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Download size? Compared to what? Tetris?
There should be a Historical Space Museum station in a Dau TPG station where we can go and fly any and all old ships (but cannot take them out of the sector).
File it.
File it.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/28018?page=4
1) We cannot keep all old assets around forever. Game download size directly impacts new user acquisition and other business well-being (and we've actually been bitten badly on this already). Visual consistency is nice too. Yes, we've kept things around in the past. No, we're not going to do that as much in the future.
1) We cannot keep all old assets around forever. Game download size directly impacts new user acquisition and other business well-being (and we've actually been bitten badly on this already). Visual consistency is nice too. Yes, we've kept things around in the past. No, we're not going to do that as much in the future.
At some point this game can't be a mobile and a pc game at the same time, not a good one anyway. What happens when the mobile platform begins to impede the progress of the pc version of the game?
Bah, download size for mobile platforms cannot be a good reason these days. Sure when the average download size for a mobile game was less than 100mb I could buy this excuse, but these days we have mobile games over the 2gb mark.
A game that pits android v iOS v PC , well I'm sure a bigger download would be fine for most customers. Its only 300mb right now, which is nothing compared to games like order & chaos, GTA titles, Real racing, none of which offer multiplayer on this scale.
The crap excuses like this is why I don't bother anymore...
A game that pits android v iOS v PC , well I'm sure a bigger download would be fine for most customers. Its only 300mb right now, which is nothing compared to games like order & chaos, GTA titles, Real racing, none of which offer multiplayer on this scale.
The crap excuses like this is why I don't bother anymore...
> Download size? Compared to what? Tetris?
Didn't you hear Mecha? Tetris is hot competition to VO because there aren't any griefers there, it also runs multi-platform.
Didn't you hear Mecha? Tetris is hot competition to VO because there aren't any griefers there, it also runs multi-platform.
Actually greenwall there was a player called Woodstock who collected one of every ship and wep in vo and kept them in a ship museum. I really can't remember which station but it was in UIT space. I haven't seen him in some years, but Hello Woodstock if you still pop in.
My vo folder is 400 MB. That is 5 seconds of a download. Inc, throw whatever you want in there.
My vo folder is 400 MB. That is 5 seconds of a download. Inc, throw whatever you want in there.
What happens when the mobile platform begins to impede the progress of the pc version of the game?
You get the last two years of VO, that's what.
You get the last two years of VO, that's what.
At some point this game can't be a mobile and a pc game at the same time, not a good one anyway. What happens when the mobile platform begins to impede the progress of the pc version of the game?
We've been releasing PC-specific assets for months. We created a whole new RLB system for that purpose and announced it a few months ago. That's how the PC had the new nebulae months in advance, and it's how most of the 2014 graphical changes will be PC-only. I have no concerns about download size on the PC, and we're going to be pushing things a lot harder there, as I've announced several times recently (holiday newsletter, newsposts, etc).
But we cannot have ships that are ONLY on PC. Otherwise the ship is invisible on mobile, which is unacceptable.
We're in the process of redoing all the game assets. Not just vultures, but EVERYTHING. So, where you guys are complaining about a few megs here or here, will quickly become HUNDREDS of megs here or there, not to mention the Q/A and development time of having to maintain a crapload of ancient shaders.. for what? So a handful of people can feel nostalgic about dated-looking assets? Seriously?
What's important here is forward development.. faction, economy, universe redux and expansion, persistent content. What is NOT important here is nostalgic BS that sucks up hundreds of hours of aggregated development time from Q/A passes on the shader fallbacks and other stuff. Let it go.
Sure when the average download size for a mobile game was less than 100mb I could buy this excuse, but these days we have mobile games over the 2gb mark.
The average download for a mobile game is under 50MB. Yes, there are a handful of "big" games, of which we are one. But there are a huge number of factors that impact viability of game size on the mobile market. If you get featured by Google or Apple, that translates in downloads expressly based on install size. If your game is a gig, maybe you get 100k downloads from that exposure; if your game is 50MB, you get ~1.5 million from the same exposure, with a sliding scale in between. We're never going to be the 50MB game, but there is benefit to keeping the size down.
We've also been pre-loaded on upwards of a million devices. We only achieved that because of our keeping the size down. I actually lost a contract (at the last minute, after four months of negotiation) to be on 50 million devices per year, because the SVP of the giant company decided our install size was too large (their new "high-profile" device had smaller than usual flash storage for some reason).
Needless to say, opportunities to get our game in front of millions of people per year are of great value to a company that has $0 to spend on marketing, unlike say.. Rockstar (GTA) and others.
