News: Community Interview with Jon Weathers - Page 9

SniperSteve · 2012-05-29, 08:33 PM

Higby - if you can make in-game VoIP so good that there is no need for a private TeamSpeak server, then you are golden. I really think if you are going to do VoIP it needs to be all the way. Make it a no-brainier from the smallest clans to the biggest gaming organizations.

Red Beard · 2012-05-29, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by sylphaen

Good interview ! I loved how hard both Hamma and Jon were trying to avoid saying the word beta.

I love the contextual VOIP concept. Jon, please, if you read this, look if it's possible to make VOIP activate when entering/exiting vehicles. Dynamic chat channels for vehicle crews was the hardest behavior to set-up over teamspeak/ventrilo. When the fights get heavy and everyone start gunning for the first vehicles that respawn instead of their assigned teammate, there is no time to fight with the VOIP UI.

Another idea for platoon leaders: on the map menu, allow interaction with the map by selecting platoon players with the mouse and do stuff like VOIP chat with selected players.

Drag'n drop, ctrl, alt, keyboard shortcuts, etc... The easier it is to interact with the map, the more enjoyable and fluid the command experience will be.

About waypoints, allowing to add timers/countdowns would be nice to improve coordination too.

Good stuff right here.

EDIT:

I firmly believe that creating a seamless and intuitive VOIP and mission system will be the difference between Planetside 2 being a great game, and Planetside 2 being one of the greatest games ever made.

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

And when a guy has vision like this, and is using words like, 'ubiquitous', I believe we have the right man for the job!

Ieyasu · 2012-05-29, 08:45 PM

haha great video Hamma! I was totally hoping you would record a shot walking up to the building and you did!

kaffis · 2012-05-29, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by Bags

I don't understand how platoons add to the learning curve and make the game less accessible...

Originally Posted by Mastachief

being a persistent mmofps i would hope the addition of platoons is a given (lets not take a step back from the original) it will not detract from the mission system only serve to enhance players experience.

Also to note the feature would be nice for those outfits that choose to ignore the mission system.

I'll just respond to both.

The way I see it is pretty simple. If the mission system works and works well, the mission system is how you coordinate multiple squads. This is a net positive over platoons, because there isn't a 3-squad limit -- if the mission system allows people to identify useful targets and/or activities and create a mission for it, as well as see missions already in existence... there's no limit to the number of squads that can be coordinated by comparing needed goals to goals that already are represented on the mission board (and, one hopes, "claimed" or "accepted" by squads that are visible to the commanders, too!).

So if you really have faith in your mission system, you don't *need* platoons. (And, Mastachief, if you can accept that argument, surely you can see why I included your quote, here, as if platoons aren't needed, then replacing them with something more powerful and more open isn't a "step back" from Planetside 1?)

So, why are they bad? Or, at least, a barrier to entry into the game and for some playstyles?

It's pretty simple. If you have two groups and they're operating on two different scales of organizational levels, one is going to be far more effective than the other, yes? (And if your answer is "No" -- at least, in light of other environmental or design systems in place in PS2 -- then there's no reason to complain at omitting platoons, right?)

Thus, it follows, that a new player, with no friends and no outfit, hits "autojoin squad" when he enters into the game, and is thrown together with a bunch of other outfitless, friendless players. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's really good from a social community perspective -- he meets new people and can form friendships. Perhaps an outfit will one day rise out of this squad.

However, it's just one squad. The guy in the mega-outfit joins a squad, and it's already platooned up. Now you've got 30 guys coordinating with the same tools and ease as the 10 guys who aren't playing wrong. The 10 guys have a much harder time, or discover that no matter what objective they go after, they're either beaten to the punch by the more effective group, or they're repelled by the more effective enemy group. It won't take much of this for them to decide that MMOs suck and this isn't the game for them.

FURTHERMORE, platoons greatly favor outfits large enough to regularly field full platoon(s), to the exclusion of smaller groups of friends from Real Life or clans from other games who want to play together. You may say "just roll them into a "real" outfit that's bigger," but ultimately, anytime you merge groups larger than 2-3 players into large groups, you create the potential for political messes, especially when they don't have a lot of shared history already. So, again, you run the risk of that smaller group not sticking around long enough to naturally form alliances, and larger outfits not wanting to just absorb them wholesale because what happens when one of the guys gets kicked for insulting the outfit leader, and then the rest of his friends make a stink?

These are just the more prominent reasons that I believe, in the presence of a fully functional and worthwhile mission system, including platoons is more headaches than it offers in benefit, and overly promotes some organizational playstyles at the risk of alienating new players and smaller outfits.

Finally, Higby, I'm 1000% behind your team's efforts to make a VOIP solution that integrates well and has the feature-set to legitimately replace 3rd party solutions for everybody. Having everybody in the same voice space does wonders for community, organization, and inclusion of new players and cross-organizational cooperation.

Make the VOIP solution so awesome, easy to use and manage, well integrated into the game, and useful that the people who stubbornly stick to their 3rd party servers are the ones at the disadvantage by isolating themselves and having to futz with their clunky out-of-game interface!

