See there's a big difference and a massive problem in the way consumers are being treated and told to behave in this scenario.
Firstly, yes, EA, Blizzard, Valve, they will announce a game is in development, give you tidbits, interviews, trailers and so forth. They won't invite you to play a game they believe is unfinished, or tell you that you can play an unfinished game for x amount of money. In certain circumstances for things such as WoW, there have been closed beta's with a limited amount of places, normally going to fans and players who will play a lot and they can gather a lot of data about. Open beta's go to those who pay, in general, there's a release date or a rough release date with a small margin of error around that, use particularly for things such as WoW and the ST MMO.
Secondly I'd like to pick right back up on the closed/open beta. You've bought the game, it's in a beta in which you're able to play and has already being tested massively behind the scenes by some internal playtesters and the team itself. You've either got a release date or a definitive "It will be this quarter", and you trust that company as they have previous in this sort of thing. The best thing about this though is the game 80% of the time is fully playable, you can take advantage of every aspect of the game and you find you'll be able to have say, 6 hour sessions a night if you want to. It's high end, they've not just created a feature and thought, you can all try it out.
That happens at bigger companies than UWE sure, and there's going to be "they're only a small team" bellows at me here but hey, it's not about what resources you have but how you use them. It's not about how much time you throw at it, but how you use that time.
As far as being a consumer goes, being given wrong information and being mislead is something that comes up time and time again and people asking for a refund. Most people will probably already have their own idea on this and there's no point going through it, 2 years for a pre-order is extremely unprecedented. Although I do know a friend who recently received a refund for a game he ordered from 3 years ago as the company can not fulfil it's requirement to ship the game in a full and playable state.
I've waited a long time, others have waited a long time, I sympathise and understand those like Sherpa who pre-ordered, literally day 1. There are a lot of excuses, a lot of 'reasons', a lot of misdirections, a lot less straight talking and talk of patience from UW and some followers. I mean, as a follower, we can't do much more than say, be patient can we? The only thing we can hope is we get a dev post from this thread with some of the few mentioned things I just stated, a "we're working hard on the game", which time and time again we're told and we know, a "performance is increasing it'll be there soon", which again, we know.
It seems to me it's no longer about moving in the right direction, being told another reason that there's not enough hours in the day, or we need another coder, for me and I guess quite a lot of others, it's about the end result. In all honesty, from an outside view on these forums, being an avid follower, the end result looks a long way off for many a reason. The only thing an open development platform has done for UWE has shown the cracks, heck with posts like this and threads like this, it probably demoralises them to see people are losing faith, although equally it might kick someone up the ass if they're slacking, who knows, I don't, I'm not on the payroll.
Many games have a release date because these games are planned and developed carefully, their process is thought out and they have a good structure in place and know where they will be and how they will get there. The only thing I'd ask of UWE among this hazy post and hazier thread is to get their act in gear with regards to stability, show you know where you are at, use your resources better and even set a release date you can achieve and stick to it. Quit cutting around the excuses, the reasoning, the misdirection in replies to being challenged in regards to the state of the game.
I'm a fan, almost all of us on here are fans, no one wants to attack the creator of a game they've purchased that's dumb. What people do what is real answers to questions, good old fashioned straight talking answers with a definitive ending and if the answer is a "Don't know", then say it aloud so your consumers, your fans, can make a better informed decision.
<!--quoteo(post=1842311:date=Apr 25 2011, 07:28 PM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Apr 25 2011, 07:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842311"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes you need a beast of a PC for high frame rates,<b> but that's the nature of the game-dev beast. </b>Performance will come in time.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is false but I agree with all your other points. The thing is that there's sequence of things that build a base for another (stability, performance, gameplay, balance and so on). Take 1 thing out and everything falls apart.
QuovatisTeam InversionJoin Date: 2010-01-26Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
Obraxis is spot on. You pre-ordered the game. It had no strings attached and no contract to when it would be released. The game is still in development, and as was pointed out, you get alpha access (sorry, the "beta" is still alpha in my book), which if you ordered from any other company, you would not get. It was an investment risk that you took and now you don't like how it turned out. UWE will probably give you a refund, but I don't think they should. You knew the risks going into it.
<!--quoteo(post=1842316:date=Apr 25 2011, 07:23 PM:name=Quovatis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Quovatis @ Apr 25 2011, 07:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842316"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Obraxis is spot on. You pre-ordered the game. It had no strings attached and no contract to when it would be released. The game is still in development, and as was pointed out, you get alpha access (sorry, the "beta" is still alpha in my book), which if you ordered from any other company, you would not get. It was an investment risk that you took and now you don't like how it turned out. UWE will probably give you a refund, but I don't think they should. You knew the risks going into it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was not told when I pre-ordered I was making an investment. There was a trailer with a Fall 2009 release time. I thought I was getting a game then. The contract is for UWE to deliver to the consumer. Care to expand on this?
