Features and improvements that do not need a lot of money

[Lord_Malganus]

10 minutes ago, felleto said:

From what I gathered it did use the same engine as swtor and added bubbles on 2014 and people were like ok if they  can do it why not us. But I'm dumb so...

Felleto you are certainly not dumb Sir.

The other game has it because their dev's are competent.

[EricMusco]

Hey there,

Ok so first, I super appreciate the enthusiasm in the thread. We always love to hear where folks' heads are at for suggestions or ideas on places to improve the game.

Now, with that said, as much as I wish your suggestions were “quite inexpensive” or required “a little more time” that is unfortunately not true. I am hoping though that I can shed some light on exactly why that is the case since very often in software (game) development very few things are fast or inexpensive.

Let me give you an example in each of your categories to be a bit more illustrative.
 

On 9/18/2023 at 11:27 AM, Whykara said:

Quite inexpensive:

• Update old textures - armours, weapons and planets.

 

Perfect, we've actually done this in numerous releases since 7.0 and it's going to continue in a number of releases I can already see on our roadmap. It's happened for armor sets/weapons (like the reforged set) and has also been a part of environment polish, the most recent example of course being Voss.

I want to give more than one example so I am going to try to not go crazy here but just how "inexpensive" is this? Let's assume we are talking about updating environmental textures for an existing planet.

• Once we know what planet we are going to be on we need a full audit of the textures present.
• Typically this is done by our Environment artists. They are looking for wallsets, floors, etc. Textures they can update they will get the most bang for the buck.
• Also as the design of the new location (this is multiple teams work) starts to take shape, are there any existing props that we want to update to bring up as well. Less broad appeal but can be centerpieces in rooms etc.
• Ok all of that is highlighted, now what?
• Well, if we are doing some fancy new (what’s old is new) things we need to concept what it is going to look like, so over to the Concept Team to get started!
• Alright we are out of concept, time to start the updating machine, multiple teams get to work depending on the specific assets but it typically includes some combination of Environment, Character, and our Outsource partners. 
• So I am on the 7th bullet, but I am honestly at almost the beginning of the process for when we are talking about “expensive” so let me speed it up. What’s left? Everything….
• We get the assets back. We need to go through art review, licensor review, changes, integration into the game.
• It’s integrated, now what? Does it work? Maybe. Funny side (and totally true) story. Imagine that we did a sweet update to the texture of leaves to make our trees look better on one planet. Nailed it, it looks great, high fives all round. 3 weeks later our QV (commonly known as QA) team finds a lone tree on a completely different planet that looks bad (QV is incredibly valuable to everything we do, and these types of change are no exception). The leaves are entirely the wrong size and the fidelity is wrong, weird? You guessed it… it’s those sweet new leaves from the other planet. Game development is complex and weird.
  • Now this is the part where I tell you about our Engineering and Tech Art teams. The tools and support they provide are invaluable. But you may not have realized that something like our Gameplay Engineering team would also be involved in updating textures on trees, but here we are as we had to bring them in to help us track down where some “textures got away from us” in other parts of the game.
  • I also want to highlight that once we have the art in hand, taking art and making it the thing you see and experience in game is something different altogether. I am skipping a lot of steps and words but this part is big.

And again, that is something we are stoked to do, taking an opportunity to polish up some of our older planets as we revisit them. So keep an eye out for more of that on the horizon. Now onto “a little more time”.

On 9/18/2023 at 11:27 AM, Whykara said:

Would require a little more time:

• Add new races.

 

Let’s talk about a new species. This is one we certainly talk about a lot internally, we always follow the “next new species” wishlists and whatnot. Not to understate it, new species is a monumental sized task. This is the kind of thing that touches nearly every aspect of the game and almost every discipline on the team.

