Everyone loves a good debate... PC Gamer Article

[danh]

I know some of you were angry TWI didn't release more content or fix more bugs. So as for as content, I am going to assume vehicles. With vehicles though, there must be really large maps for them to work. The current stock maps are too small and vehicles wouldn't work on them.

So WTF has TWI been doing this past 1.5 years?! Let's think about this for a moment. TWI tried to beat out the competition with some new features (mixed opinions on this one) and to release earlier than BF3. Unfortunately it went down the toilet and there was a lot of stuff wrong. The game had a ton of bugs that needed to be addressed. So what is a small indie company like TWI to do? Release more vehicles? Make more weapons? Add a ton of new maps? Probably not...so they fixed bugs and addressed a lot of problems. In that time, their level designing team almost made a map. We also got a tournament to happen. There were a ton of "What we are up to" threads. They opened up the RO2 beta for us to test new patches.

Then came May and they released the biggest content patch/bug fix ever. The GOTY Edition came out with additions such as Action Mode, Mamayevkurgan, Classic Mode, and a crap ton of bug fixes. So at this point, this was when I joined the game.

So now TWI is left with a decision on what direction to take. They lost A LOT of time due to the botched release. The game doesn't have any new content other than Mamayevkurgan and the new modes which took eight months to create. So they took a step back and looked at what they had and what was happening. There was two expansion mods in the work. Rising Storm which was in development a year before the game came out. Vehicle mod done by the community which seemed to have been in development since the end of 2012. There were a few custom maps in development but not much. They also had GDC to attend which means they needed to show off some content. At this point, they were not working on Rising Storm yet and still focusing on Red Orchestra. So what did they do? They fueled the community modders by creating a Map Contest.

They can still show the work done by the Rising Storm team at GDC which they did. Why didn't start work on new vehicles? Maybe they did but they would still need HUGE maps for the vehicles to work. Also, a community modding team was also working on vehicles. There were still some problems with the game and creating a map contest for more custom maps was a great way to get people in the community more involved and to have more custom content for the game.

The game still had problems at this point. Many of the maps were unbalanced. The Axis team couldn't leave from spawn 1 in Grain Elevator. Allies couldn't leave spawn 1 in Commissar's House. Allies never won Mamayevkurgan. Allies couldn't leave spawn 1 in Red October Factory. So what did they do? Make more vehicles and more content with the game being sort of crappy still? They decided to patch the game some more after numerous player feedback. They balanced the maps mentioned as well as introduce some more fixes.

Now they can start working on vehicles right? Unfortunately the end of Phase 1 for the Map contest was August 15, 2012. The patch I just mentioned was released July, 27, 2012. So because of some custom mappers who decided to enter a map contest that TWI created, TWI had more work to do! They had to judge the maps and give feedback. This took quite a while and they realized there was no time between the end of the judging and the end of the phase 2 so they extended the deadline for phase 2 to November 30 (My birthday!)

At this point, their level designers were probably working on Barashka. They also started to accept more applications and beta test Rising Storm. I think this was when TWI started to becoming more involved with the expansion pack. So around the end of November, Phase 2 ended as well as the release of the new content, Barashka, NEW Countdown Mode, as well as more bug fixes.

Now it is winter and TWI needs to take their days off like the rest of us. With this in mind, they realized they couldn't do map judging so they extended Phase 2 to January 4, 2013. For most of December, things went dark in TWI world while they were out on vacation. Many of us were stranded in never ending battles on Red Orchestra 2. There were still some bugs to address and many community members began to feel more unrest.

At this point, it is certain that TWI has switched to work on Rising Storm. They know GDC is coming up and they need to show off something amazing. Now, there is no way they could have created vehicles during this time (January 2013) and be done in time for GDC. They also knew Rising Storm has been in development since 2010 and needed to be released ASAP. Most of the work on Rising Storm is under wraps so there was no way they could have told the community what they were working on. This explains why they went dark for a few months. Also, they are trying to release Rising Storm and to have something great to show for GDC which explains why they haven't been active in the community listening to us. They could have been doing bug fixes but they realized all these bug fixes can be done in RS which would speed up production. Once Rising Storm is released, they can apply all those bug fixes in one big patch. They also finished judging on the map contest as well as release a few bug fixes during this time.