Your contract is whatever you actually paid for, which on the Natural Selection 2 website clearly states, is: "Pre Order NOW" and states on that page:
*Full version when done (via Steam)
Which is clearly a pre-order. You enter into the contract of sale knowing that it is not done yet, and may not be for a long time. Thal, you say the contract is for UWE to deliver, yes that is true, but there is no set date for delivery. No contract has been broken.
I´m new here and love the feeling that sometimes comes up during a match, but there are many big problems. My PC isn´t that bad (i7 2600k, 580GTX, 8gig RAM, Crucial SSD) and my framerate is during combat between 20 and 60, so almost playable. Really annoying are the terrible lags (ping: ~60) and i can´t evolve (game crashes).
How "strong" is a average serversystem? Is that the bottleneck or really the game it self?
PS: Sorry for my bad english (german and writting with my mobile phone)
<!--quoteo(post=1842329:date=Apr 25 2011, 08:31 PM:name=Obraxis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Obraxis @ Apr 25 2011, 08:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842329"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your contract is whatever you actually paid for, which on the Natural Selection 2 website clearly states, is: "Pre Order NOW" and states on that page:
*Full version when done (via Steam)
Which is clearly a pre-order. You enter into the contract of sale knowing that it is not done yet, and may not be for a long time. Thal, you say the contract is for UWE to deliver, yes that is true, but there is no set date for delivery. No contract has been broken.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, there is a broken contract. The trailer told me Fall 2009. Now I have no release date?
No, the contract is on the order page, and the email you received upon purchase. Unless either of those have "We will release this fall 2009" then no contract has been broken. The trailer is a trailer. It does not enforce any kind of legal standing as it is a form of entertainment. otherwise you'd have people suing for Movies that change their release dates.
A trailer is first and foremost a form of advertisement, not entertainment. While the trailer didn't specify what would happen in Fall 2009, most people - unsurprisingly - expected some form of release.
I don't think this has much legal value though, but of course I'm no expert. What counts is probably the info on the pre-order page, like you said.
<!--quoteo(post=1842302:date=Apr 25 2011, 11:51 AM:name=Thaldarin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thaldarin @ Apr 25 2011, 11:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842302"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So telling Sherpa he has 32 days is nonsense. If he learned C++ in 32 days it would be of no use, as these guys have been going at it for 2 or 3 years now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He gave them 32 days to finish a game they have been working on for years...
Everyone is also complaining about big developers not releasing games before there finished or still have bugs... Last time I checked wow gets updates every Tuesday and battlefield is on like version 1.5 now.... They must be redoing graphics and adding content all the time I guess...
Although I generally disagree that UW has to finish by any specific time (as long as it does get finished), they have given back refunds to those who ask. I believe the refunds were out of sheer kindness too. They really didn't have to, and unless a whole bunch of people got together with a lawyer and some fancy plan (didn't happen), there had never been any true legal incentive to do so.
I think the biggest problem right now is the PR. When the game was at its worst we got all kinds of PR and attention drawn, upgraded from alpha to beta, and much talk about features to come. Now the game is playing better it seems there is little effort to get people excited again. Maybe UW is waiting for occlusion to be fixed (it really needs to be...) before rolling out the new features and hype?
Also one of THE BIGGEST MISTAKES BY FAR is not getting custom maps to download yet (won't buy the it's difficult to implement excuse because... it isn't). I can understand not wanting to release new official content yet, but custom maps as well as other custom content would be a huge redeemer right now. There are so many games out there which have exploded in popularity strictly because of their 3rd party content and some of these haven't even left beta or <i>still</i> have performance issues (second-life?).
People keep talking about EA and Valve releasing games so far behind their schedule, but this game was originally slated for an Autumn 2009 release. It's probably not going to be released until this autumn, so that's two years. Half Life 2 was delayed by a year, and that took five years of development to build. A two year delay for something as complex as NS2 is not unheard of; the London Eye, supported by one of the biggest economies in the world was delayed by 6 months. I understand your concerns about how the game is looking at the moment, but the only real problem I see is the lag. I played a game the other day on an NS2 UK server, and it was one of the most fun experiences of FPS that I've had in years. There was almost no lag, mainly because of no hydra spam, or sentry spam, and the game felt like it was well balanced and I had a blast.
When playing the game I can see a lot of small bugs. Like not being able to walk through doors. Despite this looking like a big bug, it's a small bug because I can't see how it would be difficult to fix. The big bugs are ones that begin with the actual system itself, things like the lag issue. The small tweaks and bugs, like skulk/marine balance can be done incredibly rapidly on the run-up to launch, as balance doesn't affect games as much as people think it does.
