Rahdo's words - what happened here?

[peteXnasty]

Wolf nemesis go throw your keyboard in a lake please

[BMXer]

@Rahdo

Obviously PC games require a lot more small features than console games. Whatever the reason, there were clearly many PC only features that were left out of Brink.
It seem to me that developing a game for the PC first and then simplifying to work on the consoles would be the best and easiest route. Do the limitations put on developers by Sony and Microsoft make that impossible now? Forcing devs to built console games and port them to the PC at the last minute?$?$

[ScumBag]

Go back and review that thread link that was posted by the OP BMXer:

http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=forum&mode=item&id=34870#comment1152679

“our goal first and foremost is to ensure that everyone can pay their rent”

The goal with this game was to make something which sold well. To do that, you focus on creating a broadly accessible console game. Games which fit this description are the cash-cows of todays gaming industry. SD have clearly stated (both directly and implied with Brink) that this is the direction they are going.

They got my money with Brink, based on the strength of their previous games. They will not get my money for the next one, based on the weaksauce of Brink.

Way to pay the rent SD. Good luck on that 30 year mortgage. :oppressor:

[crazyfoolish]

Lol all COD game modes might as well be free for all with partial friendly fire.

Good thread and lots of love to Rahdo.

Theoretically is it possible for a developer to only develop for PC and make a profit?
TWI seems to be doing ok.

[burawura]

There were several things we were planning to do with ironsights that were unique (and I thought, cool), and not all of them made it in. One of the ones that did was the “adjusted iron sight” attachment, which is a small thing (as I said, i doubt you guys would care anyway), but I know I prefer using it.

You missed the point. The point is that you said ironsighting would remove all spread, which it does not.

dedicated servers. This took time and resourses, dedicated coder support, and the time spent on them meant that other features suffered (party support, lobbies, etc.), and those were features that would have improved our review scores if we’d prioritized them. But we wanted you guys to have dedi servers, and so we sacrificed in other areas.

You make it sound like you’re doing us a favor giving us dedicated servers. This is a make or break for me and many others. If you didn’t have dedicated servers in Brink, I just plain would not have purchased it, regardless of whatever else it had.

Another example: we got a fair bit of negative critism about how the guns “don’t feel as good as CoD”, and we knew we’d get hit with that, because we were going for lower damage weapons. Why? Because we wanted to be true (as we could be) to the core gameplay that the ET games have already had, so that was a conscious sacrifice to our review scores we knew we were making to make the game more PC comp centric.

You miss the point again; the problem with the guns is not their damage. It’s their wild spread and inaccuracy. From what I’ve seen the gunplay in Brink is nowhere near the gunplay in ET. How does giving the guns huge spread and terrible accuracy stay true the core gameplay of ET? Did you even understand the core gameplay of ET? I feel I have a better understanding of it just from watching youtube videos (I’ve never played it) than you do.

As I said in the original quote, I’m bummed the PC guys don’t like it more, because a lot of that stuff was done for you, but cest la vie.

I am grateful for the effort that you showed in getting the game done with the most features you could. But the effort you put into understanding the PC players’ concerns was not there.

At what point have I EVER represented myself as a PC gamer? You can read dozens of interviews with me where I point out I’m a console guy, through and through. That’s why I was having the dialog with you guys to better understand how we could make the game work for you (while still making a game that would sell well on console, which fortunately we achieved). Believe me, as I stated above, it would have been so much easier to ignore PC, but we didn’t want to do that, I didn’t want to do that, and we didn’t do that. We spent literally thousands of manhours doing PC only code and features. Not as many as we wanted, obviously, but there’s only so many hours in a day, and we had limits. So we did our best under tight tight circumstances. In the end, we don’t have millions of players on PC, but we stil do have many thousands (bear in mind that the maximum concurrent users is always only a fraction of the total base), and we still want to make the game better for them wherever we can (updated server browser, getting updates and fixes out, DLC, etc.)

Oh. The fact that you do not play PC games at all and yet were hired as the creative director for Brink puzzles and saddens me. You do not have many thousands of players playing this game on PC, you have many tens, as in not more than a few hundred every day. That is a colossal failure. Nevertheless, I appreciate the fact that you guys continue to work on the patches and DLC.

