we have had to open ports, you open them and the game works. Brink? This piece of **** doesn’t tell you that you need ports open, which ones, apparently never heard of UPNP, and gives you NOTHING in the way of a diagnostic to tell you why the **** it says “unable to connect to server” (or whatever the damn phrase is).

I’ve been writing code for 30 years. How many years have you been doing it? I suppose you also walk up to farmers and tell them that the manure on the ground isn’t cow****.

(silicon_ghost) #14

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;298066]As far as I’m aware coop requires someone to connect to you, therefore ports need to opened via your router… and your software firewall (if you have one) allowing access to those ports… and pinholes opened via windows firewall if active. Did SD create the rules of NAT? No…

As for sound issues, I’m sure they’re valid… i’ll see on friday.[/QUOTE]

Opened them, turned off my firewall. Didn’t work. Did SD bother to even use half a brain cell and TEST the damn networking behind an average router? I don’t think so. Did they follow industry best practices? No. Why can I play Call of Duty, Borderlands and a ton of other games with minimal fiddling while wasting HOURS ****ing with network settings gets me nowhere with Brink?

In case you haven’t noticed, co-op isn’t a brand-new phenomenon. Making it work behind routers and NAT is not impossible. SD chose to be sloppy and deserves to get their ear chewed off for being either lazy, incompetent or indifferent.

(system) #15

[QUOTE=silicon_ghost;298181]Opened them, turned off my firewall. Didn’t work. Did SD bother to even use half a brain cell and TEST the damn networking behind an average router? I don’t think so. Did they follow industry best practices? No. Why can I play Call of Duty, Borderlands and a ton of other games with minimal fiddling while wasting HOURS ****ing with network settings gets me nowhere with Brink?

In case you haven’t noticed, co-op isn’t a brand-new phenomenon. Making it work behind routers and NAT is not impossible. SD chose to be sloppy and deserves to get their ear chewed off for being either lazy, incompetent or indifferent.[/QUOTE]

But how can this be, they released it a week early, because is was perfect.

(Fox!) #16

I’m starting to be inclined to agree. I feel like most of these problems would have been solved if they ran a Beta. I mean, I’d rather have the release date pushed back rather than have problems running even on the console versions. My game won’t even run because I have a constant OpenGL crash and since none of the devs are even replying about anything or even letting us know they’re working on something, it makes me really regret my purchase.

(nlaak) #17

[QUOTE=nocaffeine;298078]I’m not having any of the problems you are having.

Maybe it’s your computer or maybe it’s you. You definitely seem to be an alarmist who likes blowing things out of proportion and exaggerating.[/QUOTE]

An alarmist? He’s just saying what many of us feel. You must be an idiot to think the problems are all his. Have you bothered to read the threads here, in bethsoft.com and on Steam? They are FULL of people having significant, serious problems. The most prevalent of which are coop related. Which, funny enough, is one of the primary complaints of the OP.

With the number of complaints being received it’s quite clear that either Splash Damage has to have been already aware of the problems (as they would have shown in beta) or to have performed only rudimentary testing in a major feature. Which is it? Take your pick. Either way it’s a sign of a company that shipped a poorly tested product.

I’m having some of the same problems as the OP (most notably coop network issues) and I can tell you, it’s not my machine. I play coop Games on steam on a regular basis and have never had issues before. Steam is solid, Brink is not.

Even if Brink had a solid coop mode, I’d still have complaints. Why? Lack of documentation. How the ***** was I supposed to know I needed to open ports 27015, 27016 and 8766? How was I supposed to know it doesn’t support uPnP? Come on, that’s software development 101: if the user needs information to use the product GIVE IT TO THEM.

I paid good money for a product expecting a good faith effort from the developer. Yes, I expect there might be some problems (I’m a software developer by trade and can say that no program of this size can be entirely bug free) but I expect that a developer would have done significant testing on the major features of the product and would communicate with users (gamers) about issues and their plans solve them.

As for some of the other posters here advocating giving the developers time, my question is why? We’ve paid for it, why should we be expected to wait for a quality product? When you buy a computer, a car or a house do you figure I’ve just spent $1000 or $40000 or $250000 on this, but it’s ok if the manufacturer takes a couple of weeks, months, years to get it right. I don’t mind. Let them make money off of me while I’m unable to use the product to the limit of (at least) the advertised features/functions. Why do some people seem to want to give software developers a free pass at this? Because it’s easier to ‘fix’? BS! They (I) have it a lot easier in that we can test to a ridiculous degree without building anything, without spending capital costs, hell without getting out of their chairs.

So, maybe you should get off the alarmist soapbox and stop being a shill for a (currently) PoS game.

(nlaak) #18

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;298066]As far as I’m aware coop requires someone to connect to you, therefore ports need to opened via your router… and your software firewall (if you have one) allowing access to those ports… and pinholes opened via windows firewall if active. Did SD create the rules of NAT? No…

As for sound issues, I’m sure they’re valid… i’ll see on friday.[/QUOTE]

Have you heard of uPnP? It’s not new technology and it completely obviates the need to open ports in a firewall. But, regardless of that I’ve opened the discussed ports and have seen no change in the functioning of the coop mode. Are there ports other than the three mentioned here (and elsewhere)? Maybe. But, regardless of that, the lack of documentation and feedback from the developers means that there’s no way anyone would know. How the heck are we supposed to deal with that.

(jRAD) #19

Let’s keep the feedback constructive, folks.