I'm happy to sit back and wait for UWE to finish this game, I play a couple of games a week and enjoy myself. Anyway, I've got to have some time left to play Portal 2 right?
I understand the complaints regarding the performance, from people who just recently purchased the game, and then decide to come on here and post threads about it. I'll be the first to admit that the game is not running as well as it needs to be, but we did make some big gains recently on the server side, Max is in the middle of the occlusion culling optimization now that we are hoping will make some noticeable improvements on the client side performance, and then he is going back to more server side performance improvement tasks.
What I don't understand is the people who have been part of this community for so long, who feel the need to continuously point out the problems with the game, blame us for misleading everyone and tell us to "get our act in gear with regards to stability" like we are all sitting around playing Portal 2 all day. We have spent a good deal of time on here, explaining the development process, providing as much information as possible, and trying our hardest to keep everyone who frequents the forums in the loop. Leading new people who join here to think that our posts have been just misdirection, excuses and avoidance of issues seems like a poor way of showing you are an NS2 fan.
So, what do you want to hear from us? Explaining how we are making NS2 with a vastly smaller amount of money and manpower then is typical for a game of this size is apparently just an "excuse". Well, we sure wish it wasn't true, but its the way things are. We want to hire more people, in addition to the programmer we did just hire, but at the moment, the financial situation just does not allow us to hire a lot. Our options up to this point have not been ideal -- either drag out development time with a smaller amount of people, but continue to work on NS2, or hire a bunch more people, and risk going out of business.
Did we expect to still be working on the first version of NS2 now? Heck no. There have been countless unforeseen issues that have come up over the course of the project, and that is not an unusual thing by any means, and I can say that with the experience of having worked at several other companies, and being friends with people at many other companies. However, most companies just deal with it by doubling in staff size to get the game done.
Was creating our own engine "biting off more then we can chew?" Maybe. But at the time it seemed like the best and only option, and if we had to do it over again, we would most likely make the same decision, for a variety of reasons which have been listed in countless other posts. Would we do the open development style again? Speaking for me, personally, I would probably say probably not. However, I have enjoyed the ability to stay in touch with our community and share all the behind the scenes of what we are working on with you all. Do we know when we are going to release? No. We know we are very focused on shipping this game this year, are exploring every means to allow for that to happen, and are working our butts off to achieve it. But, getting constantly slammed over missing the one tentative release date that was announced sure makes us not want to put out any more dates.
I would hope that our interaction with the community would be viewed as honest, straightforward, and enlightening to the development process. As frustrating as it may be to have paid for a game that is still not finished yet, we just are asking for some understanding for why the development has taken longer then expected, and faith that we will finish this game, fix the performance issues, and release a product which is every bit worth the money that you've spent.
<b>Take as much time as you need to get it done right.</b> Meanwhile, I am creating my own maps and having a blast playing beta. If UWE needs more money, just put out a hint and I will buy a second copy.
Seeing the development, creativity, troubleshooting and thinking process behind this games creation is amazing. I also have terrific respect for some of the power users and their modding and ideas.
I have a strong belief in this game and I am even setting up a dedicated server at my own expense so that mappers have a place to post and test their creations.
QuovatisTeam InversionJoin Date: 2010-01-26Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
Don't let the nutjob posts get under your skin UWE. You guys have done great things and offer things no other company has. We appreciate that. Yes, you have made some mistakes along the way, but that happens. Keep up the good work.
I think it's more about the average pre-orders they have on a daily basis, because money goes fast! To UWE : I was not a fan of NS1, I couldn't' get to play it correctly, but I'm totally in love with NS2 even in it's current state, I like all the Ideas behind it, the strong comunity and team play, ability to REALY be listenned by the developpers, the usual patch that we're all waiting for, and I have no doubt that this game will be done soon but I'm not in a hurry.
There are tons of people who think like me, but guys who are unhappy always have something to say... While we are patient. Ignore the people who don't understand that it's going forward anyway, they will shut up when the game will be finished.
I understand people wanting a refund. If you want one, then e-mail them and move on. I, for one, am amazed UWE made it this far and will continue to follow the development closely. I remember donating 100$ to Constellation years ago because I really liked NS and pre-ordering NS2 on day 1. I hop in every once in a while and am pleased see some improvement, even though it has taken a lot more time than UWE planned. Then I just go on and do other things.
So, everyone has his or her reasons for being disappointed or hopeful, but seriously, it's not like UWE is holding your money hostage or something. Last thing they need is random people analyzing their situation on their forums.