To give you a similar idea as I did above. The teams and places it touches and needs to be hooked up:

• Once we know what the species will be it goes to our Concept team. This will include the initial species along with color variations and conversations of what customizations would look like (hair, jewelry, patterns, etc)
• I will say this as a single bullet, but imagine this bullet is gigantic. All of that ^ now needs to get made. This will largely be on our character and outsource teams but depending on what the customizations are will likely touch other teams as well across our art disciplines.
• Ok, “new species” is done. Well, the game has no concept that this species exists in a number of very important places. Let’s talk about them one at a time as they each have unique challenges.
• The game - Yup, the whole video game. You want someone, one time, to say “Hey aren’t you a <new species>”? During your story. We can’t build that into the game if the game doesn’t know. Gameplay Engineers have entered the chat.
  • Also, worth noting that *any* instance in the game retroactively where we wanted to acknowledge your < new species> would now need to involve at a minimum writing, loc, narrative, and world teams.
• Cinematics - I imagine you want <new species> to show up in cinematics. Do cool spins, take down bad guys, smooch people in space. This is going to touch a number of teams. First, we need our animators and VFX team to make sure the <new species> plays nicely with any and all existing animations (all of them) or clean up every instance where they don’t. Across the whole game. That’s more than a decade of content.
  • Once those teams have done their checks, now our Cinematics team needs to do their passes on actual implementation to make sure things are firing in the way they would expect.
• CM / UI / Systems - This is another one of those bullets you should assume is gigantic. But you need a way to actually make yourself the new species. Purchase it, unlock it, create it with all of the sliders and options, change to it (if you are something else). All of that requires setup, adding it into existing systems or in some cases overhaul of existing windows/systems if they don’t currently fit.
• Etc. - This is just a catchall bucket for every other team. QV, engineers, tech art, tools, etc. who are all also going to contribute to this. Behind the scenes, the species you play touches an enormous amount of things, and so that means an equal amount of humans on the team are going to touch it.

Ok, I have typed a lot of words. So a couple of notes. I am not saying any of this to say we wouldn’t do these things. In fact, the first example is something we have done already in the last year or so and have plans to do again very soon. Me saying everything above is to pull the curtain back a little and provide some insight, so when you look at an idea you have and think “how hard can that be?”, when it comes to game development the answer is often more involved than it might seem on the surface.

All that said, keep the suggestions coming! Sometimes there are suggestions that we spot and someone goes “hey we can do that pretty quick” and they are the exceptions we can turn around quickly!

Thanks all.

-eric

[NeoBlakkrstal]

This was absolutely amazing. You painted an incredible picture, I could almost see the Devs running around like chickens with their heads off. Very nicely done!

[LittleEwina]

As someone studying 3d modeling I love this message because it shows just how much works even one object take. Things may seems easy for people who don't have any knowledge of the industry but they are not. And unless I'm mistaking, I'm pretty sure most of the asset in game are hand painted, at least they look like it, and handpainting a texture takes a loooong time.

[SteveTheCynic]

Yes, agreed, thank you @EricMusco, that was a magnificent demonstration of how *fiddly* game (and almost any other) software development gets "behind the scenes".  From my heart of hearts, as a professional developer myself, I thank you, and for you on the team who are about to rock out those new things, I salute you!

[RoxArten]

14 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

Now, with that said, as much as I wish your suggestions were “quite inexpensive” or required “a little more time” that is unfortunately not true. I am hoping though that I can shed some light on exactly why that is the case since very often in software (game) development very few things are fast or inexpensive.

Thank you, I work in a job with a similarly complex but often unseen workflow that others assume is quick and easy but is not. I've told people many times that there is more to this process than what they think is involved. I greatly appreciate you sharing exactly how complex it is for those who believe things like changing a texture are just so fast and easy but overlook that every time you touch something in this kind of environment it could potentially break something else! 

[Whykara]

Thank you for chiming in, that's a very interesting look behind the scenes! Is it just me or does it feel like there has been more communication from you guys lately? It definitely feels like it and I very much appreciate it. 

13 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

• We need to go through art review, licensor review, changes, integration into the game.

This seems like a bureaucratic nightmare and makes me appreciate the Voss update even more. Do you really need a licensor review just for upscaling old textures? I did not know that. 

You've explained the process for planets, what about armours? Would that be easier to do? I imagine so, because armour textures typically aren't used in other parts of the game where they could cause unforseen problems. 

