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The developers at mindark are AMAZING.. Seriously

Kitch

Kitch

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Joined
May 20, 2013
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London - UK
Am I smoking crack? No.

They are amazingly talented when you consider what they have achieved as such a small group, compared with other MMO type games on a small budget with low staffing.

So why all the issues? The bugs in this game are literally as bad or worse than any other software in the history of computing.. Is that the devs fault? Absolutely not! Its the business for not having a proper test phase or the budget to test properly, so they choose a system where they pretty much release stuff on the fly then fix bugs as we report them. Does that system work? No, does it fuck but its not the devs fault.

And lastly, MA seems to be a company that runs on a two tier management style (assumptions) where you have the "money" at the top, sat in the big room with the big chairs and round table drinking espresso, making ridiculous, ill thought out and harmful decisions and showing how desperately out of touch they are with the players. Then you have the devs, implementing those ideas and trying hard to make the impossible work while doing what they can to try to steer things back the way it should be, and protect us players from the foolish leaders..

Well, tbh, even if im right it doesnt really make any difference but still..
 
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I have to agree on that.

The programmers really do, do a good job in the long run.
Some things annoy the hell out of me, but looking at the big picture, they do quite a lot.

People can flame me down with comments saying no they don't etc., but without them, we wouldn't be here.
 
i'll assume that everyone agrees then..
 
I miss Marco. The atmosphere that project entropia had.. that was all Marco.

Still I have to agree. We take for granted what the developers of this game have achieved over the years.
This game is still the best to play.
And I'm not saying this because I am in the current top 10 of hofs (honestly, I'm not, well maybe ehh helllyeahh! woot)
 
Spawn said:
I miss Marco. The atmosphere that project entropia had.. that was all Marco.

Still I have to agree. We take for granted what the developers of this game have achieved over the years.
This game is still the best to play.
And I'm not saying this because I am in the current top 10 of hofs (honestly, I'm not, well maybe ehh helllyeahh! woot)
Click to expand...

Marco was well known for one thing ppl miss...his love for drama ! At least some decision was made acording just for bind that. making drama.
 
the OP you obviously got no clue about gaming realy.

i saw games taht rased 50K usd on kickstarter (that started whith 3 ppll in the team) and the alpha looks beter that what EU is today.

what you should do is download 100 games play them comme back post again.

try games that run on heroengine and bigworld and MA devlop on CE so no escuses they are plain bad nothing else.

when you devlop new caracter interface that is worst the one you had before you are bad.

the only think that is kind ok in EU is the landscape design that about it.

OP you need to play more games and then juge EU
 
MindArk uses SCRUM for project management and development. www.scrum.org

I'm not convinced this is a good method at all - it seems to produce a lot of holes in the development phase that perhaps is the fault of a small budget and staff, however I can surely suggest some alternatives for them. Cloud collaboration has come a long way and I give full props to Google for their Google Drive and the connected collaboration apps that have been introduced.

Here you'll get a rundown of how it works @ MindArk. By the way... They are hiring.

http://www.mindark.com/career/current-positions/
 
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I have been hunting again, and I must say THANK YOU MA. For the missed shots not counting against you, and the keyboard target next mob function. now its so much more fun to hunt, while watching tv knowing if I get distracted a moment and shoot a corpse, its not going to put me into the poor house.
 
Kitch, I play this game over 7 years; and the only time there where this much bugs was at the start of cryengine.

Failed shots; disconnects, lootlag, mining claim lag and auction lag.

Now, I don't know the first thing about scrum; maybe TheGreat can elaborate on this.
I see all their programming gets done in VS :S
I'm not a VS fan at all actually. So their servers run windows; and guess I'm not a windows fan at all concerning servers. Might explain the poor performance.

for comparing; blizzard works with unix/linux.
Now, I don't say that windows server is bad in itself. TBH, they are a lot better than they used to be. Yes they are more prone to zero-day attacks, are in dangerous of memory leaks if bad programming, some versions have garbage clean up issues, they aren't as fast as dedicated unix/linux based server systems.

No I think VS is most likely the biggest problem. It's a resource consuming monster, it has a security below par, it seems easier to work with, but you aint always get what you bargain for code wise.
I hoped EU would be written in a more low level language; and maybe some parts are; which could lead to integration problems though.
 