<!--quoteo(post=1842304:date=Apr 25 2011, 11:03 AM:name=Thaldarin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thaldarin @ Apr 25 2011, 11:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842304"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you bought a game from say, EA or Blizzard, and for 2 years you couldn't play it properly, would you still be so forgiving?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no, i'd cut throats. but then again, i'm ready to cut blizzard's throat for intentionally sitting on a game that has been pretty much done for over a year now (diablo 3) just because they aren't sure when it's best to release it in order to not destroy their customer base for their other games (wow, sc2).
so what's worse? i'd say i'm more upset with blizzard for teasing a finished game than uwe for taking the time they have.
If Blizzard had as many people and as much money as UWE, I'd be fine waiting for their games for a similar amount of time. Blizzard, however, prints money from a machine named "World of Warcraft," and they can hire more people to test useless features than UWE can hire to fulfill crucial functions. Comparing apples and oranges isn't much help when the oranges are super duper rich because they made World of Warcraft.
<!--quoteo(post=1842391:date=Apr 25 2011, 08:28 PM:name=Thaldarin)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Thaldarin @ Apr 25 2011, 08:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842391"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have you paid for D3? If not, then you can't really be upset.
Maybe I'm being pretty impatient, maybe I'm not and my patience has just come to an end, which I think can be seen as pretty understandable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
fair enough, i haven't paid for d3. but i played it at blizzcon 2 years ago. i am thoroughly convinced that game is done and they aren't releasing it cuz it will kill their golden goose.
i was pointing out a difference in the community relations between the people and the company. having been on the wow forums before, i can tell you that UWE is head and shoulders above Blizzard in regards to community relations.
I understand that you're impatient, and the frustration is ONLY due to a desire to play natural selection 2 in its finished state. but do you really feel cheated? if so, wouldn't you just get your refund and be done with it and uwe and us as a community? we all paid long ago, hell i even bought the christmas deal and another copy for a friend on top of that. that's 4 by my count. do they play? no. they'll play when its finished. in the meantime they play a ton of other games, and i play other games too. but i still play this beta because i like it, and because lets be honest, i know how NS2 is supposed to play better than anyone else in the world, so i gotta make sure i'm around to tell them when they've done something wrong and how they should fix it.
you, my friend, are an enabler and sometimes an instigator. and i think uwe pays more attention to it's fans who have post counts over 1k than you think, and i think you hurt cory's feelings.
they're trying man, but they don't need to be whipped.
I'd have asked for a refund long ago if I didn't get the full use of the tools as I have. I've played around 20-30 minutes of NS2 game time, the rest of the recorded time is all to do with mapping.
It's a case of, I basically paid for the Spark tools, not for a game. You can call that cheated if you want.
EDIT (Because multi-tasking means I read that post ever so lightly). I feel sorry for Cory as he's the art director/whatever else, a lot of the problems, if not almost all we encounter come down to the engine, which so far, has been a one man band wagon. In all honesty, having one person on that engine for the majority if not all of that time, being the only person to develop and know the intricate ways of the engine, to know it inside out, is the only massive mistake from a technical point of view. I look at Cory's posts as a team statement, if anything, I'm sure inside he wishes he could do more than the Art/extra bits he does; not that I'm speaking for him, although I'm sure he wants the game released as quickly and as polished as possible.
I'd like to think I have the ability to sit in the middle. For example, the art and environment part, I think will be always there, although the engine programming and the gameplay coding etc. is the part where help has been needed most, and it has done for the entire length of development but to an external member, it seems as though this has barely been given the boost other than one guy coding an engine alone with people modding it as they need to around it. Which means I wouldn't be whipping anyone in particular, nor would I be aiming to hurt Cory's feelings, I just think after 2 years, the direction has gone wrong somewhere, drastically wrong, and I don't know why it would need to take 2 years or more to notice.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We want to hire more people, in addition to the programmer we did just hire, but at the moment, the financial situation just does not allow us to hire a lot<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hire when it hurts?
<!--quoteo(post=1842394:date=Apr 25 2011, 09:46 PM:name=)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ( @ Apr 25 2011, 09:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842394"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->they're trying man, but they don't need to be whipped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whenever you're open about a process, do something publicly, and then take money from people you're going to get 'whipped.' It's going to happen every time under any circumstance. It's something UWE should learn to live with.
That said, they half deserve it. Why? It's been two years since pre-orders opened up. I don't care how much of a fan you are - that's a really long time. And it's not like that two year wait has actually yielded any significant results. The game just became playable (in 4v4s and under) for me during the latest patch. For some it's still not playable. I'm sure Max is doing everything he can and I don't mean to degrade anyone's efforts... but that's pretty bad and depressing. When I see long time community members get frustrated or annoyed I don't really feel the need to tell them to be silent. Their reaction is valid because that's how a reasonable person would react.
I was one of the day one sales but, despite all of this, I can't say I care about NS2's long development period. I assume I am in the minority (grouped with the people who forgot they bought this game) but in the grand scheme of things it costs $40. I pay more to fill up my car with gas.