Graywolves · 2012-05-29, 08:57 PM

Only real problem with in-game VOIP is the high-pitched kids, the cursing ragers, the poor quality mics, the underwater mics, etc.

My personal use of in-game VOIP channels is how quickly I can mute those that I wish to. (instantly is barely quick enough)

Stardouser · 2012-05-29, 09:01 PM

Since battles are hundreds of players per side, what if there were a macro-scale mission that utilized 9 squads, and you wanted to send one platoon to do one part of it, another for another part, and so forth?

Serpent · 2012-05-29, 09:01 PM

Ugh... I agree, but fortunately there will be some sort of mute/ignore, etc, sort of button.

Aaaaaaaand... For god's sake the amount of horrible blasting music that some people is fun to blast through their headphones (dies)...

bpostal · 2012-05-29, 09:02 PM

Great interview, I got rather distracted around 11:13 as there were some damn dirty VS hanging about.

Edit: 11:33 is my fav part of the interview.

kaffis · 2012-05-29, 09:03 PM

Originally Posted by Graywolves

Only real problem with in-game VOIP is the high-pitched kids, the cursing ragers, the poor quality mics, the underwater mics, etc.

My personal use of in-game VOIP channels is how quickly I can mute those that I wish to. (instantly is barely quick enough)

Hmm. "Auto-mute" pitch filter? Give us a slider for voice pitch -- anything > 600 Hz is automatically muted?

**Malorn** · 2012-05-29, 09:03 PM

Great interview, and thank you Hamma & Jon for doing it!

On the VOIP thing, I don't think you'll ever get away from private servers, simply because people sometimes need to be online and talking outside of the game, particularly outfit leaders need to be accessible, and if we are relying 100% on in-game VOIP then we can't do that.

In this day and age I think it is simply expected that any serious outfit will have a private server for communication.

I think if the game handles the squad communication and the squad-leader communication within a platoon then they have made life easier for larger outfits. However I don't think a game could ever replace the need for an outfit voice comms server. Any real outfit is going to have that anyway, and I don't think a game can ever fully replace it since it has more uptime and flexibility than the game, and allows communication with players not in game.

However, I think the 30 player limit might be enough impairment to also still require private voice comms. Once an outfit requires multiple platoons then you have to deal with cross-platoon communication which the game won't support. Idea: Don't limit Platoons to 3 squads - limit it to something unrealistic for any outfit to manage, like 10 squads or 20 squads. Even 5 would be better. The higher the number of squads the less we have to worry about cross-platoon communication. It was a pain in PS1 for larger outfits to have that artificial limitation, I can only imagine it will be just as irritating in PS2.

For smaller outfits and for casuals it sounds peachy, but I have a hard time believing any serious large outfit would move away from the tried-and-true private server. The Enclave has used one for years in many games and knows how to organize it to work. I don't see the game ever replacing that.

Hamma · 2012-05-29, 09:34 PM

Originally Posted by Ieyasu

haha great video Hamma! I was totally hoping you would record a shot walking up to the building and you did!

I aim to please!

SgtMAD · 2012-05-29, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by kaffis

I'll just respond to both.

The way I see it is pretty simple. If the mission system works and works well, the mission system is how you coordinate multiple squads. This is a net positive over platoons, because there isn't a 3-squad limit -- if the mission system allows people to identify useful targets and/or activities and create a mission for it, as well as see missions already in existence... there's no limit to the number of squads that can be coordinated by comparing needed goals to goals that already are represented on the mission board (and, one hopes, "claimed" or "accepted" by squads that are visible to the commanders, too!).

So if you really have faith in your mission system, you don't *need* platoons. (And, Mastachief, if you can accept that argument, surely you can see why I included your quote, here, as if platoons aren't needed, then replacing them with something more powerful and more open isn't a "step back" from Planetside 1?)

So, why are they bad? Or, at least, a barrier to entry into the game and for some playstyles?

It's pretty simple. If you have two groups and they're operating on two different scales of organizational levels, one is going to be far more effective than the other, yes? (And if your answer is "No" -- at least, in light of other environmental or design systems in place in PS2 -- then there's no reason to complain at omitting platoons, right?)

Thus, it follows, that a new player, with no friends and no outfit, hits "autojoin squad" when he enters into the game, and is thrown together with a bunch of other outfitless, friendless players. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's really good from a social community perspective -- he meets new people and can form friendships. Perhaps an outfit will one day rise out of this squad.

However, it's just one squad. The guy in the mega-outfit joins a squad, and it's already platooned up. Now you've got 30 guys coordinating with the same tools and ease as the 10 guys who aren't playing wrong. The 10 guys have a much harder time, or discover that no matter what objective they go after, they're either beaten to the punch by the more effective group, or they're repelled by the more effective enemy group. It won't take much of this for them to decide that MMOs suck and this isn't the game for them.

