UE3 + Atlas

osmunda

"There are 11 former, current, or propoased MMOs using UE3. MO has outlived one and is about to exceed another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB_(video_game) and    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game),respectively."

Reposted from http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4109219#4109219 on Betel's behalf.

Early in the development of Mortal Online, Starvault was faced with the decision of developing there own engine or using one of several that are commercially available. The Unreal engine has been successfully used as an MMORPG platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lineage_II     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard:_Saga_of_Heroes At the time of the decision Epic games was also developing the Atlas technology which "provides developers with a solid foundation on which to quickly and cost-effectively build, manage and operate MMOGs" capable of "seamless world streaming" http://www.epicgameschina.com/tech/tech-atlas_overview.html

Adopting UE3 helped with some parts of developing MO, but in some aspects makes SV dependent on Epic games when certain types of problems crop up. "It's left Star Vault spending too much time fixing their client, server, and engine issues and not devoting enough time to fleshing out the title itself -- a veritable "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario." to quote Seraphina Brennan. Using UE3 may not have been the best decision, but saying it was an inappropriate decision ignores what Epic claims about its own product.

Shoe788: To be fair, there aren't that many other Unreal Engine MMOs out there. Mainly because It's too much of a resource hog to develop on a large scale.   Depends on what you mean by "there aren't that many". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games Lineage II,The Chronicles of Spellborn, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Crimecraft,DC Universe Online,Fury,Global Agenda, Mortal Online,TERA,The Agency, APB

TBA or died in development Blade & Soul, Ragnarok Online 2: The Gate of the World,Stargate Worlds,Huxley

Betel: Funny how every other developer using UE doesn't have MO's problems. APB is a legitimate example/counterpoint.  At least one of APB's problems has been an alleged problem in MO and stems directly from UE3 (aimbots). As to the how APB's movement and combat problems http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/apb-to-overhaul-driving-and-combat/ relates to problems using the underlying engine and whether it is analogous  to MO's movement and combat problems, I honestly don't know (and unless you looked at the code, I doubt you know either) I participated in the DCUO beta, so i know that movement and combat can be made to work smoothly in UE3, but I don't what it takes to do that finetuning. Regardless, saying that every other developer using UE doesn't have problems similar to MO is not true.

While there are several other MMOs that use UE3, MO is the only one (AFAIK) that tries does not use any instances. Using Atlas to try to do that may relate to some of the problems they have with the engine, but again, I honestly don't know.

Starvault is dependent on Epic for support of the Unreal engine.  When Henrick states they are waiting for an update from Epic it is just a statement, not necessarily "blaming". That being said, Henrick's latest response had a change in tone that I would have to say makes "blaming" a fair characterization of his statement (this time)   "Not much for us to do there but being somewhat angry and trying to make our own solutions."

P.S. @ betel Sorry if I have offended, but discussion of the Unreal engine was getting to be an extended tangent on Slapshot's description of his experience. Really there are 4 responses to a tangent, each with it's own problems 1) ignore-sometime appropriate but does mean that every POV gets heard except your own  2) respond- may derail the thread further 3) redirect- a relevent place to redirect to may require a new thread or necro ing an old thread 4) report- can have a chilling effect on free and open dialogue if used too often.  By keeping my response concise and mentioning that it was a tangent I thought it was a reasonable combination of 2 & 3. Because of your objections, I've shifted to purely option 3.

P.P.S. Were you trying to imply that I'm someone else?  On the MOFO boards I am Lonicera

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by osmunda

P.P.S. Were you trying to imply that I'm someone else?  On the MOFO boards I am Lonicera

 I think I understand his confusion since that Lonicera account hadn't posted on the Mortal forums in 2.5 months until a day or two ago... so it seemed as though you either retired the account or came back for the free trial, but that's irrelevant:

Henrick has been pointing fingers for years (literally at this point).  What matters is that the product HE is selling is deficient.  Some of that be due to 3rd party vendors such as Epic Games.  As a current (non paying) player I couldn't care less.  Most trial members won't be any more or less likely to purchase the game if the issues are cause in some way by Epic Games, Starvault or the Boogieman.

 

It's simply a fingerpointing excersize that focuses on avoiding blame.  I gave a perfect analogy in another thread:

 

A weekend ago I went to see a movie and the theater lost power.   They came out, apologized and gave us refunds. 

What Starvault would have done was made an announcement(after several hours) that the powercompany had an issue and there was nothing they could do about it.  To be sure they were calling the power company but since the powercompany had other customers there was not much they could do.  They hoped to have the power fixed on Monday.

 

See, as the customer.. it didn't make a difference that "It was the power company's fault".  All I cared about what that there was a problem.

ange10

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by osmunda

P.P.S. Were you trying to imply that I'm someone else?  On the MOFO boards I am Lonicera

 I think I understand his confusion since that Lonicera account hadn't posted on the Mortal forums in 2.5 months until a day or two ago... so it seemed as though you either retired the account or came back for the free trial, but that's irrelevant:

isn't that the same story for you? also what is your forum account?

 lol, sorry it was so weird, you are saying the person there doesn't really know about the game, but yet you have not been subbed yourself and just recently tried out and returned to the game from the mmorpg.com thread that you made.

but i guess this is irrelvant right

Henrick has been pointing fingers for years (literally at this point).  What matters is that the product HE is selling is deficient.  Some of that be due to 3rd party vendors such as Epic Games.  As a current (non paying) player I couldn't care less.  Most trial members won't be any more or less likely to purchase the game if the issues are cause in some way by Epic Games, Starvault or the Boogieman.

the product is a work in progress using unreal in a non instanced world, who else are they are going to turn 2? the unreal engine is developed by epic, and also the network code aswell, who better to speak 2 when the tools that you build your product with are acting up, they trying their best, even going as far as trying to develop a solution for it themselves, must be talented people to be able to do something like that, like any dick,tom and harry can make some animation or create a nice looking map.