Everyone just needs to see both sides. UWE is trying to create the game they envision because whatever they release is what is going to get reviewed by the press. The press isn't going to come back in 6 months and say "man this game rocks now." Their first release must be the best it can be. In order to get to this point they heavily, albeit unintentionally, mislead the public (and maybe themselves) about the then current status of NS2. Two years have passed and, from the gamers perspective, not much has changed.
It's reasonable for both people to want to continue to support UWE and for people to want refunds. Both sides are right. If you want a refund, get it and stop posting garbage until the game is released. If you see people asking for refunds, instead of bashing the ###### out of them for not supporting UWE, give them the refunds@uwewhatever link.
Nothing useful can come from listening to the deluded ranting of these spoiled and selfish creatures. They are coming form a tiny but vocal minority, numbering a few percent. The SILENT majority fully support and commend your vision and progress. If UWE needs more money to get NS2 finished, I'm sure many thousands (myself included) would not hesitate to order a second copy.
<!--quoteo(post=1842399:date=Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When I see long time community members get frustrated or annoyed I don't really feel the need to tell them to be silent.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i haven't told anyone to be silent.
<!--quoteo(post=1842399:date=Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you see people asking for refunds, instead of bashing the ###### out of them for not supporting UWE, give them the refunds@uwewhatever link.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nothing useful can come from listening to the deluded ranting of these spoiled and selfish creatures. They are coming form a tiny but vocal minority, numbering a few percent. The SILENT majority fully support and commend your vision and progress. If UWE needs more money to get NS2 finished, I'm sure many thousands (myself included) would not hesitate to order a second copy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Speaking for other people doesn't help. Nor does insulting the others. No one has verbally insulted anyone else until this point. It's nice to show your support, although you can do it in other ways other than saying "Hey, these people are selfish! Infact, they're not even people! They're creatures!".
I may be a little grumpy right now, others are too, I may be a little unsatisfied, others are too. Although I fully appreciate, understand and see other people are the opposite. I can see where and why the team are happy with their efforts and unhappy. Although I and others are still allowed to voice an opinion, discuss this with others and even as Cory has been kind enough to reply to us all, speak about it openly.
What pisses me about refund is that most of people who ask it will probably rebuy NS2 in a steam promo at 50% or something like this with some of the money going to VALVe... I know that it's understandable to give refund to those people, but I'm disapointed that people prefer to spare 15 $ instead of supporting a so great developper studio... Moreover if we all decided to get a refund suddenly, NS2 would die. It's like the finnancial econnomy, it's based on faith.
Ok... Maybe it would not die... but they would have to be bought by some big company and would have lots of constraints etc...
No seriously, I was DEDICATED AS ###### trolling 156 servers, I even gave up because even trolling became a hassle. I hope you do something good with my money, I may play again IF minecraft ever gets old. Good luck Ill keep following your progress.
Comments
Firstly, yes, EA, Blizzard, Valve, they will announce a game is in development, give you tidbits, interviews, trailers and so forth. They won't invite you to play a game they believe is unfinished, or tell you that you can play an unfinished game for x amount of money. In certain circumstances for things such as WoW, there have been closed beta's with a limited amount of places, normally going to fans and players who will play a lot and they can gather a lot of data about. Open beta's go to those who pay, in general, there's a release date or a rough release date with a small margin of error around that, use particularly for things such as WoW and the ST MMO.
Secondly I'd like to pick right back up on the closed/open beta. You've bought the game, it's in a beta in which you're able to play and has already being tested massively behind the scenes by some internal playtesters and the team itself. You've either got a release date or a definitive "It will be this quarter", and you trust that company as they have previous in this sort of thing. The best thing about this though is the game 80% of the time is fully playable, you can take advantage of every aspect of the game and you find you'll be able to have say, 6 hour sessions a night if you want to. It's high end, they've not just created a feature and thought, you can all try it out.
That happens at bigger companies than UWE sure, and there's going to be "they're only a small team" bellows at me here but hey, it's not about what resources you have but how you use them. It's not about how much time you throw at it, but how you use that time.
As far as being a consumer goes, being given wrong information and being mislead is something that comes up time and time again and people asking for a refund. Most people will probably already have their own idea on this and there's no point going through it, 2 years for a pre-order is extremely unprecedented. Although I do know a friend who recently received a refund for a game he ordered from 3 years ago as the company can not fulfil it's requirement to ship the game in a full and playable state.
I've waited a long time, others have waited a long time, I sympathise and understand those like Sherpa who pre-ordered, literally day 1. There are a lot of excuses, a lot of 'reasons', a lot of misdirections, a lot less straight talking and talk of patience from UW and some followers. I mean, as a follower, we can't do much more than say, be patient can we? The only thing we can hope is we get a dev post from this thread with some of the few mentioned things I just stated, a "we're working hard on the game", which time and time again we're told and we know, a "performance is increasing it'll be there soon", which again, we know.