There were plenty of features that had to get cut that were for console players too, believe me. The list of cut features is pretty long, and pretty bloody, and hits PC and console features equally. But we made the calls we made ensure what remained would be better. Did we get every call right? Nope, we’re only human. But we did the best we could in a difficulty situation, and fortunately, Bethesda was supportive to give us the extra time to improve stuff, for as long as they could

Do you feel that multiplatform game development does justice to the people that truly love video games? Would you rather work on a multiplatform or single-platform game next?

For the record, what I meant by the “let’s not mince words” quote was talking about certain ET features that were really important to me, personally. Those were objective driven gameplay that encourages people to actually work together as a team. I believe in that regard, we are carrying on where ET left off, I believe it completely. To me, that was always the most important goal for dev of Brink. And every time I play a pub game, and other human players buff my kevlar, or give me revive, or protect me while I’m doing an objective (all of which happen a lot), I’m reminded that we did succeed. That we created a game that gets strangers actually working together instead of everyone lonewolfing. That’s special, that’s my feeling of what ET did so importantly.

What? Buffing people with the F key makes you feel like Brink is doing what ET did so importantly? Nooooo…the things that are important to you personally about ET don’t matter so much as what’s important to former ET players, man. You have misunderstood what we enjoy about these games, or at best you are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

Bura, to you and everyone else who feels that way (that we set outto deceive you), I’m sorry you feel that way, and please see my quote above, from august 2009, where I set the parameters of what Brink would be. Again, I could have done better repeating that over the ensuing 2 years, but I remember I did repeat it a lot back then, and I figured everyone understood. Clearly I could have done better.

Point taken. I should have known with the multiplatform deal. The warning signs were there for me to see, it’s just that there were so many positive signs as well. The previous games from SD being foremost of those.

WolfNem is now my new personal hero. He said it so much better than I could have (since it’s what I was trying to say back in aug 09, see bolded quote above). And I hope that if you can do that, and enjoy the game you bought.

I’ve honestly tried, and I did enjoy myself quite alot while I was still learning all the things the game had to offer. I’ve played this game for 160+ hours, but the thing you need to understand is that the way alot of us PC players like to play games, that’s just getting our feet wet. We expected to play this game for thousands of hours. This is our hobby (and for some our sport) as well as our relaxing time.

I already mentioned this earlier, but if you feel that way, then it means we did too good a job making parkour usage require dedication and exploration. With the benefit of hindsight, we maybe should have made it all more obvious, but that was one of those sacrifices we thought we were making to mass market players to appease hardcore. But I guess maybe that one backfired?

That’s just insulting to PC players and quake players especially. Are you honestly insinuating that we haven’t properly been able to learn the SMART? The fact is that SMART is nowhere near as deep (or useful, arguably) as the movement system from the previous game. You passed over the issue, because you do not understand it. Go make an account on Quake Live and try the strafejumping tutorial; it’s free and fun.

In summary I am disappointed by your replies. You seem like a nice guy and a hard worker that just doesn’t get the PC player’s perspective. I appreciate your effort but the old DIY ethos comes to mind after reading all this: if we want a decent team fps that isn’t TF2, we’re going to have to make it ourselves. Bring on the mod tools.

[Jess_Alon]

Ha ha ha on PC gamers staying out of a console only thread. that’s a stretch. wow. Believe me, I can make a laundry list of stuff I think could improve Brink and sales, but I am pretty sure you’d not like them.

Wolf. He is right. It is PC gamers discussing an old thread related to PC gaming promises. Us console guys don’t really need to intervene (and I admit I talked out of my ass some in this thread), but if there’s no reason to comment then we shouldn’t regardless of how good we think what we have to say is. I’m not going to jump in on a thread about what it’s like to be in some totally different culture I have no insight into regardless of what I think. And I shouldn’t have jumped in on this one to be honest.

To you PC guys. Sorry for sticking my nose into a dialogue I don’t have any place in.

Have a good one.

[Thundermuffin]

[QUOTE=crazyfoolish;357746]Lol all COD game modes might as well be free for all with partial friendly fire.

Good thread and lots of love to Rahdo.

Theoretically is it possible for a developer to only develop for PC and make a profit?
TWI seems to be doing ok.[/QUOTE]

There’s a new developer (combination of Painkiller and Witcher devs) making a PC only SP game and lots of people are gonna buy it just because it’s PC only. I might even pick it up even though I really don’t care for SP games.

[ScumBag]

There’s a new developer (combination of Painkiller and Witcher devs) making a PC only SP game and lots of people are gonna buy it just because it’s PC only.