17 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

Cinematics - I imagine you want <new species> to show up in cinematics. Do cool spins, take down bad guys, smooch people in space. This is going to touch a number of teams. First, we need our animators and VFX team to make sure the <new species> plays nicely with any and all existing animations (all of them) or clean up every instance where they don’t. Across the whole game. That’s more than a decade of content.

I can see how that would be a problem for a species like the Nautolans, and I reckon there's still some trauma going on in the VFX department years later. But what about simple human reskins like Echani or Zeltron? They would use the same models and would therefore be a lot less work. I do believe there is a way to give players new content without completely breaking the bank.

21 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

And again, that is something we are stoked to do, taking an opportunity to polish up some of our older planets as we revisit them. So keep an eye out for more of that on the horizon.

I'm thrilled!

 

[Jazulfi]

@EricMusco - Oh my word. Thank you thank you for the amazing insights, and for taking the time. Apart from anything, really interesting!!

[TonyTricicolo]

Hey @EricMusco,

how about communicating like this with us all the time, eh?

[SteveTheCynic]

9 minutes ago, Whykara said:

They would use the same models and would therefore be a lot less work.

Proportion-wise, you may be overstating the gains (less work, sure, but not necessarily a lot less work).  Go back and look at *all* the stuff on Eric's list, not least because those species probably shouldn't conform rigidly to human conventions on e.g. eyebrow grooming, makeup styles, jewelry (if relevant) and so on.

[hajobavaria]

Thank you very much for the information @EricMusco. Sad to see that the team got nuked a few years ago and that only like 10% is left from what is was in 2015. I would love to hear a statement from the devs what the roadmap is since you guys are now a very small team and we only get a small story update every 6 months. 

[A_Guy_Called_Bob]

Appreciate the insight, @EricMusco. I'm curious if there are plans to add modifications for weapon sounds/activation delays (some of them have the delay and it's jarring) and what the process is for that.

I think it'd also be nice for the community to have some insight into the difficulties of long requested features, such as a hood toggle or an invisible head armour to hide hoods (which I've seen proposed a lot as an alternative). 

[RadarOMalley]

LOVE LOVE LOVE these "behind the curtain" posts. Thanks!

[sharpenedstick]

It's nice to get details, definitely props to @EricMusco for communicating.

However, his comments centered on two of the most difficult asks in the thread. I've said over and over the devs should be focusing on QoL improvements and bug fixes. So how about some commentary on how difficult some of those asks would be?

[felleto]

16 minutes ago, sharpenedstick said:

It's nice to get details, definitely props to @EricMusco for communicating.

However, his comments centered on two of the most difficult asks in the thread. I've said over and over the devs should be focusing on QoL improvements and bug fixes. So how about some commentary on how difficult some of those asks would be?

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by felleto

[FlameYOL]

2 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Hey there,

Ok so first, I super appreciate the enthusiasm in the thread. We always love to hear where folks' heads are at for suggestions or ideas on places to improve the game.

Now, with that said, as much as I wish your suggestions were “quite inexpensive” or required “a little more time” that is unfortunately not true. I am hoping though that I can shed some light on exactly why that is the case since very often in software (game) development very few things are fast or inexpensive.

Let me give you an example in each of your categories to be a bit more illustrative.
 

Perfect, we've actually done this in numerous releases since 7.0 and it's going to continue in a number of releases I can already see on our roadmap. It's happened for armor sets/weapons (like the reforged set) and has also been a part of environment polish, the most recent example of course being Voss.

I want to give more than one example so I am going to try to not go crazy here but just how "inexpensive" is this? Let's assume we are talking about updating environmental textures for an existing planet.

