Upcoming/Updated/Possible Patch Notes

(ImageOmega) #1

There are a lot of players hungry for some sort of feedback with what is going on behind the scenes. When players are giving daily feedback (multiple times a day), a week or two becomes a long time without any update as far as what’s happening with the game.

I know as developers you become reluctant to share information about what is happening behind the scenes just in case things change or people come at you with torches and pitchforks for even mentioning ideas. I say, screw upsetting the gamers when providing feedback. This is alpha and many people here have been long time supporters of Splash Damage or put money down to show that they are dedicated to helping create a better experience for the long term. You can’t make everyone happy, but helping us understand what you, as developers, are thinking or want for the game would help us provide better feedback.

I am merely going to propose here that we have a sticky thread showcasing three different patch notes:

[ul]
[li]CURRENT - Patch notes would be the current/latest patch applied to the game/servers.
[/li][li]UPCOMING - Patch notes for the upcoming patch for the game (changes you plan to implement).
[/li][li]FUTURE - Possible changes that may make a future patch.
[/li][/ul]

We as alpha testers already understand that this game is a work in progress and things can change. If people get their feelings hurt because you mentioned an idea for a change, but later decide against it, I can only promise they will get over it. I hope none of this post comes off as hostile, I just would like to have a better idea of what is happening during the alpha and how we can have a bigger part in helping shape the game.

Thank you, Splash Damage!

(Evil-Doer) #2

All for this, would really be sweet to just know what is “probably” coming in the near future or what is maybe being worked on.

(acutepuppy) #3

Discussion has dwindled to semantics and preference due to this, but the developers have taken note of many of my major concerns, so I have some faith.

Perhaps big ideas are brewing?

(ImageOmega) #4

[QUOTE=acutepuppy;426750]Discussion has dwindled to semantics and preference due to this, but the developers have taken note of many of my major concerns, so I have some faith.

Perhaps big ideas are brewing?[/QUOTE]

I remember the class forums for Diablo 3 before the game came out. They were full of theorycrafting ideas based on the numbers and descriptions represented in the skill tree calculator. The discussions became hotly debated for a game that didn’t exist and was no longer the same game as seen in the beta (which didn’t go past the first part of Act 1). When the game was finally released, and people actually got to test their skill builds and ideas, everyone found that their ideas were drastically different from what actually “worked” or was efficient/effective in game.

I think we hit this type of wall a lot on these forums. We have ideas thrown out and people hotly debating theories without much actual reference, game time, or maybe a distorted memory of what once was. Having upcoming patch notes or possible changes being posted ahead of time would help us discuss ideas with the luxury of looking forward to the changes we are theorycrafting about.

(Kendle) #5

Completely agree with this, it’s frustrating arguing a case when you’ve got no idea whether that topic is even on the developer’s radar. These forums have become a bit like the public forums, lots of debate whilst the real action is (presumably) happening elsewhere.

(Evil-Doer) #6

Can’t agree more.

(iwound) #7

yeah i suppose they could spend all day making a few people happy by explaining themselves all the time instead of making the game. there is a lot of feedback already in these forums. i suggest if your fairly new here to check out the old threads with large posts to see what is relevant, what is being looked at and whats being worked on. its all in the microdot.

tbh i feel spoilt round here. we get new updates every week. SD guys join us all on the servers. They answer our dumb questions. oh and they make a game in what time they have left. this is more like red carpet treatment.

when you have updates every week what use would it be to know a few days before what it contains.

(Patriotqube) #8

[QUOTE=iwound;426772]yeah i suppose they could spend all day making a few people happy by explaining themselves all the time instead of making the game. there is a lot of feedback already in these forums. i suggest if your fairly new here to check out the old threads with large posts to see what is relevant, what is being looked at and whats being worked on. its all in the microdot.

tbh i feel spoilt round here. we get new updates every week. SD guys join us all on the servers. They answer our dumb questions. oh and they make a game in what time they have left. this is more like red carpet treatment.

when you have updates every week what use would it be to know a few days before what it contains.[/QUOTE]

I somehow agrees completely concerning us here in Alpha, I do however think they could throw somthing out on public forum a bit more frequent than they do now :slight_smile:

lots of frustrated people out there :wink:

(Kendle) #9

No-one’s asking for that, or anything close. Just a post a week explaining where we’re at and what’s currently on the agenda would be nice, and more than we’re getting at the moment.

(rookie1) #10

There a huge amount of new players and feedbacks probably harder to deal with…They use to daily/weekly given us infos and they probably continue to do so…
Just on time there are probably full load of intern work …they never pass 3 days without any important pieces of infos usualy …so lets be patient

(Anti) #11

Hey folks,

You have to have a little patience, games take a lot of time to develop, longer than most of you guys imagine. This is why sometimes progress might seem a little slow but you have to understand everybody is working very hard to make the game great.