The crap excuses like this is why I don't bother anymore...
And responding to threads like this makes me.. not want to read the forums.
What happens when the mobile platform begins to impede the progress of the pc version of the game? You get the last two years of VO, that's what.
Where do you guys think the money came from to hire an artist, so we would even have new assets? Mobile is the only thing that's kept us going, let alone advancing. I've said this a dozen times, but no one wants to believe it.
We've been releasing PC-specific assets for months. We created a whole new RLB system for that purpose and announced it a few months ago. That's how the PC had the new nebulae months in advance, and it's how most of the 2014 graphical changes will be PC-only. I have no concerns about download size on the PC, and we're going to be pushing things a lot harder there, as I've announced several times recently (holiday newsletter, newsposts, etc).
But we cannot have ships that are ONLY on PC. Otherwise the ship is invisible on mobile, which is unacceptable.
We're in the process of redoing all the game assets. Not just vultures, but EVERYTHING. So, where you guys are complaining about a few megs here or here, will quickly become HUNDREDS of megs here or there, not to mention the Q/A and development time of having to maintain a crapload of ancient shaders.. for what? So a handful of people can feel nostalgic about dated-looking assets? Seriously?
What's important here is forward development.. faction, economy, universe redux and expansion, persistent content. What is NOT important here is nostalgic BS that sucks up hundreds of hours of aggregated development time from Q/A passes on the shader fallbacks and other stuff. Let it go.
Sure when the average download size for a mobile game was less than 100mb I could buy this excuse, but these days we have mobile games over the 2gb mark.
The average download for a mobile game is under 50MB. Yes, there are a handful of "big" games, of which we are one. But there are a huge number of factors that impact viability of game size on the mobile market. If you get featured by Google or Apple, that translates in downloads expressly based on install size. If your game is a gig, maybe you get 100k downloads from that exposure; if your game is 50MB, you get ~1.5 million from the same exposure, with a sliding scale in between. We're never going to be the 50MB game, but there is benefit to keeping the size down.
We've also been pre-loaded on upwards of a million devices. We only achieved that because of our keeping the size down. I actually lost a contract (at the last minute, after four months of negotiation) to be on 50 million devices per year, because the SVP of the giant company decided our install size was too large (their new "high-profile" device had smaller than usual flash storage for some reason).
Needless to say, opportunities to get our game in front of millions of people per year are of great value to a company that has $0 to spend on marketing, unlike say.. Rockstar (GTA) and others.
The crap excuses like this is why I don't bother anymore...
And responding to threads like this makes me.. not want to read the forums.
What happens when the mobile platform begins to impede the progress of the pc version of the game? You get the last two years of VO, that's what.
Where do you guys think the money came from to hire an artist, so we would even have new assets? Mobile is the only thing that's kept us going, let alone advancing. I've said this a dozen times, but no one wants to believe it.
I have no emotional attachment to the game, maybe at one point I did. But anyway, does this mean the wraith is gone entirely? Because you kept that after you updated the wraiths to the revenant. But I digress, this is a mobile game now, so fuck it.
I kept the Wraith, I kept the EC-88, I kept a lot of assets over the years because people wanted them for nostalgia. I genuinely appreciate that people care about some of our classic art assets. If at some future point I can make a "museum pack" or something, to let PC people optionally download and fly the ships in a special instanced sector, then I'll try to do that.
But for now I am saying that because we're re-doing all the assets, I can't promise to keep old assets around anymore, it's way too big of a development burden, and yes, it has other ramifications (like download size) that I also don't want.
But I would not do it even if size were not an issue at all, or if there were no mobile version at all. That was just one reason that I stated simply, because it was easier than trying to explain the ongoing hassle of testing and maintaining old code-paths, shaders and assets to a bunch of non-game-developers. Download size is still a legit reason, but not the only one.
Today it's the Vulture, tomorrow it's every other ship we touch. That's just too big of a burden for us to carry, it could be the difference between making VO 2.0 and not making VO 2.0. So I'm saying NO, as I'm pretty sure I have to do this in order to make this development work for our tiny development team.
My extremely limited resources are focused entirely on the future, and not on the past.
But I digress, this is a mobile game now, so fuck it.
Seriously? I just explained to you in the post above that our whole focus right now is on PC graphics? There's a whole bit in the newsletter about it.
Mobile does not keep us from moving ahead on the PC. My Nexus 5 probably has a faster GPU than my (relatively recent) laptop. But mobile has kept us in business, and developing Vendetta Online. So, there really isn't any cause for people to be complaining.
