I like to imagine the blame falls on the production testers. Granted, a big part of that is envy but there’s something really satisfying about being angry on a bunch of spineless interns that just finished their game or media studies and supplying SD with feedback without having a clue what they’re actually talking about.
Well at least this time he announced he wouldn’t be coming back. That’s different in other threads.
[QUOTE=Kendle;357862]I meant to mention this earlier, as a lot of people seem to be holding up SD’s past achievements as something they should have aspired to with Brink, but let’s add a bit of realism here …
In making ET SD took RTCW, added some stuff that made it worse, and made 6 maps, 5 of which were instantly consigned to the trash can by the comp community. If it were not for ETPro (and later game altering mods) I doubt anyone here apart from a few oldies like me would even remember the game had ever existed.
With ET:QW SD took what they did wrong with ET and expanded upon it, taking the game down a road most of the ET playerbase were no longer travelling (which is partly the reason way more people are still playing ET compared to ET:QW).
I don’t mean this in a derogatory sense, but simply to add some realism to the debate. SD have yet to make a successful PC game all by themselves, so complimenting them on past glories as a pre-cursor to criticising Brink is to give credit where credit is not due. Of all the “good stuff” that most of us would’ve liked to have seen in Brink SD were responsible for pretty much none of it (ET:QW server browser being the exception).
Brink was their chance to show they actually could make a good objective team game that appealed to the masses. No-one in their right mind could claim they succeeded. 99% of the game’s initial playerbase deserting in less than 2 months tells a story that can’t be misunderstood.
But … the situation is, amazingly, recoverable IMO.
Brink is a “nearly” game.
The movement is nearly there, but we need an optional separate sprint key to allow those of us annoyed by the game controlling our movement to not allow it to do so.
The player interaction is nearly there (droppable syringes are a very “good thing” IMO) but we need separate keys for separate actions.
The gun play is nearly there (it’s low damage, which is good for this type of game and it’s major audience) but the spread is killing the enjoyment and replayability for many people. Just reduce the spread and balance the guns using the many other attributes at your disposal (recoil, damage, falloff etc.)
The maps are nearly there, but spoilt by the defense bias. Increase the defense spawn time, maybe move defenders spawn areas on a few maps (like CC) so as to adhere to the spawn rule that’s stood ET in good stead.
It’s not like Brink is complete and utter trash. It’s actually very enjoyable to play, for a while. It actually does look fairly good if you have a rig capable of running it with all the goodies turned on. There really is a playerbase out there just dying to get their hands on a new objective game.
If you can “make it so” SD I suspect a great many people will soon forgive you for not having made it so in the first place. Gamers are a fickle bunch, they’ll fall in love with you as quickly as out, if you give them the chance. :D[/QUOTE]
I disagree with your talk about W:ET and QW, the only reason that W:ET is played more is simple, it’s more accessible, it’s free and it runs on more systems then QW. Also, in W:ET you can just play it as a normal MP FPS game which is more attractive then the more technical Quake Wars.
I do agree about Brink to an extent, the GUI of Quake Wars + the lower spread would help this game tremendously, I don’t mind if the weapons do even less damage if the spreads get overall lowered (and more bullets, or just let the soldier be more important on the field)
I’m just glad that someone is still making low damage + strafing + hipfire shooters. I’m thankful that Brink exists…and hope that Splash Damage sold enough copies to keep building on their style of class-based teamplay.
The worst thing to me is just that they didnt use the community for beta testing neither released demo, thats what made me not buy the game for sure…
We were on the forums for like 2 years or more discussing about how to implement this and that, and even if it wasnt allways consensual, the ideas were great IMO, it’s like SD took the worst of them and let everything else down…
Plus from what I heard some features are just utterly missed… How can you expect that some comp will start without any demo and without any spectating first person? I’m not a “hardcore progamer”, as my background is clearly more pub oriented, but still, I understand that the competition is what makes a game lasting (maybe not selling more) longer than anything else, you must be blind not seing this.
Well hatz (pink ones indeed) off to rahdo for these posts anyway! Dont take some ppl wrong here, I think the fact that you get critics is because people love the work you’ve done but want moar cause they all see the Brink’s potential. I for one never cared about trying to talk to the BC2 dev forum for exemple… I just played the game a bit, saw it was crap in my book, never played it again, plain and simple. The fact that you still have people here discussing bout Brink is a proff that you still can save the boat 
Do eet Nao!