It's simply a fingerpointing excersize that focuses on avoiding blame.  I gave a perfect analogy in another thread:

avoiding blame exactly how? "oh guys our server host is acting up, its our fault, sorry, world of warcraft killed the host or we found some memory leak which is in the code from epic so we can't really do anything until epic fix it" ....really dude? you don't even make sense,  like how do you expect them to solve the issue?

A weekend ago I went to see a movie and the theater lost power.   They came out, apologized and gave us refunds. 

What Starvault would have done was made an announcement(after several hours) that the powercompany had an issue and there was nothing they could do about it.  To be sure they were calling the power company but since the powercompany had other customers there was not much they could do.  They hoped to have the power fixed on Monday.

 

Also theres been communication from sv, they told us and are keeping us updated, you expecting us to get a refund? well the ploblem still persists, it would be foolish for them to give us free time when there are still ploblems and really that type of attitude is pointless, most people are understanding when it comes to ploblems that are out of your and whoever hands.

See, as the customer.. it didn't make a difference that "It was the power company's fault".  All I cared about what that there was a problem.

the obvious is the obvious, they told us theres a ploblem, what point are you trying to make? your like a "special case" the average person can tell when theres a ploblem by reading the announcement on it.

Slapshot1188

I respect your opinion but it is in the minority.  Simply take a look the the official forums.  Folks have had enough.  They no longer CARE who's fault it is... they just want it fixed.

ange10

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

I respect your opinion but it is in the minority.  Simply take a look the the official forums.  Folks have had enough.  They no longer CARE who's fault it is... they just want it fixed.

I respect your OPINION but we already been told who fault it is,...its not like theres arguement on who fault it is, we know who is at fault,now we just waiting for it to be fixed, and because mo is a great mmo even with its ploblems we having withdrawal symptons :P

And plus its very likely we are going to get recompensated once they fix the ploblems just like they given us free time in the past when a major ploblem has arisen.

SHOE788

Hey I feel famous...

In your list of games developed using UE3. Which ones aren't complete failures or dying slow deaths?

To think that the engine is completely independent of that is being ignorant.

Also consider the fact that most of those games are heavily instanced. Showing that, indeed, the unreal engine is atypical for MMOs.

ange10

Originally posted by SHOE788

Hey I feel famous...

In your list of games developed using UE3. Which ones aren't complete failures or dying slow deaths?

To think that the engine is completely independent of that is being ignorant.

Also consider the fact that most of those games are heavily instanced. Showing that, indeed, the unreal engine is atypical for an MMOs.

yeah makes you wonder about the big hurdles sv have, like damn UE3 and no instances with this altas thats supposed to make it possible.

Its not surpising that the server and stability has a hic up, but ue3 is great thats for sure, and they even got speedtree in now and that got removed because it was 2 heavy on the server, yet they solved that, and we got high res textures aswell, and not to mention flash support now.....its getting there, the only real ploblem is that damn network solution, but i guess sv are like the test rats and im surpised the game has come so far since closed beta, like damn, if it was instanced, they would not have ploblems but then who wants to play a instanced sandbox and i would prefer to use a engine then develop one for like 10 years (darkfall) like damn darkfall is not really sandboxy anymore but its ok for pvp and stuff but mo had like 3 years development and its getting some progress, over the last six months, at least teleporting mobs and people are gone, now we just the delay and the load because of all the hitboxes and stuff, which they fix they can get to a level that is good still by tweaking etc but if that doesnt work, we might get less hitboxes and local server (EU.NA) but thats like last option and they said they keep trying to get it better, which is fine by me, since its not like MO released GOLD, it delayed for like a year and its a work in progess development, type of paid beta which is fine by me, because i want to see the game develop into something great because great things take time because sv are a niche company and they don't have the funds or backing to stay in development for years until game is green to go while staying indepedent.

GirlGamer1

Angel10 I agree with you.  MO is a work in progress.  No one can deny it is between and Alpha-Beta state.  Then why should people pay a premium price.  I would have no problem coming back to the game if it was $4.99.  Especially with new games coming out with more polish and more systems that actualy work.  How can SV even justify the box rate or the $15 a month.

 

Me being from one of the used to be biggest alliances on the server, and almost all of them quitting enmasse.  I think I have some experience on the issue.  A couple of us have come back for the free trial to see if anything has changed.  Sadly it is no.  We all wanted it to work.  But now we are all in Darkfall, Perpetuum, EVE, Xsyon and Rift. 

 

Henrik has made tons and tons of excuses.  He promised us gold and gave us pyrite.  He came into our vent many times and said this is coming, this is coming.  And none of it did.  We were stuck in a game for almost a year with them trying to figure out what speed a horse should be, a human should run at, how high should someone jump, prediction system, etc, etc.  These are core features that should of been ironed out before the game even saw the light of release day.

 

Please please do not come back with.  "well it is an small indie team"  I really do not care they are offering a product to the world.  If they could not handle it.  Then they should not be doing it.  The "small indie team" is an excuse.  It has been all of beta and now 9 months of release and they are still tweaking CORE features not new content.  I want all this content Henrik told us in vent they have just waiting to go in.  That was the biggest lie of all.  We all realized "in my allaince" that they do not have any truck load of content ready to go.  We are the fools paying for an alpha game to be deved on the go. 

 

 

We said no more.

SHOE788

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by SHOE788

Hey I feel famous...

In your list of games developed using UE3. Which ones aren't complete failures or dying slow deaths?

To think that the engine is completely independent of that is being ignorant.

Also consider the fact that most of those games are heavily instanced. Showing that, indeed, the unreal engine is atypical for an MMOs.

yeah makes you wonder about the big hurdles sv have, like damn UE3 and no instances with this altas thats supposed to make it possible.

