State of Play: Closed Beta, Communication, & Community

(Loffy) #21

Hi badman, here are my thoughts on what you posted. Thanks for keeping us updated. Some might say that these are irregular and too far between but personally I am OK with it. I mean, as long as the game development goes forward, the SD Tower is still standing, and I am a part of this beta. It is really fun and a privilege to be part of the development of a team-based online multiplayer shooter. Frankly, I love every minute of it. About the Nexon team, and your collaboration with them and all that, I do not have so much to say. We’ll see how things progress and what happens; I am sure it’ll be productive and alright in the end. However, I do have some strong opinions about all that “reboot Extraction”: Wise decision. This is needed, and I can see it coming. Personally, I was/is not impressed by some of the promotional artwork. I remember that I took at some banner intitially, some months/half a year ago, and thought to myself “I am very far from being good at Photoshop and design, but even I can produce a promotional banner like that”. It just looked un-cool. Gaming is about being immersed into worlds and emotions of coolness and awesomeness. It is paramount that the game I buy live up to this. L4D2 is a perfect example, at least from my perspective. When the zombies approach, and I play as the character Coach, and he says, with a dark, slow voice, “It’s on”, I am there, in the zone.

TLDR: Improved communication is neat but focus on creating a smooth shooter set in unique, cool worlds (cool = ETQW:ish, rather than TF2).

(Finko) #22

Good news, hope version for CIS region will be alive or players will be allowed to play with other world, without VPN :slight_smile:

(k0k0nat) #23

Yes that would be awesome. Would love to stream xT on twitch and just promote xT :stuck_out_tongue:

Maybe we can get a special alpha-player affiliate-deal? :smiley: lot of moniez!

(BomBaKlaK) #24

Yep, less talk and more action ! I Hope the best

(k1ruaa) #25

Get rid of overpowered and useless iron sight and spread to have a decent gunplay, add some cool movement that we’re waiting for what looks like years and then I think we can have a pretty good game, not a melting pot of every fps that ever existed which will not work in the end.

Still remembering when I first saw the dirtybomb video and I though, well maybe this is the new team based FPS I’ll play after ET. At that time iron sight seemed to be just a zoom and it felt great.

I still don’t get why you keep things who clearly didn’t worked in your previous games (mostly brink) and why you’re not more inspired by what was a big big success for 10 years (ET). The good example is loadout, who created an original new game (not trying to copy cod or any other successful FPS) which is a big succes already.

Not having iron sight (at least for most weapons) just fits this game so perfectly whatever some will say. Of course this choice will disapoint some few guys, but in the other hand it can make a real good game.

Blablabla I know I keep saying the same things but I am not playing Extraction at all now and I can see that the activity is near 0 so you should consider listening to what we say really.

(Kendle) #26

This is very welcome, but as others have pointed out it needs to be more than just talk this time. XT has already been “re-booted” once, when it was renamed from DirtyBomb and Nexon got involved. Since then things have gone decidedly downhill.

The biggest problem is lack of players, the servers are almost always empty, and even when they’re not there’s usually only enough people on to fill one server. IMO the main contributory factor for this is that the player-base is almost exclusively ET / ET:QW, who want a no recoil, no spread, no IS, low damage, long TTK tracking based game, whereas XT by it’s very nature (diverse Mercs and weapons) will never be able to deliver that.

The game needs a HUGE influx of players, and it specifically needs players from other games besides SD’s traditional player base.

An XT website would be a good start, i.e. NOT hosted by Nexon or SD; a separate www.extraction.com website, dedicated to the game, where EVERYONE (Alpha + Beta players + SD staff + Nexon staff) gathers to discuss the game.

Then a major campaign to get beta keys out to the wider gaming community.

And the match-making facility needs to be given some urgent attention, as at the moment there’s too big a skill gap between the best players on the server and the worst. The game is seriously good fun if you’re playing with like-minded and similarly skilled players, but it gets boring real quick when it’s not.

(Raviolay) #27

Wrong that’s a very astute deduction on your part. Albeit I am converted in some part to that way of thinking with weapon feel now. Still saying that I find some commenter’s with things like. “IS with spread is pointless” somewhat funny when it’s also the sort, who will say snipers are useless in comp, and can’t put two and two together.

(rookie1) #28

Probably the MAJOR reason for no retention (imo) and probably is for me also not much ingame no more

(spookify) #29

Better GUN PLAY!

Zero FPS games right now BLAAA!

(Pytox) #30

haaha maybe new reboot of shirts too :tongue:

promising, I wonder though will it also include new maps too set outside of london now? :slight_smile:

(shaftz0r) #31

nobody is playing because the maps are just plain bad. thats really the crux of it. they’re boring and completely uninspired in their current state. long hallways, almost zero side routes, and boring objectives. people come in and play for 20 mins and leave. thats really it.

(k0k0nat) #32

Sorry have to disagree… maps were much worse.

The last patch really showed improvements. I currently dont play a lot because there are so few players online.

I’m really looking forward. :slight_smile:

(Ashog) #33

The more time goes by, the more I think SD should use the unplanned opportunity of the game being in oblivion state (almost noone knows about it and even less people care about it) to change the lifeless unimaginative and out-of-time game name from Extraction to something else, something more modern and shouty. For example Dirty Bomb. Or similar :wink: Also the fact that T-shirts have not yet been sent (and made) would help the situation here. Before it’s too late.
Change it! Who cares if you decide to change it 5 times?! It doesn’t really matter. You’ll even get more advertisement and publicity for free, after all the game blogs will report that you changed it yet again!
As for the keys, I don’t really think it matters who distributes keys anymore. Those who already got keys, don’t even stay 2 days in game. Unless the gameplay gets improved, not much is likely to change with player attention/retention, no matter how actively the game exposure is attempted.
But yeah, trying is always good. Better than silence of the last months anyways, so good news, Badman, indeed.

(Erkin31) #34

I can’t talk for others people, but if I don’t play to the game, it’s because the game is not fun for me. The gameplay is too classic and not enough “skilled” for an arcade FPS. (need advanced movements and longer ttk).

(shaftz0r) #35

they changed like 2 things on wc and thats it…

(Zarlor) #36

Thanks for the update badman! It sounds good to have renewed focus and enthusiasm towards the game. I think the last update took some baby steps in the right direction such as the reworked maps, but it didn’t do enough changes to the core gunplay to make it feel different and satisfying enough to keep the beta testers playing consistently. Sometimes I fear there is too much reliance on the Echo data at the expense of the game just plain feeling right… Too often I read about a suggested change to the mechanics and then a dev brings forth Echo data to explain why that wouldn’t be a good change. Couldn’t the change be tried and then if it went too far then it could be scaled back? Would we honestly be able to acknowledge perhaps that a spread reduction went too far? I wonder…

(RasteRayzeR) #37

[QUOTE=k0k0nat;490833]Sorry have to disagree… maps were much worse.

The last patch really showed improvements. I currently dont play a lot because there are so few players online.

I’m really looking forward. :)[/QUOTE]

Agreed, the maps are clearly being reworked and it seems to me that it goes in a better direction now.

Also will we get another round of free keys ? If so can you give us a heads up so we know we have to go look in the spam folders ? Thanks :smiley:

(Protekt1) #38

They should call it… Dirty Bomb: Enemy Territory, if they have the rights. Some people here might get their panties twisted over it, but Enemy Territory has the best name recognition splash damage can sum up.

(Dthy) #39

inb4 “Catches the Magic of ET!”

(Glottis-3D) #40

Simple as that!