RIP Project Nova.... again

Communications Center General Discussion
161

Thank you, it certainly means something coming from someone who have dealed with them directly.

I have too much respect for the staff that are trying to create content

Devs are actually not to blame as much as people who decide to pursue certain directions in company, management that is clueless and doesnt know what it wants. I have seen it on my own eyes. One day you can have 1 meeting where everyone is talking and basically saying whats the problem, then for the next week you work with the meterial given to you, and the next meeting everything have to be made anew, and that goes for many iterations, untill time is so short everyone have to work past hours and then its full of bugs. And at every meeting the manager asks, “But why do we need it? I dont like it! I would like it to be different, but I dont know how it have to look, you have to make it better”

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162

I don’t run meetings at my company like that! - in essence you are correct, as the devs are not the problem. I have always found the devs at CCP to be exceptionally professional and enthusiastic members of staff.

It may additionally be of interest for you (and others) to know that one of the games modes I thought would be interesting was a Battle Royale mode, as an addendum to the ‘scavenging space jump’ map I had built. Now, you need to bare in mind - this was pre-PUBG, pre-HZ1, pre-Fortnite.

The map and game mode I had laid out, with very simple blueprints, was just a ‘space jump’ down to a planet, where players must ‘in racial wreaking crews’ try to control the map, before deadly radiation kills them off - in an effort to locate and find something of value. This could of been anything, but essentially, there would be an NPC in orbit trying to locate the item, and until then the radiation moves in like a wall of totalhelldeath, and players must fight it out, scavenging for weapons on the map as they went.

I did find it ironic that, giving the amount of money earnt by Epic, PUBG ét all over the last two years; that CCP Games pretty much had this available to them. It literally would have been “CTRL-C, CTRL-V” into their uproject file, and shazam, $2bill.

My original contact was Mike Read, a significant time ago now (2007), who went on to work for Cryengine. No idea what he is doing now, but that’s where he went. It was really he and I that were (at that time) talking about Unreal Engine 3 development. Not related to FPS in any way, but really just as a ‘cool development platform’, and yeah, hints were dropped regarding future development for PS3, but nothing was even a reality at that time. I don’t think EVE was even DX9 at that point, but I might be wrong.

edit:

I almost forgot! I also suggested (to Mike Read, over a 1 hour phonecall in 2010 - this guy can talk your ears off!) that CCP could take their card game (yes, CCP did have a card game with real cards, it used to be played at Fanfest for those that do not know) and make a digital version of it.

I said this, because I saw the (then) new iPad and thought a simple cheap game on that platform could work in CCP’s favour. It was shrugged off, and then Blizzard released Hearthstone 3 years later and it went on to generate $20million per month.

Oh well…

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163

And those were exactly the parts of DUST that people really did like. The social, team building, org building, rivalries and alliances. The metagame, the fitting game. All of the best parts of eve that were in DUST really did work.

They just needed to flesh out the core shooting, to make it feel more weighty and believable. A product without the bugs and serious serious performance issues that being on the aged PS3 caused. Balance was a huge issue initially but over time they did work towards something a little better.

The last thing they needed to do was simplifiy things. Look at that Apex Legends game, they took a similar concept to Fortnight, injected a bit more depth to the characters and realism in the weapons while keeping a focused team based approach with limited meaningful(ish) respawns and people absolutly love it. (I do realise that BR`s are super popular right now and im NOT saying that CCP should make a EVE BR)

Dust had elements of that game way back. There could potentially be a huge market if the game is good.

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164

Fornite originally did not have BR, it is a game mode - and this is what I had laid out in UE4.14 through blueprints/C++ for 'Nova.

Just a game mode.

-edit:

“Fortnite” was originally called ‘Fortnite - save the world’ and was just about zombie killing.

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165

shock!
How many times do I have to tell them that they will never be able to move into the overcrowded fps market

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166

Why would you think that?

167

Because nothing CCP could ever come up with would be successful in that market, its massively overcrowded and even IF they were to make something compelling in terms of gameplay, someone else would just clone it and make it more polished and more well known, while it would be nice to think it were possible, in reality its not as evidenced by DUST

168

Well, I do agree that CCP currently lack the fortitude, but not the skills.

As for the FPS market, I will resolutely disagree with your comments.

169

I mean you can disagree but its extremely obvious that the FPS market is oversaturated, steam alone has about 70 games tagged with the FPS tag just since the 1st of january this year, there is no lack of shooters on the market by a long margin and CCP isn’t going to get noticed in that pile because nothing they can make will be groundbreaking enough

170

I am actually agreeing with you here :heart_eyes: - just not that the FPS market is oversaturated and you cannot make a decent game, just that CCP currently lack what is needed to achieve this.

They do not lack good staff, just…fortitude. That really is the best word I can use to describe it.

My company is going to make a move in this particular market in the future, just not right now - but it is part of the 5 year business plan I laid out for investors.

The market is there.

171

Well good luck i guess, try not to get buried by literally everything :stuck_out_tongue:

172

Let’s be honest. The problem has rarely been that of staff, their skills, their experience or their heart.

The problem has always been CCP’s management perspectives, with strong influence from derivative cultural and knowledge complications - and a few typical conditional variables of organisational segregation (old/new, local/other and so forth).

