"How long will you wait for optimization?" - ReachCast Episode 49 CQ [Archive]

Tatwi

2013-09-03, 03:07 PM

TL;DR : I can wait indefinitely, because I'm not playing. Active players? 6 months without new content tops will kill the game.

March to August, waited (without logging in) for performance improvements/fixes. Expected the game to better in live than beta, but it was actually much worse. So with that in mind, it's already been a year.

Honestly, I'm not really "playing the game" at this point. I may log in from time to time now that we have a higher data cap on our internet, but nothing serious. Why? Two reasons,

1. Optimization.
2. The game has no purpose.

Personally, I can "wait" as long as it takes to accomplish both, because said "waiting" simply means "not playing or spending any money on Planetside 2". That's not really a good thing.

SOE really does need to solve both problems at the same time, because PS2 without a point will push away people who can play the game without issues and PS2 in a unplayable state will push away everyone who is effected by performance issue. Together that makes up pretty much everyone. Not good.

TimoWasTaken

2013-09-03, 03:45 PM

Three months, Tops.

GeoGnome

2013-09-03, 05:50 PM

Realistically, it will take a month before the community starts to lash out about the lack of content.

Personally, as long as Multi-threading comes out of this, I will be happy. I'd also say that if this works, I do think it'll help PS2 as a whole.

That said, I would say that just straight stopping content to focus on this doesn't seem like a great idea. I may be ignorant here, so take my words with a grain of salt, but frankly, I would like to see some content introduced in the next 2 months. There are ESF weapons, Striker fixes, and a few other small things currently on the PTS in a state that resembles done... just throw that in for Gu15. Just the ESF weapons would make people happy, enough to buy SOE more time.

camycamera

2013-09-03, 06:24 PM

as long as it takes; Smed says 3-4 months, which is to the launch of PS4, so i will wait, despite the fact i want it now.

i drool as i imagine getting 60 where i would get 30.... oh, the smoothness of battles that would have not been present beforehand, the high frames per second, oh, the stable frame rates.... how i will look forward to see you come to this wonderful game.

oh, holy Smed, give us our multicore support.

but content will still come, Smed was giving a general statement about that, so hopefully content will still flourish.

Timealude

2013-09-03, 06:31 PM

I honestly could wait till about November, after that..im not sure i could wait for at least news on new content.

bpostal

2013-09-03, 06:37 PM

Hossin is on the PTS so...I'm still happy about that. In it's current state I'll probably be able to maintain a 50/50 play schedule (play a bit every day or so for a week, then take a week off) for another year or so to stave off burnout. I won't be a member and I won't be buying SC but I know how important population is so I'll keep playing for as long as I can.

fierce deity

2013-09-03, 07:39 PM

I can wait almost indefinitely. As long as there are frequent optimization, bug fixing, and balance tweaking patches, I will be happy.

More practically though, I do not think SOE can afford to take more than 3-4 months on optimization. I'd guess that this is the limit of the limit of the community at large's tolerance for delay of content, and the launch of the PS4 at the end of that 3-4 month window might draw players away from Planetside 2 (both versions) if it isn't optimized by then. If they get it done in this time frame, they can deliver awesome new content like Hossin and resource changes as a "Christmas gift" to the players.

Rolfski

2013-09-04, 12:03 AM

I wish there would be both optimization and new content very soon tbh. It really feels the game has slowed down to a halt atm.

When it launched I was really hoping we would have 3 extra continents and finally a proper meta game by now. Now I have a hard time seeing this happen before the end ofthe year.

GreyFrog

2013-09-04, 12:58 AM

The last week has felt like 3, they need new content out this month. Optimisation needs to be finished by the end of Oct, without progress on everything else stopping. If cont lattice was out already this announcement would be all fanfare and celebrations but they havent finished a basic game mechanic yet.

Realistically they've got all the time in the world, right up to the point something similar launches E.G BF4, War Thunder etc.

Mox

2013-09-04, 05:58 AM

ringring

2013-09-04, 06:08 AM

As long as it takes.

But there's new content that I fell is important such as Hossin and the BI's, the rest I am not really interested in. Hossin and the Bi's should be game changing so for those I'd guess at around 6 months or so.

bpostal

2013-09-04, 06:11 AM

PredatorFour

2013-09-04, 06:25 AM

Needs to be done soon, we need new content soon too. With the impending release of Everquest Next which is bound to draw most of Soe's resources being it's flagship title, we need this ASAP.

