It’s also not like the average gamer doesn’t care about weapon balance. They accept whatever they encounter as the status quoe but still he game will just not ‘feel right’ maybe think it’s just him and quit without specifying what’s wrong about it. It’s just geeks that are vocal about these things but that doesn’t mean they don’t apply to the rest of the playerbase.
Though that obviously doesn’t mean we’re speaking on their behalf, it just means it’s not an isolate case.
I don’t think anyone would say the game didn’t launch successfully. I think the concern is that post release, sales and users fell sharply*. This to me is worrying not for Brink (it is what it is) but for SD’s reputation, even more so if SD as a company is rationalising** such events as being due to anything but issues with the game’s design. This is why, for me at least, I’m concerned with the reception, longevity and success of Brink, because failure or ignorance of failings will mean no more SD in one way or another.
** I don’t buy the whole, it’s a new IP thing if you’re also playing the it sold well out the gate card. It’s far too contradictory IMO. Likewise for competing against existing franchises, you had massive interest but didn’t hold it, surely the hurdle is getting players to try? Once they have the game it’s your job to convince them this is more fun than CoD or BFBC2 (come on you should have wiped the floor with that game!).
Anyway. I appreciate the effort to get things right and inject some juice into the game’s heart. I’m not sure it’ll help without also doing something drastic like a massive discount to bring in fresh players and hopefully kickstart more buzz. Of course the other issues brought up here need to be addressed first otherwise you end up back at square one anyway.
[QUOTE=Rahdo;359152]Well, the sales have been great (especially considering it’s a new IP) and the ongoing playerbase on console, while not what we’d hoped, is still respectible enough to be considered a success. As much as we’d like? Nope, but we’re hoping the free DLC will bring people back to try again, since during the first few weeks on 360, the lag was pretty bad, and since it’s much better now. Hopefully we’ll pick up a few players who wanted to play, but just couldn’t put up with the issues around launch. And hopefully some of the stuff we’re hoping to do with PC around the same time will help on that front. Fingers crossed 
A big part of CS’s success, and W:ET’s, is that they were literally given away for nothing. They are very popular games that didn’t make much money
Sorry, didn’t meant to derail your guy’s comparitive analysis, but just wanted to point out that most very important data point. ANd repeat that this is something that’s not lost on us.
Originally Posted by jazevec
I think it would be better to never release a PC version of Brink
Is that the general sentiment here? By the same token, should we just stop our attempts to give you guys an experience closer to your expectations?
[/QUOTE]
For a primarily multiplayer focused game can you honestly say the population is good. Yes the sales were great because many were led to beleive brink was going to revolutionize the FPS genre. So preorders and first week sales were great. We can all see (even most of the fans) that this was nothing but marketing making us drink the preorder now Kool-aid. Congrats on selling a bunch, but pleasing few.
Counterstrike at first was a free Half-life mod. Wow look how important SDK’s can be to the genre.
When it became an official game it sold 4.1 million copies and that does not include the quantities sold on steam.
You once mentioned how successful valve was. Amazing how is it possible that a company can make an sdk for almost every game and still turn a profit. Oh and they don’t charge for DLC’s… WHAT!!! That Gabe must be up to some VooDoo.
By the same token should we never purchase a game that has SD or your name associated with it? We payed for a product that was flawed and incomplete. You are not doing this out of the goodness of your own heart. If you don’t keep fixing this game then you won’t sell the half dozen or more DLC’s that are probably near completion. We know all those grayed out buldings on the map are not there just for show. Do not take us for fools.
One last reason you need to continue support is reputation and future product sales. If you were to leave Brink as it is or was how well would your next game be received?
I’m sure your a top notch guy and fun to go out and have a beer with, but your not what the original SD was about. Your a business guy who does some design. They were real designers that sometimes had to do some business.
Think about your favorite rock band of all time and then imagine them deciding they were going to stop writing there own songs and just sing prewritten pop music with the latest one hit wonder. That’s how we feel. Not so much mad, but dissappointed that we will never see anything near the quality of ETQW ever again.
P.S. Thank you for at least attempting to communicate with us.