While there’s been elements of VC relations which at times aimed at introducting concepts which were less than optimally in line with product & service foundation concepts, VC for the most part has had to increasingly correct CCP’s management perspectives. Where once again certain organisational-cultural conditions came into play - CCP talked a good game, but when push came to shove management did its own thing and just floated buzzwords.

I remember the (VC) industry conference where CCP first was floated in IPO explorations. From the get go, none of it was taken seriously. In part becaus CCP as a studio was at the outskirts of the gaming industry (which was compensated somewhat with the Nordic Gaming networks), in part because connected VC was already exploring parties preparing for tangible trends three years down the line, not intangible like presentations filled with buzzwords while the books showed the mismatch, but mostly because CCP’s upper management showed problematic limitations.

To be honest, I’ve rarely known economic activities to limit themselves so long, so blindly, by ego and perception trauma, to stumble so consistantly with looking good rather than developing the knowledge and experience to be good, and to take so long to deal with internal politics and nepotism before finally getting in a position to engage on changing strategems.

Truth be told, I recall several instances of a certain Nordic VC relation complaining about the difficulties of keeping CCP from risking their own brand value.

I get what you mean when you use the word fortitude. It’s one component, but it is derivative. It isn’t the issue as the challenge can’t even get to the point where such concepts become factors.

173

Really?

  1. ECM change, the blog listed ECM as having NO COUNTER when in fact there are 4 SKILLS and ~30 ITEMS.

  2. To fix a minor hack they HACK THE GAME so that you don’t have to dock to unload. ■■■■ immersion!

  3. Rather than take any one of DOZENS OF GREAT PLAYER SUGGESTIONS they HACK THE GAME, tying war dec to structures.

And that is just in the last 6 months. These guys are terrible.

174

You forget that product level works within constraints set by directives, and that the product is constrained by concepts like minimum product viability and asset sweating.

It’s no surprise that there’s stumbling & tumbling. But it isn’t the result of product level going stupid, but of following orders and working within boundaries that follow instructions they don’t even get to see.

None of this is shocking or atypical in venture & studio management. Honestly, you’re aiming valid feedback at a level which isn’t the culprit but which is positioned to be the only visible culprit.

175

Right, PA told them to change ECM.

I’ve been a developer for 30 years and I can spot failed individual contributors from a mile away.

These are quick fix hacks by people who barley understand EVE.

176

That is not what I said. I didn’t even mention PA.

Now under what conditions would product level management allow / induce the exact kind of approach as described? How would a product level development end up in such a dynamic?

Again, it’s easy to put blame on what’s visible / recognisable, but as you apparently have a related perspective you should also know that there’s more than the proverbial dev, and that the proverbial dev works within constraints and by targets set for him or her.

At CCP, with its history of micromanagement, boundary transgressions, knowledge gaps and similar management level issue history there’s a persistant pattern.

177

There’s no one with business management studies at the top brass. Hilmar, as has been said many tiems, was a video VFX developer before setting up CCP and eventually CEO it after the original foudner suffered a breakdown.

CCP’s leadership and management problems started form the very beginning of the company.

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178

Breakdown heh, that is an interesting choice of word. Personally I’d use the word Kristjánsson later used, but I also agree with his verdict that in the larger scheme that issue was irrelevant. I disagreed with him that it didn’t set behaviour in stone. As it did. But I suppose that is not a topic for these forums.

Problems started early, but this is not uncommon. Every startup has a dream, but also deficiences. How you handle them is often indicative of what we called patterned behaviour potential - who reacts how to what minor challenge says a lot about pitfalls surrounding larger issues.

For example, what people at Catalyst called the buzzword syndrome, falling prey to repetition of constructs as guidance in absence of first putting the knowledge frameworks in place. Remember “if it looks good it is good”, doesn’t take a genius to backtrack who picked that up from where through what advice point (sadly without first checking if the comparative analysis behind the construct was an actual match).

Another example is the long struggle with club syndrome, a variant of segregation through old boys networks and different speeds of progression. How CCP handled it’s first little schism was indicative of the future.

CCP isn’t atypical in origins or its road. It just fell for certain decisions leading to trauma, and it got stuck too long in the lure of exceptionalism while prioritising form over function. Not a healthy thing to do, always results in shifting costs to where they weren’t caused.

All the rest still boils down to the same old textbook of a company with low and other hanging fruit, banking on (organisational and commercial application of) belief mechanisms. Which is never enough.

That hole in the bottom of the ship (yet another such traceable buzzword drama)? CCP caused it. And while moving the ship to another ocean is a sufficient mechanism to keep moving (without really sailing) long enough to hit port and disembark, it isn’t a solution.

Then again, a solution as was once possible, isn’t feasible anymore. Hasn’t been since the period of T20 / ISD / et alii drama. It wasn’t that, it was how people behaved following it. Segregation, overcompensation, distancing and so forth. As opposed to proper post-mortem, filling experience base with filling knowledge gaps, tigthening up communication and cohesion, no form over function but balance.

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179

Probably the most interesting post I have read on Eve-o forums since ‘tick-tock’.

180

This is not news, CCP games does not need to explain their actions to you. They choose to release a statement, you have decided to mock it, it is pointless.

Releasing this game, would have been wrong and pointless, not with Fortnite/Apex BR’s dominating the market.

It’s a business decision, you are not required to like it.

This is the Eve online forums, not the “whine about other games” forums. Just a FYI