Its not surpising that the server and stability has a hic up, but ue3 is great thats for sure, and they even got speedtree in now and that got removed because it was 2 heavy on the server, yet they solved that, and we got high res textures aswell, and not to mention flash support now.....its getting there, the only real ploblem is that damn network solution, but i guess sv are like the test rats and im surpised the game has come so far since closed beta, like damn, if it was instanced, they would not have ploblems but then who wants to play a instanced sandbox and i would prefer to use a engine then develop one for like 10 years (darkfall) like damn darkfall is not really sandboxy anymore but its ok for pvp and stuff but mo had like 3 years development and its getting some progress, over the last six months, at least teleporting mobs and people are gone, now we just the delay and the load because of all the hitboxes and stuff, which they fix they can get to a level that is good still by tweaking etc but if that doesnt work, we might get less hitboxes and local server (EU.NA) but thats like last option and they said they keep trying to get it better, which is fine by me, since its not like MO released GOLD, it delayed for like a year and its a work in progess development, type of paid beta which is fine by me, because i want to see the game develop into something great because great things take time because sv are a niche company and they don't have the funds or backing to stay in development for years until game is green to go while staying indepedent.

They are always going to have problems with the engine, just like every other Unreal MMO.

If it's not technical problems, then it's going to be marketing problems. Running a persistent world in unreal takes a good computer, even a specific computer in MO's case, as can be seen from reading the support forums.

The game is already catering to an extremely small crowd, only to be made smaller through the ridiculous system requirements. It's obvious that it hasn't turned out profitable for them.

rhinok

Originally posted by SHOE788

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by SHOE788

Hey I feel famous...

In your list of games developed using UE3. Which ones aren't complete failures or dying slow deaths?

To think that the engine is completely independent of that is being ignorant.

Also consider the fact that most of those games are heavily instanced. Showing that, indeed, the unreal engine is atypical for an MMOs.

yeah makes you wonder about the big hurdles sv have, like damn UE3 and no instances with this altas thats supposed to make it possible.

Its not surpising that the server and stability has a hic up, but ue3 is great thats for sure, and they even got speedtree in now and that got removed because it was 2 heavy on the server, yet they solved that, and we got high res textures aswell, and not to mention flash support now.....its getting there, the only real ploblem is that damn network solution, but i guess sv are like the test rats and im surpised the game has come so far since closed beta, like damn, if it was instanced, they would not have ploblems but then who wants to play a instanced sandbox and i would prefer to use a engine then develop one for like 10 years (darkfall) like damn darkfall is not really sandboxy anymore but its ok for pvp and stuff but mo had like 3 years development and its getting some progress, over the last six months, at least teleporting mobs and people are gone, now we just the delay and the load because of all the hitboxes and stuff, which they fix they can get to a level that is good still by tweaking etc but if that doesnt work, we might get less hitboxes and local server (EU.NA) but thats like last option and they said they keep trying to get it better, which is fine by me, since its not like MO released GOLD, it delayed for like a year and its a work in progess development, type of paid beta which is fine by me, because i want to see the game develop into something great because great things take time because sv are a niche company and they don't have the funds or backing to stay in development for years until game is green to go while staying indepedent.

They are always going to have problems with the engine, just like every other Unreal MMO.

If it's not technical problems, then it's going to be marketing problems. Running a persistent world in unreal takes a good computer, even a specific computer in MO's case, as can be seen from reading the support forums.

The game is already catering to an extremely small crowd, only to be made smaller through the ridiculous system requirements. It's obvious that it hasn't turned out profitable for them.

FYI, DCUO--which uses UE3--runs like a dream on my 4 year old laptop.  Yes, it has instances, but it also has huge, beautiful city zones with a ton of architecture, fluid combat with hordes of mobs, tons of particle effects, tc..  It runs so well, while still looking good, that it makes me wonder wtf other game companies are doing...

~Ripper

Slapshot1188

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

I respect your opinion but it is in the minority.  Simply take a look the the official forums.  Folks have had enough.  They no longer CARE who's fault it is... they just want it fixed.

I respect your OPINION but we already been told who fault it is,...its not like theres arguement on who fault it is, we know who is at fault,

 Of course there is.  I guarantee you that if you ask Epic Games they will have a slightly different take on the matter.

 

You know what's funny?  I just looked through the year end report.  I saw no mention of any refund or reduced fees from Epic Games.  One would expect that if their product was the cause of so many issues and they didn't deliver what they were contractually obliged to do... that SV would have received some compensation (similar to how players receive extra days).  So either they did not receive that compensation or they did but for some reason left it off their report.  Say yeah, you have Henrick SAYING everything is Epic's fault, but I don't see anything supporting that contention.

 

Bottom line though.. it really doesn't matter.  SV is selling the product to you.  It makes no difference if it's Sebastian's fault (SV programmer) or Epics, or the Boogieman.    Simply read the threads on the official forums.  Much of that has nothing to do with "withdrawal symptoms" but rather as Vlad says:

 

I mean are you trying to fail? iam not trolling iam seriously asking the fucking Question. Because from where we are looking thats the only conclusion that makes sense to us.

 

So yeah.. are their issues with UE/Atlas for MMOs?  Quite possibly!  Does it matter who's "fault" it is?  In the end, no... not for most folks.

ange10

Originally posted by GirlGamer1

Angel10 I agree with you.  MO is a work in progress.  No one can deny it is between and Alpha-Beta state.  Then why should people pay a premium price.  I would have no problem coming back to the game if it was $4.99.  Especially with new games coming out with more polish and more systems that actualy work.  How can SV even justify the box rate or the $15 a month.