The thing is though W:ET still has a community on the PC, yet BRINK’s (again for the PC) is pretty much gone. W:ET is still having tournaments, while you’ll be pretty hard pressed to find a scrim in BRINK.
It isn’t that W:ET scares players away, it’s just that it looks dated and you have a lot of different mods, and as a new player you have no idea what these things do. I know I didn’t, but whenever I finally got into a server I realized what I had missed all these years and that this was a great experience that I wanted to find in another game. It isn’t that they can’t understand the core game, it’s that there’s so many mods that make the game something entirely different and that is the confusing thing when you’re new. Mods are great, however and shouldn’t ever be a feature thrown away from a game.
At the surface, yes there’s not that much going on in a game like CS or QUAKE. When you actually look at it it’s got a lot of depth. You have to keep lots of situations in your mind and you have to constantly be tracking the other team/player.
Like think about this: in BRINK on the PC everything revolves around grenade shooting and having a numbers advantage. That’s all you really have to think about, because personal skill really doesn’t matter that much. You could have people like rapha or stermy playing BRINK and they would be killed by someone who isn’t very good, just because of how random things are.
But if you’re playing, just for kicks let’s use Quake 3/Live CTF instead of CS:S for once, the game revolves around personal and team skill. Being able to aim, move and actually think better than your opponent is rewarded in this game, but it isn’t overpowering, because a team that coordinates and works well together can still win.
That’s why you see pro CTF games where 1 team is extremely aggressive and are amazing shots, yet the team they’re playing against aren’t amazing shots (compared to the other team), but they’re playing a defensive and strategic game and they’re still able to make it a great game and even win a lot.
And CS isn’t instant death, by the way; if you get inta-killed, it’s because someone was able to hit a headshot and they deserved that kill, because it actually takes skill to master the recoil and be a good shot instead of sitting there and just spraying because the spread is so bad it’s like playing the lottery.
We are fiercely proud of the work we’ve done. Don’t take my acknowledgements of “there’s room for improvement” as a contrary to that. If you guys knew the half of the struggles and challenges we went through to get this game on the shelves (I won’t be able to go into all of that until I retire from the industry… oh the tell all book I could write), but in the meantime, I hope i’ve been able to give you guys a bit of insight into the challenges a team faces when it sets out to make a multi-million pound budget game with a small team that tries to appeal to casual and hardcore players alike.
That wasn’t so much directed at SD, but just the industry in general. I know SD is proud and when it comes to the console versions you all should be proud. It seems and sounds like it works well for the consoles, and for that congratulations! It was not meant as a jab at SD as one can see you all have lots of dedication and desire to actually work and make games you’d want to play.
It’s just everything the PC gets is lackluster anymore, with broken server browsers, shoddy coding, horrible support for certain brands, and I even have played some games that wouldn’t recognize the extra buttons on my mouse. I know you aren’t a PC player, but imagine popping a disc into your 360 just to find out that the A and B buttons don’t work because the game doesn’t see them, if you hit “multiplayer” you have to jump through hoops to find a game and once your in it the game lags beyond belief because someone didn’t care enough to work with ATI or Nvidia to make sure the game works. Once or twice, sure that’s just a budget/time restraint, but this happens to almost every game now and it just sucks when you’re paying 50$ for this. It isn’t even just small dev studios, but it’s even companies like DICE.
I’ve kinda wondered, have any of SD even tried to play this game competitively? Maybe SD should get a team of 5 and have a 5v5 vs an EU mix team and then another vs a NA mix team.
[QUOTE=Rahdo;359152]No, I get your point, I know that’s what you guys want. I can only repeat so many times that we’re continuing to work on it, and watch for upcoming annoucements.