StarGlider said:
The programmers really do, do a good job in the long run.
Some things annoy the hell out of me, but looking at the big picture, they do quite a lot.
Click to expand...

want the comment of a tammer :scratch2:
 
TACUTTING said:
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...dArk-s-president-J-W-Timkrans-has-been-let-go!
Click to expand...
Dunno about you but i learned a lot from this (failed) Coup d'état.
- A "smart guy" comes up with an idea to replace the CEO. What should the new CEO do? Prepare for IPO (so all board members can liquidate their shares). Everybody's thrilled.
- One board member proposes to cut down the payouts. All the other board members are against it, unanimously. No comments...

I was also thinking about changes, and if the whole thing's moving in the right direction at all... but after reading about this circus i suddenly realized that back then (3 years ago) we were most likely saved from a lot worse. Well, who knows ofc, we might not know some important details, and the way how this whole thing was arranged it's clear the organizers were either a) harmless idiots b) we're missing something. Take your pick...

TACUTTING said:
did it get better ?
Click to expand...
If u mean the board, prolly should ask, can it get better?
Seems to me we already have the best possible combination. The guy who has the upper hand now is at least a member of the original group that came out with the idea. It's more likely he's in it for the sake of the idea, not just to "generate funds".

Is it good enough, that's a whole another question ofc...

TACUTTING said:
Ps.
Do we miss Marco ?
Click to expand...
Oh yes, we miss new revolutionary ideas. Very much so.
 
Acro said:
Kitch, I play this game over 7 years; and the only time there where this much bugs was at the start of cryengine.

Failed shots; disconnects, lootlag, mining claim lag and auction lag.

Now, I don't know the first thing about scrum; maybe TheGreat can elaborate on this.
I see all their programming gets done in VS :S
I'm not a VS fan at all actually. So their servers run windows; and guess I'm not a windows fan at all concerning servers. Might explain the poor performance.

for comparing; blizzard works with unix/linux.
Now, I don't say that windows server is bad in itself. TBH, they are a lot better than they used to be. Yes they are more prone to zero-day attacks, are in dangerous of memory leaks if bad programming, some versions have garbage clean up issues, they aren't as fast as dedicated unix/linux based server systems.

No I think VS is most likely the biggest problem. It's a resource consuming monster, it has a security below par, it seems easier to work with, but you aint always get what you bargain for code wise.
I hoped EU would be written in a more low level language; and maybe some parts are; which could lead to integration problems though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, agree with everything after the first line.. Well I agree that there are a lot of bugs, but its not pheasable for the devs to do their job and just know what bugs will result from the changes and apply fixes on the fly without testing.. But yeah, linux all the way
Infact the one thing I have noticed, though this isnt strictly MA but PP's too, is that the complexity of objects is too high in many cases, in other words too many lines. not talking about textures I think
"mesh" is the word im looking for.. actually the more I think about how badly implemented CE seems, and loads of other stuff, I have to agree with xing that the art is good but thats about it :rolleyes:
 
Xing Nu said:
the OP you obviously got no clue about gaming realy...
what you should do is download 100 games play them comme back post again... the only think that is kind ok in EU is the landscape design that about it...

OP you need to play more games and then juge EU
Click to expand...

yup fair enough but I wont be taking up your suggestion :laugh:

Acro said:
Kitch, I play this game over 7 years; and the only time there where this much bugs was at the start of cryengine.

Failed shots; disconnects, lootlag, mining claim lag and auction lag.

Now, I don't know the first thing about scrum; maybe TheGreat can elaborate on this.
I see all their programming gets done in VS :S
I'm not a VS fan at all actually. So their servers run windows; and guess I'm not a windows fan at all concerning servers. Might explain the poor performance.

for comparing; blizzard works with unix/linux.
Now, I don't say that windows server is bad in itself. TBH, they are a lot better than they used to be. Yes they are more prone to zero-day attacks, are in dangerous of memory leaks if bad programming, some versions have garbage clean up issues, they aren't as fast as dedicated unix/linux based server systems.

No I think VS is most likely the biggest problem. It's a resource consuming monster, it has a security below par, it seems easier to work with, but you aint always get what you bargain for code wise.
I hoped EU would be written in a more low level language; and maybe some parts are; which could lead to integration problems though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, agree with everything after the first line.. Well I agree that there are a lot of bugs, but its not pheasable for the devs to do their job and just know what bugs will result from the changes and apply fixes on the fly without testing.. But yeah, linux all the way
Infact the one thing I have noticed, though this isnt strictly MA but PP's too, is that the complexity of objects is too high in many cases, in other words too many lines. not talking about textures I think
"mesh" is the word im looking for.. actually the more I think about how badly implemented CE seems, and loads of other stuff, I have to agree with xing that the art is good but thats about it :rolleyes:
 
I think until your actually there, with the company devs,programmers and other employees, one can't judge on any aspect of the making, marketing or maintaining of the game. Wise company owners and employees KNOW that the better they produce, and keep ppl happy, the better they will do at creating more and increased income.