 

Me being from one of the used to be biggest alliances on the server, and almost all of them quitting enmasse.  I think I have some experience on the issue.  A couple of us have come back for the free trial to see if anything has changed.  Sadly it is no.  We all wanted it to work.  But now we are all in Darkfall, Perpetuum, EVE, Xsyon and Rift. 

 

Henrik has made tons and tons of excuses.  He promised us gold and gave us pyrite.  He came into our vent many times and said this is coming, this is coming.  And none of it did.  We were stuck in a game for almost a year with them trying to figure out what speed a horse should be, a human should run at, how high should someone jump, prediction system, etc, etc.  These are core features that should of been ironed out before the game even saw the light of release day.

 

Please please do not come back with.  "well it is an small indie team"  I really do not care they are offering a product to the world.  If they could not handle it.  Then they should not be doing it.  The "small indie team" is an excuse.  It has been all of beta and now 9 months of release and they are still tweaking CORE features not new content.  I want all this content Henrik told us in vent they have just waiting to go in.  That was the biggest lie of all.  We all realized "in my allaince" that they do not have any truck load of content ready to go.  We are the fools paying for an alpha game to be deved on the go. 

 

 

We said no more.

well I guess my experince outranks yours by far since I took part in creating one of those alliances which is currently the biggest one ingame and now currently in another major power known as wessex.

excuses? how? a ploblem is a ploblem, you can't really call it a a excuse when they are trying their best and its not like they done something wrong in the first place.

about paying a premium price, the game uses the unreal engine 3 and it the same price pretty much as darkfall was, which has its own studio and paid employees, sv is a business, and I bought AAA games from well known companies which are more bugged out then MO so its not like MO is a just a special case, they got a mmo that uses speedtree/unreal engine and paid employees with its own studio, im sure thats expensive, and its not like they are working in a basement like perp devs or just 2 guys such as the xyson dudes or even dawntide and gnostina, which developments are so slow and also rift is a "hype" game which is using a improved formula and been heavly advertised which has caused hype and sold like 1 million copies which can't even be put in the same box as xyson,darkfall and perp since  the game isnt even in the sandbox genre.

Also this is kinda irrevleant but nice first post, I see you just signed up, welcome to

 

GirlGamer1

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by GirlGamer1

Angel10 I agree with you.  MO is a work in progress.  No one can deny it is between and Alpha-Beta state.  Then why should people pay a premium price.  I would have no problem coming back to the game if it was $4.99.  Especially with new games coming out with more polish and more systems that actualy work.  How can SV even justify the box rate or the $15 a month.

 

Me being from one of the used to be biggest alliances on the server, and almost all of them quitting enmasse.  I think I have some experience on the issue.  A couple of us have come back for the free trial to see if anything has changed.  Sadly it is no.  We all wanted it to work.  But now we are all in Darkfall, Perpetuum, EVE, Xsyon and Rift. 

 

Henrik has made tons and tons of excuses.  He promised us gold and gave us pyrite.  He came into our vent many times and said this is coming, this is coming.  And none of it did.  We were stuck in a game for almost a year with them trying to figure out what speed a horse should be, a human should run at, how high should someone jump, prediction system, etc, etc.  These are core features that should of been ironed out before the game even saw the light of release day.

 

Please please do not come back with.  "well it is an small indie team"  I really do not care they are offering a product to the world.  If they could not handle it.  Then they should not be doing it.  The "small indie team" is an excuse.  It has been all of beta and now 9 months of release and they are still tweaking CORE features not new content.  I want all this content Henrik told us in vent they have just waiting to go in.  That was the biggest lie of all.  We all realized "in my allaince" that they do not have any truck load of content ready to go.  We are the fools paying for an alpha game to be deved on the go. 

 

 

We said no more.

well I guess my experince outranks yours by far since I took part in creating one of those alliances which is currently the biggest one ingame and now currently in another major power known as wessex.

excuses? how? a ploblem is a ploblem, you can't really call it a a excuse when they are trying their best and its not like they done something wrong in the first place.

about paying a premium price, the game uses the unreal engine 3 and it the same price pretty much as darkfall was, which has its own studio and paid employees, sv is a business, and I bought AAA games from well known companies which are more bugged out then MO so its not like MO is a just a special case, they got a mmo that uses speedtree/unreal engine and paid employees with its own studio, im sure thats expensive, and its not like they are working in a basement like perp devs or just 2 guys such as the xyson dudes or even dawntide and gnostina, which developments are so slow and also rift is a "hype" game which is using a improved formula and been heavly advertised which has caused hype and sold like 1 million copies which can't even be put in the same box as xyson,darkfall and perp since  the game isnt even in the sandbox genre.

Also this is kinda irrevleant but nice first post, I see you just signed up, welcome to

 

Um I am not sure I was trying to get into a ranking contest.  And all the gmaes I mentioned I was just mentiong because thats where everyone left.

 

But I do remember your guild it fell apart and you quit the game for a while.  And during that time we were building an empire in a game that has no tools for empire building.

 

I understand what licenses they have to pay for.  My problem is so what.  It is a "work in progress" a "beta at best".  Why should we foot the bill when the game is a placeholder?

ange10

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

I respect your opinion but it is in the minority.  Simply take a look the the official forums.  Folks have had enough.  They no longer CARE who's fault it is... they just want it fixed.

I respect your OPINION but we already been told who fault it is,...its not like theres arguement on who fault it is, we know who is at fault,

 Of course there is.  I guarantee you that if you ask Epic Games they will have a slightly different take on the matter.

 

You know what's funny?  I just looked through the year end report.  I saw no mention of any refund or reduced fees from Epic Games.  One would expect that if their product was the cause of so many issues and they didn't deliver what they were contractually obliged to do... that SV would have received some compensation (similar to how players receive extra days).  So either they did not receive that compensation or they did but for some reason left it off their report.  Say yeah, you have Henrick SAYING everything is Epic's fault, but I don't see anything supporting that contention.

 sv and epic games relationship doesn't work like that, and you can ask henrik yourself in a pm how it works since you think something different when its actully something else.