If there had been enough PC subs back in 2009, I wouldn't have been faced with the hard choice of trying mobile. I would have VASTLY preferred to spend the last few years on gameplay development over platform/electronic/business crap. But, we were faced with going out of business, and mobile prevented that.
But for now I am saying that because we're re-doing all the assets, I can't promise to keep old assets around anymore, it's way too big of a development burden, and yes, it has other ramifications (like download size) that I also don't want.
But I would not do it even if size were not an issue at all, or if there were no mobile version at all. That was just one reason that I stated simply, because it was easier than trying to explain the ongoing hassle of testing and maintaining old code-paths, shaders and assets to a bunch of non-game-developers. Download size is still a legit reason, but not the only one.
Today it's the Vulture, tomorrow it's every other ship we touch. That's just too big of a burden for us to carry, it could be the difference between making VO 2.0 and not making VO 2.0. So I'm saying NO, as I'm pretty sure I have to do this in order to make this development work for our tiny development team.
My extremely limited resources are focused entirely on the future, and not on the past.
But I digress, this is a mobile game now, so fuck it.
Seriously? I just explained to you in the post above that our whole focus right now is on PC graphics? There's a whole bit in the newsletter about it.
Mobile does not keep us from moving ahead on the PC. My Nexus 5 probably has a faster GPU than my (relatively recent) laptop. But mobile has kept us in business, and developing Vendetta Online. So, there really isn't any cause for people to be complaining.
If there had been enough PC subs back in 2009, I wouldn't have been faced with the hard choice of trying mobile. I would have VASTLY preferred to spend the last few years on gameplay development over platform/electronic/business crap. But, we were faced with going out of business, and mobile prevented that.
For which I am very glad!
Funky stuff from ages past is cool and all, but I'll take new and improved over old and funky, at least for my interweb spaceships :)
Funky stuff from ages past is cool and all, but I'll take new and improved over old and funky, at least for my interweb spaceships :)
From a business stand point I get it. The game probably wouldn't exist at all right now without the mobile market. But that is just me speculating, as far as the business stuff goes, that is all I can do and I'd rather not speculate on it at all. Since I don't see any of it and I am no business owner to start with. I reread my post and realized it came across... negatively. I was genuinely curious if the wraith was getting axed. Not that I fly the thing (too lazy to go get it in axia-land). But I do feel as if the game suffers from an identity crisis, is it mobile or PC? That is my opinion on the matter, you're not required to even care. You're not even required to validate it by responding, as if I somehow have some kind of 1337 g4m3 d3v xp.
My "fuck it" portion of my response is from the realization that it won't matter to me anyway. In a few weeks I'll be back in school and too busy to play, my sub is already canceled to insure that I don't forget to when class time approaches. I decided to sub for 1 month back on the 20th of december to play around for a little while.
I actually found the game improved, but that quickly was met with the same old problems that drove me away in the first place. (faction, impossible to engage the valk effectively, some other weird balancing issues). But I'm not worried, I'm sure the usual talking heads will rally to your defense and tell me how bad of a player I am. But like I said, fuck it.
My "fuck it" portion of my response is from the realization that it won't matter to me anyway. In a few weeks I'll be back in school and too busy to play, my sub is already canceled to insure that I don't forget to when class time approaches. I decided to sub for 1 month back on the 20th of december to play around for a little while.
I actually found the game improved, but that quickly was met with the same old problems that drove me away in the first place. (faction, impossible to engage the valk effectively, some other weird balancing issues). But I'm not worried, I'm sure the usual talking heads will rally to your defense and tell me how bad of a player I am. But like I said, fuck it.
What's important here is forward development.. faction, economy, universe redux and expansion, persistent content.
Those have been right around the corner for years. Not one or two, but Years. The sentimental ship models, while of small benefit theoretically, are here now. So it's unsurprising which one gets more interest from subscribers.
Those have been right around the corner for years. Not one or two, but Years. The sentimental ship models, while of small benefit theoretically, are here now. So it's unsurprising which one gets more interest from subscribers.
But I do feel as if the game suffers from an identity crisis, is it mobile or PC?
I understand what you're saying, although I think that's a self-resolving issue in some ways. Half the new laptops are optionally tablets, phones have 8 cores and 3GB of ram.. the whole computing space (mobile or otherwise) is converging rather quickly. Anyway, while there'll be on-going UI work and other tweaks on "mobile", I don't expect it to drain nearly as much time going forward.
but that quickly was met with the same old problems that drove me away in the first place. (faction, impossible to engage the valk effectively, some other weird balancing issues).