“lots of people” who are < “people owning consoles”

Reading through all 12 pages of this thread, I think that the inevitable conclusion is that the days of the big-budget PC game is over. If, as stated, the goal of a modern game developer is to make lots of money, then PC gaming is dead.

Yes there are a few developers who work on PC exclusive titles, but they are small outfits who have a different business model. They are developing small, loyal fan bases who will buy up everything they produce. SD isn’t trying to do that. They are trying to crank out big, forgettable summer blockbusters. Crap for kids to sit in the AC and watch stuff blow-up for a couple of hours.

Good luck to them with that. Paul can buy some real fancy frames and leather jackets with his piles of console cash.

[Tandem]

Enlightened/Disappointed

@Rahdo,
saying WolfNemesis is your hero, tells me a lot.
Thank you clearing-up some of the issues that hadn’t been addressed yet.

@Everyone
Quality>Quantity is a better, and plainly just a more tasteful, approach in my opinion.
Someday, some developer will cash-in on the market for ex- RTCW players and even
ex- W:ET and/or ET:QW players, and will publish a game that I predict will shift the direction
of the mainstream shooters released as-of-late.

BBL

[Thundermuffin]

[QUOTE=ScumBag;357760]“lots of people” who are < “people owning consoles”

Reading through all 12 pages of this thread, I think that the inevitable conclusion is that the days of the big-budget PC game is over. If, as stated, the goal of a modern game developer is to make lots of money, then PC gaming is dead.

Yes there are a few developers who work on PC exclusive titles, but they are small outfits who have a different business model. They are developing small, loyal fan bases who will buy up everything they produce. SD isn’t trying to do that. They are trying to crank out big, forgettable summer blockbusters. Crap for kids to sit in the AC and watch stuff blow-up for a couple of hours.

Good luck to them with that. Paul can buy some real fancy frames and leather jackets with his piles of console cash.[/QUOTE]

Well VALVe, notch, and Blizzard seem to be making a buttload from us, don’t you think? Is our money not good enough for blockbuster developers?

PC gamers will come out and buy your title if it’s a quality title, there’s no doubt about that. It’s an untapped market now a days, and if you tap it and continue to make PC gamers feel good you’ll get lots of impulse buys for your games. That’s what SD had and that’s why so many people bought BRINK without ever seeing a lick of PC footage.

[ScumBag]

Right. But the thing you’re missing here is that being the next Valve, notch or Blizzard is HARD. It requires a lot of work, time and dedication to the craft. SDs goal isn’t to be any of those - the goal is to “pay the rent”. Notch wasn’t trying to pay the rent…you can pay the rent with a McJob. Notch was trying to make his vision reality and got rich in the process.

SD have taken their vision and turned it into a McJob. Crank out crap - pay the rent - rinse, repeat.

No thank you.

[Thundermuffin]

Yeah it sucks to think most coders/programmers/people who work on games in general don’t take a lot of pride in their work anymore. That’s one of the things I liked about SD, lol.

I know notch wasn’t trying to pay the rent, but my inclusion of him was to show if you make a fun, quality title, it will sell–a lot and for a long time. That’s a lot of money he has made with a small team and a small budget and it doesn’t look to be stopping any time soon. He hit the broad appeal of the market better than any other dev could, because so many people from every genre are playing this little 13$ game.

I understand that making games is hard, but being the next VALVe (in terms of catering to the specific platform and type of gamer) isn’t like going from playing pick up basketball to playing professional basketball. It’s taking that extra step to make sure everything is up to snuff (and this goes for all versions) and include features people really want (or at least tell them they’ll be in there sometime soon and follow through on it). It’s the small things after release that really make your game and company shine, like bringing in competitive gamers to closed betas, playing a match vs a pick up team of competitive gamers to really see what they do and how good they are at it, putting out a beta for everyone, taking emails and listening to and taking to heart the criticism people give you and build off the ideas that make your game better.

[Humate]

I already mentioned this earlier, but if you feel that way, then it means we did too good a job making parkour usage require dedication and exploration. With the benefit of hindsight, we maybe should have made it all more obvious, but that was one of those sacrifices we thought we were making to mass market players to appease hardcore. But I guess maybe that one backfired?

Sorry Rahdo, but that is simply not the case.
Its not a skill based movement system in the slightest.
A glorified jump-pad system, is probably a more appropriate description.