Oops, now I’m repeating myself, no time for that. Moving on![/QUOTE]
We need to know that the super important issues such as this have been noted and are being worked on
Not repeating yourself leads to silence, which makes us feel that you think ignoring it will make it go away
This is the absolutely perfect response for me (no promises of when it will land, just reassurance that it’s still being tackled)
I haven’t cried this much in a long time (tears of joy)
Plus 1000 Brownie points
[QUOTE=Mustang;359238]We need to know that the super important issues such as this have been noted and are being worked on
Not repeating yourself leads to silence, which makes us feel that you think ignoring it will make it go away
This is the absolutely perfect response for me (no promises of when it will land, just reassurance that it’s still being tackled)
I haven’t cried this much in a long time (tears of joy)
Plus 1000 Brownie points[/QUOTE]
I didnt understand rahdo’s words there. care to explain? The only thing that would make PC users happy is a PC exclusive game, which would make console users very unhappy. And the only thing that would make console users happy is a console exclusive game, making PC users unhappy. Either way someone gets screwed over. At least by my interpretation.
It’s posts like Rahdo’s right there that make me look forward to upcoming patches and titles by Splash Damage.
Yup, it creates confidence and actually have the impression they know what they are doing and aren’t out of touch wiht the community and just doing their own thing. It also gives (the tapir’s aside) the company more of a personality and charisma.
Speaking of Tapirs, why isn’t their yet a humanoid Tapir we can play as in the game, I don’t care about girls, I care about playing as a tapir with a friggin’ Gotlung.
Edit: a suggestion for future maps/Brink 2 is to have more music based on what’s unfolding, like for example really upbeat music when you have to disarm the bomb in Reactor, or when you have to hack the controlls on shipyard. There is some of that already (when you’re doing the main objective as a operative for example) but I’d love to see that expanded more upon
Maybe they have several games in the works rather than just one. Not sure. Sounds positive news to look forward to.
How come when other games release DLCs on the 360 and ps3 they know ahead of time exactly what day it’s coming out and Splash Damage has a hard time even guessing the correct month?
It’s great that you guys keep saying it’s in the approval process and all, but how is it you seem to be the only company who has no clue on the time frame?
This is honestly the only game I’ve ever seen where the devs basically say “Well, Microsoft and Sony have our DLC, but we have no idea when it will be released. We can’t even give an estimate on the month, sorry.” Haha, I mean really…
Honest answers would be nice, as right now the whole thing just reeks of incompetence.
[QUOTE=morguen87;359296]How come when other games release DLCs on the 360 and ps3 they know ahead of time exactly what day it’s coming out and Splash Damage has a hard time even guessing the correct month?
[/QUOTE]
+1 cause this seriously made me laugh
Ah, so you work at splash damage now, congrats.
Why answer when you don’t know? Couldn’t it be just as likely that it failed to pass approval due to be bug ridden or of poor quality and was delayed?
I asked the question because why speculate?
[QUOTE=morguen87;359326]Ah, so you work at splash damage now, congrats.
Why answer when you don’t know? Couldn’t it be just as likely that it failed to pass approval due to be bug ridden or of poor quality and was delayed?
I asked the question because why speculate?[/QUOTE]
I feel confident that it was not rejected because:
A. I believe SD would tell us.
B. rahdo in his last post said it was nearly there.
And i believe what i said is a plausible explination maybe not correct, but it makes sense.
We’ve been hearing about the DLC being almost here since late May when badman said it was slated for release in June.
edit:
May 27:
http://www.splashdamage.com/content/brink-dlc-details-and-stats-site-update
[QUOTE=morguen87;359326]Ah, so you work at splash damage now, congrats.
Why answer when you don’t know? Couldn’t it be just as likely that it failed to pass approval due to be bug ridden or of poor quality and was delayed?
I asked the question because why speculate?[/QUOTE]
That should be directed to you as well, the way you commented earlier, like you know it all yourself…:rolleyes:
That was my point with “why speculate?” Hence the reason I asked the question in my original post. I haven’t inferred anything.
I just want to know why Splash Damage cannot even guess the correct month when their DLC is going to be released yet seemingly every other company knows and advertises the exact date despite having to go through the same approval process.
It’s a pretty fair question. I really doubt Sony or MS have the legal leeway to effectively hold content hostage indefinitely without a real reason.
do you really believe that ms blocked the dlc? cmon guys… it’s an excuse
rahdo said it, they have limited resources, quakecon is coming, our requests are many and they are trying to do something