Now here we are 6 days before GDC. I can't wait!

 

[r0tzbua]

TL;DR: danh summed it up pretty nicely. Go read his post.

 

[LugNut]

Nice concise summary Dahn, I think your proposed timeline is fairly accurate.

I know it's been said before, but I think a lot of long simmering community angst would have soothed with better communications over the years. Someone to pop in, let everyone know that TWI is listening, great things are on the way and keep the crowd pumped up. An part time, intern type position perhaps?

Just sayin.....

 

[CocaineInMyBrain]

Nice concise summary Dahn, I think your proposed timeline is fairly accurate.

I know it's been said before, but I think a lot of long simmering community angst would have soothed with better communications over the years. Someone to pop in, let everyone know that TWI is listening, great things are on the way and keep the crowd pumped up. An part time, intern type position perhaps?

Just sayin.....

TWI definitely should of communicated more frequently, but they did their fair share of attempts to keep the community in touch and comment on complaints and suggestions. I mean what are they gonna say, we're gonna change the game to your liking right this moment? I don't think anything short of that would actually calm the simmer stew that the forums have become.

But honestly look at every official TWI dev thread, filled to the brim with thinly veiled "f*** you"s from the same disgruntled bunch, who's only purpose on these forums at this point is to attack Devs and disagreeing players at every opportunity. Would you bother frequently responding to said people? If they cannot bothered with basic decency, what qualifies them for continual pampering and attention?

Tl;dr

If the only response you get is essentially "**** off" or foam at the mouth at the same few points that have been discussed to death since beta, would you bother continuing to communicate on a daily/weekly basis?

 

[The Chocolate Jesus]

Thank you, Danh.

 

[ro2player]

TWI definitely should of communicated more frequently, but they did their fair share of attempts to keep the community in touch and comment on complaints and suggestions.

Maybe Tripwire have a lot of working to do. (maybe also a multiplayer campaign ? ). The only thing they can say that they we are working. They work hard, and they meet anger of players with the job they done.

Remenber Tripwire need good feeling as the same way the community need good feeling. It's work in the two way. Keep it in mind.

It's been 1 1/2 years now and we still don't have any new content added to the game yet, so how is this possible?

Strange way to say thank you for all the job done and all the content added...Stangelove, you are a Strange"thanks".

So am I to understand from your post that Mamayev and Barashka never happened?

Yes, I understood you to mean vehicles and weapons, but our plans changed post release, and we prioritized Rising Storm instead based on what we felt would be most successful for the community. And Rising Storm will be the largest content addition to any of our games ever. After Rising Storm, we will re-evaluate our other projects based around Red Orchestra 2 and decide how we are going to proceed.

Yoshiro explain why Red orchestra 2 shouldn't no to become angry. He is right.

I know some of you were angry TWI didn't release more content or fix more bugs. So as for as content, I am going to assume vehicles. With vehicles though, there must be really large maps for them to work. The current stock maps are too small and vehicles wouldn't work on them.

So WTF has TWI been doing this past 1.5 years?! Let's think about this for a moment. TWI tried to beat out the competition with some new features (mixed opinions on this one) and to release earlier than BF3. Unfortunately it went down the toilet and there was a lot of stuff wrong. The game had a ton of bugs that needed to be addressed. So what is a small indie company like TWI to do? Release more vehicles? Make more weapons? Add a ton of new maps? Probably not...so they fixed bugs and addressed a lot of problems. In that time, their level designing team almost made a map. We also got a tournament to happen. There were a ton of "What we are up to" threads. They opened up the RO2 beta for us to test new patches.

Then came May and they released the biggest content patch/bug fix ever. The GOTY Edition came out with additions such as Action Mode, Mamayevkurgan, Classic Mode, and a crap ton of bug fixes. So at this point, this was when I joined the game.