Obviously, even the gloaters have left the forum. Tragically The first people to care also happen to be the last people to care.
The competition community only make up fraction of the ET player base, while they may not have liked the extra stuff that made their beloved RTCW ‘worse’ a lot of people did and have expanded that within ET in the form of mods like jaymod, no quarter and such which account for the majority of populated servers in ET today afaik.
I seem to remember playing oasis and fueldump a lot in CB matches in the early days also, you make it sound a lot worse than it actually was. You are right that ETPro saved the game though. 
ET:QW they almost got right but the map size and spam was off putting, everything else was pretty fine in my opinion. I didn’t want another ET or RTCW and luckily that wasn’t what ET:QW was, ET:QW’s main problem was most likely was that it had ‘Enemy Territory’ in the name (don’t take that super seriously).
ET:QW is a strange one, they are a number of factors that led to it’s demise half of which have nothing to do with the gameplay itself, ranked servers/stats, open beta, Activision cutting support, COD4 released 2 week later and such.
The game did have some flaws, there is no denying that but it was a well rounded game and should have been a lot more popular than it was.
Anyway SD do deserve some credit, ET was unfinished yet still quite fun, ET:QW was their first ‘proper’ title and was a more polished game but not quite all there, we know they can do better, this is the main point I think people are trying to make when they mention their past titles.
EDIT: was reply to Kendle, typed over lunch whilst eating!
[QUOTE=.Chris.;357828]
Calm down
You will always get folk on either end of the spectrum. I wouldn’t read too much into the “hero” statement.
Anyway back on topic, yeah I agree there is quite a bit of hand holding outside of SMART resulting in ‘lost’ control that isn’t really needed for the PC, haven’t a clue about the console versions though, maybe some console players like to post their thoughts on the matter?[/QUOTE]
I assumed when he said hero he was exaggerating or just basing on me saying “you have to keep ET:QW close to your heart and learn to judge Brink as its own game”. Or something like that, I forget exactly how I put it.(I am not gonna go back through the minefield to find it:wink:) There are no heros around here. But many of my posts come down to: I just try to be realistic.
I don’t make the games. I end up as the whipping post, but there are many people on the forum, not just console guys, who do like Brink. And this is an open discussion no matter how anyone wants to downplay member’s opinions.
Its an open discussion. As long as you do it in a mature fashion, which I believe I do. There are many opinions and ideas for improvements in here and not every single one is just a PC feature of the game. Like customization as an example. I think it works well in Brink. It can be improved, sure. SMART system; There are places on the maps that I’ve practiced the trick jumps and I highly doubt that everyone has mastered where they are or how to do them.
A lot of the changes I’d suggest to improve Brink are mainly cosmetic rather than radical changes. Like maybe destructible environments, larger explosions with more smoke. More character lines when you’re playing; just more stuff to enhance immersion.
My name keeps coming up in posts, but honestly, it often smacks of gamers lashing out in anger rather than actually reading what I’ve said, or accepting that there are other perspectives of the game that have merit.
Some act like this particular thread lives in a vacuum, like all the other PC posts raging about every aspect of the game never happened. Or that ET:QW has not been brought up in this thread and the discussion. Which is absurd. Or that some people have posted over and over that they were deceived and lied to about what the game was gonna be. Basically, what I posted came down to we all want Brink to continue to improve, and I for one want to see other Brink games. It doesn’t make me blind; it makes me realistic. There are no perfect games. And many of Brink’s flaws are debatable. Please do not think that your ideas are 100% the bible just because you play on a PC.
I for one want to see other Brink games. It doesn’t make me blind; it makes me realistic. There are no perfect games. And many of Brink’s flaws are debatable. Please do not think that your ideas are 100% the bible just because you play on a PC.
If you like the console, that’s great, I personally find it more enjoyable than the PC as well. But in no way does that detract from the pointed out flaws on the PC. First I gave you the benefit of doubt but now it’s obvious that you keep treating all platforms as the same to just get a rise out of people.
[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;357884]I assumed when he said hero he was exaggerating or just basing on me saying “you have to keep ET:QW close to your heart and learn to judge Brink as its own game”. Or something like that, I forget exactly how I put it.(I am not gonna go back through the minefield to find it:wink:) There are no heros around here. But many of my posts come down to: I just try to be realistic.
I don’t make the games. I end up as the whipping post, but there are many people on the forum, not just console guys, who do like Brink. And this is an open discussion no matter how anyone wants to downplay member’s opinions.