I've loved the game since the beginning, and will continue to play without judgement. There's always changes in technology, ideas and strategies... And the greatest part about it all.... (And everything else in life, RL or otherwise) we ADAPT!!

Hunt, mine, craft, and have a great day EU Pals!!
:wtg::wtg::wtg:
 
There is tendence to "hide" responsability by making devs team #1, devs team #2.. devs team # x, subsidiary company, planet partners and so on.
But i think is not case if MA run in red that devs who did all possible divide high profits having nice life.
And if comunity see something wrong then MA as whole mixure of all shit of teams, subteams, left company, right company, that planet partmer, another planet partner or any other excuse - need to take responsability.

If one superprogramer or developer work for company wich do mistakes then he have to take part of objective responsability as one of them as a part of entity we know as "MA".
 
And don't forget that quite a few devs have been replaced overtime. The new ones, had to figure out where the previous one left, what he or she did or did wrong and what kind of style he or she had. Hopefully, the new ones had the same or enough expertise and experience to move on with unfinished projects. And all that, even far before they can start with the stuff they need, want or like to do.

Besides that, what would you do if you have to pick up a project that has been put together by a amateur? Most likely you would start all over and do it your way. And what if you would be the amateur that replaces the professional?

Especially with a small developers team this can have a huge impact on the overall performance of the development team.

It's a shame that we barely see the developers themselves. We are the ones that should motivate them and tell them that their work is awesome. But instead, they now only get loads of shit on their screens that very likely makes them wanna quite their job.
 
Lately there's been lot of pointless changes to code and features that playerbase never asked.
There's only one common point of reference that could give a logical explanation to all those seemingly unrelated changes: preparations for the new taming-themed Planet Toulan.
 
i thought it was mindforce oriented??? And that taming was just supposed to just coinside?

And for me, the stupid pointless changes like corpses, which Im actually starting to like now :ahh: seem like someone new in the office trying to look like an "ideas" guy or justify his own existence in some way... lol
 
TheGreat said:
MindArk uses SCRUM for project management and development. www.scrum.org

I'm not convinced this is a good method at all - it seems to produce a lot of holes in the development phase that perhaps is the fault of a small budget and staff, however I can surely suggest some alternatives for them. Cloud collaboration has come a long way and I give full props to Google for their Google Drive and the connected collaboration apps that have been introduced.

Here you'll get a rundown of how it works @ MindArk. By the way... They are hiring.

http://www.mindark.com/career/current-positions/
Click to expand...


Tried to do a bit of research on net to see how many companies use Agile methods (Scrum being an agile method).

Found this:
Growing need for quicker and adaptive solutions to tech problems is pushing firms to adopt the Agile method of coding more and more. While less than 1 per cent of IT departments had even heard about Agile in 2000 statistics by Gartner and Forrester indicate that 60-80 per cent of software development teams today are using Agile as the primary method for creating software. This is higher than 2009 levels when Forrester research said 45 per cent of development teams were using Agile methods to write code or create products.
Click to expand...
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-06/news/33065621_1_thoughtworks-software-development-iterative

So while relatively new this methodology is actually being used by most or many software development companies and especially popular with games development companies.


If you look into it it's actually a very simple yet elegant solution for developing games and extremely flexible.

You shouldn't use waterfall for anything but the simplest of projects, which effectively excludes about 90% of all software projects. Why? Because software projects are complex on three dimensions: Requirements, Technology and People
Click to expand...
from : http://pm.stackexchange.com/questions/389/when-to-use-waterfall-when-to-use-scrum


In short a company not using this methodology is probably demented :)
 
There is nothing new about SCRUM, except for the name.
 
Scrum isn't new. There are many flavors of it. I'm glad to see they are redoing their development cycles in shorter sprints.. this means there will be a higher chance of getting the fixes and changes that you may (or may not) want and have been asking for some time because longer sprints (which aren't sprints) means there are lots of evolving changes.. and then conflicts, bugs, and so forth.

Now they need to have a 11th year event where they focus only on communication and promotion and work on keeping new comers.
 
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