Without wanting to take us off-topic, which specific faction issues plagued you the most? (briefly, if possible).
I understand what you're saying, although I think that's a self-resolving issue in some ways. Half the new laptops are optionally tablets, phones have 8 cores and 3GB of ram.. the whole computing space (mobile or otherwise) is converging rather quickly. Anyway, while there'll be on-going UI work and other tweaks on "mobile", I don't expect it to drain nearly as much time going forward.
but that quickly was met with the same old problems that drove me away in the first place. (faction, impossible to engage the valk effectively, some other weird balancing issues).
Without wanting to take us off-topic, which specific faction issues plagued you the most? (briefly, if possible).
Mecha you suck! :P
I do agree with your other complaints, but I'm not feeling any kind of identity crisis from VO. It feels to me like a clear PC game that is trying very hard to share the awesome with all those mobile weirdos. That's different from trying to actually reshape the game to fit mobile stereotypes. The only significant change to gameplay I can think of that was made in order to accommodate mobile mindsets was the lite sub.
I do agree with your other complaints, but I'm not feeling any kind of identity crisis from VO. It feels to me like a clear PC game that is trying very hard to share the awesome with all those mobile weirdos. That's different from trying to actually reshape the game to fit mobile stereotypes. The only significant change to gameplay I can think of that was made in order to accommodate mobile mindsets was the lite sub.
Those have been right around the corner for years. Not one or two, but Years. The sentimental ship models, while of small benefit theoretically, are here now. So it's unsurprising which one gets more interest from subscribers.
Ok, I was mentioning the big goals, but let's just look at smaller ones. Would you honestly rather have "sentimental" ship models that are available in scarce locations, or things like persistent mines, un-dockable player capships, and aggressor-detection / self-defense in the faction system? (the first being recent, and the latter two being very near-term).
Because that's what we're really talking about, do you want changes that actually move the game forward, or do you want "sentimental" stuff that will not only take time now, but will permanently soak up additional time in our testing and Q/A from now on.
Ok, I was mentioning the big goals, but let's just look at smaller ones. Would you honestly rather have "sentimental" ship models that are available in scarce locations, or things like persistent mines, un-dockable player capships, and aggressor-detection / self-defense in the faction system? (the first being recent, and the latter two being very near-term).
Because that's what we're really talking about, do you want changes that actually move the game forward, or do you want "sentimental" stuff that will not only take time now, but will permanently soak up additional time in our testing and Q/A from now on.
The fact that itani can fly proms and serco can fly valks. The fact that in theory I can have POS with most factions (with the exception of axia/valent) Faction seems largely irrelevant with the exception that one faction has better ships than the other (itani). I can ebat the hell out of valks all day but they only have to turn 90' and turbo and they're gone in under a minute. Unless I too have a valk.
The fact that itani can fly proms and serco can fly valks. The fact that in theory I can have POS with most factions (with the exception of axia/valent) Faction seems largely irrelevant
Ok, good to know. Those are pretty big target areas on my goal list, as well. I'm kind of coming at factional issues from the other end right now, working "up" from Temp KoS and station defenses.
Ok, good to know. Those are pretty big target areas on my goal list, as well. I'm kind of coming at factional issues from the other end right now, working "up" from Temp KoS and station defenses.
I don't think the faction issues that older players are having are with the actual technical mechanics of how the faction system dishes out penalties and such. Proper mutual exclusivity would be the only mechanic I can think of that would grab the attention of disenfranchised veterans.
The valkryie issue should not be understated as a faction issue either. One of the three factions gets a ship that is massively superior in weight/turbo thrust ratio and power drain to the extent that no other ship from any other faction can engage with it. It makes playing competitively as an admired Serco unbearable.
Here's a graph from my ship comparison webapp to drive the point home:
Orange bar is turbo thrust, the other is normal thrust. As you can see, the SVG is our 'best interceptor' and it woefully pitiful for the task of intercepting valkryies.
Since this thread is entitled 'new vultures' howbout a new vulture that kicks ass at interception?
The valkryie issue should not be understated as a faction issue either. One of the three factions gets a ship that is massively superior in weight/turbo thrust ratio and power drain to the extent that no other ship from any other faction can engage with it. It makes playing competitively as an admired Serco unbearable.
Here's a graph from my ship comparison webapp to drive the point home:
Orange bar is turbo thrust, the other is normal thrust. As you can see, the SVG is our 'best interceptor' and it woefully pitiful for the task of intercepting valkryies.
Since this thread is entitled 'new vultures' howbout a new vulture that kicks ass at interception?