Bottom line though.. it really doesn't matter.  SV is selling the product to you.  It makes no difference if it's Sebastian's fault (SV programmer) or Epics, or the Boogieman.    Simply read the threads on the official forums.  Much of that has nothing to do with "withdrawal symptoms" but rather as Vlad says:

 

I mean are you trying to fail? iam not trolling iam seriously asking the fucking Question. Because from where we are looking thats the only conclusion that makes sense to us.

if you are a vet and been in contact with vlad before, then you will know vlad has a very short temper, and has a very agressive nature, mostly reason why they lost their keep was because of vlads actions ingame, which speaks out, also that thread is not really directly him saying that its their fault, hes actully angry at the fact that the server is in that situation and SV are taking a break but what he didn't know is that sv can't do anything about it and they are quite frustuared over the matter aswell so they taking this time to recuparate since its out of their hands for the time being, so yeah people at the time, did not know the ploblem and was actully upset with the fact that sv decided to let people go home and rest in the weekend since its epic that needs to do it since they are "business partners" and epic is accountable for their software.

 

So yeah.. are their issues with UE/Atlas for MMOs?  Quite possibly!  Does it matter who's "fault" it is?  In the end, no... not for most folks.

but you for it must seem alot since you been going on about "who fault for like ages now"

ange10

Originally posted by GirlGamer1

Originally posted by ange10

Originally posted by GirlGamer1

Angel10 I agree with you.  MO is a work in progress.  No one can deny it is between and Alpha-Beta state.  Then why should people pay a premium price.  I would have no problem coming back to the game if it was $4.99.  Especially with new games coming out with more polish and more systems that actualy work.  How can SV even justify the box rate or the $15 a month.

 

Me being from one of the used to be biggest alliances on the server, and almost all of them quitting enmasse.  I think I have some experience on the issue.  A couple of us have come back for the free trial to see if anything has changed.  Sadly it is no.  We all wanted it to work.  But now we are all in Darkfall, Perpetuum, EVE, Xsyon and Rift. 

 

Henrik has made tons and tons of excuses.  He promised us gold and gave us pyrite.  He came into our vent many times and said this is coming, this is coming.  And none of it did.  We were stuck in a game for almost a year with them trying to figure out what speed a horse should be, a human should run at, how high should someone jump, prediction system, etc, etc.  These are core features that should of been ironed out before the game even saw the light of release day.

 

Please please do not come back with.  "well it is an small indie team"  I really do not care they are offering a product to the world.  If they could not handle it.  Then they should not be doing it.  The "small indie team" is an excuse.  It has been all of beta and now 9 months of release and they are still tweaking CORE features not new content.  I want all this content Henrik told us in vent they have just waiting to go in.  That was the biggest lie of all.  We all realized "in my allaince" that they do not have any truck load of content ready to go.  We are the fools paying for an alpha game to be deved on the go. 

 

 

We said no more.

well I guess my experince outranks yours by far since I took part in creating one of those alliances which is currently the biggest one ingame and now currently in another major power known as wessex.

excuses? how? a ploblem is a ploblem, you can't really call it a a excuse when they are trying their best and its not like they done something wrong in the first place.

about paying a premium price, the game uses the unreal engine 3 and it the same price pretty much as darkfall was, which has its own studio and paid employees, sv is a business, and I bought AAA games from well known companies which are more bugged out then MO so its not like MO is a just a special case, they got a mmo that uses speedtree/unreal engine and paid employees with its own studio, im sure thats expensive, and its not like they are working in a basement like perp devs or just 2 guys such as the xyson dudes or even dawntide and gnostina, which developments are so slow and also rift is a "hype" game which is using a improved formula and been heavly advertised which has caused hype and sold like 1 million copies which can't even be put in the same box as xyson,darkfall and perp since  the game isnt even in the sandbox genre.

Also this is kinda irrevleant but nice first post, I see you just signed up, welcome to

 

Um I am not sure I was trying to get into a ranking contest.  And all the gmaes I mentioned I was just mentiong because thats where everyone left.

 

But I do remember your guild it fell apart and you quit the game for a while.  And during that time we were building an empire in a game that has no tools for empire building.

 

I understand what licenses they have to pay for.  My problem is so what.  It is a "work in progress" a "beta at best".  Why should we foot the bill when the game is a placeholder?

you are misinformed about the broken up part, the black sect and the rangers of the north are the 2 guilds that was born from GD, I quit MO due to some cirumstances that involved my real life and I have not told you who i am or even what guild i was, im quite suprised that you know who i am, obviously this might be a alt account since it was just made today but thats irrevelant right.

so yeah theres the black sect which is one of the 4 guilds in the game which has only killed the greater kimiru (thats a acheivement right there) and also i was offered a placement on the council but I obviously turned it down since I decided to take a different path.

GD is also still around, because it was mainly a group of us from other games with 3 leaders but the other 2 experinced ploblems so i was the sole leader left in charge.

The other 2 leaders are currently leading GD in xyson at the moment, its just mo that the name GD is gone since no leader is currently leading it and the "council" formed the black sect, while "duffo and amethys" (which was my 2 closest) and also quite famous people in mo "since they made the quest of the minotuar videos and quest of kranesh" went on to form a small guild known as the rangers of the north which are currently a merc guild for the KBI kingdom, which I am a part of.

I do not have the time to be leading guilds anymore, as mo is now just a hobby in my spare time as there is not enough time for me to play games anymore.

and about your last question, its already been answerd and I am hoping that you can answer that question yourself since peopls reasoning for paying can differ.