Part of the reason you don’t always see lots of changes based on your feedback is because we’re still doing a lot of work on back end systems and new features, things that can be months away from making it into the game but that are still needed. You only have to look at the feature set of other released FPS games and compare them to DB to see what sort of stuff is missing. Things like, for example, server admin controls, friends lists, matchmaking systems etc.

What I can tell you is that there are a good number of the dev team that are reading these forums and debating the feedback you provide on a regular basis, and it is proving to be very useful. Unfortunately we don’t always have the time to reply and confirm that we’ve read it, or what we’re doing about it, but we try to post what we can. We also still have the internal goal of trying to make sure we do some kind of patch or update every week during alpha.

Going forwards I’ll talk to badman and see if we can add some kind of ‘Coming soon’ thread that gives you some indication of what we’re working on, as I agree that might help. Just promise me that if we do it you won’t complain when the list of things being added and fixed isn’t exciting, you have no idea how dull some of the bugs and tasks can be! :smiley:

(Mustang) #12

Promise no complains about how boring the list might be.

Can’t promise that I won’t have a little whinge if the words “jump”, “crouch” and “ramp” don’t appear in one order or another in there somewhere. :wink:

(SockDog) #13

I wouldn’t mind some design docs to be posted so we can pour over them. Obviously on subjects that SD would like feedback on.

Up Coming patches and what’s being worked on less so. It’s just asking for butt hurt rages. It’s already started in this thread with oh so nicely worded concerns over silence and lack of feedback. I agree it would be nice if SD could flag posts in the bug forum as logged to avoid repeats but as far as suggestions go I’m happy if SD says they read and discuss them internally.

What I’m more concerned about is where they are investing a great deal of time into a feature that may not work and may not be reversible. This is something I think we can at least offer a pool of varied opinion and experience.

(Anti) #14

[QUOTE=SockDog;426814]

What I’m more concerned about is where they are investing a great deal of time into a feature that may not work and may not be reversible. This is something I think we can at least offer a pool of varied opinion and experience.[/QUOTE]

Possibly, but I think we’d prefer to make the features and try them out in the wild than rely 100% on feedback straight away. If we did that you guys would ask us to not even attempt anything new that wasn’t already in RTCW/ET/ETQW/Brink/other favorite game! :tongue::smiley:

(tokamak) #15

Aw dude, that’s not fair, we’re suggesting tons of stuff that hasn’t been done in any game yet.

(Apples) #16

And how about a worm, who can jump into a space armor, ride pigs and oh wait…

I dont need a tracking of what SD are doing minute by minute, I saw many patches already and I know they are working on the game and listening to our feedbacks when they are relevant, kudos to that.

(Donnovan) #17

He was joking, tokamak. See that in the list have all SD games.

a) I believe we can help a lot giving feedback about the game.

And in this feedback, suggest new things.

And about our ideas that transcend the game itself, this is still usefull for then, but is far from our decision.

But we can even change that using a).

We must all agree they have more experience in business than us. About the game, here comes our task.

(ImageOmega) #18

[QUOTE=Anti;426802]Hey folks,

You have to have a little patience, games take a lot of time to develop, longer than most of you guys imagine. This is why sometimes progress might seem a little slow but you have to understand everybody is working very hard to make the game great.

Part of the reason you don’t always see lots of changes based on your feedback is because we’re still doing a lot of work on back end systems and new features, things that can be months away from making it into the game but that are still needed. You only have to look at the feature set of other released FPS games and compare them to DB to see what sort of stuff is missing. Things like, for example, server admin controls, friends lists, matchmaking systems etc.

What I can tell you is that there are a good number of the dev team that are reading these forums and debating the feedback you provide on a regular basis, and it is proving to be very useful. Unfortunately we don’t always have the time to reply and confirm that we’ve read it, or what we’re doing about it, but we try to post what we can. We also still have the internal goal of trying to make sure we do some kind of patch or update every week during alpha.

Going forwards I’ll talk to badman and see if we can add some kind of ‘Coming soon’ thread that gives you some indication of what we’re working on, as I agree that might help. Just promise me that if we do it you won’t complain when the list of things being added and fixed isn’t exciting, you have no idea how dull some of the bugs and tasks can be! :D[/QUOTE]

Thanks for this Anti. Things that you guys are doing on the backend sometimes does not come to the top of my head, so you telling us in this post is really helpful. I am a patient person, but I think I got tired of all the back and forth debate that was happening lately without any real direction of if what we’re talking about is even relevant or on Splash Damage’s radar (like Kendle said).

(Anti) #19

It was a joke, I used a whole two smilies!

(tokamak) #20

I’m just still mad that the individual defence timers didn’t come from the community. Never once in all these years, even on the old W:ET forums was the idea even uttered.