• Once we know what planet we are going to be on we need a full audit of the textures present.
• Typically this is done by our Environment artists. They are looking for wallsets, floors, etc. Textures they can update they will get the most bang for the buck.
• Also as the design of the new location (this is multiple teams work) starts to take shape, are there any existing props that we want to update to bring up as well. Less broad appeal but can be centerpieces in rooms etc.
• Ok all of that is highlighted, now what?
• Well, if we are doing some fancy new (what’s old is new) things we need to concept what it is going to look like, so over to the Concept Team to get started!
• Alright we are out of concept, time to start the updating machine, multiple teams get to work depending on the specific assets but it typically includes some combination of Environment, Character, and our Outsource partners. 
• So I am on the 7th bullet, but I am honestly at almost the beginning of the process for when we are talking about “expensive” so let me speed it up. What’s left? Everything….
• We get the assets back. We need to go through art review, licensor review, changes, integration into the game.
• It’s integrated, now what? Does it work? Maybe. Funny side (and totally true) story. Imagine that we did a sweet update to the texture of leaves to make our trees look better on one planet. Nailed it, it looks great, high fives all round. 3 weeks later our QV (commonly known as QA) team finds a lone tree on a completely different planet that looks bad (QV is incredibly valuable to everything we do, and these types of change are no exception). The leaves are entirely the wrong size and the fidelity is wrong, weird? You guessed it… it’s those sweet new leaves from the other planet. Game development is complex and weird.
  • Now this is the part where I tell you about our Engineering and Tech Art teams. The tools and support they provide are invaluable. But you may not have realized that something like our Gameplay Engineering team would also be involved in updating textures on trees, but here we are as we had to bring them in to help us track down where some “textures got away from us” in other parts of the game.
  • I also want to highlight that once we have the art in hand, taking art and making it the thing you see and experience in game is something different altogether. I am skipping a lot of steps and words but this part is big.

And again, that is something we are stoked to do, taking an opportunity to polish up some of our older planets as we revisit them. So keep an eye out for more of that on the horizon. Now onto “a little more time”.

 

Let’s talk about a new species. This is one we certainly talk about a lot internally, we always follow the “next new species” wishlists and whatnot. Not to understate it, new species is a monumental sized task. This is the kind of thing that touches nearly every aspect of the game and almost every discipline on the team.

To give you a similar idea as I did above. The teams and places it touches and needs to be hooked up:

• Once we know what the species will be it goes to our Concept team. This will include the initial species along with color variations and conversations of what customizations would look like (hair, jewelry, patterns, etc)
• I will say this as a single bullet, but imagine this bullet is gigantic. All of that ^ now needs to get made. This will largely be on our character and outsource teams but depending on what the customizations are will likely touch other teams as well across our art disciplines.
• Ok, “new species” is done. Well, the game has no concept that this species exists in a number of very important places. Let’s talk about them one at a time as they each have unique challenges.
• The game - Yup, the whole video game. You want someone, one time, to say “Hey aren’t you a <new species>”? During your story. We can’t build that into the game if the game doesn’t know. Gameplay Engineers have entered the chat.
  • Also, worth noting that *any* instance in the game retroactively where we wanted to acknowledge your < new species> would now need to involve at a minimum writing, loc, narrative, and world teams.
• Cinematics - I imagine you want <new species> to show up in cinematics. Do cool spins, take down bad guys, smooch people in space. This is going to touch a number of teams. First, we need our animators and VFX team to make sure the <new species> plays nicely with any and all existing animations (all of them) or clean up every instance where they don’t. Across the whole game. That’s more than a decade of content.
  • Once those teams have done their checks, now our Cinematics team needs to do their passes on actual implementation to make sure things are firing in the way they would expect.
• CM / UI / Systems - This is another one of those bullets you should assume is gigantic. But you need a way to actually make yourself the new species. Purchase it, unlock it, create it with all of the sliders and options, change to it (if you are something else). All of that requires setup, adding it into existing systems or in some cases overhaul of existing windows/systems if they don’t currently fit.
• Etc. - This is just a catchall bucket for every other team. QV, engineers, tech art, tools, etc. who are all also going to contribute to this. Behind the scenes, the species you play touches an enormous amount of things, and so that means an equal amount of humans on the team are going to touch it.

Ok, I have typed a lot of words. So a couple of notes. I am not saying any of this to say we wouldn’t do these things. In fact, the first example is something we have done already in the last year or so and have plans to do again very soon. Me saying everything above is to pull the curtain back a little and provide some insight, so when you look at an idea you have and think “how hard can that be?”, when it comes to game development the answer is often more involved than it might seem on the surface.