FURTHERMORE, platoons greatly favor outfits large enough to regularly field full platoon(s), to the exclusion of smaller groups of friends from Real Life or clans from other games who want to play together. You may say "just roll them into a "real" outfit that's bigger," but ultimately, anytime you merge groups larger than 2-3 players into large groups, you create the potential for political messes, especially when they don't have a lot of shared history already. So, again, you run the risk of that smaller group not sticking around long enough to naturally form alliances, and larger outfits not wanting to just absorb them wholesale because what happens when one of the guys gets kicked for insulting the outfit leader, and then the rest of his friends make a stink?

These are just the more prominent reasons that I believe, in the presence of a fully functional and worthwhile mission system, including platoons is more headaches than it offers in benefit, and overly promotes some organizational playstyles at the risk of alienating new players and smaller outfits.

Finally, Higby, I'm 1000% behind your team's efforts to make a VOIP solution that integrates well and has the feature-set to legitimately replace 3rd party solutions for everybody. Having everybody in the same voice space does wonders for community, organization, and inclusion of new players and cross-organizational cooperation.

Make the VOIP solution so awesome, easy to use and manage, well integrated into the game, and useful that the people who stubbornly stick to their 3rd party servers are the ones at the disadvantage by isolating themselves and having to futz with their clunky out-of-game interface!

I could tear this wall of text apart but why bother,I don't think this poster has any experience running an outfit.

I have run a couple outfits,famous outfits in PS, and we never had any of the problems this guy is talking about,his ideas about platoons have been proven wrong by so many different sized outfits in PS.

you want to nerf platoons so the smaller outfits and new players like the game better?

are you fucking kidding me? we want bigger groups , we don't want to see that playstyle dumbed down, we want it enhanced.

the idea that we can't have platoons because some ppl don't want to join an outfit and play like that is mindboggling.

your faith in the mission system is your choice, I was a cr5 on Markov that did alot of zerg herding and if you want to spend all that time typing up missions then go right ahead, I would rather not make my whole damn outfit sit at the rally point while i finish typing that one,last mission,I will stick with our mumble server and skip the typing

the problem about friends is ridiculous,they either stay or they don't,if they want to start up drama then they are gone, its a damn simple solution that I have used a ton of times,you would be surprised how many ppl will sell out that friend when it comes to backing them up when the friend has been an asshole,I have seen it so many times.

you don't talk about politics, its the quickest way to have ppl start fighting,you make sure everyone leaves the ego at the door,you save that shit for the forums,we are here to kill shit, not listen to some crackpot theory on Vent

so to sum all this up "The way you see it" is wrong and anyone that ever led more than 10 guys into a fight knows that.

**Malorn** · 2012-05-29, 10:10 PM

Agreed. Platoons are vital to success. Those who haven't run with large outfits or managed them don't really understand the gravity of the task.

xSquirtle · 2012-05-29, 10:23 PM

First thing I'm going to do, is scream really loudly to the person next to me while I play. That way they know what I need when I need it. I'm sure others will enjoy a portable in game radio that I'll bring as well.

**Malorn** · 2012-05-29, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by Higby

Voice adds so much to the gameplay experience, but it's mostly the people who really love the game who get into using voice. Imagine if it was easy and ubiquitous, how much better of an experience the game would be for everyone. Obviously you have to be able to create custom channels, moderate them, turn off default ones and have quick ways to deal with people spamming you (friendly fire?) over it. I'd really love to make in-game VOIP in Planetside 2 robust and cool enough that you'll want to use it, and your clan will want to use it, so that way you're part of the same ecosystem as the guy whos trying the game for the first time and you can communicate with him easily and seamlessly. There are a lot of hurdles to jump over to make it happen, though.

Matt, I do believe there is a happy medium where in-game voice can be utilized by larger outfits.

Voice for a large outfit is usually multi-tiered to be effective. You have squad-level communications, because squads need to talk but the entire outfit doesn't need to hear details of what another squad is doing. Then you have the squad-leader tier where they coordinate with each other on where to ship the troops. Then you have the outfit-wide communication and announcements by the management who give broad instructions, like "recall to sanc to form up" or briefings. You also have just general chat that isn't organized where people shoot the shit when ops aren't going on.

The problems with squad communication are usually that you have to move people around into the right squads out-of-game in order to make the in-game squads function, and you have to set up multiple binds to allow squad-level communication using tools like Channel Commander from TS. If the in-game system is good enough to automatically handle the squad-level chat so outifts don't have to manage that part of the system then I think you will see outfits adopting it.

It's also beneficial for them to adopt it because it makes recruitment easier when a new recruit or pickup can just join in and automatically be plugged into the communication system. So that lowers barriers and can facilitate recruitment. That's all gravy.

If you nail that part of the system and make the intra-squad and intra-platoon communication system simple and natural and make it easy for squad leaders to talk and communicate then it becomes a beneficial tool. outside comms are still needed for things like general shoot-the-shit channels or for outfit-wide announcements, thought he latter could also be partially incorporated.

Ideally I see the perfect situation is where the game comms handle squad and platoon communication while the out-of-game comms handle outfit-wide communication. That makes it trivial for outfit leaders to utilize and manage people as they come and go and easily incorporate new players and recruits while still retaining all the power of a private communication server.