Betel

Originally posted by osmunda

 

Reposted from http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4109219#4109219 on Betel's behalf.

Eh? I didn't tell you to repost anything. I told you to stop trying to be a mod here.

Adopting UE3 helped with some parts of developing MO, but in some aspects makes SV dependent on Epic games when certain types of problems crop up. "It's left Star Vault spending too much time fixing their client, server, and engine issues and not devoting enough time to fleshing out the title itself -- a veritable "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario." to quote Seraphina Brennan. Using UE3 may not have been the best decision, but saying it was an inappropriate decision ignores what Epic claims about its own product.

That quote does not apply to the UE engine as delivered, it was in reference to the plethora of bugs, broken content and the implementation of UE in MO .

APB is a legitimate example/counterpoint.  

APB did not fail because of UE. Don't take it from me, take it from someone from RTW who worked on the game - 

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong/

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-2/

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-3/

 

At least one of APB's problems has been an alleged problem in MO and stems directly from UE3 (aimbots).

Aimbots can be programmed for just about any game in which they would be useful. Not a specific problem of UE and one that can be fixed by competent programmers, though of course it's an endless arms race. I am not aware of any 3D engine that is immune to them, do you? There are plenty for HL and HL:S for eg, are those games and the vast majority of UE games in the same technical state as MO? Not even close, because they have talented profesional programmers and procedures and not some guys who used to make mod levels.

 

As to the how APB's movement and combat problems http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/apb-to-overhaul-driving-and-combat/ relates to problems using the underlying engine and whether it is analogous  to MO's movement and combat problems, I honestly don't know (and unless you looked at the code, I doubt you know either)

So don't claim they are related then.

 

I participated in the DCUO beta, so i know that movement and combat can be made to work smoothly in UE3, but I don't what it takes to do that finetuning.

Coding skills, good QA and robust procedures. All the things SV don't have.

 

Regardless, saying that every other developer using UE doesn't have problems similar to MO is not true.

You are attempting to paint a pattern of games having trouble because of UE. All you can find is one game that was an absolute disaster from start to finish for reasons that had nothing to do with UE.  Your point is not compelling at all, and is disproven by your own evidence (re DCUO).

The problem is not UE, it is SV.

While there are several other MMOs that use UE3, MO is the only one (AFAIK) that tries does not use any instances. Using Atlas to try to do that may relate to some of the problems they have with the engine, but again, I honestly don't know.

So don't claim the problem is with UE. All the evidence points to one thing, SV culpability. Occam's Razor.

Starvault is dependent on Epic for support of the Unreal engine.  When Henrick states they are waiting for an update from Epic it is just a statement, not necessarily "blaming". That being said, Henrick's latest response had a change in tone that I would have to say makes "blaming" a fair characterization of his statement (this time)   "Not much for us to do there but being somewhat angry and trying to make our own solutions."

How do we know SV is waiting for an update? These are the people who can't code a compass or a patcher properly and have lied repeatedly remember. As was pointed out, all companies are liable for their product being at fault financially within the business world. If product A does not work and I lose business over it, I can claim damages and penalties. Why isn't SV demanding this from Epic? Occam's Razor says it's because he knows Epic are not to blame.

P.S. @ betel Sorry if I have offended, but discussion of the Unreal engine was getting to be an extended tangent on Slapshot's description of his experience.

It flowed out of his experiences and what was the root cause of them. I wasn't offended, your attempts to mod discussions are irritating and I will no longer tolerate it.

Really there are 4 responses to a tangent, each with it's own problems 1) ignore-sometime appropriate but does mean that every POV gets heard except your own

Your post gets heard the same as everyone else's. Perhaps what you mean is that your POV is not given enough weight? Well if the weight of opinion and evidence is against you that is just tough. This is not the MO forums, you get uncensored opinions here.

 2) respond- may derail the thread further  3) redirect- a relevent place to redirect to may require a new thread or necro ing an old thread 4) report- can have a chilling effect on free and open dialogue if used too often.  By keeping my response concise and mentioning that it was a tangent I thought it was a reasonable combination of 2 & 3. Because of your objections, I've shifted to purely option 3.

Reporting has a chilling effect on nothing. If a mod does not delete the post in question, then the poster doesn't even know about it. If  a mod does delete it, then it violated some rule and should be deleted.

You have a pattern of claiming "off topic" in threads when discussion is about how bad MO is. You never do it when it is someone being OT but saying MO is the bee knees. I eventually found that irritating enough to comment on it, and will quite happily post links if needed. Perhaps I'll PM the IRC log to a mod too, since I don't think they want it posted here.

P.P.S. Were you trying to imply that I'm someone else?  On the MOFO boards I am Lonicera

You may take from it what you will, from a joke to a serious point. All opinions are valid

ange10

Originally posted by Betel

Originally posted by osmunda

 

Reposted from http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4109219#4109219 on Betel's behalf.

Eh? I didn't tell you to repost anything. I told you to stop trying to be a mod here.

Adopting UE3 helped with some parts of developing MO, but in some aspects makes SV dependent on Epic games when certain types of problems crop up. "It's left Star Vault spending too much time fixing their client, server, and engine issues and not devoting enough time to fleshing out the title itself -- a veritable "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario." to quote Seraphina Brennan. Using UE3 may not have been the best decision, but saying it was an inappropriate decision ignores what Epic claims about its own product.

That quote does not apply to the UE engine as delivered, it was in reference to the plethora of bugs, broken content and the implementation of UE in MO .

APB is a legitimate example/counterpoint.  

APB did not fail because of UE. Don't take it from me, take it from someone from RTW who worked on the game - 

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong/

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-2/

http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong-part-3/

 

At least one of APB's problems has been an alleged problem in MO and stems directly from UE3 (aimbots).

