News: Development shifting focus to Optimization

[kubacheski]

Originally Posted by Assist

This is why optimization of games is usually done before release of the game. Instead of it being in beta, where the players see these type of situations as acceptable, we're now doing it live and putting the game on hold essentially.

We're out of Beta?

This is the largest complaint from everything I see/read here. I used to complain a lot about this very subject - SOE released a game that wasn't ready. Look at not just the content that wasn't in at launch, but the massive changes from when it was released. It's a different game.

Smed says that PS4 is a completely different team, which makes me ponder this shift. I get the feeling that the PS4 version is going to be the powerhouse in generating content as they likely have a very limited tech side as there's only one platform to support. If the PC version can just limp along until the money from PS2 on PS4 release comes in, then the PS4 team can work on content (if it can easily be ported between versions) and the PC team will be focused more on hardware optimizations. So it's a win-win for everyone, you just gotta wait a little longer to get to that point.

That is if they're smart about it, but given the need to perform optimizations now due to the massive amount of performance degradation they've intentionally added to the game, knowing the engine couldn't handle it.....Well it doesn't bode well.

[MrBloodworth]

Originally Posted by Assist

This is why optimization of games is usually done before release of the game.

This never happens. Ever. Not in online games, and not in ones doing something no one has ever done. There is no way to test every hardware configuration before beta data scraping.

[joedacro]

so let me get this straight. the game has been running for 9 months being one of the companies highest money earners. So SOE was happy to take money from subscribers and players yet not pay for man power to the devs to actually fix the game when it was needed. Now the devs are forced to stop content development for something that should have been fixed already with all the money generated from players. it seems like basic economics you get paid to deliver a product, smedley admitted that it hasn't been done and SOE refuses to put more funding for the team to work on the road map and actually fix optimisation at the same time.

if the time frame is 2-4 months im expecting a direct x 11 game. which i don't know why any company would develop a game for direct x9 when there was no intention of current gen console releases. direct x 11 has multi core support built in yet the chose direct x from 5 years ago. the game should be in direct x 11 and in-reality if you cannot afford a direct x 11 card (because for what ever reason you don't have one in 2013) then you aren't the intended audience for games.

lastly using funding from pc planetside 2 to fun the ps4 dev team is a move which can potentially bite SOE back. i am paying for planetside 2 on pc not for ps4 and unless the dev team is working on what i mentioned above 2-4 months is far too long and the game wont get a cent from me. (i will happily play it though seeing as i have invested what i think the game has been worth already and is continually showing it is worth)

just my thoughts

[ChipMHazard]

Originally Posted by CrimsonTemplar

Granting permission to whinge? Couldn't you not have asked him to pray to the Emperor five times a day and have done with it? Which Inquisitor did you serve as Acolyte to?

Oh, bugger. I have failed the Ordo Hereticus

[Rahabib]

I am glad they are optimizing the game, even though I am one of the few who rarely has issues with this game. However, it does raise questions. Before, it was stated that it will be 2-4 months to optimize the game. Since they are dropping all development on other areas, does that mean it will be a shorter wait, or is it going to still be 3-4 months? the 2-4 month comment came before the announcement.

The whole PS4 not responsible and separate team thing, I think is a half truth and quite possibly a lie. Why stop development on art, level design, etc. otherwise? They are not programmers, nor have anything to do with the engine. I understand things need to be optimized for whatever changes they make, but art designers dont need to completely halt everything and wait for the core developers. And the timing is suspect as well. Chances are it is another team, but they likely spun off from the original team in the first place to work on PS4. Again, I am glad they are optimizing the game, but I hope they throw us a bone here and there with the Nexus in PTS at least, or roll out the resource revamp before the holidays - of next year

[Dodgy Commando]

The game runs ok for me. Its definitely not good-looking, but runs fairly smooth (at least I'm happy to play in such conditions). I certainly didn't expect too much out of my gaming laptop.

More optimisation can only be a good thing.

What I appreciate most is the fact that they've owned up to the current situation and are taking action. That gains a lot of respect from me, especially at a time where I've lost a lot of faith in SOE vis-a-vis PS2.

Here's hoping its not linked to the PS4 release. The very fact that people have already mentioned this gives us a pretty good idea of public opinion concerning SOE and PS2.

