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Was MA right to implement CE2?

Was MA right to implement CE2?

  • Yes

    Votes: 199 63.6%

  • No

    Votes: 85 27.2%

  • I don't care or want EFD (it's customary to have this one)

    Votes: 29 9.3%
  • Total voters
    313
C

coubo

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CE2 is closing up to its 1-year anniversary. I remember that before it was launched, there were a lot of talks about CE2 bringing a new era of prosperity and myriads of new players.

Then there was the "beta test" period and the successive patches bringing back slowly (most of) the functionality of VU9.x.
The grass was always greener in the coming months with MA undoubtly planning a big marketing campaign once the software was more stable.

In terms of marketing campaign, they did another asteroid sale, which didn't cost them a penny of marketing investment and netted them some cash instead.

Reading regularly this forum, it doesn't seem the player base has increased significantly or that the economy is doing much better (maybe less worse though?).

MA still spent quite a lot of money in this big update (I believe around $5mm at least, if not a bit more on this platform). Looking back at the last 12 months, do you think it was worth (from a business perspective) to have done this? Would the situation be very different if CE2 had never existed? (maybe MA would have used all this millions of $ to improve loot instead  )
 
all the whiners post on forums the people who are haveing a great time dont
 
Let's wait and see

From the existing customer point of view, I believe it was a good thing in terms of visuals and gameplay, however the system as a whole has not yet been stable, we are still missing some features that were there previously even after one year. :eek:

From the business owner point of view, I would say some serious marketing is needed if MA wants to be able to keep a healthy comunity and high revenue volumes. I am curious to see if MA will relly on new planet owners to do the advertising, or if there will be serious investment in this sector, as there seem to be less people in this game by the day. Blizzard advertises WoW on TV, can't see why MA couldn't give it a try, maybe out of money for marketing after what was spent in development. :laugh:
 
mike jones said:
all the whiners post on forums the people who are haveing a great time dont
Click to expand...

I was refering to player base size, understanding that the economy benefits quite a bit from more players.

I DON'T want to enter the debate of people being more happy or less happy (and yes, posters tends to be the extreme of either side)
 
It was already due and had been put off for a long time - CE2 Entropia was starting to look live vaporware and MA pushed the launch. Granted - I, and many others, would be happy if they would ever finish putting in old systems, but I think they have done a fine job so far.
 
I think when they bring Mindforce back in full, Taming/Pets and Vehicles they should do a big advertising blitz! Web ads in Google etc, a campaign with good loot items for a month or two. I think they need to spend a bit of money, bring all systems back online and have 'what in other words would be ' a re-opening sale.
The main player base gets some rewards for loyalty in not so dynamic loots and bring in the new players from the advertising.

Thats my 2 pecs
 
ma has the right to chancde their engine. Since its only graphics nobody complains about those. wh some systems are down is another question.

if you compare these graphics with old 9.4 then yeah ma was dead on center to implent a more realistic engine. Now if fpc transform it just like volcanoe area we are set



ps stop whine about ce2 deal with it or go play something different
 
i voted yes.
This is because if they hadnt implimented "cry" engine we would still be looking at those pathetic trees(of lagg) and mushrooms
bumping into the one solid tree (gah) on the whole map !
or thinking wtf is that tree bouncing for (remember bouncing disco trees?),ect .
ok we still havent got the game back to how it was, and its taking a long time to get there, but when it does we will all be happy, (by then i will have a pc that runs it properly too) the graphics look 100x better than b4 which , i think, is necessary for the future players to be even remotely interested past first glance... In a year or two's time imagine how bad the old FX would look to a new potential player , when it looked pretty shitty back in 2006 anyway! plus the cry engine allows more and better features to be added as well as all we had b4.
i know it sucks the way it has been for its 1st year and how alot of players havent been able to return due to pc issues ect but it will get better, and unless MA go tits up , it will get back to how its supposed to be .
hell even old players will eventually upgrade their machines as its getting cheaper to do so by the day. ( i could build a pc from parts to run EU for less than 70£)
Fair enough its taking too long and maybe Ma are not focusing enough on getting us back to all features we knew and loved , instead they bring in brand new features ,missions ect b4 we even have mindforce or pets , which i think is wrong , no players have money invested in new missions or vehicles like they do pets or mindforce so that should be priority ,then when the core is replaced fully ,turn to new features then .
 
coubo said:
Reading regularly this forum, it doesn't seem the player base has increased significantly or that the economy is doing much better (maybe less worse though?).
Click to expand...

I think there are more people now.

However, they havent started marketing campaigns with ads and stuff that much yet... And there are always less ppl playing games during summer ;)

Economy is down partially due to the RL economy crisis
 
Well I guess it's a good question in retrospect...