[Terminator514]

[QUOTE=Jess Alon;357752]Wolf. He is right. It is PC gamers discussing an old thread related to PC gaming promises. Us console guys don’t really need to intervene (and I admit I talked out of my ass some in this thread), but if there’s no reason to comment then we shouldn’t regardless of how good we think what we have to say is. I’m not going to jump in on a thread about what it’s like to be in some totally different culture I have no insight into regardless of what I think. And I shouldn’t have jumped in on this one to be honest.

To you PC guys. Sorry for sticking my nose into a dialogue I don’t have any place in.

Have a good one.[/QUOTE]

You have every right to, considering Rahdo (in this thread at least, not sure about the original) said there were features cut from the console versions too. Not that they were promised features, but the shear mention of them justifies a console player’s interest and participation in this thread.

[Chris2]

In regards to SMART and why people don’t perceive it as skillful as learning to strafejump and trick jump effectively.

I think a lot of it is down to that with SMART you are performing an extended ‘scripted’ (for the lack of a better term) action which you don’t feel fully in control off compared with old methods of jumping where you felt like you were in total control and as such felt more rewarded when you managed to pull off some nice maneuver to capture an objective or to get the jump on an enemy.

Perhaps for the next title which I assume will retain SMART you could perhaps have sprint and SMART on separate keys (as already suggested) and try retain some of the old movement style of previous games to allow players to move about the map again without as much assistance. I’m not sure how you could make it work though, I’ve not really thought it through much.

i dont know what your point is though. what does it have to do with brink?

I’m not sure either, he seems to think Brink is the only FPS to take a risk, I present a list of games that did and then he dismisses them for either not selling well (despite them actually selling well), been established PC games, (which weren’t when they were first released), is now free to play (which weren’t when released), not a ‘full’ game (which still managed to get high review scores) and so on then goes ahead and makes stuff up.

[Rahdo]

hey guys, i’ll try to find some time tonight after I get off work to reply more, but in the meantime, i just ask that you’re all polite in your posts, please? especially to each other. there’s just no reason to be rude when we’re all on the same side, and all want a better game, right?

[Kinjal]

hey guys, i’ll try to find some time tonight after I get off work to reply more, but in the meantime, i just ask that you’re all polite in your posts, please? especially to each other. there’s just no reason to be rude when we’re all on the same side, and all want a better game, right?

Hm, lets make it clear, first u stated what wolfnem is your new personal hero, after this words that guy has started another crusade against any1 who criticize Brink, so can I ask u please, its really your ideal?, guy who blindly , with foam at the mouth, attacking any “not a brink fan”? its seems yes, and I must agree with Tandem - “Thank you clearing-up some of the issues that hadn’t been addressed yet”.

[Verticae]

There’s a fix for that, though it’s pretty well-hidden.

[MoonOnAStick]

[QUOTE=.Chris.;357814]In regards to SMART and why people don’t perceive it as skillful as learning to strafejump and trick jump effectively.

I think a lot of it is down to that with SMART you are performing an extended ‘scripted’ (for the lack of a better term) action which you don’t feel fully in control of compared with old methods of jumping[/QUOTE]Totally agree. I’d broaden it out actually. Things like the “lock-on” delay for buffing/objective interaction and the fact your bullets spread so far from where you’re aiming, taken together with SMART, give a strange feeling of not being fully in control of one’s character.

for the next title which I assume will retain SMART you could perhaps have sprint and SMART on separate keys (as already suggested) and try retain some of the old movement style of previous games to allow players to move about the map again without as much assistance.
This would be great.

[riptide]

[QUOTE=BMXer;357742]@Rahdo

Obviously PC games require a lot more small features than console games. Whatever the reason, there were clearly many PC only features that were left out of Brink.
It seem to me that developing a game for the PC first and then simplifying to work on the consoles would be the best and easiest route. Do the limitations put on developers by Sony and Microsoft make that impossible now? Forcing devs to built console games and port them to the PC at the last minute?$?$[/QUOTE]

Here’s the best E3 Interview I’ve seen in a long time and it’s from one of the most respected programmers in the world. He is usually ahead of the curve and I think that’s demonstrated here yet again. Hopefully he isn’t the only developer that takes this stance.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/306236/news/id-softwares-john-carmack-20-minute-video-interview/

To paraphrase one important point “build/optimize for pc and deploy on console”