[wasdie]

Wow, I'm sorry but you guys are thick. How many times do they have to tell you that the PS4 team is completely separate? This is not the beta for the PS4. They've been developing content for us and will continue to develop content for us. They continue to say that yet you all keep ignoring them.

This is exactly why I don't want to be a game dev ever. People just don't believe you.

They've been balancing between making the new player experience better, providing content for existing players, and developing the game further. This whole they've spent none of it going back and cleaning house or optimizing. They can't do everything at once.

[Chaff]

.
Supposedly, PS2 has generated SOE some decent $$$$$$. Be it via Premium Subs, or people buying a cammo or two ....... players are investing more than just their precious time into PS2. This community has invested good 'ol $$$$.

MONEY TALKS

BULLSHIT WALKS

SOE owes this community Optimization & Content. Poor management on their part does not freely entitle them to turn around and bite the hand that feeds them.

They owe us Optimizaion of the overall game AND New Content. Change peoples hours at SOE. Move some staff around and offer oportunities to expand their skillset.

I'm willing to accept a tapering-down of New Content, but nowhere near a full halt.

I passed on buying Game Cards (Station Cash) for the 2-for-1 deal on Best Buy cards last week end.
I'm already in "I AIN'T GONNA SPEND ANY MO' MONEY UNTIL I GET NEW (and better) CONTENT"

Now ? They pretty much admit they ain't even gonna pretend to be working on anyting to improve our gaming experience ? Well, I will spend ZERO $$$$$ until they deliver QUALITY OPTIMIZATION .... AND .... NEW & IMPROVED CONTENT. I've been on an unofficial money strike for a few months. Now, methinks it's an offical boycott ..... with no end in sight.

My wallet is closed. My credit card won't be sending them any of my $$$$ any tiome soon. Not if I'm reading the SOE Smedbucks tea leaves correctly.

They give us next-to-nothing ? I will give them NOTHING.
.

[PredatorFour]

It's ok.. most of the devs are away on optimisation duties BUT, the Werner Hamster is still working on new content like Hossin etc... so don't be worried!

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by Rahabib

I am glad they are optimizing the game, even though I am one of the few who rarely has issues with this game. However, it does raise questions. Before, it was stated that it will be 2-4 months to optimize the game. Since they are dropping all development on other areas, does that mean it will be a shorter wait, or is it going to still be 3-4 months? the 2-4 month comment came before the announcement.

The whole PS4 not responsible and separate team thing, I think is a half truth and quite possibly a lie. Why stop development on art, level design, etc. otherwise? They are not programmers, nor have anything to do with the engine. I understand things need to be optimized for whatever changes they make, but art designers dont need to completely halt everything and wait for the core developers. And the timing is suspect as well. Chances are it is another team, but they likely spun off from the original team in the first place to work on PS4. Again, I am glad they are optimizing the game, but I hope they throw us a bone here and there with the Nexus in PTS at least, or roll out the resource revamp before the holidays - of next year

Art, level design, and all of that is part of optimization. The art team and level design team are responsible for optimizing their assets. They will go through the game and start looking at where the levels have a lot of unnecessary detail or are rendering stuff that it shouldn't be rendered.

Also adding more content while you're working on the core of the engine makes it more complicated. Sometimes it's just best that you have everybody go back through all of their assets and clean house. Don't add anything new, don't push out new features, just focus on reorganization. Optimization also means that they can optimize internal systems and get their workflow to a more productive state allowing for higher quality content to be created more quickly.

They continue to say that the PS4 team is separate which it would be considering that it's working in a whole different API. The Playstation 4 is not DirectX so they've basically had a small team rebuilding their engine for that new API and hardware. It doesn't take a lot of people to do but it does take a lot of time. Throwing more people at it wouldn't make it go faster. The artists and level designers can do their own work on the whole game that would apply to both versions.

I don't think this was planned by the team. Smedly was probably looking over the numbers and realizing their player retention was terrible and performance issues were #1. If I had to guess he stepped into turn that around. The game has to continue to bring in new players and keep them or it will die. He's in charge of making sure Planetside 2 makes money.

[Hamma]

Updated the OP with a few more comments from Smed on Reddit.