So now TWI is left with a decision on what direction to take. They lost A LOT of time due to the botched release. The game doesn't have any new content other than Mamayevkurgan and the new modes which took eight months to create. So they took a step back and looked at what they had and what was happening. There was two expansion mods in the work. Rising Storm which was in development a year before the game came out. Vehicle mod done by the community which seemed to have been in development since the end of 2012. There were a few custom maps in development but not much. They also had GDC to attend which means they needed to show off some content. At this point, they were not working on Rising Storm yet and still focusing on Red Orchestra. So what did they do? They fueled the community modders by creating a Map Contest.

They can still show the work done by the Rising Storm team at GDC which they did. Why didn't start work on new vehicles? Maybe they did but they would still need HUGE maps for the vehicles to work. Also, a community modding team was also working on vehicles. There were still some problems with the game and creating a map contest for more custom maps was a great way to get people in the community more involved and to have more custom content for the game.

The game still had problems at this point. Many of the maps were unbalanced. The Axis team couldn't leave from spawn 1 in Grain Elevator. Allies couldn't leave spawn 1 in Commissar's House. Allies never won Mamayevkurgan. Allies couldn't leave spawn 1 in Red October Factory. So what did they do? Make more vehicles and more content with the game being sort of crappy still? They decided to patch the game some more after numerous player feedback. They balanced the maps mentioned as well as introduce some more fixes.

Now they can start working on vehicles right? Unfortunately the end of Phase 1 for the Map contest was August 15, 2012. The patch I just mentioned was released July, 27, 2012. So because of some custom mappers who decided to enter a map contest that TWI created, TWI had more work to do! They had to judge the maps and give feedback. This took quite a while and they realized there was no time between the end of the judging and the end of the phase 2 so they extended the deadline for phase 2 to November 30 (My birthday!)

At this point, their level designers were probably working on Barashka. They also started to accept more applications and beta test Rising Storm. I think this was when TWI started to becoming more involved with the expansion pack. So around the end of November, Phase 2 ended as well as the release of the new content, Barashka, NEW Countdown Mode, as well as more bug fixes.

Now it is winter and TWI needs to take their days off like the rest of us. With this in mind, they realized they couldn't do map judging so they extended Phase 2 to January 4, 2013. For most of December, things went dark in TWI world while they were out on vacation. Many of us were stranded in never ending battles on Red Orchestra 2. There were still some bugs to address and many community members began to feel more unrest.

At this point, it is certain that TWI has switched to work on Rising Storm. They know GDC is coming up and they need to show off something amazing. Now, there is no way they could have created vehicles during this time (January 2013) and be done in time for GDC. They also knew Rising Storm has been in development since 2010 and needed to be released ASAP. Most of the work on Rising Storm is under wraps so there was no way they could have told the community what they were working on. This explains why they went dark for a few months. Also, they are trying to release Rising Storm and to have something great to show for GDC which explains why they haven't been active in the community listening to us. They could have been doing bug fixes but they realized all these bug fixes can be done in RS which would speed up production. Once Rising Storm is released, they can apply all those bug fixes in one big patch. They also finished judging on the map contest as well as release a few bug fixes during this time.

Now here we are 6 days before GDC. I can't wait!

And Danh too.

Angryness is not a good thing. We can explain problems without necessary becoming angry. Content show also Tripwire listen forumers. Blind forumers are angry forumers, and angry forumers are blind forumers : blind on everything that has already been done.

 

[Victhor-ASH]

Ironic mode activated: I was wondering, what makes the Call of duty series, such a succes, its name, the gameplay, what? Soon I thought myself, that maybe, maybe it could simply be the weapon attachments, the achievements, or just the support powers, or simply its simplicity. But it isn't any of that, it is simply the psichology of people. When a person, likes the wrapping on something, it will have no forgiving thoughts, of rethinking in buying that game.

The thing is, that almost all people around the globe are lazy, how many people can you see outside jogging. By this, they can relax and play a game for lazy people, they only need to run, point the weapon and shoot, even a dead brain monkey can do it. And because it has ads over its head, people can easyer find it. Remember a no-brainer, a money owner, that's the ideea on which call of duty goes.

