Overreacting over early info

[NivexQ]

Originally Posted by Talek Krell

Ahhh, trolling. Right on then.

Sure, let's go with that...



I just love looking at the major differences between early builds of games and the retail versions.
This article is awesome
http://www.cracked.com/article_19457...deo-games.html

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by NivexQ

It seems like everyone likes to overreact over every little snippet of information we get about Planetside 2...we should stop assuming everything we hear will make it into the final game.

Not gonna happen lol

[Xyntech]

Despite my undoubtedly growing reputation as an apologist for the PS2 dev team, I mostly just have a wait for beta attitude.

So far, nothing I've heard has sounded like anything that would destroy the game. If I do hear anything that sounds that bad, I'll certainly be a vocal detractor.

Despite this, I think that the speculation and dissent are a good thing. Several of the devs check here regularly, so I think it's great to let the views of the veterans be known. I just never want this place to degenerate into a cesspool of negativity, so I try to be a more positive voice towards the changes, however I usually only support most of the changes within a narrow band of implementation. Until we know more, I don't know if they are going to get some of these things right or not.

Why would they release any information if they don't want us to speculate though? It's your fault Higby! You wanted this!

[NivexQ]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Despite my undoubtedly growing reputation as an apologist for the PS2 dev team, I mostly just have a wait for beta attitude.

Thank you! That's exactly what I was trying to get across!

Originally Posted by Xyntech

So far, nothing I've heard has sounded like anything that would destroy the game. If I do hear anything that sounds that bad, I'll certainly be a vocal detractor.

Despite this, I think that the speculation and dissent are a good thing. Several of the devs check here regularly, so I think it's great to let the views of the veterans be known. I just never want this place to degenerate into a cesspool of negativity, so I try to be a more positive voice towards the changes, however I usually only support most of the changes within a narrow band of implementation. Until we know more, I don't know if they are going to get some of these things right or not.

Why would they release any information if they don't want us to speculate though? It's your fault Higby! You wanted this!

And i'm exactly the same way. I personally speculate all the time. I think it fuels the desire to play. I never said anything regarding speculation, however. I simply stated that spewing hate about something you hear months prior to any form of beta is counter productive, as the pre-alpha version of a game almost never reflects the retail version.

And honestly, I have no specific case in regards to Planetside 2, especially on PSU. I just saw this video on an article I read and thought that it would be entertaining. In fact, it was the Battlefield 3 community that forced me to post this here, to prevent the same thing from happening here that happened (still going on) on the Battlelog/Battlefield 3 forums.

[Traak]

Speaking of reactions out of proportion... I wonder if we get nice, gigantic, lethal, shrapnel-spraying secondary explosions when we blow something up.

That would be way out of proportion. Like an ANT bomb.

[TheRagingGerbil]

I cried the day they removed the ant bomb.

Nothing better then swooping in with the gal over a hot bridge battle and riding my ant out the back like I was Slim Pickens.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Traak

Speaking of reactions out of proportion... I wonder if we get nice, gigantic, lethal, shrapnel-spraying secondary explosions when we blow something up.

That would be way out of proportion. Like an ANT bomb.

Can we start a "Bring back the ANT bomb" campaign?

Good times.

[Malorn]

Please explain how we are to tell the difference between over-reacting and providing feedback to the devs about the designs they reveal to us?

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Malorn

Please explain how we are to tell the difference between over-reacting and providing feedback to the devs about the designs they reveal to us?

I'd say that it is a combination of how easy it would be to change the designs in question, as well as the tone of the feedback.

For example, the debate about tanks is a pretty important one because the vehicle models are being based around the driver controlling the main gun, so would likely be somewhat hard to change. I think it's good for something like that to get a lot of attention because the developers need to know that it could be an issue and that it could turn a lot of PS1 veterans away from PS2, as well as potentially damaging the balance of the game.

As long as the devs are aware if the issue and are thinking carefully about those kinds of hard to change choices, I think we've done as much as we can. Maybe the devs will change their minds, maybe they will leave it the way they told us it is. There isn't much we can do except discuss it and wait for beta to see for ourselves, but it's good to have a heated debate while we still have a chance to affect things.

The flip side of that would be something like the sniper rifle debate about head shot damage and the potential for OSOK sniping. This design would be easy to change at any time. More over, we haven't had any kind of confirmation of being able to perform one shot kills on full health soldiers. That entire debate has been much more of an infighting debate between personal preferences of PSU members than it has been a constructive debate about hard to change, core gameplay elements. That's not to say it is a bad debate, just that it isn't as fundamentally important as something difficult to change, like the tanks.

The other factor is how constructive the tone of the criticism is. Saying things like "SUCH AND SUCH IS BULLSHIT AND IS GOING TO RUIN THE GAME" is a pretty worthless statement, where as "I think such and such will mess up the balance in this area and hurt the game in this way" is a lot more valuable. Also, I think it's usually good not to completely dismiss new ideas out of hand and instead try and think of implementations or conditions in which said design element would be more acceptable. This won't always be an option if an idea seems particularly repugnant, but a civil and constructive tone can still be kept.

I don't claim to be an expert, I just feel like we could cut back on the alarmism a little bit sometimes. I think almost all of us want Planetside 2 to be a game that we personally enjoy as well as being a successful game. Not all of us are going to be pleased with every change that makes it into the final product, but hopefully most of us will still be happy with the game despite any shortcomings it may have.