ChipMHazard

2013-09-04, 06:43 AM

It is way too late. The crowd already left ps2 months ago. Ps2 isnt even worth playing for free anymore. The game is almost dead.
Therefore, big props to smed and co. for ruining this game by rushing it out way too early.

Nonsense. One and all, except for the game being rushed. That I do agree with.

I agree with Geo, I think we will start seeing more players voicing their dissatisfaction in a month or so. 3-4 months? I can see a lot of players taking a break from the game, I might even do so myself... For the third time. Of course every time players take a break from the game you [SOE] runs the risk of losing them entirely. The reason why I believe this, is that when I started playing again I saw that people had apparently grown tired of fighting in alerts on Miller, I assume that it's more or less the same on all the servers. What else is there to the game, besides the alerts?
But I'm hoping that it won't take more than... Say two months.

Levente

2013-09-04, 07:56 AM

It is way too late. The crowd already left ps2 months ago. Ps2 isnt even worth playing for free anymore. The game is almost dead.
Therefore, big props to smed and co. for ruining this game by rushing it out way too early.

you mad bro? buttheart much? ps2 with all with its flaws is still the best multiplayer experience ever in gaming history. lots of people playing with ps2

PredatorFour

2013-09-04, 08:19 AM

you mad bro? buttheart much? ps2 with all with its flaws is still the best multiplayer experience ever in gaming history. lots of people playing with ps2

No it isn't but that's not what this thread is about so we wont go there:D

Levente

2013-09-04, 05:17 PM

No it isn't but that's not what this thread is about so we wont go there:D

what no? name another game where you can get 4 transport ships loaded with players and then drop at a base. Ps2 is the best, of course could be better but after BF3 disspointment this is just heaven, not to mention i always wanted BF2142 on steroids and this is it. so no complain here

Raraldor

2013-09-04, 05:58 PM

For me it's a race to when Firefall gets either a more vocal community/more of the area gets unlocked, or when I can finally run PS2 on medium graphics. I'll drop one and pick up the other full time. Infiltrators are invisible unless they are sprinting on low graphics, which is rather annoying lol

PredatorFour

2013-09-04, 06:36 PM

what no? name another game where you can get 4 transport ships loaded with players and then drop at a base. Ps2 is the best, of course could be better but after BF3 disspointment this is just heaven, not to mention i always wanted BF2142 on steroids and this is it. so no complain here

The key is in the name... Planetside 2.

bpostal

2013-09-04, 06:42 PM

We done jumped the shark now...

http://www.maclitigator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/off_the_track.jpg

JonLeePettimore

2013-09-05, 07:46 PM

I'm not a programmer, so I will admit I'm not very knowledgeable about the subject, but, I'd like to see optimization treated like content was. We don't need a steady, constant rush. We can take a little at a time. So, I'd like to see them start rolling out weekly or bi-weekly optimization patches next week if we could. Small things, if such a thing exists.

And then, as we near PS4 launch in November, start seeing the real fruits of the labor. The big things; multi threading support, the overhauls that end crashes, that sort of stuff.

I'm willing to wait until November (?) for optimization, so long as we can get small pieces of improvement along the way. If not... I guess I'm willing to wait until November anyway, because I believe that's when the whole thing will hit.

Galron

2013-09-05, 08:07 PM

Too late, already quit. Might check back next Jan/Feb when these multicore optimizations finally hit the PC side. I think everyone expecting them earlier than that is pretty delusional considering the console version will get it first and most of the reduced staff will be trying to launch the console version before December.

EVILoHOMER

2013-09-08, 09:41 PM

50% of people quit Planetside 2 by December 2012, I noticed huge declines there and come 2013 I was asking for server merges because it was hard to find battles.

The game died from a typical SOE rush release even though we kept telling them in beta it wasn't ready. It's like how many times SOE? This happens with all your games and YOU DO NOT FUCKING LISTEN TO YOUR BETA TESTERS!

I do not care for EQN, one because it looks like shit but also I've got no interest in being burnt again.

Sunrock

2013-09-09, 02:12 AM

It would be good that they actually improve it first before we start to talk about they spending too much time on it.

Sirisian

2013-09-09, 04:16 AM

I was talking about this in IRC the other day and its effect on the resource revamp schedule. I could see the optimizations getting to PTS in around January and early February for the live server. Kind of sucks, but it would probably push other roadmap items into April probably? Might be a little optimistic of a time table though.

This is under the assumption they do the optimizations in a sane manner and are actually allowed to rewrite things and try other approaches. I honestly don't see this being a single issue in their engine.

Meatball Mobeus

2013-09-09, 04:30 AM

Honstly what started my burn out of the game was the fact that I expected to crash at least once every play session.

