... Discuss
Clearly its Alan's fault since he asked us to discuss the article
Ah, where do I begin. Well, I guess facts would be a good place to start:
1) There was no motivation on my or TWI's part on the timing of this article. It wasn't to drum up attention for Rising Storm or anything like that. The journalist that flew out to see Rising Storm was interviewing us about RS, and while the recorder was rolling he asked me some questions about what I thought about the state of FPS games. I gave him some candid responses, a lot of which were based around frustrations I had while working on Action mode. Think of it like two friends just chatting about what they think about games and game development. That was the atmosphere. What PC Gamer does with that chat after we have it, I have no control over. Now if they did this article now to get attention for Rising Storm, that is up to them.
Regardless of the timing, I think I have seen mostly positive response to what you have said and if that brings in needed publicity, then that can only be good for us all.
2) Misconception - "RO2 has failed." Far from it. RO2 has sold and is still selling way better than RO1 did, has a consistent player base equivalent or higher than RO1 at its peak and is every bit as popular as the original now.
Never thought ROHOS was a failure and I'm personally glad its doing well. I do wish that more people were playing it overall than currently do, especially considering you say that its selling better.
3) Misconception - "Tripwire tried to design RO2 to be more like COD for the initial launch." This one REALLY makes me chuckle because it couldn't be farther from the truth. I really wish some of you could have sat in the design meetings where we were designing RO2. Hell, before RO2 shipped I played maybe 30 minutes of COD multiplayer EVER. The core of RO2 was designed in late 2006/early 2007 before COD MW shipped with unlocks, etc. We came up with the unlock systems in our designs BEFORE we saw it in COD. We just thought it would be a cool thing to have in the game, a good way for us to introduce some of the cool variants of weapons used during the war. And the Honor system was something that I thought was cool about the previous game I worked on America's Army. I liked how it gave players a sense of progression and status. A way to say "check it out, I've been playing this game for a long time". RO2 multiplayer was the game that we, the devs of Tripwire, wanted to play. If we had the money at the time, RO1 would have been a lot like what RO2 was (minus the bugs and lack of polish when we shipped of course). RO2's features were Tripwire doing what the team had always done - making a game we wanted to play - period. We did have a goal of making it easier to get over the games learning curve, but not to be like COD, but rather just so players could get in and have fun by getting to the core of the RO experience, and keep playing the game.
You can see how some things such as unlocks and the progression system are seen by community members. Some players obviously like it, but others such as myself see it as unnecessary. Despite the fact you thought of it years ago,
it looks as if its a big appeal to the casual (yes COD) crowd, you can't deny that. Honor system is decent (like in AA) just wish it was actually used by some servers. The lessened learning curve is fine with me as well.
4) Misconception - "Action mode is a useless failure because nobody plays it". The last time we did a free weekend for RO2 around Christmas we set up a lot of Action mode servers so that new players could get eased into the RO2 experience (rather then getting pissed off and leaving after an hour of getting head shotted from 100 meters by the elite RO fanbase). You know what, it worked! Of the people that tried the game during the free weekend, around 30% of them bought the game! And a LOT of people tried the game. Back in the Ostfront days, we'd be lucky to have 5% of people that tried the game buy it. They would try it, get turned off by the learning curve, and leave. So even if guys don't keep playing Action mode for long, many of them stick around and move on to Realism or Classic mode. It's a gateway. And that is a win for the whole community. Side note - I only started playing COD MP after we launched and started working on GOTY's Action mode to do comparative analysis. And yes Action mode was geared to appeal directly to COD style players (and as you can tell by the interview was a pretty frustrating experience for me).
Glad that a higher percentage of players bought the game during the free trial, but you can't give Action mode all the credit for that. I bet most of the players giving the game a try were on the same servers most of us play on currently. I personally don't care for Action mode, don't see it taking players away from the other modes, but it does give the impression that the game is trying to be everything to everyone and that's not necessarily a good impression with players and non-players alike. See #5
5) Misconception - "Tripwire tried to please everybody and pleased nobody". Well this goes back to point #1 - we sold way more games, and have just as many players. So apparently we pleased SOMEBODY
We've also openly admitted our faults in missing the mark on what the RO1 fans wanted with the original launch of RO2. But since then we've busted our butts to release and refine Classic mode to be what the hardcore faithful wanted. We also missed the mark at launch on making something that more casual players could enjoy, which is why we created Action mode.