And I still don't know...

I believe that for the future it might have been a good thing to do but atm I don't really see the benefit.

Firstly because I and many players are forced to play on "low" or "medium" settings... which honnestly does not make such a big difference to before...

Only at high and very high settings, does CE2 deliver it's full potential. I do not deny that the game then looks better.

But a game is not just about looks and I guess the features that got lost and have not yet come back are outweighing the benefits...

I fear that MA is more bussy to implement new features for the new planet partners than to bring back the old FPC features. At least I can not see a focus on any of this getting fixed fast.

I mean it's over a year now and still hangars and beacons are missing... why ?

So I am very "biased" ...
 
AJack10600 said:
Firstly because I and many players are forced to play on "low" or "medium" settings... which honnestly does not make such a big difference to before...

Only at high and very high settings, does CE2 deliver it's full potential. I do not deny that the game then looks better.
Click to expand...

you see ma sticks with dx9 insyead of dx10 being forced. med and low are their so that ppl with old machine can still play. If you played EU you knew that you had to buy an upgrade eventually. Still nice of ma to think about the player without a big game rig (and their wallets ofc )
 
There's a lot of good gaming engines out there that wouldn't have lost them half of their customers and plenty of new ones due to not being able to run it at all. Plenty of others that would have had better graphics than the old.

Do I think overall it was a good decision? ... read loss of customers again. :(

I think someone did one hell of a sales job to MA. Only one making out at the moment in a big way is CE2 as they have all our peds it seems.... just my .02.
 
Comparing a VU 9 screenshot with a VU 11 screenshot, I'd have to say yes they were right to implement CE2.
 
I voted yes. Nothing is perfect but i think the state of MA developing this platform is better than I seen my whole time here.
 
CE2 good , usage not

CE2 godd idea, but MA use it "lil" bad ... before ce2 some things was better : screens&ads blank in inventory( before whith old byro engi U saw invertory also)
srceen/ingame ads like "buggy" only squares vs letterrs-words , no its not graphical thing minimum&maximum graff still exist this "thing"
ce2 neeed lil stonger pc, NOT this the main problem : MA said lot of things about entropia from beginning , can U see trailers/ads or previus entropia INGAME ad/trailers . . . MA changed garap. engi : entropia died : no spacecraft no other "old things" OK need lil time to change things but years ???
maybe 2-5 year & pilots can fly again, & i hope i will see something from the beginner trailers to be "reality" , half+ features mising what MA showed up lot of years ago . . . maybe whith cry engi 22 will arive some of these feature :D:confused::D
 
I think old systems back would be cool, but so far i have been impressed tbh. We need stuff like spaceship finds back in mining though i think, and more beacon like stuff . Maybe even as Jamhot suggested eventually bigger forays via pilots into beacon like missions.

Lots miss mindforce to.

I think things will improve with time.
 
Time will tell.

Now if MA can hurry with my withdrawals so I can deposit them again :yay:

*cracks whip*

Going to give it another chance and cruise,
play the game and see in a few years how it all pans out. ;)

A good spec computer makes a huge difference to the enjoyment of EU from what others have been telling me so off to buy a new Alienware PC :)

Link > www.alienware.com :yay:
 
Lavawalker said:
Yea, been away a few weeks and already regrets have arrived :ahh:

Ah well, live and let learn I guess :)
Click to expand...

I quit a couple of times in the beginning, a few years back... Longest was for about 2-3 months I think, even uninstalled the game :eek:

(This was not due to the game being bad though, it was more because I had a lot to do in school and I had some other games I needed time to play too)
 
I think they could have gotten a more suitable engine for their purposes for a smaller price tag. CryEngine2 is nice, but it really wasn't made for an open world mmo environment.

MA has had to spend time and money adjusting it for EU and still some things are just bad. Look at how the engine renders shadows. In many places they are broken (I run on max settings, that's not the issue). For example go to Sakura City, walk around amongst the buildings, and watch the shadows on the ground. :(
When they first implemented CE2 I played with some config settings (before we were told not to) and still was unable to make the shadows work properly.

The quality of the artwork in EU doesn't take advantage of the things CE2 does well and the engine doesn't handle some of the demands of EU very well. It's just not a great fit. It could improve over time, but I don't think MA/FPC/RT has the right developers to do it. Maybe some of the other planet partners will make better use of it.

I think we needed a graphics overhaul, but I don't think CE2 was the best choice.
 
I don't think it was a good idea to implement such a demanding engine in an open world mmo, Unreal Engine is way more optimized than CE2 (I know it doesn't look so "realistic" but...meh).

There are other interesting engines out there with awesome performance optimized for large scale maps, for example avalanche (Just Cause 2).