Aimbots can be programmed for just about any game in which they would be useful. Not a specific problem of UE and one that can be fixed by competent programmers, though of course it's an endless arms race. I am not aware of any 3D engine that is immune to them, do you? There are plenty for HL and HL:S for eg, are those games and the vast majority of UE games in the same technical state as MO? Not even close, because they have talented profesional programmers and procedures and not some guys who used to make mod levels.

 

As to the how APB's movement and combat problems http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/apb-to-overhaul-driving-and-combat/ relates to problems using the underlying engine and whether it is analogous  to MO's movement and combat problems, I honestly don't know (and unless you looked at the code, I doubt you know either)

So don't claim they are related then.

 

I participated in the DCUO beta, so i know that movement and combat can be made to work smoothly in UE3, but I don't what it takes to do that finetuning.

Coding skills, good QA and robust procedures. All the things SV don't have.

 

Regardless, saying that every other developer using UE doesn't have problems similar to MO is not true.

You are attempting to paint a pattern of games having trouble because of UE. All you can find is one game that was an absolute disaster from start to finish for reasons that had nothing to do with UE.  Your point is not compelling at all, and is disproven by your own evidence (re DCUO).

The problem is not UE, it is SV.

While there are several other MMOs that use UE3, MO is the only one (AFAIK) that tries does not use any instances. Using Atlas to try to do that may relate to some of the problems they have with the engine, but again, I honestly don't know.

So don't claim the problem is with UE. All the evidence points to one thing, SV culpability. Occam's Razor.

Starvault is dependent on Epic for support of the Unreal engine.  When Henrick states they are waiting for an update from Epic it is just a statement, not necessarily "blaming". That being said, Henrick's latest response had a change in tone that I would have to say makes "blaming" a fair characterization of his statement (this time)   "Not much for us to do there but being somewhat angry and trying to make our own solutions."

How do we know SV is waiting for an update? These are the people who can't code a compass or a patcher properly and have lied repeatedly remember. As was pointed out, all companies are liable for their product being at fault financially within the business world. If product A does not work and I lose business over it, I can claim damages and penalties. Why isn't SV demanding this from Epic? Occam's Razor says it's because he knows Epic are not to blame.

P.S. @ betel Sorry if I have offended, but discussion of the Unreal engine was getting to be an extended tangent on Slapshot's description of his experience.

It flowed out of his experiences and what was the root cause of them. I wasn't offended, your attempts to mod discussions are irritating and I will no longer tolerate it.

Really there are 4 responses to a tangent, each with it's own problems 1) ignore-sometime appropriate but does mean that every POV gets heard except your own

Your post gets heard the same as everyone else's. Perhaps what you mean is that your POV is not given enough weight? Well if the weight of opinion and evidence is against you that is just tough. This is not the MO forums, you get uncensored opinions here.

 2) respond- may derail the thread further  3) redirect- a relevent place to redirect to may require a new thread or necro ing an old thread 4) report- can have a chilling effect on free and open dialogue if used too often.  By keeping my response concise and mentioning that it was a tangent I thought it was a reasonable combination of 2 & 3. Because of your objections, I've shifted to purely option 3.

Reporting has a chilling effect on nothing. If a mod does not delete the post in question, then the poster doesn't even know about it. If  a mod does delete it, then it violated some rule and should be deleted.

You have a pattern of claiming "off topic" in threads when discussion is about how bad MO is. You never do it when it is someone being OT but saying MO is the bee knees. I eventually found that irritating enough to comment on it, and will quite happily post links if needed. Perhaps I'll PM the IRC log to a mod too, since I don't think they want it posted here.

P.P.S. Were you trying to imply that I'm someone else?  On the MOFO boards I am Lonicera

You may take from it what you will, from a joke to a serious point. All opinions are valid

most of the stuff you just made up and speculating and your just claiming this and that, I think you are abit biased towards SV.

Betel

Originally posted by ange10

 

so yeah theres the black sect which is one of the 4 guilds in the game which has only killed the greater kimiru (thats a acheivement right there) and also i was offered a placement on the council but I obviously turned it down since I decided to take a different path.

 

Can I just say lol at the kimiru kill being an acheivement.

It didn't attack anyone, so the only acheivement was sitting at your PC for however long it took to kill it with arrows while it stood there scratching it's rear.

 sv and epic games relationship doesn't work like that, and you can ask henrik yourself in a pm how it works since you think something different when its actully something else.

You may still believe Henrik's snake oil spiel, but very few others do. He has proven to be completely untrustworthy, repeatedly lying and being inaccurate about the state of the game. Complete fishing mini game in two weeks as all the code is done and working anyone? When was that exactly ...

Betel

Originally posted by ange10

most of the stuff you just made up and speculating and your just claiming this and that, I think you are abit biased towards SV.

Which parts did I make up? Please give details or we can only assume you just made that up

Slapshot1188

Look.. the bottom line is that they sold enough copies of the game to have turned a profit (remember how their balance sheet looked early 2010?).  The vast majority of those who bought the game no longer subscribe.  Thus, they are now hemoraging cash and need to try and sell more stock to catch up to debt and then hope for more subs.

 

So, most folks DON'T CARE if it was SV's fault, Epics fault or the boogiemans fault.  They just care that the product doesn;t deliver.  Some people are happy with the product and continue paying for it, but they are the clear minority of customers.

Betel

Originally posted by ange10

bullcrap doesn't deserve a answer

Which part is bullcrap? I'll go easy, just pick one point and we'll work from there.

"We" im not 2 sure what you mean by that.

It means your dear gentle readers.

also I don't really need to prove anything unlike yourself since im a well known face within MO vet community

You are a "nobody" to me in game terms, never heard of you or had contact with you ingame. Perhaps because my alliance was busy creating an Empire rather than ... what were you doing? GD? Who were they? Certainly not one of the big players like AI, Mrym or CIR. You are not well known I'm afraid.