Its a symple ecuation, grab yourself a Call of duty 4 Modern Warfare, take this game and start modding it. But mode it till you have more weapons, attachments and achievements than you really need in a lifetime. That way, you'll never make people get bored.

I don't see why, so many games, try to copy this ideea, I mean seriously Tripwire, you are better than that, don't succomb on the idealism of delusive pit Activision tries to draw you in. You are better than this, we don't need, all the unrealistic attachments (sniper with bayonet, seriously?). Why all the games on the market, try to bring to all theyr games a leveling mechanics, by this you make all the things unbalanced, what's the point of giving different weapons, that could be much better than the ones you have, only because you fight a higher level player than you. This isn't balance, its just COD fanboism trying to copy an ideea, that pretty much, none of the players really needs and appreciates it.

 

[LugNut]

If the only response you get is essentially "**** off" or foam at the mouth

That's not the only response, just often the loudest and most rabid. When there was more communication via the WAWUT threads, there was more positive remarks than there have been in the last couple of months. It's easy to get on the piss and moan bandwagon when the other side of the conversation is absent.

It's basic customer service, what pisses a client off more, to be given a legitimate reason why their widget isn't ready on time and offered a solution, or to be told nothing and left to wonder both why it's late and what is the motivation behind the lack of communication?

Let's assume that Danh's synopsis is correct as to what happened and why. If TWI had released statements letting us know, "Oops, sorry guys, we think we should focus on RS and we'll continue to work on bugs and new feature enhancements while we're at it, but for efficiency's sake you won't see them until we release." or "We realize that the whole Realism/Classic (endless debate) mode issue is a problem and we'll be looking at possible changes to that in upcoming months." Or, "No, we're happy with it and no we won't change it" or, "I'll bring that up with XYZ", or "Great news, we've made progress on the stubborn Prone flying bodies bug!" Whatever, to keep the community more happily engaged in the evolution of the game, I think it'd pay to at least have someone throw out a few token posts every couple of days.

 

[PeteAtomic]

These arguments are all water under the bridge at Druzhina, at this point.

 

[PeteAtomic]

In debates like this, I find it mostly unrewarding to try to convince folks one way or the other. I'm guided by my own experience with these games and how they impact me. To understand where I'm coming from, I only point out that my head is wrapped around history, and to the greatest practical extent, realism.
I taste all the wine samples given me by the industry. Then I go back and play RO2. Someday, I may experience something else that will get my undivided attention. Till then, I'm content.

Well said. Couldn't have said it better myself

 

[CocaineInMyBrain]

These arguments are all water under the bridge at Druzhina, at this point.

This thread itself is proof otherwise.

That's not the only response, just often the loudest and most rabid. When there was more communication via the WAWUT threads, there was more positive remarks than there have been in the last couple of months. It's easy to get on the piss and moan bandwagon when the other side of the conversation is absent.

Maybe I'm just reading the wrong threads, but almost every official dev thread since release has just been the same few forum warriors mauling everything they possibly can, with a few sensible posts peppered in between. Assuming that TWI isn't reading literally every post, I can easily see how they (especially judging by Gibson's comment in this thread) could feel that the forumers aren't exactly a friendly or coherent bunch. Again this is all assumption and I can't speak for the Devs themselves.

Also what exactly do you think people would of said if TWI had just announced they were going to focus on RS? Judging by the prevailing attitude here something along the lines of "look at these cheap shills, they're abandoning RO2 cuz they know it sucks, and now are gonna scam more people with RS" Not that we didn't get exactly these types of comments anyways, but all announcing it earlier would of done is bring on the ****storm earlier. Now of course that doesn't mean truthfully announcing your intentions as early as possible isn't a good thing, but in this case it would not of helped much.

 

[Lord_Lovat]

...

