Breakdown of Development May 28th update, 2 min read vs 2hr video

Nanfoodle

Development Update + 4K Siege Gameplay Footage - 11AM PT Friday, May 28, 2021 - YouTube

If you didnt have time to watch a 2hr video, below is the important information given by the team. Take their word with what ever size grain of salt you want too. 

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Few things after watching the stream. Was impressed how many people were in the battle with no lag. For alpha 1, thats awesome. Seems their coding is strong so far. Steven was playing on a 1080 Ti and recording playing, on a wide screen monitor @ 4k. For large scale battles, thats impressive. Not sure how they maintain that with the over sized particle effects.

Steven gave himself way to many HP and more then once he was stun locked buy a few players to the point he could not even move. Diminishing returns need to be addressed on CC and Steven said thats in the works.

Class balance is not being worked on right now, the focus is about getting the systems in place and tested. At this point they only have 5 classes in the game and none of the 64 archetypes. They are focusing on combat systems and other systems.

Also, Steven team and the attackers could respawn and get back into PvP very quickly, making death not very meaningful for PvP. Not sure if this is just for testing.

Also Stevens team all ported back to the main gate to the throne room (what you need to capture to win the PvP battle) I am not sure if that was a dev tool or intended.

Siege looked well done. Many points to get into the keep with Siege. So it will be a fun challenge to defend.

Textures, graphics and art style looked awesome. The lighting in the throne room looked epic. They do have a killer art team.

Rubber Banding is still an issue the longer the play session went on the worse it got but this is still Alpha 1 build. The lead coder said this is their current priority.

Dragon raid in the PvP zone (killing the dragons gives you side buffs) had more depth and mechanics since last video. Looked down right fun already.

As for Brad leaving, was addressed and done very well. The team wishing him best and taking time to tell stories about his time there. Seems they have worked with him on a few other projects. Happy to see the friendship the team builds.

Steven mentioned they are always in the process of looking for talented developers to add to their team. The hiring process has never stopped.

Slapshot1188

What is the impact of their Lead Designer leaving?  I understand they said nice things about him but did they address the impact it would have on development?  Or is it just expected that the Lead Dev departs and there is no impact to timelines at all?

Did he address the topics you mentioned in the other thread about Stephen’s comments

Did you get a count of the number of times Glorious was said?  I have the over (9) on my bet.

Thanks for the summary.  I watched about 10 minutes of the siege video.  I agree it looked good for this part of development.  Their movement animations looked good and natural.  At this point not too worried about the rubber banding or balance assuming it’s a Q4 2023 release that’s plenty of time. 

Nanfoodle

Slapshot1188 said:

What is the impact of their Lead Designer leaving?  I understand they said nice things about him but did they address the impact it would have on development?  Or is it just expected that the Lead Dev departs and there is no impact to timelines at all?

Did he address the topics you mentioned in the other thread about Stephen’s comments

Did you get a count of the number of times Glorious was said?  I have the over (9) on my bet.

Thanks for the summary.  I watched about 10 minutes of the siege video.  I agree it looked good for this part of development.  Their movement animations looked good and natural.  At this point not too worried about the rubber banding or balance assuming it’s a Q4 2023 release that’s plenty of time. 

They never talked about the impact to the team, other then they are always hiring. I am guessing but if 20 qualified people showed up, I think Steven would hire them all. But thats just conjecture. They did mention same dates for upcoming development stages, that still seem on track for what they have said in the past. Who knows really, maybe not even Steven at this point. 

Glorious was said and I didnt count but it was used mostly to talk about the testers and how glorious they are. Last play session there was about 3k reports made. Squashed allot of bugs because of it. He also praised how awesome the coding team is. Lead programer has been doing MMOs since he worked on EQ1 back in 1999. This is his 8th MMO I think he said.

Steven never talked about his comments about New World. I think he plans on keeping up with the positive things going on. Not sure if he will be more careful with his words. He has a right to have an opinion on the matter. PW2 is one of the big things that got him to make a game studio. He wants fair play MMOs to make a come back.   

  

Kyleran

Thanks for the story summary,  greatly  appreciated. 

Sounds like steady progress is being made and no real worries about the lead designer's departure, should be some folks he's been working with who are capable of stepping up into the role.

Who knows, they might even bring some better ideas to the game.

Nanfoodle

Kyleran said:

Thanks for the story summary,  greatly  appreciated. 

Sounds like steady progress is being made and no real worries about the lead designer's departure, should be some folks he's been working with who are capable of stepping up into the role.

Who knows, they might even bring some better ideas to the game.

When I have time I am always glad to summarize these videos. I do wonder as well if someone in house who has a good take on the IS vision that could get promoted? 