It seems to me it's no longer about moving in the right direction, being told another reason that there's not enough hours in the day, or we need another coder, for me and I guess quite a lot of others, it's about the end result. In all honesty, from an outside view on these forums, being an avid follower, the end result looks a long way off for many a reason. The only thing an open development platform has done for UWE has shown the cracks, heck with posts like this and threads like this, it probably demoralises them to see people are losing faith, although equally it might kick someone up the ass if they're slacking, who knows, I don't, I'm not on the payroll.
Many games have a release date because these games are planned and developed carefully, their process is thought out and they have a good structure in place and know where they will be and how they will get there. The only thing I'd ask of UWE among this hazy post and hazier thread is to get their act in gear with regards to stability, show you know where you are at, use your resources better and even set a release date you can achieve and stick to it. Quit cutting around the excuses, the reasoning, the misdirection in replies to being challenged in regards to the state of the game.
I'm a fan, almost all of us on here are fans, no one wants to attack the creator of a game they've purchased that's dumb. What people do what is real answers to questions, good old fashioned straight talking answers with a definitive ending and if the answer is a "Don't know", then say it aloud so your consumers, your fans, can make a better informed decision.
That is false but I agree with all your other points. The thing is that there's sequence of things that build a base for another (stability, performance, gameplay, balance and so on). Take 1 thing out and everything falls apart.
I was not told when I pre-ordered I was making an investment. There was a trailer with a Fall 2009 release time. I thought I was getting a game then. The contract is for UWE to deliver to the consumer. Care to expand on this?
*Full version when done (via Steam)
Which is clearly a pre-order. You enter into the contract of sale knowing that it is not done yet, and may not be for a long time. Thal, you say the contract is for UWE to deliver, yes that is true, but there is no set date for delivery. No contract has been broken.
I´m new here and love the feeling that sometimes comes up during a match, but there are many big problems. My PC isn´t that bad (i7 2600k, 580GTX, 8gig RAM, Crucial SSD) and my framerate is during combat between 20 and 60, so almost playable. Really annoying are the terrible lags (ping: ~60) and i can´t evolve (game crashes).
How "strong" is a average serversystem? Is that the bottleneck or really the game it self?
PS: Sorry for my bad english (german and writting with my mobile phone)
*Full version when done (via Steam)
Which is clearly a pre-order. You enter into the contract of sale knowing that it is not done yet, and may not be for a long time. Thal, you say the contract is for UWE to deliver, yes that is true, but there is no set date for delivery. No contract has been broken.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, there is a broken contract. The trailer told me Fall 2009. Now I have no release date?
While the trailer didn't specify what would happen in Fall 2009, most people - unsurprisingly - expected some form of release.
I don't think this has much legal value though, but of course I'm no expert.
What counts is probably the info on the pre-order page, like you said.
He gave them 32 days to finish a game they have been working on for years...
Everyone is also complaining about big developers not releasing games before there finished or still have bugs... Last time I checked wow gets updates every Tuesday and battlefield is on like version 1.5 now.... They must be redoing graphics and adding content all the time I guess...
I think the biggest problem right now is the PR. When the game was at its worst we got all kinds of PR and attention drawn, upgraded from alpha to beta, and much talk about features to come. Now the game is playing better it seems there is little effort to get people excited again. Maybe UW is waiting for occlusion to be fixed (it really needs to be...) before rolling out the new features and hype?
Also one of THE BIGGEST MISTAKES BY FAR is not getting custom maps to download yet (won't buy the it's difficult to implement excuse because... it isn't). I can understand not wanting to release new official content yet, but custom maps as well as other custom content would be a huge redeemer right now. There are so many games out there which have exploded in popularity strictly because of their 3rd party content and some of these haven't even left beta or <i>still</i> have performance issues (second-life?).
When playing the game I can see a lot of small bugs. Like not being able to walk through doors. Despite this looking like a big bug, it's a small bug because I can't see how it would be difficult to fix. The big bugs are ones that begin with the actual system itself, things like the lag issue. The small tweaks and bugs, like skulk/marine balance can be done incredibly rapidly on the run-up to launch, as balance doesn't affect games as much as people think it does.
I'm happy to sit back and wait for UWE to finish this game, I play a couple of games a week and enjoy myself. Anyway, I've got to have some time left to play Portal 2 right?
What I don't understand is the people who have been part of this community for so long, who feel the need to continuously point out the problems with the game, blame us for misleading everyone and tell us to "get our act in gear with regards to stability" like we are all sitting around playing Portal 2 all day. We have spent a good deal of time on here, explaining the development process, providing as much information as possible, and trying our hardest to keep everyone who frequents the forums in the loop. Leading new people who join here to think that our posts have been just misdirection, excuses and avoidance of issues seems like a poor way of showing you are an NS2 fan.