Cryengine 2 is used for architecture designs, not only for games =). Btw, I'm happy cause the game will probably use CE2 for a long time...

:)

EDIT: Oh, and CryEngine3 is 250% more optimized, can we have this one asap please? :pPPP
 
Snuggins said:
MA has had to spend time and money adjusting it for EU and still some things are just bad. Look at how the engine renders shadows. In many places they are broken (I run on max settings, that's not the issue). For example go to Sakura City, walk around amongst the buildings, and watch the shadows on the ground. :(
When they first implemented CE2 I played with some config settings (before we were told not to) and still was unable to make the shadows work properly.
Click to expand...

I thought the shadows were good when I played on medium with a Radeon 3850 and even better on high with a Radeon 4870.

I dont know the problem you are referring to - perhaps a screenshot would help?

:confused:



Have to say, I really like the new engine - the above picture is north of Fort Troy.
 
Norbert said:
We all been there :laugh:,
Click to expand...

I must admit support has been good, many say 2nd time around is much better.

Meanwhile, back at the lodge :D

suffering_eu_withdrawls.jpg
 
Hi,

voted "No". Why?

Quite some reasons, I'll try again to explain why CE2 wasn't the best choice IMHO:

  1. CE2 is an explicit "Gamerz Engine".
    It needs a quite phat gamerz computer to run (& look nice) on, and it's exclusively for Windows (maybe Consoles too in the future).
    It has breathtaking features and abilities, but also needs a quite interested and dedicated person to adjust - there's walls of highly sophisticated texts (like this, check the pics!) how to do it.

    There's no doubt that CE2 is one of the most advanced game engines available. But is it actually the game engine EU needed?
    .
  2. EU is an RCE utilizing a MMO setting.
    This means that it is is played for long, long times, other than "Crysis" or "Crysis Warhead", the only other working implementations of the CE2 available today.

    What features would you emphasize when planning an RCE-MMO like EU?
    .
    • A wide availability of OS'es the client might run on?
      Sure, (nearly) any gamer has Windows, and many of them have new versions. But there's quite a bunch of ppl out there that are running a Linux, or MacOS. Ppl that might contribute to your profit!
      Guess you wouldn't want to alienate them. Remember, you are planning an RCE-MMO, something that isn't exactly aimed at hardcore gamerz at all ...
      .
    • Low entry level (hardware),
      so that the participants are able to check in & do trades/ chats/ crafting sessions or other "simple actions" from their netbook, company computer, maybe even smartfone/ -pad? A lot of actions done in an RCE-MMO don't need fancy graphics, but it's quite important to be able to do it often - watching auctions running out to bid in time, chat with the Soc, or do the daily crafting routine in the background while busy with earning the next deposit, for instance.
      Your customers might enjoy being able to perform such tasks during breaks at work, or while in train/ bus, or at the beach.
      .
    • And wouldn't you like to have requirement thresholds as low as possible to be able to give an initial experience to as many potential new customers as possible? Wouldn't your RCE-MMO need as many participants as possible to develop a healthy economy?
      So any decision suited to ostracize any substantial group of potential customers might be be a well aimed shot to your own foot.
      .
    • Wouldn't graphical gimmicks be one of the last things you'd emphasize?
      Sure, it should look pretty. But do you really need high-definition views of an avatars face hairs? Your customers will check them once, at most, applaud and then never check again ...
      Sure, some will whine about the graphics - tell them they'd need a new computer for better graphics. They will continue to whine until you do the graphics update. Then they'll still whine for the new requirements, and many others will quit because they cannot play anymore. And you'll then realize that the whiners was just a small vocal minority, and the ones you expelled was the many, many ones that earned you your money previously ...
    .
    So CE2 wouldn't be exactly what you'd look for. There's quite a lot of other game engines out there easily able to deliver what EU is today, and maybe ways cheaper and/ or better suited. IMHO.
    .
  3. The change to CE2 hasn't changed the most annoying "feature" of EU.
    We're still moving like "snails in concrete", responsiveness of controls and avatar movement still are at a level that wasn't accepted anymore years ago.
    So what was the change for?
    Anybody not understanding this maybe should get a free try-out account of the market ruling MMORPG. Even with hardware requirements ridiculously low compared to EU this one shows how such can be done.

    Shame to the MA developers, or to the ones ordering what to develop!
    .
  4. The change to CE2 has wasted the "Spirit of EU".
    I don't know if it was necessary or if it was meant this way. It had started already earlier, with the "Barbiezation" of our avatars - but wasn't this explained with necessary changes for CE2?
    Anyway, the changing of our once unique, sometimes strange appearance, then the complete change to our world - excuse me, but for me this made this game a different one. And not one that I'd enjoy.
    PE was a great game, EU just lives of the memory of the old PE. I'm still in, sure. I have quite some money in it, and that's what keeps me.
    But would I start today, fresh & innocent once more, I'd be gone as fast as any other new try out, for sure.
So for me this change to CE2 didn't bring any remarkable improvements. OK, I can now see the bruise next to my avatars mouth. Cool. I admire it every day when I log in - as long as I don't wear armor, because then admiring this bruise would cost me real money ...