Originally Posted by j_smedley

Few other comments addressing things you guys have raised here and elsewhere.
Does this mean Hossin, or Feature X, Y or Z are on hold?

• Answer - I've asked that we cease work on everything else until we get the performance situation significantly improved? Wha

t does that mean? It means faster, using less memory and better behaving. Beyond that we need to wait and see.
Does this mean AMD's are getting attention?

• Answer - yes

Does this mean that Multicore support is coming?

• Answer - yes.

Why didn't we do this before?

• Answer - we have tried a lot of stuff while the plane is in the air and flying. We cant keep adding stuff without taking the time to clean this up. That's what we've been doing and it's been a mistake.

Will this impact Everquest Next -

• Answer No

How much faster will I see the game run -

• Answer - not sure yet. Let us do our work on this and get back to you.

Smed

[wasdie]

Originally Posted by Chaff

.
Supposedly, PS2 has generated SOE some decent $$$$$$. Be it via Premium Subs, or people buying a cammo or two ....... players are investing more than just their precious time into PS2. This community has invested good 'ol $$$$.

MONEY TALKS

BULLSHIT WALKS

SOE owes this community Optimization & Content. Poor management on their part does not freely entitle them to turn around and bite the hand that feeds them.

They owe us Optimizaion of the overall game AND New Content. Change peoples hours at SOE. Move some staff around and offer oportunities to expand their skillset.

I'm willing to accept a tapering-down of New Content, but nowhere near a full halt.

I passed on buying Game Cards (Station Cash) for the 2-for-1 deal on Best Buy cards last week end.
I'm already in "I AIN'T GONNA SPEND ANY MO' MONEY UNTIL I GET NEW (and better) CONTENT"

Now ? They pretty much admit they ain't even gonna pretend to be working on anyting to improve our gaming experience ? Well, I will spend ZERO $$$$$ until they deliver QUALITY OPTIMIZATION .... AND .... NEW & IMPROVED CONTENT. I've been on an unofficial money strike for a few months. Now, methinks it's an offical boycott ..... with no end in sight.

My wallet is closed. My credit card won't be sending them any of my $$$$ any tiome soon. Not if I'm reading the SOE Smedbucks tea leaves correctly.

They give us next-to-nothing ? I will give them NOTHING.
.

They owe you nothing. You paid them for the product they currently offered you. You entered into NO contracts with them that obligated you to more and better content at ANY time.

Such arrogance is a damn virus in a gaming community.

[Babyfark McGeez]

So, content will be developed but not put out untill they have optimized the game?
Or they stop content development alltogether untill they have optimized the game?

Because the second option sure would raise some questions.

Edit: Hm, by what hamma posted the second option seems to apply here. Sooo, instead of preparing some content which after the optimization has been done can then be released much more frequently, the mappers and model guys are now sitting around twindling their thumbs untill things have been fixed?

Now i honestly don't know how the development over at SOE works, but when it's being put the way it was by smed it sounds...well...kinda stupid. I mean why stop making stuff? By the time the optimization has been finished you could pump out tons of prepared content. Which you can very well prepare using placeholders and low poly stuff if cleaning up the map(s) is part of the problem here.

Ahwell, i dunno...ceasing ALL development on content just seems like a weird move to me.

[Larington]

Oh good - I've often looked at the wall/tower segments of the perimeter walls in Planetside 2 and thought to myself "Way too much unnecessary detail, makes the environment cluttered and hard to quickly make enemies out at moderate to long distances." hopefully they'll trim down the model complexity on those now, I think it'll be for the best to make it a simpler cleaner look for base perimeter walls.

Edit: I still think they originally launched way too early, should've spent more time holding things back initially and done this work then whilst also getting tutorial and VR training in for launch, whilst launching in a quieter period where there would be less competition for any other major releases like you'd get with pre-Christmas. Oh well, what's done is done.

[Calista]

I'd imagine there is a lot of pressure in the shop these days with people being micro-managed quite a bit, putting in a ton of hours etc. Yes new player retention should be a priority. Afterall how many things can they keep making for the high level guys to keep buying? New guys don't stay around long enough to purchase anything so the net result is a money losing proposition. Optimize the game, incorporate some of the great ideas that have been kicked around for getting the new guys up to speed fast and let the content flow in a nicely profitable game.