So, what do you want to hear from us? Explaining how we are making NS2 with a vastly smaller amount of money and manpower then is typical for a game of this size is apparently just an "excuse". Well, we sure wish it wasn't true, but its the way things are. We want to hire more people, in addition to the programmer we did just hire, but at the moment, the financial situation just does not allow us to hire a lot. Our options up to this point have not been ideal -- either drag out development time with a smaller amount of people, but continue to work on NS2, or hire a bunch more people, and risk going out of business.
Did we expect to still be working on the first version of NS2 now? Heck no. There have been countless unforeseen issues that have come up over the course of the project, and that is not an unusual thing by any means, and I can say that with the experience of having worked at several other companies, and being friends with people at many other companies. However, most companies just deal with it by doubling in staff size to get the game done.
Was creating our own engine "biting off more then we can chew?" Maybe. But at the time it seemed like the best and only option, and if we had to do it over again, we would most likely make the same decision, for a variety of reasons which have been listed in countless other posts. Would we do the open development style again? Speaking for me, personally, I would probably say probably not. However, I have enjoyed the ability to stay in touch with our community and share all the behind the scenes of what we are working on with you all. Do we know when we are going to release? No. We know we are very focused on shipping this game this year, are exploring every means to allow for that to happen, and are working our butts off to achieve it. But, getting constantly slammed over missing the one tentative release date that was announced sure makes us not want to put out any more dates.
I would hope that our interaction with the community would be viewed as honest, straightforward, and enlightening to the development process. As frustrating as it may be to have paid for a game that is still not finished yet, we just are asking for some understanding for why the development has taken longer then expected, and faith that we will finish this game, fix the performance issues, and release a product which is every bit worth the money that you've spent.
Thanks.
-Cory
Edit: How many preorders do you need in order to hire more help? just curious.
Meanwhile, I am creating my own maps and having a blast playing beta.
If UWE needs more money, just put out a hint and I will buy a second copy.
Seeing the development, creativity, troubleshooting and thinking process behind this games creation is amazing.
I also have terrific respect for some of the power users and their modding and ideas.
I have a strong belief in this game and I am even setting up a dedicated server at my own expense so that mappers have a place to post and test their creations.
I just want to say thanks.
To UWE : I was not a fan of NS1, I couldn't' get to play it correctly, but I'm totally in love with NS2 even in it's current state, I like all the Ideas behind it, the strong comunity and team play, ability to REALY be listenned by the developpers, the usual patch that we're all waiting for, and I have no doubt that this game will be done soon but I'm not in a hurry.
There are tons of people who think like me, but guys who are unhappy always have something to say... While we are patient.
Ignore the people who don't understand that it's going forward anyway, they will shut up when the game will be finished.
So, everyone has his or her reasons for being disappointed or hopeful, but seriously, it's not like UWE is holding your money hostage or something. Last thing they need is random people analyzing their situation on their forums.
no, i'd cut throats. but then again, i'm ready to cut blizzard's throat for intentionally sitting on a game that has been pretty much done for over a year now (diablo 3) just because they aren't sure when it's best to release it in order to not destroy their customer base for their other games (wow, sc2).
so what's worse? i'd say i'm more upset with blizzard for teasing a finished game than uwe for taking the time they have.
my two cents.
Maybe I'm being pretty impatient, maybe I'm not and my patience has just come to an end, which I think can be seen as pretty understandable.
Maybe I'm being pretty impatient, maybe I'm not and my patience has just come to an end, which I think can be seen as pretty understandable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
fair enough, i haven't paid for d3. but i played it at blizzcon 2 years ago. i am thoroughly convinced that game is done and they aren't releasing it cuz it will kill their golden goose.
i was pointing out a difference in the community relations between the people and the company. having been on the wow forums before, i can tell you that UWE is head and shoulders above Blizzard in regards to community relations.
I understand that you're impatient, and the frustration is ONLY due to a desire to play natural selection 2 in its finished state. but do you really feel cheated? if so, wouldn't you just get your refund and be done with it and uwe and us as a community? we all paid long ago, hell i even bought the christmas deal and another copy for a friend on top of that. that's 4 by my count. do they play? no. they'll play when its finished. in the meantime they play a ton of other games, and i play other games too. but i still play this beta because i like it, and because lets be honest, i know how NS2 is supposed to play better than anyone else in the world, so i gotta make sure i'm around to tell them when they've done something wrong and how they should fix it.
you, my friend, are an enabler and sometimes an instigator. and i think uwe pays more attention to it's fans who have post counts over 1k than you think, and i think you hurt cory's feelings.
they're trying man, but they don't need to be whipped.