I will freely admit that I hoped ROHOS would be that game that appealed to a much larger audience than ROOST did, with its better graphics and lessened learning curve, and yes I hoped it would pull in some of those BF and COD players that yearned for a more realistic experience. I wanted to see thousands, if not tens of thousands of players in the servers long after the games release. Now I honestly think a big part of that was the buggy release that turned away new non-ROOST players; they just don't have the patience many of us other veteran players have, but some of the game decisions also turned away many ROOST vets as well (Mkb etc).
6) Misconception - "Tripwire doesn't care about competitive play". We can do better at this, and I'll be the first to admit it. That is why we're putting so much effort into TWI Ladder and supporting its launch and changes to the game to support competitive play. TWI Ladder is launching VERY soon, and once again competitive RO players will have a home. We're sorry it's taken so long, all I can say is we're not a huge company, and we do our best.
Not that interested in the competitive play, even less so now that I know how some players/clans try to get an edge on the other side, so no real comment here.
7) Yes I barely read the RO2 forums any more. Frankly there are just too many people here that no matter what we do, good or bad just go super negative. So I let Yoshiro brave the waters most of the time and fill me in on what the pulse of the community is. It is a real de-motivator for the Tripwire devs, and frankly makes a lot of them want to go work on KF instead of RO. For me, we shipped a broken product, and the GOTY edition fixed that broken product. So aside from fixing bugs, everything we add to a game after we ship is a gift to the community. We don't make money off you guys when we add maps or additional content. We spend a ton of money doing it though. Then we give it away. For free. Then we get hated on because we don't give ENOUGH free stuff. Well let me tell you a little story:
Way back when we released RO: Ostfront we did a TON of free updates, with lots of maps, new vehicles, weapons, etc etc. And the community loved it. What the community didn't see was that behind the scenes Tripwire almost went bankrupt because of it. There were at least two times that I took out loans personally guaranteed by my house and everything I owned to pay the employees and keep the company afloat for a few more weeks. By the grace of God we kept afloat, but all those free updates nearly put Tripwire out of business multiple times. Yes that's right, some of that free content you got put me in danger of being homeless and closing the doors of the company, no joke.
First of all, you have to ignore the super negative outliers just as you can't think everyone is happy because of the posts of several super positive fanboys.
As far as reading and responding to the forums, not having the time to is a very valid excuse, but popping in from time to time could only help. That doesn't mean we expect you to respond at length and argue every post, just make your presence known more often. There is a reason many officers lead their troops in battle from the front
Also, you can't look at the criticism/suggestions (much of it constructive) with negativity all the time. We have bought the game, are actually playing it, and actually have good suggestions at times even if we know time/money etc means they won't make it into the game soon or possibly never.
But personally I think you should pop in more often and let us know what you think (such as you have done here today). Doing that once in a while can help keep things and the 'mob' focused.
Now I'm not telling you this because I want sympathy. Tripwire is rocking now, selling lots of games, and I get a decent paycheck because of it.
If I ever make it down to Georgia from Jersey, will you buy me a beer?
I tell you this because I just hope that some of you realize just how much devs have to risk to give you free content, and that it really is a gift. And while we have a lot more money than we used to, we do have to be careful not to give away so much free stuff we go out of business (especially now that the company has 40 mouths to feed instead of the 5 we had when we shipped RO1). Every free update I have to motivate a group of developers to work on giving away free stuff. And to be blunt, they can either work on KF or RO2 free stuff. So show the RO2 devs some love, so it is easier for me to get them to make you free stuff
Finally let me conclude with this. Tripwire is growing, but we're still punching way above our weight. Every time we release a military shooter we're going up against studios 10-20 times our size (think of the The Netherlands going to war with Russia). We don't want sympathy for this either - we realize we're going to take some hard punches when we step into the rings with the heavyweights. Just maybe keep this in mind the next time you sit down to type a message on these forums. We do the best we can with the resources we have, and we're always striving to do better. I really believe RO2 has turned a corner. With TWI Ladder coming out, the community map pack official release around the corner, Rising Storm almost finished, it's about to be an awesome time to be an RO2 player. Keep the feedback here on the forums constructive, and we'll have have some awesome game experiences together!!!
P.S. Rising Storm is REALLY awesome
On the note of content. Obviously it takes longer to create now than in ROHOS and delays for bug fixing after the game was released pushed things back. We'd just like to see a few new vehicles and maps. Tankers and those who like combined arms need some love!
PS: Free stuff once in a while looks good to prospective new players as well, you know the continued Dev support thing and all and we all know what new players bring ($$$).
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ROHOS is clearly a pretty good game and everyone has their own ideas on what would make it better: content, bug fixing, more community interaction, more players etc. The fact that we are still here says we (most of us anyway) still give a damn!
Oh, and thanks for responding and making your presence known. You really should do it more often.