Let's assume that Danh's synopsis is correct as to what happened and why. If TWI had released statements letting us know, "Oops, sorry guys, we think we should focus on RS and we'll continue to work on bugs and new feature enhancements while we're at it, but for efficiency's sake you won't see them until we release." or "We realize that the whole Realism/Classic (endless debate) mode issue is a problem and we'll be looking at possible changes to that in upcoming months." Or, "No, we're happy with it and no we won't change it" or, "I'll bring that up with XYZ", or "Great news, we've made progress on the stubborn Prone flying bodies bug!" Whatever, to keep the community more happily engaged in the evolution of the game, I think it'd pay to at least have someone throw out a few token posts every couple of days.

Exactly!

 

[Rak]

I thought you were "finished with this thread"..lol..Oh well nothing like giving that dead horse another damned good thrashing..lol

...lol ... I changed my mind ....lol ...lol

Thanks for your input. Do you have anything valuable to add to discussion?

 

[LugNut]

but all announcing it earlier would of done is bring on the ****storm earlier.

Probably true, but I came to HOS not from an earlier TWI title and they had a reputation of creating a game and community that I wanted to be part of. From what I have seen and understand (I've been on the forums since RO2 launch), they've been pummeled from the get go by many, deservedly so in some cases, and not in others. I think most of the staunchest supporters are long gone, from the game because they didn't like it and from the forums due to the endless bitterness. TWI throwing their hands up isn't the solution I think, I completely understand reacting like that, who likes being picked at constantly, but they're the only ones who can restore that reputation as someone who cares about the game and not just the business.

I realize it's just a diversion for us, some light entertainment and this is just so much insignificant babble.

 

[CocaineInMyBrain]

Probably true, but I came to HOS not from an earlier TWI title and they had a reputation of creating a game and community that I wanted to be part of. From what I have seen and understand (I've been on the forums since RO2 launch), they've been pummeled from the get go by many, deservedly so in some cases, and not in others. I think most of the staunchest supporters are long gone, from the game because they didn't like it and from the forums due to the endless bitterness. TWI throwing their hands up isn't the solution I think, I completely understand reacting like that, who likes being picked at constantly, but they're the only ones who can restore that reputation as someone who cares about the game and not just the business.

I realize it's just a diversion for us, some light entertainment and this is just so much insignificant babble.

And the sad thing is there was a time when those here looked down on the Steam RO forums as a cesspool of immaturity and rabble - and yet here we stand when frankly there is no appreciable difference between the 2, besides amount of traffic. Conversely, the Steam Forums have actually quieted down significantly.

You are correct, it should be just light entertainment, but some take it personally to an extreme. Honestly if you take out context words like "RO" "game" "FPS" out of some of these posts you'd think TWI murdered their first born child or something.

 

[Golf33]

All these people wouldnt bother posting if they didnt still care, even though its posted in a negative way

Maybe. I guess I haven't posted in a month or so, after I installed the game, and I don't think I'll be reinstalling it even when RS comes out. In the meantime I've been having fun playing RUSE (which I missed when it came out) and re-playing Deus Ex (before getting into the sequels).

Why did I move away from RO2 after a few hundred hours of play (and many hundreds more of RO:CA, RO1 and DH)? I just didn't find it fun. RO2 made some great advances and had some brilliant ideas, but they were let down by inconsistent design and often shoddy implementation.

What am I talking about?

+ more fluid controls: interruptible reloads, interruptible sprint, peeking over cover, blind fire, mantling, dive to prone, easy tactical bounds from prone
- let down by: unrealistic sprint speeds (look at the skating feet which allow the avatar to move much faster than the animation shows), credibility-breaking instant aiming from sprint because of the hard limit on movement speed while in iron sights, clumsy blind fire controls leading to many dropped grenades.

+ improved machine gun mechanics: bipod traverse, automatic deployment on prone, improved mobility
- let down by: widespread problems with being able to deploy at all, twitchy automatic deployment, no limitations on mobility or traverse speed while undeployed despite the length and weight of the barrel, no limitations on mobility for variants with up to 2m of ammo belt hanging from the gun, full-speed movement with a credibility-breaking level of control while firing from the hip (now addressed), credibility-straining standard movement mode allowing instant hip fire with no speed, stamina or traverse speed penalties