Its an open discussion. As long as you do it in a mature fashion, which I believe I do. There are many opinions in here and not every single one is just a PC feature of the game. Like customization as an example. I think it is works well in Brink. It can be improved, sure. SMART system; There are places on the maps that I’ve practiced the trick jumps and I highly doubt that everyone has mastered where they are how to do them.
A lot of the changes I’d suggest to improve Brink are mainly cosmetic rather than radical changes. Like maybe destructible environments, larger explosions with more smoke. More character lines when you’re playing; just more stuff to enhance immersion.
My name keeps coming up in posts, but honestly, it often smacks of gamers lashing out in anger rather than actually reading what I’ve said, or accepting that there are other perspectives of the game that have merit.
Some act like this particular thread lives in a vacuum, like all the other PC posts raging about every aspect of the game never happened. Or that ET:QW has not been brought up in this thread and the discussion. Which is absurd. Or that some people have posted over and over that they were deceived and lied to about what the game was gonna be. Basically, what I posted came down to we all want Brink to continue to improve, and I for one want to see other Brink games. It doesn’t make me blind; it makes me realistic. There are no perfect games. And many of Brink’s flaws are debatable. Please do not think that your ideas are 100% the bible just because you play on a PC. :)[/QUOTE]
sometimes you don’t seem to understand the discussion, much less the context.
[QUOTE=.Chris.;357882]I seem to remember playing oasis and fueldump a lot in CB matches in the early days also, you make it sound a lot worse than it actually was. You are right that ETPro saved the game though.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, and deliberately so, because there seems to be an opinion around here (to be expected I suppose) that SD are the Gods of the objective team game, when they’re not and we shouldn’t be putting them on such a pedestal.
Yes, they’ve done some good stuff, but mostly what contributed to ET’s success, and a lesser extent ET:QW’s, isn’t of SD’s design, they inherited most of the core mechanics of objective based teamplay from other people, and a lot of the success of their previous titles was also the result of someone else’s work rather than their own.
you left pc scene for last … why?
bad company 2 sold very very good on pc scene.
Just cause in the chaos, noone is happy, probably you didnt make a good valutation
Curious if rahdo or someone could comment on steamworks and the impact that may have had on some decisions, mainly interface. It really took care of many organizational factors such as clan grouping outside of the game, too bad the “join on” option was spotty.
I honestly don’t know what part he’s more deluded about, that he thinks Brink is perfect the way it is, or that he thinks he has any idea about the PC side of things at all. Personally I think he just wants to not feel left out cos the devs are talking to the PC players and he wants to feel special.
I agree with what Dazman has said more or less. To say dedicated servers were a ‘sacrifice’ for a PC game, and some of the other stuff that was mentioned almost gives me the impression that Brink getting a PC version at all was an after thought, a “sure but work on it in your own time” part of the deal. Any work that took away from working on the console version sounds grudged at times, but SD wanted to give the PC players something rather than no game at all.
[QUOTE=thesuzukimethod;357025]totally understand the frustration that some of this stuff didnt make it in (yet, or at all). Will say, many of the responses sound like the sorts of brainstorming you do when you’re thinking about what you would like to do before you go through the process of actually coding/working it up to make it happen, and are pretty non-commital, so to call them lies seem hyperbolic…that, plus the age of this interview (almost 2 years back) = not surprised it’s not exactly as it was envisioned at that point in time.
hopefully some of this stuff is still on the way (comments regarding comp tweaks for PC give me hope that you guys will get some of what you want)[/QUOTE]
I am still here ^.
I just wish he’d realise that this thread is discussing the PC version of the game, and stop throwing around things like “PC players don’t know everything”. We know a good deal more than he does, when it comes to the faults of the PC version - of which there are quite a few, and of which very few are truly debatable. The fact that some people “put up with” these faults does not somehow make them irrelevant or arguable. And he has the gall to accuse US of not reading his posts!
The second sentence is but a small part of it… it’s just fascinating and revealing to see what people can map on to a general statement.
There are some things I wish we could have changed, and other things that some have griped about that I absolutely wouldn’t.
Rawr!
Staying away because the title of the thread denotes it being another’s realm. If you’ve got something for others to address, just make another thread.
[QUOTE=Exedore;357903]The second sentence is but a small part of it… it’s just fascinating and revealing to see what people can map on to a general statement.
wouldn’t.[/QUOTE]
Speaking about Maps, how’s the submissions to MS and Sony going? 