Instead I see participants numbers declining and declining, see the prices of middle class items dropping below the basement floor, see my investment endangered.

Now even ND sells his asteroid. Time to join the rats leaving the sinking ship?

Don't know for sure if it was all CE2 or MA's general policy, but I'm concerned.

Have fun!
 
coubo said:
CE2 is closing up to its 1-year anniversary. I remember that before it was launched, there were a lot of talks about CE2 bringing a new era of prosperity and myriads of new players.
Click to expand...

the premise of the question seems to be that CE2 has not brought in new players so wasnt worth the upheaval.

but did MA ever state or indicate they expected an instant reaction from the wider public to the new engine? or was it the player base assumption that people would suddenly beat a path for the CE2 engine based game?

fact is MA hasnt promoted it, so it hasnt really gone anywhere.

Yes they should have implemented the new engine, it is stunning compared to the old (whoever said they cant tell the difference needs ot review some old screenies) and will future proof the platform for some time.

should they have spent so much time on completely new landscape? thats a more significant question and frankly no, they've gone too far in too many areas, creating a world alien to old players and difficult to navigate and explore. meanwhile functionality is still missing. thats whats wrong, not the implementation of CE2.



Xandra said:
[*]EU is an RCE utilizing a MMO setting.
This means that it is is played for long, long times, other than "Crysis" or "Crysis Warhead", the only other working implementations of the CE2 available today.

What features would you emphasize when planning an RCE-MMO like EU?
Click to expand...

an awfull lot of writing there without explaining *why* the requirements you list are necessary for an RCE-MMO. what if the strategy is to attract high value players? since there are no other viable RCE games at the moment, how or what can you compare to?

Xandra said:
Instead I see participants numbers declining and declining, see the prices of middle class items dropping below the basement floor, see my investment endangered.

Now even ND sells his asteroid. Time to join the rats leaving the sinking ship?
Click to expand...

well, if you saw paying for expensive virtual items as investment, thats your own fault, you got caught up in the hype. there is no "floor" other than TT. i dont think general numbers are declining, i see alot of older players bored, or disillusioned with the changes (partly again due to our own hyping of expectations), but it always seems busy on line.

as for ND selling his astroid, he is also gone into developing 2/3 other new planets - hardly leaving.
 
Last edited:
Voted "NO"

Why?

1) Because EU is using ~20% of CE2 capabilities for gaming and rendering
2) Because EU is using ~0% of CE2 capabilities for storytelling


1) They hadnt implemented ANY of the "real physics" CE offers. Even more -> game is less playable now that the did. How many of you lost a find due to not being able to climb a molehole or your find got stuck in solid object? Where do you see physics influence on object distortion, explosions with push effect, disembowled limbs flying around, vehicle physics etc etc. Its like buying an Alienware comp to run pacman on.

Suggestions: PvP in cities with autorebuilt instances, trenches, blowable objects which do damage. Why not make it a bit interesting?

2) Day and night changes? Thats really neat. In the middle of the night I change gamma increase contrast. In the middle of day I decrease gamma, decrease contrast. Otherwise its UNPLAYABLE because I cant see shit!!! So I say it simple: either fix that you can actually play with 1 setting or fuck off with day/night.
Plus - ok - there was no story to tell even prior to CE so I guess no need for great new engine as well on that side...

Suggestions: alien invaders which drop on chutes, emerging water battles, skirmishes all around, make skills (player) count on evade, shoot, etc... darnit

Bottom line - CE2 is great, but not by itself no - it just puts on more demands on ppl hardware and adjustments - but if they ever get out of CE2 sandbox - it could be great.

Regards

I.
 
Igorl said:
1) They hadnt implemented ANY of the "real physics" CE offers. Even more -> game is less playable now that the did. How many of you lost a find due to not being able to climb a molehole or your find got stuck in solid object? Where do you see physics influence on object distortion, explosions with push effect, disembowled limbs flying around, vehicle physics etc etc. Its like buying an Alienware comp to run pacman on.
Click to expand...

We have movable vegetation now, which we didn't have in VU 9.4, especially noticeable around Troy.

Vehicle physics I think we will have to wait until all the lego parts are discovered and assembled. ;)

I would like to see the "rag doll effect" reintroduced for the octagon PVP, as I believe that is no longer present, however.
 
Who care!!!

Just play game
 
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