+ bullet penetration of scenery objects and avatars
- let down by: bugs, surfaces that can be shoot through from one side but not the other (especially annoying as this was fixed in Mekhazzio's mutator but not in the GOTY patch that was based on it, lack of ricochets (again present in the mutator but sadly not adopted in the GOTY patch)

+ selectable spawn points
- let down by: bizarre UI bug stopping players from being able to even select "ready", battlefield promotion system that would drop players from the spawn queue with no notice, spawn on squad leader leading to credibility-straining brood-mother tactics and frequent spawning directly in enemy view

+ highly accurate weapon modelling
- let down by: failure to allow for the rule of the avatar in weapon use, insufficient effects on weapon handling for suppression, fatigue and injury (largely fixed by the GOTY patch)

+ more detailed wound modelling
- let down by: bugs creating invulnerable areas, design features like limb damage that could be maxed-out (leading to invulnerable limbs) with no effect on avatar capability (partially fixed in GOTY patch), credibility-breaking bandaging mechanic that saw players actually stop and successfully bandage in the middle of a point-blank gun fight

+ squad system with dedicated channels
- let down by: no local chat to enable ad-hoc teamwork, bugs, lack of incentive system, more bugs and failure to give players and squad leaders necessary information to enable teamwork (partially fixed in GOTY patch)

+ more detailed tanks and armour calculations
- let down by: bugs (leading to invulnerable armour plates), bugs (causing spawn failures), map design problems leading to imbalance and tanks in locations infantry can't deal with, overpowered anti-tank rifles (especially the unbelievable bonus on the PzB), tank AI leading to no-skill-required infantry reaping, lack of variety in armour types, no protected mobility for infantry, short armour spawn times and unlimited tanks making them a non-worthwhile target on combined arms maps

+ progression and stat tracking
- let down by: spawning with enemy weapons (a matter of taste, I know), bonuses to make the game easier for experienced players raising the entry barrier for new players, lack of incentives for teamwork, lack of incentives for victory, not enough transparency in scoring criteria so players do not understand what behaviour attracts incentives

- game overall let down by bugs in sound, UI, spawning, inaccurate server information (especially through Steam which counts bots in the player numbers), insufficient information on server settings ("custom" covers a multitude of sins)

That's enough whingeing for me - I don't expect to say this stuff again and I don't expect it'll make any difference anyway - and I honestly rather doubt I'll reinstall, even for RS, unless I see some of my old comrades from the Battle for Europe and RO1 days playing frequently first...

 

[jergul]

Danh could have mentioned work on linux RO, Steam workshop (which is a tool for providing content), SDK (a tool for making content), TWIL, and other projects outside of RO2 that as mentioned probably are more rewarding to work on.

Here is some statistics porn for those that like such things:

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?act...q107410q202990&from=1351724400000&to=End+Time

It interests me that all games follow the same release pattern, and that promotions seem particularly effective for RO2 in terms of generating long term increases in the player base. Which seems to have permanently increased 20% after the xmas fanfare. A similar bump occured with the GOTY release.

So the franchise is neither dead nor on life support to put it that way.

COD variants incidentally are not doing that well in terms of player retention, though its initial base is a lot higher of course.

 

[CocaineInMyBrain]

Maybe. I guess I haven't posted in a month or so, after I installed the game, and I don't think I'll be reinstalling it even when RS comes out. In the meantime I've been having fun playing RUSE (which I missed when it came out) and re-playing Deus Ex (before getting into the sequels).

Why did I move away from RO2 after a few hundred hours of play (and many hundreds more of RO:CA, RO1 and DH)? I just didn't find it fun. RO2 made some great advances and had some brilliant ideas, but they were let down by inconsistent design and often shoddy implementation.

What am I talking about?

+ more fluid controls: interruptible reloads, interruptible sprint, peeking over cover, blind fire, mantling, dive to prone, easy tactical bounds from prone
- let down by: unrealistic sprint speeds (look at the skating feet which allow the avatar to move much faster than the animation shows), credibility-breaking instant aiming from sprint because of the hard limit on movement speed while in iron sights, clumsy blind fire controls leading to many dropped grenades.