So please, your self proclaimed virtual fame means nothing to me nor anyone else here.

 

and I don't give 2 craps about the people who have something against the game because I am just here to entertain myself by labeling the crap from the crap since there is barely anything legtimate infomation being spoken in here expect that the game is buggy.

I ask politely again, what specific points were wrong in my post? Can you name a single one or are you going to stay behind the wall of your too-cool-to reply persona because you know my post was not incorrect.

 

I would prefer these forums to be used for something more constructive then rumours and speculation but thats like a dream right lol.

Which rumours? Name a few from this thread please. Oh, apart from the ones from Henrik about having content ready and it all being Epics fault.

HerculesSAS

This whole post is misleading.

 

It's not the point that Unreal Engine games don't do well because it's hard to program for -- it's because *ALL* games do poorly. The success rate for a game is very, very slim unless you're an established entity like Blizzard. Nowadays the rate of success is so low it's ridiculous. I'm in town for the GDC in San Francisco right now (my wife's family is from the Bay Area) and walking around listening to the conference notes, I can't help but think how many of these developers won't be here next year.

 

When you link articles related to Unreal Engine 2, your argument starts to lose any strength it may have had. When you talk about MMOs using Unreal Engine, your list only has two games with an Unreal3 engine; one of which is not buggy at ALL (Global Agenda) and one of which that isn't released yet (Tera). The others are on an entirely different engine. Oh, and Huxley wasn't an MMO. And it wasn't that buggy either. It just wasn't much fun.

 

As for the point about MO not using instances... it does. It has hard server lines that translate into different instances of the game world. Games as far back as Shadowbane have done this, using the "magic bubble" to load objects that are in your bubble only, and other objects are not sent to the client. It's nothing new to have this type of design. Additionally, it's already been shown that MO can't support any number of users at the same time, so it's really not a design point I'd make as a focal point of your argument to counter somebody else against APB. Is APB instanced? Sure it is; but it also isn't buggy, and has almost as much 'free roam' ability as the map in MO. The problem with APB is of course, there's no anti hack detection and tracking, and since UE3 has lots of modding ability it's also got a lot of hacking ability. Those hacks translate over to MO, APB and others, and if they don't take the steps to combat it properly, then they are going to have issues. APB didn't have movement "issues", the players just didn't like the way things in combat worked, the way driving worked, and overall balance issues. That's what the post is talking about that you linked, and again -- the game actually did work. It just wasn't a hell of a lot of fun.

 

Understand something about development tools, especially engines like this... they all come attached with SLAs (service level agreements). That means that if there's a game breaking issue on the side of the engine, then Epic is committed to fixing it day or night, weekend or weekday. Additionally, it's already been PROVEN that the Unreal engine can be implemented in a non buggy fashion, whether you look at Global Agenda, or APB, or Gears of War. The engine isn't the issue, or at least -- not the core issue. When you have crashes in MO that spit out Swedish instead of English, you are not dealing with real programmers. That's a *global* standard, and whether I hire programmers in India, or Israel, or China, I expect them to write code in English and comments in English, as well as error logging in ENGLISH. Sebastian has no formal training of object oriented coding, he's thrown together a few Unreal mods and become the lead programmer for a project that needs optimization on the end of how it's laid out from top to bottom. The game isn't fixable in any reasonable amount of time, and that has little to do with the engine, and more to do with the capacity of SV.

 

If Epic released tools that didn't work, they wouldn't be in business. It's that simple. Granted, I have heard Unreal isn't an easy development environment to work in, but that's part of the risk you take when you start an indy gaming company, and the choices you need to make. That's why John Carmack is making ID Tech 5's most important feature the ease of use in development. I think he'll get a lot of new customers like that, not to mention force Epic to put out friendlier developer tools. But making them unfriendly doesn't make them NOT WORK, and as I said there are plenty of examples of working games using Epic's tools without being buggy... it's all the OTHER things that doom those games, like balance, fun factor, long term design, and funding. But to make a correleation between the engine being bad and the games failing is intellectually dishonest at best, and a lie at worst.

Betel

Damnit Campana, you should know better than that mass block quote for one line of text!

 

(Guessing you are Campana, could be wrong )

Toferio

Originally posted by osmunda

"There are 11 former, current, or propoased MMOs using UE3. MO has outlived one and is about to exceed another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB_(video_game) and    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game),respectively."

Just fyi, APB is not dead, but about to re-launch.

funkmastaD

Originally posted by Toferio

Originally posted by osmunda

"There are 11 former, current, or propoased MMOs using UE3. MO has outlived one and is about to exceed another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB_(video_game) and    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game),respectively."

Just fyi, APB is not dead, but about to re-launch.

 

oh yeah, this time APB will totally not fail.  

 

All unwarrented negativity aside (for a change), are you saying that if SV announced that MO had to "re-launch", you wouldn't say MO was dead?  

Toferio

Originally posted by funkmastaD

Originally posted by Toferio

Originally posted by osmunda

"There are 11 former, current, or propoased MMOs using UE3. MO has outlived one and is about to exceed another. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APB_(video_game) and    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(computer_game),respectively."

Just fyi, APB is not dead, but about to re-launch.

oh yeah, this time APB will totally not fail.  

All unwarrented negativity aside (for a change), are you saying that if SV announced that MO had to "re-launch", you wouldn't say MO was dead?  

Well, I would not say that MO is dead at all, to begin with. For me, a game "dies" when support and development of it stops, which have yet not happened. I don't know how well APB will do this time, but I would not see it as dead, considering it is currently being developed and reporting strong beta participant numbers.

But to answer your question, considering SVs experince and funds, if they declared they had to shut down MO in order to re-launch, I would consider the game dead til proven otherwise (to see new beta or the like).