All that said, keep the suggestions coming! Sometimes there are suggestions that we spot and someone goes “hey we can do that pretty quick” and they are the exceptions we can turn around quickly!

Thanks all.

-eric

Eric this has been one of the best behind-the-scene posts I've read on these forums, thank you for explaining what goes on behind the curtains as game development can often be obtuse to understand for those of us not in the industry! I think posts like these really help players understand why certain things can happen, or can't, or take too long to happen sometimes. Which is great, I'm all far more education on how games are made! Once again, thank you!

[Nee-Elder]

2 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Hey there,

I am hoping though that I can shed some light on exactly why that is the case since very often in software (game) development very few things are fast or inexpensive.

Let me give you an example in each of your categories to be a bit more illustrative.

Ok, I have typed a lot of words.

Thanks all.

-eric

i've been  bugging/tagging YOU & @KeithKanneg for years to post more  behind-the-code  type posts like the one you posted today , so THANKS  very much !

Now if only you would please get some time to address the specific question  i & others have been asking repeatedly:  Why not devote just one Dev cycle to  GSF expansion?

Edited September 22, 2023 by Nee-Elder

[felleto]

9 minutes ago, Nee-Elder said:

 GSF expansion?

I would throw my money into that. More ships, more customization, first person view maybe? 

[TonyTricicolo]

26 minutes ago, felleto said:

I would throw my money into that. More ships, more customization, first person view maybe? 

JTL FTW!!

https://youtu.be/zEr9dg5j2Lo?si=9MeqwkCr0SFy25Pl&t=55

Edited September 22, 2023 by TonyTricicolo

[felleto]

1 minute ago, TonyTricicolo said:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zEr9dg5j2Lo?si=6TTDOVToMtqAv5et" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I WOULD POUR BUCKETS OF MONEY INTO THAT!

[TheOneWhoLives]

Not sure how expensive this would be, but I would love to see the class signature weapons get an enhancement. The ones we get are super generic and could do with some personal touches. I'm mostly thinking about the lightsabers for the Force classes getting hilts that are distinct from each other but it would be awesome if we got hilts that no other NPC has. Even just using vanilla hilts with new textures. For example, I'd love to see the Jedi Knight get a lightsaber that has the same basic model as the Prophet's Neophyte Saber (The one Tremel and Harkun use) but with a Jedi texture that's similar to Orgus' saber.

[Vyzra]

That's some transperency! And I love it! I already appreciate your work. But now... sheesh! That's some real Teamwork.

I am gonna share it everywhere!

[TrixxieTriss]

On 9/19/2023 at 4:14 AM, felleto said:

Jesus who would have thought a feature in games from 2003 would be unachievable in 2023...

Nothing has changed with the game engine still being the same as it was in 2012. Not sure why you think 10 years makes a difference when they can’t upgrade game engine.

[TrixxieTriss]

8 hours ago, EricMusco said:

All that said, keep the suggestions coming! Sometimes there are suggestions that we spot and someone goes “hey we can do that pretty quick” and they are the exceptions we can turn around quickly!

Thanks all.

-eric

So how quick would it be to revert max PvP premade sizes back to 4 man & not 5-8 man sizes?

Surely that would be an example of something you could do fast & it would improve the PvP aspect of the game over night 🤷🏻‍♀️

[felleto]

12 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Nothing has changed with the game engine still being the same as it was in 2012. Not sure why you think 10 years makes a difference when they can’t upgrade game engine.

I think you are right. I shouldn't apply the way I think about things to other people. 

If I see something that can be improved in my work place I will not sleep until it's fixed or improved. Then again, not a lot of people think like I do. 

First, the game has bugs. That to me is unacceptable if you charge people. If it's broken fix it. If it needs improvement, improve it. Then you can rest (and sometimes not even then - laziness is a slow killer)

If the game engine is what is holding you back, find a solution. Stop making excuses to your consumers who play and PAY for your game. That is just bad business. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by felleto