I'll say that again. I EXPECTED to crash at least once every time I played.

For those of you who don't know me, I love to make videos of my outfits raid on Thursday. I like to think I have just as much fun editing the video as much as I like to play the game.

But, logging in every Thursday. Trying to make a video, find some really good fights or some really cool footage. Then crashing mid way through said fight/cool thing that is happening. Come back, and its over. That in all honesty ruined a couple of raid nights for me, and ended in my logging off kinda pissed off.

I understand that this game is incredibly difficult to make and keep bug free. But as I said earlier in this post. I shouldn't be expecting to crash every time I play. Well unless its a beta. Which officially this game is not.

I started my break about Wednesday last week, and will prolly be back this Thursday. But SOE has got to get a handle on this soon. Not just for my sake, but for the entire player base. Not only am I starting to see some friends kinda move away from the game. I'm also realizing that some people that I use to see all the time on the other factions are just gone.

As much as I love to play with my buddies, this game is kinda boring without people to fight.

Babyfark McGeez

2013-09-09, 05:46 AM

Since the game will not decompose or anything (atleast not literally), i can wait indefinitely.

But playing? Welp, all i can say is after coming back and giving PS2 a fresh try i allready stopped playing again, because after a littlebit of "wow new stuff - this is getting somewhere" i realized just how much still needs to be done untill it's really getting somewhere.
I'm sorry, but untill this has atleast the barebone elements of planetside i'm not wasting my time with this crap anymore beyond logging in for a couple of mins every now and then.

And tbh, i think this is exactly the problem they have or will be having: People come back only so many times before they just say "fuck this" and move to a different title which offers something similar.
I mean time is still on SOEs side, but they better be quick with making this forgelight engine test into a real game, otherwise the first competitor to be released (which, due to their stupid target demographic and game design, might aswell be some lobby shooter like battlefield) will turn this into a friggin' ghost town. Like PS1. Just worse. F2P XP-Grind worse.

And the icing on the cake? One could see this steady decline coming from a mile away, i still remember all those threads about releasing / creating hype "too early" in beta, or the myriads of helpful threads on why the game isn't working (anyone remember figment for example?).
But instead the devs choose to bumble around giving off the impression that they are making their first game with a "call of duty creator" while never having heard of planetside.

Zadexin

2013-09-09, 01:59 PM

you mad bro? buttheart much? ps2 with all with its flaws is still the best multiplayer experience ever in gaming history. lots of people playing with ps2

I agree. As a local rib shack advertises, "Ain't nothin' like it nowhere!"
Its one of a kind and unique. I can play a million WoW clones or a million arena shooters but this is something different.

That said, I'm gettting impatient for new stuff. I personally don't need optimization because I have a boss rig but I get that a lot of people do. That's fine, just don't stop adding content while you fix your back end. If we get a year after release and there is no new continent I'm afraid even my fanboyness has limits. I know the drive from the warpgate to the crown as well as I know my own commute to work by now. EVERY major MMO (worth its salt) puts out a major landmass update by the end of the first year. A lot of times for free.

I already find myself jumping into Warframe before logging onto PS2 because I know PS2 is going to be the same thing every night. No matter how good a thing is, doing it over and over will get monotonous. When games get boring, people find new games. When people find new games there is a certain inertia that you have to get over before coming back. The only real cure for that inertia is new content. Unfortunately for PS2 there are a lot of companies out there ready to give up the content while SOE keeps dicking around with a half assed, 2/3 finished lattice system and a broken, pointless alert system and no content updates.

Reithan

2013-09-10, 10:55 AM

The game died from a typical SOE rush release even though we kept telling them in beta it wasn't ready. It's like how many times SOE? This happens with all your games and YOU DO NOT FUCKING LISTEN TO YOUR BETA TESTERS!

Anyone who hasn't realized this isn't a "problem" on SOE's end is silly. Rushing games out, overhyping them, underdelivering, then pulling support when numbers get low is SOE's BUSINESS MODEL.

They've done it to every game I've ever played from them outside of Everquest 1. (Then again that migth be nostalgia goggles).

Why do they keep doing it? Because they keep making money doing it. Why? Because there are enough people that fall for it every time (myself included). They overhype a game, spend less money than they "should" developing it, less than they "should" supporting it, and rake in as much up-front cash as they can. (I.E: Spend less, charge the same/more = more profit in less time) Then they dump the game and repeat the process with another.

Think about it - why would you turn on in-game cash purchases in BETA? Isn't beta supposed to be about testing the game BEFORE you start asking for money?