Nanfoodle

Looking a little more into this Jeff Bard leaving thing. He is a great guy but the only reason he became the lead game developer is because IS was a start up company. And Steven did not have the clout to pull in a big name for the position of lead game developer. Jeff had never been a lead developer before. Zero experience or education for the role. 

When Jeff went in for an interview. It was not for the position he was hired for. Jeff had experience covering many things and as Steven put it. He was a jack of all trades. So Jeff could fill in where there was holes for Stevens small company. Something that really helped in their early years. Jeff being at the helm may explain many of IS early mistakes as Jeff and Steven learned to run a game studio. Both of them had 0 experience in that area. 

IS is now about 150 employees strong and managed to survive their trial by fire and maybe in a better position to pull in someone with more experience, that would better steer the direction of IS. Maybe help Steven better know how to direct Ashes. Losing Jeff maybe a good thing for Ashes, as much as I like him. He is one of the big reasons, Ashes will have a Bard class. That was his baby. 

Slapshot1188

Nanfoodle said:

 Losing Jeff maybe a good thing for Ashes,  

Wow...  just wow.  The amount of twists and turns needed to turn having the Lead Designer of a MMORPG leave just as Alpha 1 starts from a negative to a positive is just amazing.

This in many ways is like when CoE laid off some of their staff a few years ago and the diehard fans made statements like "Maybe they were not good at their jobs and the company will be stronger/better with them gone".

Look, I get that you like the game.   But I think you just went a bridge too far in trying to spin it as a good thing that the Lead Designer just left.

Nanfoodle

Slapshot1188 said:

Nanfoodle said:

 Losing Jeff maybe a good thing for Ashes,  

Wow...  just wow.  The amount of twists and turns needed to turn having the Lead Designer of a MMORPG leave just as Alpha 1 starts from a negative to a positive is just amazing.

This in many ways is like when CoE laid off some of their staff a few years ago and the diehard fans made statements like "Maybe they were not good at their jobs and the company will be stronger/better with them gone".

Look, I get that you like the game.   But I think you just went a bridge too far in trying to spin it as a good thing that the Lead Designer just left.

Im not saying its good the position is empty. Im saying Jeff had what IS needed as a start up. Now with 150 staff and moving into the more advanced areas of development. Someone with more experience maybe a better fit. If he hires another Jeff, then its moot. But if Steven manages to catch a real Lead Game Developer, with the education and experience for the position (Jeff did not have that) that would be a huge improvement for the development of the studio.  

EDIT: Thats why I said maybe a good thing

Mendel

Slapshot1188 said:

Nanfoodle said:

 Losing Jeff maybe a good thing for Ashes,  

Wow...  just wow.  The amount of twists and turns needed to turn having the Lead Designer of a MMORPG leave just as Alpha 1 starts from a negative to a positive is just amazing.

This in many ways is like when CoE laid off some of their staff a few years ago and the diehard fans made statements like "Maybe they were not good at their jobs and the company will be stronger/better with them gone".

Look, I get that you like the game.   But I think you just went a bridge too far in trying to spin it as a good thing that the Lead Designer just left.

Having a Lead Designer leave with no appreciable impact on deadlines/target dates suggests that the 'Lead' part of his job title may have been overstated.  Or a boss/leader that doesn't understand his business.

Great summary, @Nanfoodle.  I've said it before, VR should put you on their video team to condense their multi-hours of rambling into clear, concise bullet points.  Now if they would just *start* with bullet points of the important things they wish to present, their videos might be a bit more effective.

Nanfoodle

Welcome to the conversation @Gdemami, the way you LOL at everything. I picture talking to you in real life, would be like having a conversation with the joker. Maybe with less stabbing? Least I hope with less stabbing?

Gdemami

Nanfoodle said:

I picture talking to you in real life, would be like having a conversation with the joker. 

You got it backwards - you are the jokers, I am an audience having a good laugh.

Slapshot1188

Gdemami said:

Nanfoodle said:

I picture talking to you in real life, would be like having a conversation with the joker. 

You got it backwards - you are the jokers, I am an audience having a good laugh.

Sounds like something The Joker would say.  The only thing missing was "Batman" after backwards.

Ponzini

Jeff has been around since the beginning. Even before they gave that initial target alpha/release date of 2019/2020. 90% of us knew that target date was bullshit. I forgive Steven for fumbling that considering he is new to game development but Jeff made a completely rookie mistake which kind of shows he was not cut out for that position. As good of a guy Jeff was, I think they would have done better with more experienced people in their senior positions. 

Unfortunately their mistakes and covid will probably cost them another 2 or 3 years extra in development time. The good news is that I trust Steven will see the project through no matter how long it takes.