+ improved machine gun mechanics: bipod traverse, automatic deployment on prone, improved mobility
- let down by: widespread problems with being able to deploy at all, twitchy automatic deployment, no limitations on mobility or traverse speed while undeployed despite the length and weight of the barrel, no limitations on mobility for variants with up to 2m of ammo belt hanging from the gun, full-speed movement with a credibility-breaking level of control while firing from the hip (now addressed), credibility-straining standard movement mode allowing instant hip fire with no speed, stamina or traverse speed penalties

+ bullet penetration of scenery objects and avatars
- let down by: bugs, surfaces that can be shoot through from one side but not the other (especially annoying as this was fixed in Mekhazzio's mutator but not in the GOTY patch that was based on it, lack of ricochets (again present in the mutator but sadly not adopted in the GOTY patch)

+ selectable spawn points
- let down by: bizarre UI bug stopping players from being able to even select "ready", battlefield promotion system that would drop players from the spawn queue with no notice, spawn on squad leader leading to credibility-straining brood-mother tactics and frequent spawning directly in enemy view

+ highly accurate weapon modelling
- let down by: failure to allow for the rule of the avatar in weapon use, insufficient effects on weapon handling for suppression, fatigue and injury (largely fixed by the GOTY patch)

+ more detailed wound modelling
- let down by: bugs creating invulnerable areas, design features like limb damage that could be maxed-out (leading to invulnerable limbs) with no effect on avatar capability (partially fixed in GOTY patch), credibility-breaking bandaging mechanic that saw players actually stop and successfully bandage in the middle of a point-blank gun fight

+ squad system with dedicated channels
- let down by: no local chat to enable ad-hoc teamwork, bugs, lack of incentive system, more bugs and failure to give players and squad leaders necessary information to enable teamwork (partially fixed in GOTY patch)

+ more detailed tanks and armour calculations
- let down by: bugs (leading to invulnerable armour plates), bugs (causing spawn failures), map design problems leading to imbalance and tanks in locations infantry can't deal with, overpowered anti-tank rifles (especially the unbelievable bonus on the PzB), tank AI leading to no-skill-required infantry reaping, lack of variety in armour types, no protected mobility for infantry, short armour spawn times and unlimited tanks making them a non-worthwhile target on combined arms maps

+ progression and stat tracking
- let down by: spawning with enemy weapons (a matter of taste, I know), bonuses to make the game easier for experienced players raising the entry barrier for new players, lack of incentives for teamwork, lack of incentives for victory, not enough transparency in scoring criteria so players do not understand what behaviour attracts incentives

- game overall let down by bugs in sound, UI, spawning, inaccurate server information (especially through Steam which counts bots in the player numbers), insufficient information on server settings ("custom" covers a multitude of sins)

That's enough whingeing for me - I don't expect to say this stuff again and I don't expect it'll make any difference anyway - and I honestly rather doubt I'll reinstall, even for RS, unless I see some of my old comrades from the Battle for Europe and RO1 days playing frequently first...

This is what is called constructive criticism, others please take notice. He is clearly as dissatisfied as many of the other posters in this thread, but he clearly, coherently, and respectfully states his views instead of just throwing a tantrum.

 

[Fishsticks]

Maybe. I guess I haven't posted in a month or so, after I installed the game, and I don't think I'll be reinstalling it even when RS comes out. In the meantime I've been having fun playing RUSE (which I missed when it came out) and re-playing Deus Ex (before getting into the sequels).

Why did I move away from RO2 after a few hundred hours of play (and many hundreds more of RO:CA, RO1 and DH)? I just didn't find it fun. RO2 made some great advances and had some brilliant ideas, but they were let down by inconsistent design and often shoddy implementation.

What am I talking about?

+ more fluid controls: interruptible reloads, interruptible sprint, peeking over cover, blind fire, mantling, dive to prone, easy tactical bounds from prone
- let down by: unrealistic sprint speeds (look at the skating feet which allow the avatar to move much faster than the animation shows), credibility-breaking instant aiming from sprint because of the hard limit on movement speed while in iron sights, clumsy blind fire controls leading to many dropped grenades.