It's a case of, I basically paid for the Spark tools, not for a game. You can call that cheated if you want.
EDIT (Because multi-tasking means I read that post ever so lightly). I feel sorry for Cory as he's the art director/whatever else, a lot of the problems, if not almost all we encounter come down to the engine, which so far, has been a one man band wagon. In all honesty, having one person on that engine for the majority if not all of that time, being the only person to develop and know the intricate ways of the engine, to know it inside out, is the only massive mistake from a technical point of view. I look at Cory's posts as a team statement, if anything, I'm sure inside he wishes he could do more than the Art/extra bits he does; not that I'm speaking for him, although I'm sure he wants the game released as quickly and as polished as possible.
I'd like to think I have the ability to sit in the middle. For example, the art and environment part, I think will be always there, although the engine programming and the gameplay coding etc. is the part where help has been needed most, and it has done for the entire length of development but to an external member, it seems as though this has barely been given the boost other than one guy coding an engine alone with people modding it as they need to around it. Which means I wouldn't be whipping anyone in particular, nor would I be aiming to hurt Cory's feelings, I just think after 2 years, the direction has gone wrong somewhere, drastically wrong, and I don't know why it would need to take 2 years or more to notice.
Hire when it hurts?
<!--quoteo(post=1842394:date=Apr 25 2011, 09:46 PM:name=)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ( @ Apr 25 2011, 09:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842394"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->they're trying man, but they don't need to be whipped.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whenever you're open about a process, do something publicly, and then take money from people you're going to get 'whipped.' It's going to happen every time under any circumstance. It's something UWE should learn to live with.
That said, they half deserve it. Why? It's been two years since pre-orders opened up. I don't care how much of a fan you are - that's a really long time. And it's not like that two year wait has actually yielded any significant results. The game just became playable (in 4v4s and under) for me during the latest patch. For some it's still not playable. I'm sure Max is doing everything he can and I don't mean to degrade anyone's efforts... but that's pretty bad and depressing. When I see long time community members get frustrated or annoyed I don't really feel the need to tell them to be silent. Their reaction is valid because that's how a reasonable person would react.
I was one of the day one sales but, despite all of this, I can't say I care about NS2's long development period. I assume I am in the minority (grouped with the people who forgot they bought this game) but in the grand scheme of things it costs $40. I pay more to fill up my car with gas.
Everyone just needs to see both sides. UWE is trying to create the game they envision because whatever they release is what is going to get reviewed by the press. The press isn't going to come back in 6 months and say "man this game rocks now." Their first release must be the best it can be. In order to get to this point they heavily, albeit unintentionally, mislead the public (and maybe themselves) about the then current status of NS2. Two years have passed and, from the gamers perspective, not much has changed.
It's reasonable for both people to want to continue to support UWE and for people to want refunds. Both sides are right. If you want a refund, get it and stop posting garbage until the game is released. If you see people asking for refunds, instead of bashing the ###### out of them for not supporting UWE, give them the refunds@uwewhatever link.
Nothing useful can come from listening to the deluded ranting of these spoiled and selfish creatures. They are coming form a tiny but vocal minority, numbering a few percent. The SILENT majority fully support and commend your vision and progress. If UWE needs more money to get NS2 finished, I'm sure many thousands (myself included) would not hesitate to order a second copy.
i haven't told anyone to be silent.
<!--quoteo(post=1842399:date=Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SentrySteve @ Apr 25 2011, 09:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1842399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you see people asking for refunds, instead of bashing the ###### out of them for not supporting UWE, give them the refunds@uwewhatever link.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i haven't bashed anyone.
Nothing useful can come from listening to the deluded ranting of these spoiled and selfish creatures. They are coming form a tiny but vocal minority, numbering a few percent. The SILENT majority fully support and commend your vision and progress. If UWE needs more money to get NS2 finished, I'm sure many thousands (myself included) would not hesitate to order a second copy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Speaking for other people doesn't help. Nor does insulting the others. No one has verbally insulted anyone else until this point. It's nice to show your support, although you can do it in other ways other than saying "Hey, these people are selfish! Infact, they're not even people! They're creatures!".
I may be a little grumpy right now, others are too, I may be a little unsatisfied, others are too. Although I fully appreciate, understand and see other people are the opposite. I can see where and why the team are happy with their efforts and unhappy. Although I and others are still allowed to voice an opinion, discuss this with others and even as Cory has been kind enough to reply to us all, speak about it openly.
Ignoring, name calling, doesn't help.
Moreover if we all decided to get a refund suddenly, NS2 would die. It's like the finnancial econnomy, it's based on faith.
Ok... Maybe it would not die... but they would have to be bought by some big company and would have lots of constraints etc...
If the shoe fits ...
<3 Mistasista