+ improved machine gun mechanics: bipod traverse, automatic deployment on prone, improved mobility
- let down by: widespread problems with being able to deploy at all, twitchy automatic deployment, no limitations on mobility or traverse speed while undeployed despite the length and weight of the barrel, no limitations on mobility for variants with up to 2m of ammo belt hanging from the gun, full-speed movement with a credibility-breaking level of control while firing from the hip (now addressed), credibility-straining standard movement mode allowing instant hip fire with no speed, stamina or traverse speed penalties

+ bullet penetration of scenery objects and avatars
- let down by: bugs, surfaces that can be shoot through from one side but not the other (especially annoying as this was fixed in Mekhazzio's mutator but not in the GOTY patch that was based on it, lack of ricochets (again present in the mutator but sadly not adopted in the GOTY patch)

+ selectable spawn points
- let down by: bizarre UI bug stopping players from being able to even select "ready", battlefield promotion system that would drop players from the spawn queue with no notice, spawn on squad leader leading to credibility-straining brood-mother tactics and frequent spawning directly in enemy view

+ highly accurate weapon modelling
- let down by: failure to allow for the rule of the avatar in weapon use, insufficient effects on weapon handling for suppression, fatigue and injury (largely fixed by the GOTY patch)

+ more detailed wound modelling
- let down by: bugs creating invulnerable areas, design features like limb damage that could be maxed-out (leading to invulnerable limbs) with no effect on avatar capability (partially fixed in GOTY patch), credibility-breaking bandaging mechanic that saw players actually stop and successfully bandage in the middle of a point-blank gun fight

+ squad system with dedicated channels
- let down by: no local chat to enable ad-hoc teamwork, bugs, lack of incentive system, more bugs and failure to give players and squad leaders necessary information to enable teamwork (partially fixed in GOTY patch)

+ more detailed tanks and armour calculations
- let down by: bugs (leading to invulnerable armour plates), bugs (causing spawn failures), map design problems leading to imbalance and tanks in locations infantry can't deal with, overpowered anti-tank rifles (especially the unbelievable bonus on the PzB), tank AI leading to no-skill-required infantry reaping, lack of variety in armour types, no protected mobility for infantry, short armour spawn times and unlimited tanks making them a non-worthwhile target on combined arms maps

+ progression and stat tracking
- let down by: spawning with enemy weapons (a matter of taste, I know), bonuses to make the game easier for experienced players raising the entry barrier for new players, lack of incentives for teamwork, lack of incentives for victory, not enough transparency in scoring criteria so players do not understand what behaviour attracts incentives

- game overall let down by bugs in sound, UI, spawning, inaccurate server information (especially through Steam which counts bots in the player numbers), insufficient information on server settings ("custom" covers a multitude of sins)

That's enough whingeing for me - I don't expect to say this stuff again and I don't expect it'll make any difference anyway - and I honestly rather doubt I'll reinstall, even for RS, unless I see some of my old comrades from the Battle for Europe and RO1 days playing frequently first...

Great Post! devs take note please. I had forgotten about Mekazzios mutator fixing bullet penetration in certain instances. I can't believe that hasn't been fixed by TWI yet?

 

[Catalavos]

After Rising Storm, we will re-evaluate our other projects based around Red Orchestra 2 and decide how we are going to proceed.

Just a few questions related to Yoshiro's statement-

-Does TWI have a general date in mind for when it -thinks- it will be able to direct its resources away from RS and back in the direction of HOS? With the obvious need for post-launch support for RS, do you guys think you'll be back in the HOS business by the summer? Fall?

-Without asking for specifics, could you elaborate on the types of things referred to in the statement, "...our other projects based around RO2..."? I'm guessing this breaks down to:

-coding/bug fixes
-vehicles
-maps
-other game content (weapons, skins, hot dog carts, etc...)

And finally, with the implementation of some really cool new features in RS, (flamethrowers, booby traps) are there plans to add any of them to HOS; and is it as easy as it sounds to do so? Because you know EVERYONE is going to want to run around with a flamethrower now. (an all flamethrower version of Der Iwan Berg, anyone?)